Chapter 11

Griffin excused himself and went into the bedroom to take a telephone call, leaving Annabelle and Quinn alone. Quinn could tell by the way she wouldn’t look directly at him and by the stiffness of her spine that the lovely Ms. Vanderley felt decidedly uncomfortable. The very fact that she was not only unavailable, but also completely unresponsive to his charm made her all the more intriguing. She posed a challenge to him, on every conceivable level.

“Do you suppose that call will take long?” she asked, but glanced anywhere but at him.

“Depends,” Quinn replied. “If it’s personal, it could take a while. If it’s business, it’ll depend on who called and what they have to say.”

“Aren’t lawyers capable of one-word answers?”

Quinn chuckled.

She hazarded a glance his way. He took full advantage of the moment by smiling at her and gazing into her big blue eyes. He figured she’d look away and do her best to avoid making a direct connection to him; but she surprised him. She kept her gaze linked to his. A strange undercurrent swept through him, drawing him deeper and deeper into unknown waters. What was it about Annabelle that not only fascinated him, but also unnerved him?

She wasn’t centerfold material, the way Lulu had been. Annabelle was several inches shorter, a few pounds heavier, not as bosomy, but elegantly lovely. Her hair was a darker blond, probably natural, whereas Lulu had lightened hers to almost white. And where Lulu’s skin had been tan from hours spent in tanning beds and on beaches at private resorts around the world, Annabelle possessed a peaches-and-cream complexion.

“Do you suppose that phone call has anything to do with our case?” she asked.

“Our case?” Smiling, Quinn maintained eye contact as he rose from the sofa and walked toward Annabelle. She broke eye contact immediately and leaned back in her chair, her shoulders tensing, her spine stiffening. “You really hate having to share Griffin Powell with me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

That one word said a great deal. For one thing it told him that Annabelle wouldn’t lie to him for the sake of courtesy or to spare his feelings. She might be a lady to whom good manners was of tantamount importance, but she could be direct and absolutely honest if the circumstances called for it.

“I’m sorry you’ve been put in this situation,” he said. “And you may not believe me when I say that we both want the same thing.”

“I want to find Lulu’s murderer and see him brought to justice.”

“That’s exactly what I want.”

“I’d like to believe you.”

Quinn knelt down in front of her and reached out to take her hands. She slid her hands on either side of her hips and drew them into tight little fists. “You really would like to believe me, wouldn’t you? You’d like to believe I didn’t kill Lulu,” he said. “I appreciate the fact that you aren’t convinced I’m guilty. It means a lot to me that you’re willing to keep an open mind.”

“Why does my opinion matter one way or another?”

He clasped her chin, cradling it in the hollow between his thumb and forefinger. Gasping softly, she met his gaze head-on.

“Do you want the honest truth?” he asked.

“Yes.” Her voice quivered ever so slightly.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, then released his hold on her chin. Of their own accord, as if he had no control over them, his fingers glided gently down the side of her neck, pausing when he felt the beat of her pulse. “I usually don’t care what anybody thinks of me. I’ve always lived my life by my own rules and thumbed my nose at society. When you’re as rich and powerful as I am, people tend to cater to you, not the other way around. Being a Vanderley, you understand what I’m saying, don’t you? You’ve had people kowtowing to you all your life.”

Her pulse quickened as her heartbeat accelerated. He could feel her life’s blood pumping beneath his fingertips. She was either excited or agitated. Perhaps both.

“The difference between us, Mr. Cortez, is that having been born to wealth and privilege, I was taught at an early age not to abuse my wealth and power. My parents told me that with great privilege comes great obligations. I don’t live my life by my own rules and I do care what other people think of me.”

He eased his hand from her neck and moved across her shoulder. She trembled. He lifted his hand away, but remained kneeling in front of her. “Haven’t you ever wanted to break free? Don’t you sometimes dream of what it would be like to walk on the wild side, just once?”

She stared at him as if he were an alien creature speaking in an unknown tongue. Was she so totally buried in Vanderley tradition that she had lost the ability to think for herself? How was it possible that she and Lulu were first cousins? He’d never known two women as vastly different.

“What are you suggesting?” she finally managed to say.

“Take a chance. Throw caution to the winds. Trust me completely, Annabelle.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You want to.” He stood up and held out his hand to her. “Tell me that you know I didn’t kill Lulu, then work with me to prove who did.”

