Chapter 1
Maleah hated weddings and wedding
receptions.
So why am I
here?
She was at the Dunmore Country Club out
of a sense of obligation. After all, the bride, Lorie Hammonds, was
her sister-in-law’s best friend and the groom, Mike Birkett, was
her brother’s best friend. Lorie and Mike had gone through hell to
earn their second chance at love. Their reunion was like something
out of a fairy tale, albeit an adult fairy tale. Against all odds,
they had fallen in love again, nearly twenty years after their
teenage love affair had left them both broken hearted. Maleah
certainly would have bet against their ever making it to the
altar.
Okay, so maybe happy endings were
possible. For other people. Not for her.
“Come on.” Her sister-in-law Cathy
motioned to her. “They’re leaving. Did you get your little bag of
birdseed?”
Groaning inside, Maleah forced a smile
and held up the tiny net bag tied with a narrow yellow ribbon.
Following the other wedding guests, she went outside and took her
place in the crowd awaiting the bride and groom’s departure. The
groomsmen had attached tin cans to long streamers that they had
tied to the bumper of the groom’s restored antique Mustang. A
handpainted sign announcing JUST MARRIED
hung precariously from the same streamers.
A roar of excitement heralded the
couple’s exit through the double doors that opened to the front
lawn of the country club. Lorie wore a pale peach tailored suit
with matching heels. Mike had changed from his tux into a sport
coat and dress slacks. Arm-in-arm, huge smiles lighting their
faces, they hurried along the pathway. They laughed as handfuls of
birdseed sailed through the air and rained down on
them.
Maleah glanced across the brick
sidewalk at her brother Jackson, who stood behind his wife, his arm
draped around her and one big hand resting possessively over her
belly. Cathy was three and half months pregnant.
When the bride and groom drove away,
the crowd dispersed, many returning to the ballroom where the band
still played. Maleah felt someone beside her and knew exactly who
it was, even before she saw his face.
Derek Lawrence!
She turned, glanced at him, and did her
best to maintain a pleasant expression. Despite his devastating
good looks and undeniable charm, Derek Lawrence was pure poison as
far as Maleah was concerned. From the moment they met several years
ago, she had intensely disliked him. But she had to admit that
after working with him on the Midnight Killer case for the Powell
Agency earlier this year, she now disliked him less. And much to
her dismay, she couldn’t deny that she found him
attractive.
What woman wouldn’t?
He was tall, dark and dangerously
handsome. And he possessed the kind of striking looks attributed to
matinee idols of her grandmother’s generation. If Derek had one
flaw, it was his physical perfection. He was too damn good
looking.
Being attracted to Derek—the last man
on earth she should be attracted to—was why she thought of him as
pure poison.
“Nice wedding,” he said.
“Yes, it was a very nice wedding,”
Maleah replied. “Lorie and Mike seem happy, don’t
they?”
“They say that marriage agrees with
some people.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“But you don’t believe
it?”
She shrugged.
“Jack and Cathy seem blissfully happy,”
Derek said.
“Okay, I concede that a small
percentage of couples somehow manage to get their
happily-ever-after, but most don’t.”
“Not willing to risk it yourself, are
you?”
She looked at him, slightly puzzled by
his question. “It’s a moot point. I’m not even dating anyone right
now.”
“I wasn’t aware that you ever dated.
I’ve known you for quite a while and—”
“I date,” she told him emphatically.
Too emphatically. “I’m simply selective about whom I date.” She
gave him a condescending glance. “Unlike you, my tastes are more
discriminating.”
His oh-so-perfect lips lifted at the
corners in an amused smile. “Are you implying that I’m some sort of
Romeo who romances every woman I meet?”
“Oh, I’m not implying anything. I simply stated a fact.”
Before Derek could respond, Jack and
Cathy joined them. He still wore his best man tux and she wore her
matron of honor gown, a floor-length creation in light aqua
silk.
“You two aren’t arguing again, are
you?” Cathy looked pleadingly from Maleah to Derek.
“No, of course not,” Maleah assured her
sister-in-law. “We were just discussing dating.”
Lifting his brow inquisitively, Jack
grinned. “So, who finally asked who?”
“Huh?” Maleah said.
“What?” Derek asked.
Cathy draped her arm around Jack’s. “I
don’t think they were discussing dating each other.”
“God, no!” Maleah said.
Derek chuckled. “You thought I asked
Maleah for a date or that she asked me? Where would you have gotten
such a far-fetched idea?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack said. “Maybe
the fact that—”
When Cathy gently punched him in the
ribs, Jack grunted and instantly shut up.
“We’re heading out,” Cathy said. “I’m
exhausted. It’s been a wonderful day, but a very long
one.”
“I’ll see y’all at home in a little
while,” Maleah said.
