“Coffee sounds good. I think I’ll grab some cereal and a cup of yogurt.”
“You do know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he told her. “You should fill up on protein—bacon and eggs. And of course, a couple of biscuits smothered in butter and jelly.”
“If I ate like that every morning, I’d soon be waddling when I walk.”
When she headed toward the self-serve breakfast setup, she felt Derek’s gaze on her and knew he was looking at her butt. Okay, so she had a bit of a hang-up about her wide hips and ample rear-end. Nic had told her guys didn’t like flat asses, that her JLo butt was a definite asset. If that was true, then why was it that Derek seemed to prefer the long, lean, borderline skinny model types?
Damn it, why do you care what type of woman Derek prefers?
Maleah hurried through the line, grabbed a carton of non-fat strawberry yogurt and, deciding against eating cereal, headed toward the coffeemaker. Not fully concentrating on what she was doing, she bumped into Derek and quickly apologized before she even looked at him.
Their gazes met and locked for a full thirty seconds before Maleah broke eye contact.
“It’s okay to be nervous about meeting Browning,” he told her.
Ignoring his comment, she grabbed a cup, filled it with hot coffee, and picked up a packet of Splenda and a stir stick.
By the time Derek joined her at their table, she had drunk half her coffee. As he set down a plate filled with bacon, eggs, and biscuits, he glanced at her unopened yogurt carton. After he sat across from her, they ate in relative silence for several minutes.
“You aren’t nervous, are you?” Maleah asked.
“Unsettled would be a better word to describe how I feel about meeting Jerome Browning this morning,” Derek told her. “Unsettled, curious, and wary. You need to be wary of him, too. He’s cunning. If he senses any weakness in you, he’ll use it against you.”
“And you and Griff think I’m weak, don’t you? You think I’ll fall apart just because Browning murdered my college boyfriend.”
“Neither Griff nor I think you’re weak. But you will be vulnerable because of your connection to Noah Laborde.”
She heaved a heavy, labored huff. Derek was right. There was no use denying the obvious.
He reached over and laid his open palm across her tightly fisted hand. The moment he touched her, she jerked her hand away and lifted it off the table.
Ignoring her reaction, he said, “The way I see this interview with Browning is you and I act as a tag team, both of us questioning him. If at any time you become uncomfortable and want to terminate the interview, then don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“And you’ll whisk me up in your big strong arms and carry me off on your gallant white charger.” The moment the silly comment left her lips, Maleah regretted it. She had a problem about speaking before thinking things through, and this was especially true with Derek.
He didn’t respond.
She groaned. “Sorry.”
He laughed. “I didn’t know you thought of me as a knight in shining armor.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. “Most of the time, I think of you as a royal pain in the butt.”
“Likewise, Blondie.” He lifted his coffee cup and saluted her with it.
Barbara Jean had lived at Griffin’s Rest for several years, ever since Griff had placed her under the agency’s protection during the hunt for her younger sister’s killer. Within a few days, he had put her to work, there in his home, under Damar Sanders’s guidance. Her attraction to Sanders had not been love at first sight, but rather a recognition of two lonely, wounded souls in need. Despite the fact that they were lovers and sometimes in their intimate moments she called him Damar, she thought of her friend and lover as Sanders. No one used his first name, not even Griff and Yvette, his closest friends.
She admired and respected Griffin Powell as she did Sanders and shared a deep affection with Nicole. She considered Yvette Meng a friend, but they were not close, not the way she and Nic were. The beautiful Eurasian psychiatrist possessed a quiet, gentle personality. Almost shy. Her unique empathic abilities that allowed her to gain insight into a person’s thoughts and feelings by a mere touch separated her from others. Until recently, Yvette had lived in London, half a world away. But then, three years ago, Griff had begun construction at Griffin’s Rest on a retreat for Yvette and a small group of her protégés, young men and women with special psychic talents.
Barbara Jean knew less about the missing years of her employer’s life, from age twenty-two to thirty-two, than Nic knew. And even though Sanders had told her that he and Yvette had shared those years with Griff, he had not divulged very many details. Sanders had been married long ago and had lost his wife and child. He had never told her the specifics and she had never asked. He, Yvette, and Griff had been held captive on an uncharted Pacific island by an insane billionaire named Malcolm York. They had eventually escaped, after they killed York. The horrors they had endured together had united them as comrades and bound them to one another forever.
Nic and Yvette shared a precarious friendship, somewhat one-sided since Nic couldn’t quite manage to overcome her concerns about Griff’s love for the other woman. Where Nic needed to know more about her husband’s past and allowed the secrets he couldn’t share with her to come between them, Barbara Jean accepted Sanders for who and what he was. His past was just that—his past. It had made him the man he was today, but other than that, it had nothing to do with her.
If only Nic could see things as she did.
Barbara Jean maneuvered her wheelchair out onto the patio where Nic sat in a chaise lounge, her computer resting in her lap.
“I’ve put on the kettle for tea,” Barbara Jean said. “Would you care for a cup?”
“No, thanks.” Nic glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “I’ve been going over the information on Jerome Browning again and some things don’t add up.”
