The Killing Edge (2 page)

Ten years later

T
he old Branoff mansion on the beach was exquisite. Built at the dawn of the area’s first age of sophistication, it was over eighty years old and elegant in the Mediterranean-slash-Spanish style of the mid-1920s. It wasn’t far from a similar house where, not so many years before, Gianni Versace had been gunned down, and tourists often passed on their way to gawk at the murder scene, establishing their right to say they had been there.

The less notorious mansion, now the local HQ and informal models’ dorm for the famed Bryson Agency, sat on an acre of land, with a formidable front lawn, now alight in a rainbow of colors. The gardens and walks were elegant, and the ornate iron gates that controlled access past the ten-
foot stone wall that surrounded the villa weren’t locked this evening. But access still wasn’t easy. The beautiful people were entering tonight for the latest agency party. Mainly beautiful women. The kind of women who, if they didn’t already personify absolute perfection, could be airbrushed to get there.

Only the beautiful made it past the guards with the guest list, only the most elegant.

And, of course, those with the most money. This was, after all, the ritzy area of Miami Beach.

As he walked to the gates, displaying his invitation and fake ID to the tuxedoed men on duty, Luke knew he fell into the “rich” category—at least for the evening. Thanks to the fact that he spent the majority of his life in cutoffs and T-shirts, his few ensembles with designer labels were in excellent repair. And thanks, he commended himself dryly, to his tall-but-not-too-tall, just-right build, he was able to disappear into any crowd full of said labels. Despite the age of the clothing, it—and he—fit right in. He wasn’t a cop, but he was undercover. He had to fit in.

He didn’t usually wear sunglasses at night. But with this crowd, he had surmised that he might look more as if he belonged by wearing them than not. He hadn’t been mistaken. Even the guards at the gates checking IDs and invitations were wearing shades. Though in the colorful but soft light bathing the place, he was surprised that they could read anything.

Maybe they didn’t read. Maybe they just
knew
. Or perhaps the rumor circulating among the less fortunate was true and exquisite beauty got you in, with or without an invitation.
He noticed that the guards were only scrutinizing the IDs of the “regular” people, and then only if they didn’t recognize and approve of the labels being worn.

He thanked the two burly men at the gate who stepped aside after eyeing him carefully. He had the height to match them, but he’d never been built like a bulldog, though he worked out enough each day to keep up the muscle he needed. He supposed, however, that for this evening, his appearance of being tall and lean worked well, and it made the clothes fit better, anyway.

Once across the lawn, as he neared the house, he noticed a bevy of beauties on the porch. They were sipping cocktails and posing. Perched on the railing, seated at the edge of a chair, legs folded just so, elegant and certainly provocative. They weren’t being overt about anything—these girls weren’t looking for careers as porn stars. They were shooting for the big leagues, for uberstardom. Swimsuit issues and the covers of fashion magazines.

They must have seen instantly that, though his features were attractive, he wasn’t young, and he was far from model perfect. In their world, that meant he was money.

He was welcomed with a cascade of hellos and smiles, a few of them more obvious than the rest. He smiled in return and made sure to look like a businessman with a personal interest in the modeling business. The Bryson Agency, with offices not only across the country but around the world, was one of the most reputable in the business, known for creating some of the most highly paid celebrity models of the century, women far above the sleazy sex-for-a-swimsuit-
spread trade-offs that were common at the low end of the profession, though he suspected some girls would certainly be more willing than others to engage in a little extracurricular activity to achieve the goal of stardom.

But that was different, of course. Or was it?

But as to the agency being legitimate…

It was so aboveboard, in fact, that only her family and friends had even looked twice at the agency when a girl had disappeared on a shoot. Bryson hired beautiful girls and offered them the world; the disappearance of one would-be model was not enough to keep the star-seekers away. Two months ago, Colleen Rodriguez—a typical young Miami woman whose Cuban and Irish-American genes had combined to create a green-eyed, raven-haired beauty—had disappeared while on a shoot for the agency in the Keys. Both the Monroe County and Miami-Dade authorities had been mystified, and the case remained open, with some believing the girl had been the victim of foul play, while others believed that though she had been seeing a man named Mark Johnston, she was young and impressionable—and ambitious—and might have run off with someone who could offer her a bigger career and the promise of big money. Alive and well or dead and gone, Colleen had been over twenty-one when she had taken the job and sailed off to the shoot on the privately owned island. With no body and no evidence of foul play, she was officially classed as a missing person, and her case remained open.