“Stay as long as you’d like,” Cathy
told her. “The band will be here until midnight and there’s still a
ton of food.”
Maleah felt Derek’s body heat as he
moved in closer. When he slipped his arm around her waist, she
tried not to gasp at the unexpectedness of his touch.
“Come on, Ms. Perdue, let’s dance the
night away.” Derek’s black eyes sparkled with a definite challenge.
“Since neither of us brought a date tonight . . .”
“You two have fun,” Jack told them as
he led Cathy away and herded her toward their car.
As soon as Jack and Cathy were out of
earshot, Maleah jerked away from Derek. “It’s late. I’m tired. I
have to get up early and drive back to Knoxville in the
morning.”
“Excuses, excuses.” His grin widened.
“What are you afraid of, Maleah?”
He’s goading you. Don’t
let him get to you.
“I’m certainly not afraid of you, if
that’s what you’re implying. You should know by now that I’m immune
to your charm.”
He held out his hand. “I don’t doubt
that you are. So . . . ?”
From the first moment they met several
years ago, Derek had seen Maleah Perdue as a challenge. She had
disliked him on sight, a reaction he was unaccustomed to getting
from women. In the beginning, he had tried to charm her, and when
that hadn’t worked, he had ignored her. They had managed to steer
clear of each other for the most part, more or less ships passing
in the night, although they were both employed by the Powell
Private Security and Investigation Agency. Maleah was a Powell
agent. He was a consultant. His background as a former FBI profiler
had proved to be a valuable asset to the agency. Three months ago
when they had been assigned to work together on the Midnight Killer
case, they had entered into the partnership reluctantly. Oddly
enough, they had made a great team.
When she slid her small, soft hand into
his large hand, he felt as if he had won a prize. The lady was not
an easy conquest and because of that fact, he found her all the
more appealing. Common sense cautioned him to keep their
relationship strictly professional and not dip a toe into personal
waters. But Derek had never been able to walk away from a
challenge—or from a beautiful woman.
As he led her into the country club and
straight into the ballroom where dozens of wedding guests remained,
he subtly scanned her, out of the corner of his eye, from blond
head to pale pink toes. Maleah had the type of wholesome blond
beauty that once would have won her the title of All-American Girl.
Five-four. Trim, nicely rounded figure. Peaches and cream
complexion that tanned to a golden hue. Sun-streaked,
shoulderlength blond hair. And topaz brown eyes that changed color
depending on the color she wore and on her mood, alternating from a
smoky yellowish hazel to a fine, golden bourbon.
When he put his arm around her waist
and pulled her toward him, he felt her stiffen. “It’s just a
dance,” he reminded her. “You’re not committing yourself to spend
the night with me.”
“God forbid.” Her gaze lifted and
clashed with his.
He drew her closer, allowing their
bodies to touch intimately. “Relax, honey. You’re stiff as a
poker.”
“Don’t hold me so tight.” She wiggled
her shoulders. “And do not call me honey.”
He loosened his hold, giving her a
little breathing room. “Better, Blondie?”
“Yes, thank you.” She frowned.
“Blondie?”
He grinned. “It suits
you.”
She huffed. “I suppose it’s better than
honey. Not quite as generic. But you could just call me Maleah, you
know.”
“I could.” His grin widened. “Would it
help to know that I’ve never called another woman
Blondie?”
“You’re determined to aggravate the
crap out of me, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “It’s what I live for . . .
Blondie.”
As they danced to the smooth, romantic
jazz tune, Derek tried to think of some innocent subject, something
that wouldn’t lead them into another verbal
confrontation.
“Lorie was a beautiful bride,” he
finally said.
“Yes, she was.”
Silence.
“It’s great about Cathy being
pregnant,” he said. “Jack’s over the moon about it.”
“Yes, he is. He’s really excited about
being with her through the entire nine months since he missed out
on doing that the first time around.”
“Some men are cut out to be fathers.
Jack’s one of them. So is Mike.”
Maleah nodded. “Cathy’s a great mom.
And I think Lorie will be, too. She’s great with Mike’s two
kids.”
“Do you ever think about having
children?”
She paused mid-step. “I wouldn’t bring
a child into this world without having a husband first and since I
don’t intend to ever marry—”
“You’re really an old fashioned girl,
aren’t you?”
“Only about some things.”
“I agree, you know, about not ever
getting married and having kids.”
“Why am I not surprised? Why settle
down with one woman when you can have your choice of women to
sample, a different flavor every week?”
“Why indeed.” Yeah, he could pretty
much have his pick, had seldom been turned down, and had
successfully avoided committed relationships. He had never allowed
himself to care enough about any woman who could tempt him to
willingly give up his freedom. He had learned, at his mother’s
knee, how a woman could use love to manipulate a man, turn him
inside out and eventually destroy him.
