“Thanks. That won’t be necessary. Dad made all the arrangements right after Mom died. Paid for everything. Chose his casket, picked out the suit he wanted to be buried in. Made his will. Told the minister what songs he wanted at the funeral. He said he didn’t want me to have to worry with any of it when the time came.”
For several minutes, the three of them remained silent. Then Ben asked the inevitable question. “Who the hell is doing this and why?”
“We don’t know,” Derek said. “The only thing the victims have in common is their connection to the Powell Agency. The killer’s MO is identical in all four cases, so we’re relatively certain we are dealing with one killer. But we have no idea what motivates him or how he chooses his victims.”
“At random, maybe,” Ben said. “Anybody associated with the agency is a target, right? And for whatever reason, the killer picked my dad.” Ben’s dark eyes misted. He turned his head.
Derek clamped his hand down on Ben’s shoulder. “We’re going to catch him and stop him.”
Ben nodded.
“Is there anything, anything at all, we can do for you?” Maleah asked.
Ben cleared his throat a couple of times. “No, thanks. I can’t think of anything. I’m going over to Dad’s place and try to get a few hours of sleep. When are y’all heading up to Griffin’s Rest?”
“If you don’t need us here, we probably won’t stay longer than mid-day tomorrow,” Derek told him. “Copies of the reports and the crime scene photos can be sent directly to the office as soon as they’re available. I expect Nic and Griff will be moving forward with their plans to form their own task force and since I’m the agency’s profiler—”
“Count me in on the task force,” Ben said. “After Dad’s funeral.”
Neither Derek nor Maleah responded, knowing it would be up to Griff and Nic to choose the agents who would lead the investigation and those who would assist. If Ben had been a police officer, he wouldn’t have been allowed near the case because his dad had been one of the victims. But Griff’s rules and regulations differed from regular law enforcement. On occasion, the Powell Agency came damn close to doling out vigilante justice, a fact that often created tension between Griff and Nic.
He could go days without sleep and could easily get by with four hours per night on a regular basis. He was no ordinary human being. Years of training, self-sacrifice, and stern discipline had honed both his mind and body into a superior being. He had no weaknesses, wasn’t vulnerable in any way, and therefore was practically invincible.
The espresso at the airport coffee bar was barely acceptable, but it served the purpose of giving him a caffeine boost. To pass the time while he waited for his flight to Miami, he flipped open his laptop and scanned the information about Errol Patterson.
Patterson was a former member of the Atlanta PD SWAT team, a crack shot and a decorated officer. He had loved his job, but when his fiancée had insisted he find a less dangerous profession, he had chosen love over duty and signed on with the Powell Agency.
He smiled.
You made a life-altering decision. Too bad for you that it was a deadly mistake.
How could he or his fiancée have known that choosing to work for the Powell Agency would cost him his life?
Patterson had been chosen for two reasons—he was associated with the Powell Agency and he was male.
I chose two women and then two men for the first four kills . . . But after that, I altered my choices, just to throw them off. I kept them guessing. That’s how I stayed one step ahead of them.
He did more than stay one step ahead of the authorities. He outsmarted them, never leaving behind even the vaguest clue to his identity. Over the years, he had gone by many names, so many that it was easy to forget who he really was. His true identity was a guarded secret, known by only a handful of individuals. In certain circles, he was known as the Phantom. Nameless. Faceless. An illusion. Unseen. Unheard. A dark angel of death.
Maleah woke to the sound of incessant pounding. Inside her head? No, outside her hotel room. Some idiot was knocking on her door and calling her name.
Go away. Leave me alone.
She shot straight up in bed where she lay atop the wrinkled floral spread. Groggy and only semi-alert, she slid off the side of the bed and stood unsteadily on her bare feet for a few seconds.
“Maleah,” Derek called to her through the closed door.
Damn it! What time was it? She glanced at the digital bedside clock. 8:30 A.M.
She groaned. Three and a half hours was not nearly enough sleep.