Luke didn’t think she’d left of her own volition, though. Her best friend, Rene Gonzalez, was listed through the
agency, as well. Rene was avoiding her parents, certain that their overprotective instincts in the wake of Colleen’s disappearance were going to cost her a career, so whether she really believed it or not, she was insisting that Colleen had disappeared on purpose. And so he was here, suddenly an up-and-coming designer, to find a way to speak with Rene and see what she knew that could help him discover the truth about Colleen.

“Hi there.” A lissome blonde uncrossed long legs and stood as she saw him coming, then offered him a perfectly manicured hand. “I’m Lena Marconi. And you’re…?”

Luke produced a card. “Jack Smith, Mermaid Designs,” he said. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“Mermaid Designs?” Lena asked, her gray eyes smoldering. “Beach clothing?”

“Exactly, women’s beach clothing,” Luke said. “Bikinis, tankinis—‘inis’ of all kinds.”

“How wonderful,” Lena gushed.

A dark-haired woman rose with a fluidity that might have been spellbinding if it hadn’t been so practiced. “A bathing-suit designer! How perfect. They’re just starting to plan the next agency swimsuit calendar, you know,” she said as she offered an elegant hand. “Maddy Trent, late of Amarillo, Texas, and quite fond of South Beach. A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Smith.”

“Likewise,” he assured her.

There were two more women sitting on the porch, both blondes. The first, very light, with huge blue eyes and a look of friendly amusement about her, rose. “Hi there, Mr.
Smith. I’m Victoria Preston. Please, come in. I’ll introduce you to Myra—Myra Allen, the head of the Miami office—and see that you get something to drink.”

The fourth woman, seated on a gently swinging wicker love seat, didn’t move, though she looked at him assessingly. There was a touch of red in the smooth fall of blond hair that curled around her shoulders. Her eyes were green, lime-green, almost like a cat’s eyes. She continued to survey him thoughtfully, without speaking. Strange—she didn’t look as if she was trying to appear cool and aloof; she was just more interested in studying him than introducing herself.

Interesting.

“Chloe?” Victoria Preston said quietly.

“Oh, of course.” The woman with the sunset-streaked blond hair rose. She was tall, five-nine, maybe, hard to tell. She was wearing sandals with small, weirdly shaped heels, probably the newest thing. She wasn’t the most classically beautiful of the four—that title would have gone to Victoria—but she
was
the most intriguing. It was her eyes. They were light colored, but also large and well set, and just slightly tilted, giving her a look of mystery. She had a wide smile and full lips, perfect white teeth. A necessity, he imagined, in her business. She wasn’t quite as thin as the others; she looked more like an athlete or a runner.

She offered him a hand at last. “Chloe…Marin,” she said.

It was a strange hesitation, as if she didn’t really want to identify herself. The first name came easily, the surname not so much. Maybe it was a model’s equivalent of a pen name because she had a tongue twister of a last name with twenty
syllables or six consonants in a row. Awkward to say. Schwartzenkopfelmeyer or Xenoskayanovich or something.

Or maybe, instinctively, she just didn’t trust him.

“Chloe, nice to meet you,” he said.

“You’re a designer?” she said.

He nodded.

The ghost of a smile played over her lips, and skepticism touched her eyes.

“Chloe, let’s introduce Mr. Smith to Myra,” Victoria urged.

“Oh, look who’s coming!” Maddy drawled. “It’s Vincente!”

“Vincente…who?” Lena asked.

“Vincente. Just Vincente,” Maddy said. “There was just a huge article on him in
GQ!
”

Luke tried not laugh out loud; he had just become dog chow as far as Maddy from Amarillo was concerned.

“Come on in, Mr. Smith,” Victoria told him, and led the way. Chloe followed them.

The house was even more elegant inside than out. They had barely stepped into the travertine entryway before a uniformed server was there to offer him champagne from a silver tray. He accepted a glass with thanks, noticing that the women didn’t follow suit.

Maybe it was the expensive stuff, reserved for clients and the other guests.

They kept going, to a living room with mile-high ceilings, a curving white staircase and white marble flooring covered with expensive rugs. The house boasted a huge fireplace and mantel, though he was sure the fireplace hadn’t been used in decades.

