Avery felt a pang of envy and forced herself to look away. And then she couldn’t stop herself from glancing back at the couple and noticing the way they looked into each other’s eyes. They were probably newlyweds, she thought.

The truck moved out of her path, and with a sigh, she drove up the steep incline. At the crest was a cobblestone circle drive. Huge clay pots overflowing with ivy and pink and yellow flowers were placed liked sentinels in front of the marble steps leading up to the entrance.

People were coming and going, all at a sedate pace. Like the lovey-dovey couple on the hillside, the guests were dressed in identical navy blue jogging suits. On the jacket, above the breast pocket, was a little logo of a sphere with the name of the spa printed in gold thread.

Avery put the car in park as the doorman rushed forward. He opened her door, put his hand out to assist her, and said, “Welcome to Utopia.”

Chapter 6

MONK WAS IN LOVE. THOUGH HE HADN’T BELIEVED SUCH A miracle could happen, he had met the woman of his dreams, and since then he had been acting like a crazy, ridiculous fool. Jilly was his soul mate. No doubt about it. They were absolutely perfect for each other, for they shared the same dreams, the same fantasies, the same goals, and most important of all, the same sense of unfair play.

She had hypnotized him from the moment they’d met in that dirty nameless little bar and grill on the outskirts of Savannah. His breath had caught in his throat when she walked in, a vision in a silky red dress and red stiletto heels. She was simply . . . magnificent. As he had instructed over the phone, he was waiting in the corner booth with a blue folder in his hands. When she saw him, she smiled, and in that instant, he knew he was lost.

The bloom of first love hadn’t worn off. He still ached with his love for her. Even when he was supposed to be working, he couldn’t stop smiling. These days his mind only had room for thoughts of her. While he was doing the necessary drudge work of surveillance, one of his favorite ways to pass the time was to recall, to the most intimate detail, the first time they had made love. It had happened exactly three hours after they had met. Jilly had taken him back to her hotel room, stripped him of his clothes and his inhibitions, and had made passionate love to him. He closed his eyes in bliss as the memory flooded his senses. The sweet taste of her in his mouth, the musky scent of her perfume, the heat of her silky body pressed against his, the deep, almost animal sounds she made when he touched her just so. She had been wild, forceful, and rough—just the way he liked it—and yet, at the same time, she had been exquisitely vulnerable.

Monk marveled over his lack of discipline when it came to Jilly. Never in his wildest imagination would he have believed he was capable of silly romantic behavior, or that he would ever marry. Yet, two months ago he had proposed—down on one knee, no less—and she had thrilled him with her acceptance. He told her he would do anything for her, anything at all, and then set about proving it. Desperate to please her, he knew he was putty in her hands, yet he couldn’t seem to mind.

Jilly was the first person in the world whom he completely trusted to keep his secrets. He knew all of hers too. They had been living together for four months when, late one night, after they had made love and were cuddling together on the sofa in their silk robes and sipping chilled champagne, he opened up to her and told her all about his bleak life on the dried-up patch of farmland in Nebraska with his dried-up, stern, joyless parents. His father hadn’t believed in sparing the rod, and his mother, a weakling who was afraid of her own shadow and who never went anywhere or did anything outside of the home except church on Sunday mornings, would stand with her hands folded behind her back and watch as her husband tried to whip the wanderlust out of their only child. Monk learned early in life never to complain to her because she always told his father what he had said. By the time he was ten, he hated both of them and would fall asleep at night dreaming of new ways to torture them.

His life had been claustrophobic. He stole money from the church safe—just a little here and there on Sundays. After he graduated from high school, he packed up his bag, a grocery sack actually, and left the farm. He went to college in Omaha. He had enough saved to pay for the first semester and received government loans to pay the rest of the tuition, loans he never intended to repay. Four years later, he left the state of Nebraska, vowing never to return.

To this day, he didn’t know if his parents were dead or alive, and he didn’t particularly care.

He’d never really cared about anyone—until now.