“I’m coming,” she told him as she padded across the carpet. When she reached the door, she cracked it open, glared at Derek, who looked fresh as a daisy, and asked him, “Where’s the fire?”
He shoved open the door and breezed past her. She closed the door and turned to face him. Obviously he had shaved, showered, and pressed his slacks and shirt. His stylish, neck-length hair glistened with blue-black highlights. His deep brown eyes focused on her with amusement.
“I forgot how grumpy you are in the morning,” he said.
“You’d better have a good reason for beating down my door.”
“Duty calls.”
“What?”
He looked her over, taking in her sleep-tousled hair, her wrinkled clothes and her makeup-free face. “Griff called. He wants us at Griffin’s Rest ASAP.”
Maleah groaned, and then when Derek’s smile vanished, she asked, “What’s happened?”
“What makes you think—?”
“Damn it, Derek, it’s too early in the morning to play games, so let’s not do twenty questions.”
He clasped her shoulders, turned her around and urged her toward the bathroom. “Toss your clothes out to me and I’ll press them while you grab a quick shower. We’ll pick up coffee and biscuits on the way to Griffin’s Rest.”
She curled her toes into the carpet and dug in her heels. “I’m not moving another inch until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Why do you have to be so stubborn?”
“Why do you have to be such a macho jerk?”
Derek frowned. “Griff and Nic are organizing the task force today.” He paused, studied her expression and then said, “I’m pretty sure they plan to put the two of us in charge.”
She groaned. “Why us? Why not you and Shaughnessy or you and Angie or you and Michelle or you and Luke or—?”
“I get it. You don’t want us to be partners on another case. But I don’t think it really matters what we want. It’s what Griff and Nic want.”
“I can’t believe Nic would pair us up again, not when she knows . . . well, she knows that we mix like oil and water.”
“I thought we made a pretty good team on the Midnight Killer case.”
Maleah huffed, hating to admit that he was right. “Yeah, yeah, I suppose we did.”
“Besides, Shaughnessy is more muscle than strategist. His expertise lends itself to the physical. And now that she’s pregnant, Angie isn’t working in the field. Michelle is on a much-needed vacation after that last two-month case in South America. As for Luke, you know Griff reserves him for special duty.”
Accepting his explanation, she nodded her acquiescence and said, “Give me five minutes.” She turned and went into the bathroom.
She closed the door, stripped hurriedly, and then eased the door open enough to toss her clothes toward Derek. Smiling at the thought of him ironing her slacks and blouse, she adjusted the hot and cold faucets on the shower and stepped under the spray of warm water.
The FedEx truck had been stopped at the front gate by the guards on duty. Shaughnessy Hood had been dispatched from the main house to drive down and pick up the package addressed to Maleah Perdue in care of the Powell Private Security and Investigation Agency at Griffin’s Rest.
Barbara Jean Hughes, Griff’s right-hand man Sanders’s assistant, best friend and lover, took the sealed, insulated shipping box from Shaughnessy, placed it in her la
p and carried it with her down the hall to Griff’s private study. The door stood open so that she could see Griff behind his desk, a cup of coffee in his hand. Sanders stood nearby, his gaze fixed on the box she held.
She cleared her throat.
Griff glanced up, saw her, and motioned for her to enter.
Without hesitation, Barbara Jean maneuvered her wheelchair into the study. Sanders reached down, took the box from her and placed it on the desk directly in front of Griff.
He studied the insulated container for several silent minutes. “Did you notice the sender’s name and address?”
“Yes,” Sanders replied. “Winston Corbett, Cullman, Alabama.”
Griff scrutinized the shipping label. “What time frame did the Cullman County coroner give for Winston Corbett’s death?”
“Between midnight and five A.M., yesterday,” Barbara Jean replied.
“Then I’m curious as to how Ben’s father managed to send Maleah a package after he died.”
