Black at Heart

by Leslie Parrish

  They heard voices, laughter; then one of the original speakers came on. "As you might have guessed, that cheeky man in the audience knows a little bit about my methods. He has had his hands on the posteriors of half the women in the state of Virginia."

  "I learned from the best," another voice called from the background, though not too far from a microphone to be heard.

  It was that voice. That same voice Lily had singled out before. Not as cold and condescending this time as it had been toward Angela Kean, but there was still a note of arrogance that rang clearly, even through the humor.

  "What can I say, like father, like son!"

  Father. Son.

  Impossible.

  "That's him, Wyatt!" Lily's blue eyes gleamed with tension. "It's him, and now we've got him! Who was he talking to? Which speaker was that, the one he said was his father?"

  "It was Alfred Underwood," Wyatt murmured.

  Alfred Underwood, whose stepson, Philip Wright, had been another speaker on that panel. One of the men Lily had already excluded this very morning.

  There was only one explanation.

  Without another word, he reached for the laptop and pulled it from her, just as Lily had taken it from Brandon. Around him, their voices swelled. Lily launched into a number of questions, plans, with Brandon and Jackie adding their own. The louder their voices, the less Wyatt could hear their words. They simply became a hum of background noise as he focused all his attention on his own thoughts. Because though the answer was now clear to him, and so many things made sense, several others did not.

  They most definitely did not.

  Opening a search engine, he typed in a name. Hundreds of hits came back almost immediately and he pulled up the first one, scanning the article, checking the dates.

  Pay dirt.

  It fit. The timing all fit. Everything that had happened right up until the night he had rescued Lily, it all made sense.

  Beyond that? Not so much.

  Scrolling down, he came to a black-and-white photograph of a man, which dominated the center of the article. Clearing his throat, he turned the laptop around so the others could see the screen. "Here he is. This is the man you just heard."

  As Lily stared at the picture, emotions washed over her face, anger, fear, and sorrow. He saw no recognition, though. Her attacker had done a good job at concealing his face from her. But not his voice.

  "That's him?" she whispered. "That's Lovesprettyboys?"

  The man of her nightmares. The man they'd all hunted so desperately one year ago when working on the Reaper case. "Yes."

  She shook her head slowly. "He looks so normal. It's hard to believe he's completely insane, killing Kowalski, kidnapping me."

  '"What evil lurks in the hearts of men?'" he quoted softly.

  "Evil. Yes. He has to be utterly evil. Not just for what he did in the heat of a desperate moment, but to be so calculating to have lured and brutally murdered three or four other men to try to find me."

  "That," Wyatt said, his voice low and intense, "he did not do."

  The others all eyed him with confusion. Then Lily exclaimed, "You just said-"

  "I said this is the man we knew as Lovesprettyboys, and yes, he's the man who attacked you. But he's not the one who has been killing those other pedophiles, trying to set you up for murder. He's not the lily killer."

  Wyatt scrolled the screen back up to the top, so they could see the headline from the Williamsburg paper. It had been published months ago. Seven and a half to be precise.

  And it raised more questions than it answered.

  "Oh, ray God!" Lily said, shock pulling every bit of color from her face.

  "What the hell?" Jackie asked.

  Brandon remained silent, shaking his head in confusion.

  They all grasped what it meant, but Wyatt laid it out, anyway. "Roger Underwood, the man who kidnapped you, died last January, Lily. On the very night of your escape. Lovesprettyboys is dead"

  No relief washed over her beautiful face, no moment of obvious satisfaction that the man who'd tortured her was no longer out there, waiting for his chance to do it again. How could she be relieved or satisfied?

  "Then who…?"

  She didn't need to finish the question. They were all wondering the same thing.

  If Roger Underwood, the original unsub, was dead, who was out there now, still trying to destroy Lily Fletcher completely?