He told Jilly everything about himself. He told her he had committed his first murder at the ripe old age of twenty-two. He also told her he had once had dreams of working in the theater. He loved getting into costume and taking on different roles. And he was a good actor, he boasted, so good that he tried out for a major part in a summer stock play. Another actor mocked his performance and humiliated him in front of the director. Monk became so rattled by the heckling that he made a mess of his audition and, of course, didn’t get the part. Vowing to get even, he bided his time, and two years later he went after the boy. He’d used his knife that time and had found the experience both exciting and liberating.

“When did you change your name?” she asked.

“The day I enrolled in college,” he said. “I had a fake birth certificate, and I managed to make it look real enough to fool the administrator’s office. It was really quite crude, but it got the job done.”

“I didn’t get to go to college,” she told him. “I wanted to, but my mother didn’t think I was smart enough. She took the money I’d saved and used it to pay for Carrie’s education.”

“What was your life like growing up?”

Jilly’s eyes welled up with tears. “Loveless,” she said. “I don’t remember my father. He left when I was little. It was because of her.”

“Your mother?”

“Yes,” she said. “She drove him away. He ran off with another woman, but looking back, I can’t blame him. Mama was a cold and bitter woman. She never showed me any affection, and I think that’s why I got into trouble . . . you know . . . got pregnant. I was looking for someone to love me. I shamed the family. I can’t tell you the number of times my sister and mother shouted those very words at me.” She shook her head and then whispered, “I was such an innocent fool. I was so sure that, once I had the baby, my mother and my sister, the golden girl, would forgive me and help me raise her. I wanted to do the right thing by my child.”

“But that didn’t happen, did it?”

She gripped his hand. “No, it didn’t. It was so awful. Mama and Carrie came to the hospital. I thought they were going to take me and my daughter home.”

“What happened, my love?” he asked when she was too overcome to continue. He leaned forward to pour more champagne into her glass.

“Carrie left the hospital room with my daughter. She never said a word to me. She just went to the bassinet, picked her up, and left. Mama grabbed my arm when I tried to go after my sister. I asked her where Carrie was going with my beautiful baby, and she said that she was taking little Avery home. ‘Avery.’ That’s the stupid name my mama came up with for my daughter.” She wiped the tears away from her face with her fingertips. “They wouldn’t even let me name my own child. Carrie was making all the decisions, telling Mama what she ought to do, and Mama went along with whatever her golden girl decreed.”

“And then what happened?”

“Mama told me I had to leave town and that I could never come home again. She said I had humiliated her and Carrie for the last time. I couldn’t get through to her, and even though I begged her to forgive me, she wouldn’t. I can still see that ugly, pinched look on her face. It was just like Carrie’s. She called me terrible names, and then she opened her pocketbook and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. She threw it in my face and walked out of the room.”

“Wasn’t there anyone who would help you?”

She shook her head. “Mama was real tight with the chief of police. She had him wound around her little finger. He used to drop by late every other night when Carrie and I were supposed to be sleeping, but one night I heard all this groaning and grunting going on, and I snuck down to see what was happening. I peeked in the living room, and there was the chief sprawled out as pretty as you please on our sofa with his pants down around his ankles. Mama was kneeling between his legs, servicing him. The fat pig was a married man,” she added. “And he’d do anything to keep Mama from telling his wife about their sordid affair. Mama told me that the chief would lock me up in jail if I didn’t leave town right away. I knew she had the power to make him do it.”

She was sobbing uncontrollably now. He put his arm around her and held her close until she was able to calm down. Then he asked, “What happened to your daughter?”

“Carrie raised her and brainwashed her against me. My sister has always hated me. She wasn’t . . . pretty the way I was, and she was eaten up with jealousy. Stealing my baby was her way of getting even with me, I suppose.”

“How did you meet Dale Skarrett?” he asked.