She glared at his offered hand, then looked up at him. “We’re already working together to find Lulu’s murderer. Isn’t the fact that I agreed to be your partner in hiring Griffin enough for you? If I truly believed you’d killed Lulu, do you think I’d have done that?”

“Tell me. I need to hear you say it.” He hated the urgency in his voice, a pleading tone he hadn’t used since he was a kid. Was she aware of the fact that he was practically begging her to believe him? Until that very moment, he hadn’t realized how desperately he wanted Annabelle to believe in his innocence. And heaven help him, he honest-to-God didn’t know why.

She stood slowly, as if fighting a battle within herself. When she faced him, only inches separating them, she tilted forward as if her body was drawn to his by some invisible magnet.

“I don’t think you killed Lulu.”

He let out the breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. Exhilaration welled up inside him. He couldn’t explain how he felt except to say it was as if he’d been given a rare and precious gift. Annabelle’s trust.

Quinn wanted to kiss her. Don’t do it, he told himself. Don’t even attempt it. If you touch her, you’ll want more than a kiss.

“Sorry about that,” Griffin Powell said as he came out of the bedroom.

Annabelle jumped as if she’d been shot and moved hurriedly away from Quinn. The tightly wound tension inside him momentarily coiled tighter and he had to fight the arousal that had been building since the moment he touched Annabelle.

Griffin glanced from Quinn to Annabelle. “Is everything all right in here?”

“Yes,” Annabelle replied.

“Was that phone call anything we need to know about?” Quinn asked, eager to change the subject and take his mind off how much he wanted Annabelle.

“Why don’t we all sit down,” Griffin suggested.

“What is it?” Annabelle asked. “Whatever it is, just tell us.”

“The Commercial Appeal is going to run an exposé on Lulu’s life in tomorrow’s paper,” Griffin said. “They’re going to show what they believe was the real Lulu, warts and all.”

“Oh, God!” Sudden tears glistened in Annabelle’s eyes. “How much do they know? And will they really print things about her personal life knowing the family will sue the paper?”

“They’re going to paint Lulu as a fun-loving party girl who handed out her sexual favors as if they were candy,” Griffin told them. “And my bet is they won’t print anything that can’t be substantiated. They will maintain that every word is the truth and not slander.”

“But why would they—?” Annabelle asked.

“To sell papers,” Griffin said, then looked right at Quinn. “And exposing the fact that Lulu had a legion of lovers will make it appear that Quinn, despite the fact he found her body, was only one man of many who might have had a motive to kill her.”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Quinn asked. “Like leaking this story to the newspaper?”

“The investigative reporter who’s doing the exposé on Lulu somehow found out that she was pregnant.” Griffin stayed focused on Quinn. “The police department or the ME’s office could have a loose-lipped employee, but according to my sources, someone in the law offices of Hamilton, Jeffreys, Lloyd and Wells made a phone call to the Commercial Appeal today.”

“Kendall?” Quinn didn’t want to believe that his friend and lawyer—and his lover—would have done something that unethical, although it was something that under different circumstances, he might have done himself. In order to win, he’d always been willing to do whatever it took, no matter how underhanded or borderline illegal. “You think my lawyer leaked the news about Lulu’s pregnancy?”

“There’s no way to prove it, of course,” Griffin said. “But, yes, I think Kendall Wells is planning ahead, just in case you are charged with Lulu’s murder. She’s smearing Lulu’s reputation now and keeping her own hands clean, thereby keeping yours clean, too.”

“If Kendall did this—and I’m saying if—I didn’t know anything about it.” Quinn turned to Annabelle. “I swear to you that I had nothing—”

“I can’t do this right now.” Annabelle held up a protective hand, warning him to stay away from her. “I’m going back to my suite. I need to contact some of our people and see if we can stop this exposé from coming out. It’s possible we have enough pull to influence the publisher. If not, we’ll have to come up with some damage control.”

“Your cousin’s going to be exploited in the Commercial Appeal and your main concern is damage control for Vanderley, Inc.?” Quinn shook his head. “If that’s the case, then I think I’ve misjudged you. You’re not the woman I thought you were.”

She pinned him with a stern, rueful look. “I don’t give a damn what people think of Lulu because she apparently didn’t care. If she had, she would have lived her life differently. But I do care that if Uncle Louis finds out the truth about his precious little girl, it will break his heart. The damage control I mentioned isn’t to apply a Band-Aid to Lulu’s public image, but to somehow keep the news from reaching my uncle, and if that fails, to convince him that everything being said about Lulu is a pack of lies.”