  Chapter 13

  Though she knew he didn't want to leave her, especially not after their amazing discovery, Wyatt left at noon to head to the office. He couldn't put Deputy Director Crandall off any longer. Brandon, who couldn't keep ducking Anspaugh, either, accompanied him.

  They had, of course, refused to leave her alone and Jackie remained behind. It probably wasn't necessary. Lily felt as safe here, in his Washington home, as she had in his Maine one. Well, almost. This place didn't have the security setup, nor was it easy to stand on the upper floors and be able to see movement in any direction from a quarter mile away like she could at the beach house. But if she had lost her ability to survey the entire world spread below her, at least the town house was private, hidden from prying eyes. She might not be able to see out, but nobody could see in, either.

  In the hours since Wyatt had gone, she had spent most of her time trying to readjust her thinking about what was happening in her life. Though the danger hadn't ended, and though she was still in legal hot water, mostly all Lily could focus on was the death of Roger Underwood. Her tormentor.

  It was strange to realize he was gone, and had been gone for so many months. All this time, she'd pictured him out there in the world, an immense black shadow waiting for the chance to envelop her in all his darkness again, pull her back in that place where life had seemed far away and death infinitely preferable.

  "Roger Underwood " she murmured, her eyes again drawn to his face, printed out in full color from the newspaper article about his "tragic" death.

  FAMED LOCAL SURGEON SUCCUMBS TO EARLY DEMISE

  Not early enough, as far as Lily was concerned. Too bad the son of a bitch hadn't dropped dead of a heart attack one week earlier.

  She had no doubt he had, indeed, been the monster of her nightmares, the instrument of her near destruction. Once she and the others were armed with his name, the first thing they'd done was look for more samples of his voice, finding them almost immediately. He'd appeared in no less than three other recordings Brandon had tracked down, and each time she heard a syllable come out of his mouth, her stomach heaved and her skin crawled. Once, when he described some new stitching technique, she shuddered, despite the warmth of the day.

  That was before Wyatt had left; he'd been there right beside her. When she'd begun to tremble, his hand had appeared on her shoulder, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, what awful, brutal moments she couldn't help remembering. He knew just how to comfort her, to reassure her she was no longer alone and would never be hurt again. Whether it was with the touch of that hand, or just a glance from the other side of the table, with concern warring with promise in his eyes, he knew exactly how to calm her.

  Every additional piece of information they'd gathered about Underwood confirmed his identity in Lily's mind, even if she'd had any doubts about his voice, which she did not. Though his name was listed on a roster of registered attendees, he hadn't been a speaker at the Richmond event. And judging by the photographs of the banquet on the organization's Web site, he also hadn't been sitting at the head table when his father had received his humanitarian award. The lure of two unattended children must have been irresistible for him to risk missing the event, when he would almost certainly have been expected to be there.

  The car. Had he taken it because his own was parked in the traditional valet lot, where there were cameras to mark every entrance and exit? It certainly made sense. He obviously knew his sister kept a spare key hidden inside the bumper. Wyatt had said the woman used it because of her teenage son.

  God, it m
ade her sick to think of that man being some child's uncle.

  No, he wouldn't risk exposing his true nature so close to home. He liked his secret life. The one at Satan's Playground, and as Peter Pan on those message boards.

  He would prey on other people's children.

  Lily knew the rest of what had happened that night, right up until the moment his arm had appeared in the back of the van and he'd shot her. Then, nothing until she'd awakened in the beach shack the next day, to his furious whispers about all she had cost him and how he wanted to make her pay.

  So why did you bring me here? Why haven't you killed me already?

  Though she hadn't remembered before, she now knew she'd asked him those very questions.

  She also remembered his reply. Killing's too good for you.

  He'd left her to think about that answer, dazed, bloodied, and in such pain, for at least a day.

  "You hangin' in there, chickie?" Jackie asked.

  "I'm fine, really."

  Depositing a tray of sandwiches on the table, Jackie ran her hand over Lily's hair before sitting down, as if she couldn't stop touching her simply to make sure Lily was real and alive. "For a bachelor, that man has one heck of a kitchen."

