The Ex. BEVERLY BARTON

relationship, I did care about her.”

      “As much as you can care about a woman. That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

      “Did I hurt you…back when we—”

      Kendall laughed. “God, what an ego. No, you didn’t hurt me. And before you jump to any other erroneous conclusions— I have not been pining away for you all these years. It’s just that I know you. Correction, I knew you.”

      “I never realized how much you disliked me,” Quinn said.

      “I didn’t dislike you back then and I don’t dislike you now,” she told him. “Hell, Quinn, if I disliked you so damn much, do you think I’d have come when you called, that I’d have invited you to stay here with me if—”

      She stopped midsentence as she watched him drop his overnight bag on the floor and walk toward her. When he was within a foot of her, he reached out and caressed her face with his fingertips. “It’s not me, is it? It’s your ex. The guy must have done a real number on you.”

      Kendall sighed, then turned and moved away from Quinn. With her back to him, as she reached up in a cabinet for the box of tea bags, she said, “His name was Dr. Jonathan Miles. I was madly in love with him. The sex was great. His kids were holy terrors and both of them hated me. We thought that would change. It didn’t. In the end, he chose his kids. Can’t blame him. After all, he was still in love with his wife—his dead wife—and they were her kids.”

      “You’re well rid of him, honey. The man didn’t deserve you.”

      “No, he didn’t.” Kendall blew out a deep breath, then filled a kettle with water and placed it on the eye of her ceramic-top range. She glanced at Quinn and offered him a weak smile. “Why don’t you pick out a bedroom, freshen up and by then I’ll have the tea ready. I don’t figure you’ll get much sleep tonight.”

      He nodded, then headed down the hall. No, he probably wouldn’t get any sleep tonight. He didn’t want to close his eyes because he knew what he’d see. Lulu’s lifeless body lying there on her bed. Beautiful and sexy, even in death. And her bloody hand, one digit missing. Why would anyone cut off her index finger?

      Annabelle waited for Dr. Martin on the far side of her uncle’s bedroom, Wythe at her side. He’d been remarkably well-behaved, keeping his own emotions in check and actually putting his father’s needs first. She supposed in his own selfish way, Wythe did love Uncle Louis.

      “No, please, please, tell me it isn’t true,” Louis Vanderley moaned as the sedative his personal physician had given him began to take effect. “My little Lulu. My precious baby girl. She can’t be dead.”

      “Just lie back and relax, Louis,” Dr. Martin said.

      “Annabelle?” her uncle called for her.

      She went to his bedside. Dr. Martin looked at her sympathetically, then moved aside. Annabelle leaned over and took her uncle’s hand.

      “I’m right here,” she told him.

      “Go to Memphis. Find out what happened. Our Lulu can’t be dead.”

      She squeezed his age-spotted hand. “I’ll leave first thing in the morning. And I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.”

      “Someone has lied to us,” Louis said, his voice a mere whisper. “Lulu isn’t dead.”

      Annabelle leaned over and kissed her uncle’s forehead. He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. She eased the satin coverlet up and over his chest. Uncle Louis was her father’s elder brother. Her father had been the youngest of four, fifteen years his elder brother’s junior. There had been two sisters born between them. Meta Anne, who’d passed away only a few years ago, an unmarried, childless career woman who’d devoted herself to helping Louis oversee the vast Vanderley empire. And Annabelle, the sister who’d died in the forties with infantile paralysis at the age of three. That Annabelle, as well as the present Annabelle Vanderley, had been named in honor of a great-great-grandmother who’d come from France as the bride of Edward Vanderley in 1855.

      “Rest, dearest.” Annabelle adored her uncle Louis, who’d been a second father to her since her own father had died of a heart attack seven years ago. “I’ll find out what happened to Lulu. I promise.”

      Dr. Martin stopped her on her way out of the room. “Annabelle?”

      “Yes?”

      “He’s seventy-eight, in poor health and has received a terrible shock,” Dr. Martin said.

      “Are you trying to tell us that he might die?” Wythe asked.

      “Hush.” Annabelle glanced at her uncle, who seemed to be asleep, then glowered at Wythe. “He might hear you.”

      “He’s out cold,” Wythe told her.

      “All I’m saying is to prepare yourselves,” Dr. Martin said. “Louis could well survive this, but…Well, it will depend on his will to live, at least in part. I’ve seen it happen before, patients who give up the will to live and die in a few weeks or a few months.”

      “I’ll give him something to live for,” Annabelle said. “Once he accepts that Lulu is dead, he’ll want to see her killer punished. That alone will keep him going.”

      Dr. Martin shook his head. “Revenge can be a strong motivator. Just be careful that it doesn’t turn on him. And on you.”

      “I wasn’t referring to revenge. What I want—what Uncle Louis will want—is justice.”

      Quinn lay in the bed, the back of his head resting in his cupped hands, his fingers entwined. A cup of tea, a couple more aspirins and a sympathetic ear had partially eased his headache but hadn’t helped him fall asleep. In a few short hours, he would have to return to police headquarters and answer more questions. Be grilled about Lulu’s death.

      God, how he wanted to turn back the clock and—and do what? Decline Lulu’s offer to come to Memphis? Arrive at Lulu’s house in time to stop her killer?

      He flopped over and glanced at the digital bedside clock. Four forty-three.

      Lulu had loved life about as much as anybody he’d ever known. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t try, at least once. At twenty-seven, she’d had her whole life ahead of her. Marriage, kids, divorces and more marriages and divorces. Quinn laughed quietly to himself, remembering Lulu and the fun times they’d had. She’d been his female equivalent. Unkind people called her a whore. Those who knew her well thought of her as a free spirit. She enjoyed men in the same way he enjoyed women. Their rules of encounter were pretty much the same. No holds barred. Everyone was fair game. No commitments. No promises. Sex for the sake of sex. And love was never involved. Love was for fools. And Lulu had no more been a fool than Quinn. She knew the score.

      Had she gotten herself involved with someone who had refused to play the game by her rules? Had someone decided that if they couldn’t have Lulu exclusively, then no one could have her?

      If the police concentrated all their efforts on proving he killed Lulu, then the real killer might escape. He couldn’t let that happen. He would not only find a way to prove his innocence, but he’d also move heaven and earth to bring Lulu’s murderer to justice.

       Chapter 3

      Mary Lee Norton cried out with release when her climax exploded inside her. She was a screamer. Something he liked in a woman. He never wondered with Mary Lee whether or not he’d satisfied her. He’d heard that women in their mid to late-thirties were in their sexual prime and from his experience with older women, he’d found that to be true. It was certainly true of his partner’s ex-wife. The woman had an insatiable hunger for sex.

      Chad grasped her hips and tossed her off him and over onto her back, then delved deep and hard,