Annabelle turned and practically ran to the door.

Calling out her name, Quinn headed after her; but Griffin grabbed his arm, halting him.

“Let her go,” Griffin said. “You can apologize to her later.”

Quinn took the time during his drive to his newly leased Memphis house to collect his thoughts and allow his temper to cool. He could blame everyone else, but when it came right down to it, he had no one to blame but himself. He’d been the one who had insulted Annabelle, the one who’d mouthed off without giving her the benefit of the doubt. In his own defense, he could say that he had simply judged her by the other women he’d known, but he knew that defense wouldn’t hold water with her. She had taken a giant leap of faith and admitted to him that she believed he hadn’t murdered Lulu. And how had he repaid her? The very first time his faith in her was tested, he’d failed. Failed miserably. He had all but accused her of being a cold, heartless, business-first bitch. God, how could he have been so stupid?

Was there any way he could repair the damage? Maybe if he crawled on his hands and knees over hot coals or broken glass, she might give him a second chance.

Ask yourself why the hell you care? Annabelle Vanderley is just a woman. Attractive. Rich. Cultured. With a pedigree reaching back to Adam and Eve. He’d known her type before and had had his pick. So what if he’d seen her as a challenge. He’d conquered other women who’d been just as great a challenge, hadn’t he?

Stop thinking about her. Concentrate on more important issues. He had to regain control of his life, even while being forced to remain in Memphis. Kendall had made an important decision—to leak information to the local newspaper about Lulu’s personal life—without discussing it with him first. They needed to talk. He’d make her understand that although she was his lawyer, he would have the final word in everything that affected him. But first, he needed to have a powwow with a couple of his loyal employees—one who’d ratted on another and one who’d bedded Quinn’s lover in Quinn’s own bed. After he confronted Marcy and Aaron, he would telephone Kendall at her office and leave a message with her secretary for her to call him.

By the time he reached his home away from home, he had cooled off considerably and was thinking clearly. There was no need to rip into either Marcy or Aaron, but they both needed to be aware that in the future, he wouldn’t tolerate such behavior.

When he unlocked the front door, he halfway expected Marcy to meet him as she often did. Instead the living room was empty and no one was there to greet him. Wondering if all three of them had gone out, he walked across the tile-floored foyer and toward the hallway. That’s when he heard voices coming from the kitchen, so he veered left and swung open the kitchen door.

Jace was emptying the dishwasher and putting away dishes. Perched on a bar stool, Aaron hunched over the counter working on a crossword puzzle. Marcy was busy stirring what smelled like spaghetti sauce in a pan on the stove.

Jace was the first one who noticed Quinn, who stood in the doorway studying the threesome. “Hey, Quinn, I thought you wouldn’t be back this soon. Did you finish up with that private detective?”

“Yeah, we’re through for now,” Quinn said.

Marcy turned the temperature down on the stove eye, laid the wooden spoon on a folded paper towel and studied Quinn for a moment. “What’s wrong? You’re glaring at me.”

“Was I?” Quinn pulled out the second bar stool and sat down beside Aaron. “Maybe it’s your imagination. Or perhaps your guilty conscience.”

Marcy flushed. Aaron looked up from the crossword puzzle. “What’s going on? Why should Marcy have a guilty conscience?”

“I had a very interesting conversation with Griffin Powell. Would you believe that he knows more about my employees than I do?”

“I know I should have told you myself,” Marcy said, a plea for understanding in her voice and in her eyes. “But I didn’t want to cause trouble between you and Aaron. We’re like a family and I was afraid that if you knew what he’d done, you would be hurt and angry and…”

Aaron slid off the bar stool and inched away from Quinn, then grabbed Marcy’s arm and shook her. “What are you talking about? Who did you tell what about me?”

Marcy jerked free of Aaron’s hold and looked back and forth from Quinn to Aaron. “I never would have said anything, but when Mr. Powell told me that it was important for the police to be aware of all the men Lulu Vanderley had been with for the past two months—”

“Hellfire, Marcy, you didn’t!” Aaron stomped across the floor, shaking his head as he clenched and unclenched his hands. “You swore to me you’d never tell.” He paused, looked at Quinn and said, “Hey, she came after me. I swear. You know I’d never betray you. I tried to get away from her, but she just wouldn’t take no for an answer. God, man, I’m sorry. I—”

“Aaron, what did you do?” Jace asked, a worried frown marring his handsome young features.