Three pairs of French doors led to a massive patio with a pool and adjacent hot tub. They stepped out and headed for a tiki bar set up at the south end of the pool, weaving past small groups of extravagantly dressed people on their way.

“That’s Myra,” Victoria said, pointing out a woman to the left of the bar. She was speaking with two women who appeared to be in their early forties, attractive in simple black dresses, short black hair and medium black heels. “She’s talking to the women from Rostini. You’ve heard of the label?”

Not before today, when he had crammed on the fashion industry. “Rostini,” he said, nodding. He felt Chloe watching him, and sensed that she was suspicious.
Of what?

“They make a lovely couple. When you think that they met at college and have lasted longer than a lot of marriages…They’re
the
name in cocktail dresses, if you ask me,” he added.

Myra looked up from her conversation just then and saw the three of them drawing near. He’d met the woman once before, to set up his invitation for the evening, but he kept his gaze bland, as if he’d never seen her before.

She smiled, and waved them over, her own expression a match for his. He might only have met her once, but he found her fascinating. Myra Allen had once been a supermodel herself, until shooting a commercial on the beach had left her with a scarred cheek. She had accepted an administrative job with Bryson Agency while she convalesced, and she had also accepted a nice settlement from the client’s insurance company. Rather than accept plastic surgery or rely
on makeup and go back to work in modeling, she had risen swiftly in the company and now managed one of their most lucrative locations, the Miami Beach mansion.

She was still a beautiful woman. Tall, slim and capable of turning on a warm smile.

“Mr. Smith,” she said. “You’ve made it. I’m delighted.”

She extended a hand, and he stepped forward to take it, wondering, from the way she presented it, if he was supposed to kiss her fingers. No, a Frenchman certainly would, but he was an expat Brit living and working in the U.S.

He shook her hand.

She smoothed back a lock of sable brown hair cut at a sophisticated angle. “Mr. Smith, Josie Rowan and Isabel Santini. I’m sure you know they—”

“Are Rostini, of course,” he said, smiling at the women.

After that, Myra took over, leading him back into the living room, introducing him to various people in the business.

Jesse and Ralph Donovan, a young couple who designed evening wear together. Bob—or Bobby—Oscar, flamboyant and arrogant, but hardly someone who seemed liable to seduce a young woman into disappearing. Cindy Klein, dramatic and conceited, but a powerful player with one of the biggest labels in the world.

Harry Lee was there, too—a big shot with the Bryson group. He was a man of about sixty, slim, articulate and impeccably dressed. Another man, nondescript—small, slim and wearing large black-rimmed glasses—seemed to be his assistant, completely at his beck and call. Not unexpectedly, a veritable flock of women also surrounded him.

Harry Lee seemed to take Luke at face value and was glad to welcome him to the party. “Nothing like Miami Beach. Each of our offices does a swimsuit calendar, but this one is, arguably, the most important. Miami is known for—frankly—hot bodies. Beach bodies. Of course, too many women walk around in suits too small to hold a teacup Yorkie.” He paused to shudder. “But the beautiful bodies are here, as well, and naturally we take full advantage of that. Myra tells me you’ll be shooting your first catalogue in tandem with our calendar shoot. So, welcome. As you’re about to see firsthand, Bryson will always be known for the most spectacular and most talented models. Nothing will ever change that fact.”

Luke politely agreed with him, then moved on.

To the young women.

To the “most spectacular and most talented models.”

He couldn’t help recognizing Lacy Taylor, the wholesome beauty who had graced the covers of at least a dozen major magazines. She was pleasant but vague, and he was sorry to realize that she was high, as well as more than a little drunk, which was when he noticed the small, mousy brunette following her everywhere, making certain she didn’t crash into a table or drown in the pool. Lena Marconi, energetic and sweet, reappeared and granted him a few minutes when she wasn’t chasing down Vincente. Lena seemed to have the energy to cover all the bases—and in her mind he might just be the next hot thing, which made him a base worth covering. Then there was Jeanne LaRue—a
professional
name, he was certain—who
was tall, slim, angular and, he assumed, ultrachic, but she was also hard-edged, the opposite of the naturally stunning Lacy, who didn’t have to work to draw as much attention as she could possibly desire. Lacy was like a golden-retriever puppy; Jeanne was like a pit bull. There were plenty of other models in attendance, but he saw no sign of Rene Gonzalez.