“Such as?” Barbara Jean asked as she wheeled herself out into the morning sunshine.
“The original Carver didn’t mail the pieces of flesh he removed from his victims to anyone. Those triangular pieces were never found.” Nic paused for a moment, closed the lid on her laptop and faced Barbara Jean.
“So, the copycat killer is not following every detail of the Carver’s MO, is he?” Barbara Jean said.
“No, which makes me ask why he isn’t. And if he’s differing in one aspect, then he’s possibly going to differ in other areas.”
“I haven’t actually studied copycat cases in general, but it stands to reason that there might be differences between the original and the copy.”
“In most cases, the copycat closely mimics the original, but often deviates in small details,” Nic said as she closed her laptop and set it on the glass and metal side table to her right. “Our killer sending Maleah the triangles of flesh from the first four victims, coupled with the fact that he’s copying the killer who murdered Maleah’s college sweetheart, tells me that he wants her involved.”
“Does that mean that neither you nor Griff is his ultimate target?”
“I don’t know. My gut tells me that it’s one of us, but what if this new Carver has been killing Powell Agency people in order to set things up to lure Maleah into some sort of vicious game he’s playing?”
“Have you talked to Griff about your theory?” Barbara Jean asked.
“I’m afraid Griff is concentrating so much on a possible connection between the Powell Agency murders and the rumor in Europe about Malcolm York being alive that he isn’t giving consideration to any other possibility.”
“Sanders says there is no way York can still be alive.” She lowered her voice. “When they left the island, York was dead. They were certain of it.” Barbara Jean preferred not to think about the fact that Sanders was more than capable of cold-blooded murder, as were Griff and Yvette. She understood why they had killed York and knew in her heart that und
er the same circumstances, she would have done what they did. They had destroyed the monster who had tortured them with such great pleasure.
“Griff says the same thing.” Nic stood to her full five-ten height, her feet bare, her long, tan legs clad in white walking shorts. An oversized orange and white UT T-shirt hung loosely to her hips. “He’s convinced that someone in Europe is using York’s name, but he has no idea who or why.”
“I know very little about the years Sanders spent on Amara, only that he blames York for the death of his wife and child, and that York forced him to do some terrible things.”
“I’ve grown to hate Malcolm York with every fiber of my being.” Nic walked to the edge of the patio and gazed out over Douglas Lake. “Even after all these years, he still haunts Griff.”
“As he does Sanders and Yvette.”
At the mention of Yvette’s name, Nic glanced over her shoulder at Barbara Jean. “They both love her, you know. My Griffin and your Sanders.”
“Yes, I know. And she loves them. But . . .” Barbara Jean paused, hoping to find the right words. “Griff worships the ground you walk on. You are the love of his life. Never doubt that for a moment.”
Nic offered Barbara Jean a forced smile, then looked back out over the lake. “I don’t doubt his love for me. But as long as he doesn’t trust me with the complete truth about his past, that past will stand between us.”
Maleah was in the driver’s seat. Derek had learned early on during their partnership on the Midnight Killer case that she preferred being the driver. Since he couldn’t care less, he hadn’t put up a fuss about it. No doubt it had something to do with her personal control issues. The lady most definitely had a problem with any man—but him in particular—being in charge of her.
He kicked back and relaxed as she headed her Chevy Equinox southeast on GA-30 E / US-280 E. If they weren’t delayed by roadwork or accidents blocking the highway, they should be at the prison in about twenty minutes. Even though their scheduled visitation with Browning was at ten, Maleah had insisted on leaving the hotel at nine.
“I’d rather get there early and have to wait than run the risk of our being late,” she’d told him.
He had learned the hard way not to argue with her over insignificant matters. He chose his battles. Otherwise, they would be at each other’s throats all the time. In the beginning of their professional association, they had disagreed on everything. If he said the sky was blue, she’d say it was gray. If he said the sun was shining, she’d say it was partly cloudy. If he voiced an opinion she didn’t like, she’d call him an arrogant jerk.
“Do you want to go over anything again before we get there?” he asked.
“No. I think we’ve talked the subject of Jerome Browning to death, don’t you?”
“Probably. Just remember—don’t underestimate him. And don’t expect him to give us anything without wanting something in return.”
“I’m not an idiot, you know.” She kept her gaze fixed on the road ahead.
He wanted to reply that no one had said she was an idiot or even thought it. A prickly pear, yes. High-strung and confrontational, yes. But instead, he asked, “Mind if I find some music on the radio?”
“Be my guest. But please make it something soothing.”
He found a “lite sounds” station, the first tune, a relaxing piano concerto. “Does that meet with your approval?” he asked.
“It’s fine.” When she glanced his way, he smiled and winked at her. She frowned and hurriedly looked away, returning her gaze to the view through the windshield.
Ignoring her completely, he closed his eyes. His mind immediately focused on Jerome Browning.