Quinn slid off the bar stool, reached out and clamped his hand down on Aaron’s shoulder. “I don’t care that you fucked Lulu. Or knowing Lulu the way I did, I should probably say I don’t care that she fucked you. But the police are going to care that you had sex with her because Lulu was pregnant. Six weeks pregnant.”

“Oh, God!” Jace’s face went white as a sheet. He nervously fiddled with his glasses, readjusting them farther up his nose.

“You’re shitting me,” Aaron said. “Lulu was pregnant?”

“The baby she was carrying could have been fathered by any man she had sex with five or six weeks ago,” Quinn told him. “Me, Randall Miller and you and God knows who else. The police think that maybe whoever fathered her child killed her. And right now they’re laying odds I’m the daddy.”

“Don’t you see, that’s why I told Mr. Powell about Aaron being with her six weeks ago,” Marcy said. “So the police would know somebody else might have fathered her child. When Mr. Powell said she’d been pregnant—”

A barfing sound came from the sink area. Quinn, Marcy and Aaron turned to see Jace throwing up.

“Are you okay?” Marcy asked as she rushed to Jace and rubbed his back.

Jace lifted his head, tore off a paper towel from the spindle rack and wiped his mouth. “Yeah, I’m okay. It must have been that burger I ate for lunch.” He turned on the faucets and washed out the sink, then tossed the paper towel into the garbage.

“Why don’t you go lie down for a while,” Quinn said. “Everything is okay here. Nobody’s mad at anybody.”

“I—I think I’ll go out, maybe ride around and get some fresh air.” He looked at Marcy. “Mind if I take the rental car?”

“Go ahead,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about renting a second vehicle, maybe even one for each of us. Is that all right with you, Quinn?”

“Sure, whatever you think y’all will need while we’re here,” Quinn said.

“I’ll probably call the rental place and make arrangements for an SUV of some kind. It’ll be good for picking up supplies and all.”

After removing his glasses and wiping them off with the edge of his sweater, Jace grabbed the car keys from the counter, then glanced at Aaron and said, “You shouldn’t have done it. Lulu Vanderley might have been a whore, but you had no right to— She belonged to Quinn.” Jace ran out of the room, his glasses clutched in one hand.

“Poor Jace, he’s so high-strung and emotional,” Marcy said.

“He’ll be okay.” Aaron didn’t make eye contact with anyone else in the room. “And he was right about my screwing around with Lulu. Quinn, I’m sorry. I tried to steer clear of her, but a part of me wondered what it would be like to get it on with one of your women.”

“You men are all alike,” Marcy shouted. “All you ever think about—no, scratch that. Y’all don’t think. At least not with your brain.”

“Okay, now that everybody has had their say, let’s put this whole thing into the proper perspective and move on.” Quinn patted Aaron on the back and held out his hand to Marcy. When she came to him, he put his arm around both her and Aaron. “No more fighting among ourselves. We’re a team. Let’s act like one. Okay?”

They both replied in unison, “Okay.”

“Marcy, go rent yourself an SUV and, Aaron, if you need a vehicle—”

“I don’t.” He shook his head. “Jace and I can share the car.”

“If you change your mind, rent whatever you want.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I’ve got a phone call to make and then I’m going out again,” Quinn told them. “Don’t wait on me for supper tonight.”

Thinking it might be safe now to leave Marcy and Aaron alone, Quinn walked out of the kitchen and into the living room. After removing his cell phone from his pocket, he sat down and dialed Kendall’s office number again.

Marcy came out of the kitchen, a frosty mug in her hand. She set it on a granite coaster atop the coffee table, offered Quinn a halfhearted smile and disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms. Quinn eyed the iced tea. Wherever they were, Marcy always made certain she kept a pitcher of unsweetened tea made for him. Neither she nor the guys would touch the stuff, preferring traditional sweet tea. And Marcy knew he liked his tea, milk and most beverages served in a frosted glass, so she always kept glasses in the freezer.

Despite their occasional squabbles, Quinn’s personal entourage worked well together as a general rule and made day-to-day living much easier for him.