“After I left Sheldon Beach, I worked odd jobs to support myself. I was trying to save up enough money to hire a lawyer and get my baby back. I didn’t have any training to do much of anything, so I worked in bars and restaurants. I stole money a couple of times to help pay the rent, and I slept with men too. Twelve in all,” she admitted. “I kept count . . . I don’t know why, but I did, and I took every precaution so I wouldn’t get any disgusting diseases. I hated doing it, but I needed the money. I was so desperate to get my daughter back.” She turned away as she recalled the anguish. “Then, one night when I was working at a flea-infested bar down in Savannah, I met Dale Skarrett. God, he disgusted me,” she said. “But he had money. He made sure I saw the wad of bills, and he wanted me. We lived together off and on for what seemed an eternity. I tried to move on with my life, but he kept coming back. And then one night he told me about this jewelry store he and his buddies, Frank and Larry, were going to rob. Larry was shacking up with the daughter of the owner of the store, and she liked to talk about her family’s money. Dale pretty much planned the robbery, but I helped with all the details.”

“So you were an accomplice.”

“Yes,” she said. “The robbery went off without a hitch, but Frank had a big mouth, and he started talking about all the money he was going to get when Dale sold the diamonds. Dale had hid the uncut stones, and we had all agreed to wait at least six months before fencing them.”

“But things went wrong, didn’t they?”

“Oh, yes. An informant told the police about Frank’s bragging. They picked him up for questioning, and he ended up making a deal with them. He gave them Larry’s name, but he didn’t give them Dale’s or my name until later. He was holding out for a better deal, I guess. Larry called us and warned us in time, and we were able to get out of town. Larry didn’t make it, though. There was a shootout, and Larry killed a policeman before he was killed.”

Jilly started crying again. “I didn’t care about the diamonds. Dale promised me that he’d help me get my daughter back. That was going to be my cut for helping him with the robbery. We drove back to Sheldon Beach, and he went to Mama’s house to get Avery. I didn’t look at it as kidnapping. I was simply taking back what my sister had stolen from me. I didn’t know Carrie had made Mama go to court to have Carrie named Avery’s legal guardian. The court took away all my rights as a mother and gave them to my sister. She stole my baby from me, Monk. She stole her . . .”

“I know your heart’s breaking, my love.”

“Avery was just a little girl when Dale went to get her, but Carrie had already turned her against me. Dale told me he tried to calm Avery down by telling her how much I loved her and that she would be happy with me. Avery became hysterical. God only knows what horrid lies Carrie had told her. She fought him like a tigress, kicking and trying to scratch his eyes out. He said he took off his belt to tie her hands together and that he gave her a couple of swats to get her to stop her tantrum.”

Monk handed her another Kleenex so she could wipe her tears away. “Go on. You’ll feel better after you get all that poison out.”

She nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Avery’s screams woke Mama. She came running out with a gun in her hand. The chief of police had given it to her for protection. She tried to kill Dale. He told me he was backing away with Avery when she fired the gun. She shot my daughter by mistake.” She shuddered. “Dale didn’t tell me about that for a long time, so I didn’t go to the hospital to see her.”

“What happened with your mother?”

“When she saw what she had done, Dale said she screamed, then suddenly clutched her chest and fell down. She was dead before she hit the floor . . . according to Dale.”

“Heart attack?”

“Yes, but I didn’t cry about her dying. She had turned against me, and I pretty much did the same to her. I didn’t shed a single tear,” she said proudly.

“I understand.”

“Dale tried to keep his promise to me. He followed Avery when she went to live with my sister in California. He watched her school, thinking he could grab her when she came outside. She had a bodyguard, though, an FBI agent looking out for her. Carrie obviously convinced them that Dale would come after Avery. My sister is very clever,” she added with a sneer. “She must have alerted the principal because he told the security guards that Dale was dangerous. There was always someone watching her. Dale tried to grab her as she was crossing the campus, but the FBI agent spotted him and tackled him to the ground. Dale wasn’t armed,” she added. “He was arrested and sent back to Florida to stand trial for my mother’s death.”

“And he was convicted.”

“Yes. The autopsy report proved Mama had a heart attack, but the jury still believed Dale was responsible.”

“And you don’t?”

“I really don’t care if he was responsible or not, but Mama did have a bad heart. I have something to confess now, darling. Please don’t be angry. Let me explain before you react.”

“I could never become angry with you. I promise,” he said.

“Do you remember the money you gave me to pay off all my debts?”

“The thirty thousand?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her hand slid under his robe, and she began to caress his chest. “I gave most of the money to an attorney as a retainer.”