  "It's mostly used by his housekeeper," Lily said. "Though he's not a bad cook." Better than her, anyway.

  Jackie grabbed a sandwich. She'd made them a late lunch since they'd been working so hard they'd forgotten to eat. "I guess you two got pretty close all that time you were living with him."

  Hearing the extremely innocent tone, Lily couldn't help casting a quick glance at her friend. Jackie's expression was equally as innocent. Too innocent. "He wasn't there most of the time," Lily reminded her.

  "Really? I seem to remember that man taking a whole lot of vacation time this year. Kind of out of character, I thought at the time. I suspect he built up some major frequent-flier miles taking trips to Maine, and I doubt it was because of the weather. Especially not in March, when he seemed to be gone almost the entire month."

  March, when she'd first arrived at the beach house, had been violently windy, with raging storms including one the locals called a nor'easter. Newly released from the hospital, weak, and entirely dependent upon Wyatt, Lily had actually found herself liking the weather. Tucked safely inside, listening to the wind whipping the surf into a frenzy, and watching tornadoes of sand fly off the beach, she'd felt completely protected by the storm that surrounded her. No, they couldn't get out. But neither could anyone else get in.

  "So, not to be nosy or anything," Jackie said, the way someone who was about to be incredibly nosy always did, "but is something going on there?"

  Lily intentionally misunderstood. "Going on where? In Maine?"

  "Ha. I mean, what's with you and Wyatt? I noticed some serious vibes."

  Knowing Jackie well enough to know she wouldn't be palmed off by some flip, trite answer, Lily admitted as much as she could. "There are vibes. I just don't know where they're going to lead."

  The other woman bit off a corner of her sandwich and chewed, appearing thoughtful. Finally, she said, "I guess it's pretty natural to be really appreciative of someone who's done so much for you."

  "This has nothing to do with appreciation, Jackie." Lily wanted to be sure that was understood. "I think it's more about finally knowing who I am, who I'm going to be for the rest of my life, and knowing he likes that person."

  "No more hero worship?"

  With a soft laugh, Lily asked, "Was I that obvious?"

  "Maybe just to me."

  "No. No more hero worship, even though he really is my hero now. But I'm not the timid little ingenue anymore."

  The other woman snorted. "I already noticed you don't drop anything you're holding just because he says something to you."

  God, that seemed like such a long time ago.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, she heard a muffled sound coming from near the stone wall surrounding the courtyard. Jackie heard it, too. They both fell silent, glancing in that direction, and Lily couldn't deny her heart skipped a beat or two. She found herself wishing she hadn't left her gun up at the beach house, even though, legally, she no longer had the right to carry one.

  A bird suddenly appeared. Flying up from the yard next door, it cawed loudly as it arced over their heads and was silhouetted against the bright afternoon sun. Just a bird.

  "Damn, you've got me jittery now," Jackie said.

  "It's fine," she insisted. "I'm fine."

  "I know you are. And I promise you, Lily, you're going to stay that way. You've got a whole team of people behind you who are going to make absolutely certain of it."

  Deputy Director Fred Crandall had worked his way into his position by way of intelligence, determination, drive, and luck. But his complete lack of a conscience certainly hadn't hurt. Nor had the generally slimy factor of his personality.

  Wyatt couldn't stand the man and the feeling was entirely mutual. From the moment his boss had landed the job, thanks to the ass-kissing at high levels that it always took to reach this office, he'd done what he could to fuck with Wyatt. The man had just disliked him from the get-go, despite Wyatt's record, the cases he'd closed and the commendations he'd received.

  Crandall's former right-hand man, Ray Letterman, who had recruited Wyatt right out of college and had once been a close friend, used to say it was pure jealousy. That while Crandall might own several thousand-dollar suits, he still wore them as if they'd come off the rack from Kmart, while Wyatt could be in a bulletproof vest and jeans and look more stylishly dressed.