“Yes, this is Quinn Cortez,” he said to the receptionist at Hamilton, Jeffreys, Lloyd and Wells. “May I speak to Kendall Wells, please.”

“Just a moment.”

Quinn lifted the tea and took several sips. He frowned. The tea tasted a little bitter. Maybe Marcy had changed brands.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cortez, Ms. Wells isn’t here,” her secretary told him. “She left early to have drinks with a client and then she was going home. You can probably reach her there in about half an hour or so.”

“Okay, thanks.” Quinn returned his cell phone to his pocket, downed two-thirds of the glass of tea, then got up and called to Marcy and Aaron. “I’m leaving now. You two behave yourselves, especially around Jace.”

After getting into his Porsche, Quinn didn’t immediately start the engine. He sat there for a few minutes trying to decide whether or not he should try to talk to Annabelle before he drove over to Kendall’s. Probably not. But he could stop by a florist shop and order her some flowers. A dozen red roses. No, not red roses for Annabelle. He wanted to send her something else, not the standard red roses he’d sent to so many other women.

Yellow roses as golden as her hair? Or perhaps pink roses as soft and feminine as she was? Or even cream roses as alabaster as her complexion?

Why not a dozen of all three colors? Yeah, why not? Three dozen might be a little extravagant, but if his goal was to impress her with how sorry he was, maybe he should send six dozen.

Kendall entered the great room through the garage entrance, tossed her briefcase, purse and car keys on the counter and headed straight for her bedroom. She wanted to strip out of her suit, heels and pantyhose, take a quick shower and then prepare an easy microwave dinner. She should probably call Quinn later tonight and tell him what she’d done— having her secretary telephone Bob Reagan at the Commercial Appeal to reveal the true story about Lulu Vanderley. Quinn might be pissed, but on the other hand, he might agree that she’d made a wise decision. Either way, he had to know that she’d done what she thought was best for him.

After stripping, putting her suit in a bag to take to the cleaners and her underwear and pantyhose in the handwash laundry bag, Kendall turned on the faucets in the shower to allow the water to heat up. Just as she turned to the vanity and removed the lid from her jar of face cream, she thought she heard a noise. Had the sound come from inside or outside? She stood perfectly still, barely breathing, and listened. Quiet. Absolute quiet. Then she heard the clink of ice dropping from the machine in her refrigerator freezer into the plastic holding container. Breathing a sigh of relief because she’d figured out what the noise was so quickly, Kendall smeared her face with cold cream. Using a washcloth, she removed her makeup and rinsed out the cloth. Staring at herself in the mirror, she groaned. Although she was still a fairly good-looking woman, age was beginning to catch up with her. Tiny lines around her eyes and nose and mouth. Laugh lines. And there were several small age spots on her cheeks that could easily be mistaken for freckles, only Kendall’s dark skin never freckled.

After taking a fresh washcloth from the stack on the vanity, she opened the shower door and stepped inside, sighing as the warm water peppered her naked body.

There was that noise again. Louder. And it wasn’t the ice machine.

Stop being paranoid, she told herself. It’s barely dark. Whatever you’re hearing is probably outside, one of your neighbors doing something noisy.

She should have turned on her alarm system again, but she never rearmed it until bedtime. She’d always felt perfectly save here in her own home.

Kendall lathered her hair and massaged her scalp.

There it was again. That noise. Her fingers, forked through her wet, soapy hair, then paused as she listened.

Were those footsteps she heard?

It’s your imagination, she told herself.

But she hurriedly rinsed her hair and bathed herself, then opened the shower door and listened, but heard nothing. She had a gun in her nightstand drawer. But she didn’t keep it loaded. If someone was inside the house, could she get to the gun and load it before the intruder caught her?

There was no intruder. Houses creaked and groaned. Ice machines made noise. The sound of a neighbor walking on his deck next door might easily be mistaken for footsteps inside her house.

Kendall wrapped a towel around her head, dried off and grabbed her silk robe from the hanger on the back of the bathroom door. She stood there behind the closed door and listened. Quiet. No noise at all. She breathed a sigh of relief, then opened the bathroom door and hurried into her bedroom. There in the doorway leading into the hall, she caught a glimpse of a shadow. A man’s shadow.

Adrenaline flooded her body. Fear clutched her throat.

Who was inside her house? How had he gotten in?

Oh, God. Oh, God!