Chapter 3
Cyrene Patterson stretched languidly on the beach towel, her bikini-clad, five-eight body soaking in the morning sunshine by their pool directly outside the bedroom’s French doors. The deluxe honeymoon package at the Grand Resort there in the Bahamas included not only a luxury villa suite, but butler service. She and Errol had enjoyed breakfast in bed, and then made love as if they hadn’t already spent half the night screwing like crazy. She had left him asleep, slipped into her bathing suit and taken a dip in the pool. Life was good. Just couldn’t get much better. She had waited a lifetime for Mr. Right—thirty years. But he had been well worth the wait.
Neither she nor Errol had been naïve youngsters, with stars in their eyes, when they said their I-dos. Both had been married before when they were too young and too stupid to know what they were doing. She had married the first time to get away from home, an alcoholic mother, a father who showed up once in a blue moon, and younger siblings who were more than her grandmother could handle. Her two-year marriage to Polo had proven the old adage about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Thank God she’d been smart enough to leave the abusive son of a bitch before she got pregnant. Errol, on the other hand, had married at nineteen the first time because his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. She had lied to him, but by the time he had found out the truth, she actually was pregnant. He had lived in hell for three years. But before little Tasha’s second birthday, Errol had known he needed to end the marriage and had sued his wife for full custody. Two weeks before their divorce was finalized, Errol’s wife, who had been granted visitation privileges, had taken their child for a joy ride and both had been killed in a head-on collision with an eighteen wheeler. Witnesses had said that it appeared she had deliberately caused the “accident.”
Cyrene lathered SPF 15 sunblock on her arms and legs to protect her golden skin from UV damage. The popular belief that darker skin didn’t need protection from the harmful rays was false. Even the darkest skin could burn.
She intended to do everything possible to take care of her skin and her overall health. That’s why she’d never taken drugs. Sometimes, Errol accused her of being a health nut. If following an exercise routine, being a vegetarian, not smoking, doing drugs or drinking to excess made her a health nut, she would gladly don the label and wear it proudly.
“Any place you can’t reach?” Errol asked her, his voice husky with innuendo.
The moment Cyrene heard his voice, she smiled, but she didn’t look at him. Instead, she held the sunblock bottle up over her head. Once he grasped the bottle in his hand, she untied her bikini top and dropped it to the patio floor. With her breasts bare, she tilted her head and gave him an enticing come-here-big-boy glance.
“Start wherever you’d like.” She loved to tease him. “But don’t miss a spot.”
He came around the back of the lounge chair, knelt beside her, upended the open sunblock bottle and squirted a large dollop of the scented cream into the center of his open palm. After setting aside the bottle, he started at the base of her neck, lathering the lotion onto her skin. He moved steadily from shoulder to shoulder in downward swipes until his big hands hovered over her naked breasts. Her nipples tightened in anticipation. The moment his fingers caressed the hard tips, she moaned with pleasure.
Errol slid his hands beneath her, lifted her into his arms and carried her off the patio and through the open French doors. She laughed with pure delight as he tossed her into the center of the unmade bed, stripped off his bathing suit and came down over her.
Cyrene reached for him, her arms and her heart open wide for the man she loved.
Maleah and Derek arrived at Griffin’s Rest that evening well before sunset. They would have arrived sooner, but they had backtracked to Dunmore to pick up Maleah’s vehicle, a new Chevy Equinox. Although they had lost sight of each other during the trip from Alabama to northeastern Tennessee, he caught a glimpse of her in his rearview mirror just before the I-40 Bridge crossing Douglas Lake. The moment he saw her, he couldn’t help wondering if she was pissed because he was ahead of her in the home stretch. Not that he had consciously been trying to arrive at Griffin’s Rest before she did or that he saw everything in life as a competition. But during their working partnership on the Midnight Killer case, he had come to realize several things about Maleah. She hated to come in second to anyone, but especially to any man. The fact he had reached the gates outside the Powells’ Douglas Lake retreat moments before she had seemed completely insignificant to him, but probably not to Maleah. Sometimes her competitive spirit drove him nuts.
“You’ve never had to struggle for anything in your entire spoiled rotten rich life,” she had once accused him. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch because you have an inflated ego. You overestimate your self-worth.”