Derek hated the deals law enforcement made with criminals, plea-agreements that allowed lesser sentences in exchange for information. The DA who had prosecuted Jerome Browning had been forced into one of those god-awful deals. Browning, who should be on death row, was instead locked away in the maximum security division of the penitentiary. He had brutally murdered nine people, five women and four men. But not long after his arrest the authorities learned that he had killed before, when he had been a teenager. Twenty years before Browning had been arrested and charged with the Carver murders, a series of six missing teen girls in Browning’s old neighborhood had been presumed murdered. Their bodies had never been found. And all six cases had remained unsolved. Browning had bargained for his life—and won! He had agreed to confess to the murders of the six teen girls and tell the police where they could find the bodies. In exchange for the information that could bring closure to six families, Browning had been granted life imprisonment instead of the death penalty he deserved.
Browning would spend the rest of his life behind bars, but he was alive. Like the families of the people he had murdered, Derek believed that Browning should have been executed.
Everything Derek knew about Browning forewarned him that Maleah would be facing a deviously clever psychopath, one who would not hesitate to use her for his own amusement.
But Maleah was no featherweight in any battle of wills. She was strong, tough, and smart; and God help her, she never gave up on anything or anyone she believed in with her whole heart. He didn’t know what demons she had fought and won in her past, but he saw beyond the exterior beauty to the deep scars inside her. Maleah Perdue was a survivor.
Derek suspected she just might be a worthy opponent for Browning.
But at what cost to her?
Griffin Powell had entrusted Maleah to Derek, expecting him to keep her safe and protect her from emotional trauma. Griff had a protective attitude toward all of his employees, but Maleah was special to him because she was his wife’s best friend. And the big man possessed an exaggerated sense of responsibility when it came to the people in his life, especially the women. Apparently, on a subconscious level, Griff thought of women as the weaker sex. He was, in so many ways, an old-fashioned gentleman. A good old Southern boy, raised the right way by his mama.
Derek might have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth and Griff a poor boy, but Griff was far more of a gentleman than Derek ever had been or would be. Derek had spent most of his life rebelling against his mother, his family, and the inherent snobbery and selfindulgent lifestyle that inherited wealth so often imposed on the heirs to multi-million-dollar fortunes. From his early teens, he had deliberately done the unexpected, anything and everything to piss off his mother and grandparents, and to snub his nose at the society in which they existed. Military boarding school had been their solution. His response had been to skip college after high school graduation and bum around the world like a penniless vagrant. He had certainly seen the world through the eyes of a man who had to earn his keep wherever he went.
At twenty, flat broke and determined not to touch his trust fund, he had joined a group of unsavory characters, a sort of ragtag group of wannabe mercenaries, bluffing his way into their fold. He had learned later on that he hadn’t fooled them and they hadn’t expected him to survive his first mission. He’d been nothing more to them than an expendable foot solider.
At twenty-four, he had returned to the States, worldweary and old beyond his years. Then he had taken just enough money from his trust fund to attend Vanderbilt and had graduated summa cum laude. He came from a long line of highly intelligent savvy businessmen and his family had expected the prodigal son to take his place in the business world alongside his uncles and cousins. He had shocked them all when he had joined the FBI.
“Are you asleep?” Maleah asked Derek.
“Nope.”
“We’re almost there.”
He opened his eyes and sat up straight. “Have you ever been inside a maximum security prison before today?”
“No, I haven’t.” She paused just long enough to inhale and exhale. “I suppose you have.”
“Yes, I have.”
“I don’t need another lecture, so whatever you were going to say, keep it to yourself.”
“I wasn’t going to give you a
lecture,” he told her.
“Good. Just remember that I will be conducting the interview, okay?”
“Sure thing. As long as you understand that I may want to occasionally make a comment or ask a question.”
“Keep your comments and questions to a minimum, will you? You’re here as an observer. That is your area of expertise, isn’t it, observing and forming an opinion?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
He had to bite his tongue to keep from telling her that he had been observing her for quite some time and had formed a definite opinion. She was, without a doubt, the most irritating, aggravating, combative woman he’d ever known.
They followed normal procedure, up to a point. They had parked in the facility’s designated visitor parking lot. They had presented positive ID prior to their admission and then undergone a preliminary search by electronic surveillance instruments. But after that, they were escorted to the warden’s office. Slender, gray-haired Claude Holland greeted them with quiet reserve, his facial expression giving away nothing and his handshake firm and quick. He scanned Maleah, his gaze simply sizing her up. She suspected that her appearance surprised him as it did so many people who expected a female private security agent to be big and burly, not blond and petite.
“I’ve arranged for you to meet with Mr. Browning in our visitation area, but there should be no physical contact with the prisoner at any time,” Warden Holland said. “I mention this simply because you might normally expect to shake hands.”
Maleah nodded. “I understand.”
“This is not a scheduled visitation day, so there will be no other inmates seeing visitors. You’ll have one hour with Browning, but if at any time before the end of that hour, you wish to leave, then simply tell one of the guards.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“I assume that if we need to visit Mr. Browning again, that could be arranged,” Derek said.
“My instructions from the governor’s office are that your visitation privileges are open-ended,” Warden Holland replied. “All I ask is that you give us twenty-four hours’ notice.”
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