The nightstand was on the other side of the bed. If she tried to get to it, whoever was hovering in her doorway would see her. Not only was her gun in the nightstand, but also the telephone was sitting on top of it. And her cell phone was in her purse, out there in the kitchen.

What was she going to do?

The shadow moved.

He was coming into her bedroom.

Light from the bathroom cast a soft glow over the man, partially revealing his features. Kendall sucked in a deep breath. Then she thought she recognized her uninvited visitor.

Releasing a relieved sigh, she called, “Quinn, is that you? My God, you scared me half to death.”

She had recognized him, had called him by name and had felt relief that she knew and trusted the intruder. Poor darling.

As he drew closer, the fading light from outside peeking through the closed blinds in Kendall’s bedroom, her welcoming smile wavered. Was she wondering what it was about him that had changed? Did she realize she was dealing with someone she really didn’t know? He wasn’t the Quinn who had been her friend and lover.

When he stood directly in front of her, she reached out as if to touch his face. Her hand froze in midair. He saw realization dawn in her dark eyes. Now she knew the truth, and just as the others had done, she looked at him in horror.

“There is no reason to be afraid,” he told her.

“What…who…My God!”

He clasped her hand, brought it to his chest and laid it over his heart. “I promise I will make it quick and painless.”

She snatched her hand away. “No. No…don’t…”

She opened her mouth to scream. He couldn’t allow that to happen. If she screamed, someone might hear her. And if anyone came to help her, it would ruin his plans.

He grabbed her and clamped his hand over her mouth. She struggled. Why did they always struggle so hard against him when all he intended to do was put them out of their misery? Didn’t they understand how much better off they would be once he gave them release from all their pain?

Kendall fought like a wildcat, kicking and thrashing, doing her best to get away from him. But he was far stronger than she, making her effort to escape totally useless. Keeping one hand over her mouth, he turned her so that her back was to his chest, then he dragged her toward the bed. When he flung her around and down onto the bed, her loose-fitting robe came apart several inches, revealing the inner curves of her breasts.

For half a second she stared up at him, agonized fear in her eyes. She probably thought he was going to rape her.

“Did you kill Lulu Vanderley?” she asked in a breathless, quivering voice.

So like a lawyer, he thought.

“Yes, we killed her.”

“We?”

He laughed. “That’s right, you’ve never met bad Quinn, have you? Not until tonight.”

“Bad…? You’re bad Quinn.”

He nodded.

“You’re going to kill me, too, aren’t you?”

He nodded again.

Trembling, her features etched with sheer panic, she moaned deeply, then tried to scream, but only a screeching whimper emerged from her throat.

Hovering over her, straddling her hips, he grasped her wrists, flung her arms over her head and pinned her to the bed. He stared deeply into her terror-stricken eyes and felt pity for this unhappy, lovesick woman.

“Poor foolish darling,” he told her. “Don’t you know you shouldn’t waste your love on someone who can never love you in return?”

“What—what are you talking about?” Her voice quivered.

Smiling, he loosened his hold on her hands. “We can never love you.”

The moment he released her wrists, she reached out for him, but before she could claw at his face, as he was sure she had intended to do, he lifted the pillow from the other side of the bed and brought it down over her face. She fought him, cursing and crying all the while.

“It’s useless to struggle,” he told her. “I’m doing what is best for you…for us.”

He pressed the pillow down harder and harder. Her struggles grew weaker and weaker until she finally stopped moving.

When he was certain that she was dead, he rose up and off her. Standing beside the bed, he gazed down at her lifeless body and sighed.

“Now, that’s better, isn’t it? You aren’t suffering anymore?”

Reaching inside the pocket of his jacket, he removed a small glass vial filled with formaldehyde and set it on the nightstand. Then he took the switchblade from his other pocket and snapped it open. For several seconds he stared at the sharp edge of the knife, mesmerized by the shiny metal surface.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” he told her as he spread out her right hand and eased her index finger apart from her other fingers.

Gripping her index finger tightly, he took the knife and hacked off the long, slender digit, just above the knuckle.

Humming softly to himself, he closed the dirty knife, dropped it back into his coat pocket and then studied the prize he held in his other hand. Such a pretty finger, the nail painted a bright red. He unscrewed the lid to the vial, dropped the finger into the formaldehyde and recapped the vial before slipping it into his pocket.

He would add this one to his collection. A reminder of his good deed—he had put one more foolish woman out of her misery.