  Wyatt didn't believe it. It was inconceivable that a man at Crandall's level would let class envy dictate how he did his job. But something had definitely crawled up the man's ass about Wyatt even before the scandal that had cost so many-including Letterman-their careers. Since then? Well, Crandall hadn't declared outright war, but it had come pretty close. This next skirmish could end up becoming a major battle.

  "Just when were you gonna let the rest of us in on your little private investigation, Blackstone?" Crandall's jowly face quivered with fury. "Do you know how fucking embarrassing it is to find out one of my own people is conducting a private investigation nobody else in the bureau knows about? If the local police hadn't contacted Anspaugh about the badge, and asked if the case was connected to the other flower murders you put out a bulletin on, we might never have known. Just how many more murders would it have taken for you to do your job?"

  "I was under the impression I was doing my job," Wyatt murmured, impassive, as he'd been from the minute he'd stepped into the office. Keeping a slight smile on his mouth, with his legs crossed, and his fingers laced together on his lap, he knew the mere sight of him was sending Crandall into a frenzy. The man was all rage and bluster and Wyatt's very demeanor offended him. Yet the louder the deputy director got. the more quiet and pleasant Wyatt's response.

  "Oh, right. When did it become your job to investigate serial killers? Isn't that why we have the BAU?"

  "I believe, sir, that's exactly what you tasked me to do when you ordered me to form the team. Isn't catching serial killers what we've been doing since day one, starting with the Reaper?"

  Crandall smirked. "Right, the one you let get away?"

  The killer, Seth Covey, hadn't exactly gotten away. He'd hanged himself to avoid being taken into custody. Something Crandall and his ilk liked to call the team's failure.

  "The point remains, you asked me to lead a team that would solve Internet-related murders, and that's what I've been doing."

  "This case isn't about Internet murder and you know it!"

  Wyatt shrugged. "I disagree. The victims were chosen specifically because of the Web sites, chat rooms, and message boards they frequented. They were stalked on those sites. Their meetings were arranged in cyberspace. How much more wired does a case need to be?"

  Crandall smacked his hand on his desk. "I meant this case is about a whole lot more than the Internet."

&n
bsp; "Perhaps, but are you denying the basic elements are all there?" Wyatt wasn't about to let it go, needing Crandall to admit he had no reason to take the investigation away from him. "My interest was captured purely by virtue of the Internet lure, the e-mail communications and the child-pornography sites visited by the victims. Unless the definition of Internet connection has changed, I was doing absolutely nothing other than my job."

  The other man frowned, but couldn't deny it. He leaned back in his chair, his pig eyes narrowing to twin slits. "Why didn't the rest of your team know about it?"

  "We're a very busy group. That murder-for-hire case was at its peak, and we hadn't officially been asked to help on the first few murders. I was, essentially, gathering information, laying the groundwork for bringing the team in."

  "You sure about that? You sure you didn't keep it to yourself when you figured out it had something to do with Lily Fletcher?"

  This was the first time Lily's name had come up, but of course Wyatt had been expecting it, so he managed to remain completely impassive. "Fletcher?"

  "Don't be coy."

  "Why would I connect the case to her? I didn't receive the call about the latest victim, found holding her badge. What other reason was there to think she might have some connection?"

  Crandall yanked a file folder off a pile on the corner of his desk and flipped it open. "How about because the killer left lilies at every scene?"

  "You would have preferred daisies?"

  Crandall sputtered.

  "My point is there are probably hundreds of varieties of flowers. Why would one variety make me think of a woman lost in the line of duty so many months ago?" he added, emphasizing the line of duty part. Because Crandall might be thinking of Lily as a suspect already, but that didn't mean he should be. "The next time we find a body lying near a rosebush, should we put out an APB on anyone named Rose?"

  Crandall's face reddened more as he grew more irritated, more distracted from the main point. That was good. Wyatt wanted him distracted, kept off guard, and going in the wrong directions, if only to prevent the man from asking the right questions.