“And I believe you underestimate yours,” he’d told her.
His comment had ended that conversation once and for all. Didn’t she realize that he could see past all the pseudo-confidence she tried so hard to project? He suspected that deep inside Maleah Perdue a small, helpless, vulnerable child warned her not to give up a single ounce of the hard-won control she had over her life.
Derek stopped his silver Corvette at the enormous iron gates flanked by two massive stone arches decorated with large bronze griffins. After he used the voiceactivated entry code, the gates opened and he drove onto the long, tree-lined lane leading to the house overlooking the lake. Maleah followed at least twenty feet behind him. He parked in front of the house, got out, and waited for her as she pulled in behind him.
The Powell home was large, approximately ten thousand square feet, but actually rather modest for a man worth billions. Despite the mansion’s size, there was nothing ostentatious about either the house itself or the décor. It had been built and decorated to accommodate the man who owned the property. Since his marriage to Nicole Baxter a few years ago, Griff had allowed his wife to make any changes she wanted. But almost as if she didn’t quite think of Griffin’s Rest as her home, Nic had made few alterations.
Derek snorted. Good God, why did he always do that? Why did his brain instantly delve into other people’s psyche and try to figure out what made them tick? Instinct, pure and simple. His instinct dictated that he profile everyone.
Maleah emerged from her white SUV, slung the straps of her small leather bag over her shoulder and approached him. If she took more time with her appearance, she could be strikingly beautiful. She had all the ingredients, from pretty face to shapely body. Shapely? Get real, Lawrence. The woman is built like a brick shithouse and you know it.
“Waiting on me?” she asked.
“Yeah. What took you so long?”
She glared at him, giving him an eat-dirt-and-die look. “I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’m totally pissed at you.”
“What did I do now?”
“You drove like a bat out of hell, that’s what you did.”
He stared at her, totally puzzled by her comment. “You lo
st me somewhere there, Blondie. I have no idea—”
“I got a speeding ticket, thanks to you.”
He grinned. “How is it my fault that you got a ticket?”
Glowering angrily at him, she clenched her jaw and huffed. “Never mind. Forget I mentioned it. Let’s go inside and—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the front door opened. Sanders glanced from Maleah to Derek. “Please, come in. Griffin and Nicole are waiting for you.”
Sanders had been Griffin Powell’s right-hand man for as long as Derek had known either of them. Griff and Sanders’s association went back a good twenty years. Rumor had it that they had met during the ten missing years of Griff’s life, when he had disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after graduating from the University of Tennessee nearly two decades ago.
A couple of inches short of six feet, the bald, dark-eyed, brown-skinned Sanders possessed the bearing of a much larger man. His stance, his attitude, and his appearance practically screamed military background. His slightly accented English suggested a foreign birth and upbringing.
Ever the gentleman his mother had raised him to be, Derek waited for Maleah to enter first. Sanders led them past the large living room with the floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace and down the hall to Griffin Powell’s private study. The door stood open and inside Griff sat behind his antique desk placed in the corner by the windows overlooking the lake. The moment he saw them, he lifted his two hundred and forty pound muscular body from his desk and stood at his impressive six-four height. Griff was a big man, his mere physical presence intimidating. Include his wealth and power and that added up to a man only a fool would ever cross.
But out there somewhere was a fool who was killing people connected to the Powell Agency.
Nicole Powell stood with her back to them in front of the massive rock fireplace, one of several in the house. When Griff rose from his desk, she instantly turned to face them, her soft tan eyes focusing on her friend Maleah. Physically, the two women were opposites. Nic was a tall brunette; Maleah a petite blond. Whenever he saw Nic, the first thought that came to mind was Amazon Warrior. Standing five-ten in her bare feet, with an hourglass figure reminiscent of Hollywood sex symbols of the 1950s, the lady’s size was every bit as impressive as her husband’s. Derek genuinely liked both Mr. and Mrs. Powell, but it had been easier to like Nic immediately because of her outgoing personality. Griff was more reserved, a man who made others earn his approval.
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