Just as one tune ended and another
began, Maleah pulled away, but Derek grabbed her hand and refused
to relinquish his hold.
“One more dance,” he said.
While she debated his request, his cell
phone vibrated in the inside pocket of his tuxedo jacket.
Reluctantly, he released her hand, reached inside his jacket, and
removed his phone. Derek noted the caller ID. Griffin Powell, his
employer.
“Yeah, Griff, what’s up?” Derek’s gaze
connected with Maleah’s, both of them aware that it was highly
unlikely that Griff would be calling if it wasn’t important
business.
Maleah waited until he had answered the
call and then walked with him off the dance floor.
“He’s struck again,” Griff told Derek.
“I don’t have all the details, but we’re relatively sure it’s the
same person who killed Kristi and Shelley and Holt’s
brother.”
Absolute dread tightly coiled Derek’s
stomach muscles as he asked, “Who’s the victim?” Was it another
Powell employee, as the first two kills had been, or was it a
Powell employee family member, as the third murder victim had
been?
“Ben Corbett’s seventy-year-old
father,” Griff said. “Ben’s the one who called me. A couple of
fishermen found the body this morning, but there was no ID on the
guy. Apparently he didn’t have his wallet on him. They ran his
fingerprints and didn’t get a hit.”
“How did they finally ID
him?”
“It seems Mr. Corbett has a breakfast
date with a lady friend every Saturday morning and when he didn’t
show up, she went to his home. When she couldn’t find him, she
started searching for him. One thing led to another and she finally
went to the police earlier this evening.”
“Ben’s on assignment, isn’t
he?”
“He was in California. He chartered a
plane and is flying into Birmingham and renting a car. His dad
lived outside Cullman, which is about an hour drive from Dunmore. I
want you and Maleah to head down that way as soon as possible. You
two can get there before Ben can. When he arrives, he doesn’t need
to handle this alone.”
“We’re leaving now,” Derek said. “I’ll
pick up my laptop at the hotel. You can send me any other info that
we’ll need.”
As soon as Derek slipped the phone back
into his jacket pocket, he faced Maleah. “The boss wants us to
drive to Cullman tonight. Ben Corbett’s father has been
murdered.”
“Damn. Griff thinks that it’s the same
person who murdered Kristi and Shelley and Holt’s brother, doesn’t
he?”
“Yeah, he does.”
“Why didn’t you tell Derek everything
that we know and about what we’ve decided?” Nicole Powell asked her
husband moments after he ended his conversation.
“We’ll explain it to him and Maleah
together,” Griff said. “I’ll have Barbara Jean compile all the
information the agency has accumulated. Maleah and Derek can read
over everything and digest it all before I tell them that I expect
them to take over as lead investigators on the case.”
“We might be closer to solving this
mystery, if it hadn’t taken us more than two months to connect the
dots.”
Griff draped his arm around Nic’s
shoulders as they stood on the patio overlooking Douglas Lake.
“When Kristi was murdered, there was no way we could have known
that her killer would target another agent. Until he killed Kristi
and then Shelley, their murders identical in almost every way, we
couldn’t have known he had a specific MO. And even after Holt’s
brother was murdered and Barbara Jean discovered there had been
three killers in the past with a similar MO—the Savannah Slasher,
the Carver, and the Triangle Man—it took time to study each killer
and figure out if our guy was copying one of them.”
“After what we just found out, do you
think Maleah is the key to everything that’s happening?” Nic
asked.
Griff squeezed her shoulders.
“Possibly. But we can’t rule out any of our other scenarios,
especially since we don’t know why anyone would be out to punish
Maleah by killing people connected to the agency.”
“Unlike you and me. We both have
enemies from the past who could be targeting us.”
He nodded. “Yeah, unlike you and me.
The logical assumption is that whoever is behind these murders is
doing it either to punish me or to get my attention.”
“But it’s possible that the rumors
floating around Europe about Malcolm York being alive have nothing
whatsoever to do with these murders. You can’t assume you’re the
target simply because someone, thousands of miles away, may be
pretending to be the man who kidnapped you twenty years ago. It
could just as easily be someone from my past, someone connected to
one of my cases when I worked for the Bureau.”
“You’re right, of course, “ Griff
agreed. “That’s why we cannot rule out any
possibility.”
“You don’t think there’s even the
slightest chance that the real Malcolm York is alive, do
you?”
Griff’s square jaw tightened. “York is
dead. I have no doubts. Yvette, Sanders, and I killed him sixteen
years ago. Unless he’s found a way to rise from the dead, whoever
the hell is calling himself Malcolm York is an
imposter.”
“This man is in Europe somewhere, not
here in the U.S. To date, all the murders related to the Powell
Agency have occurred here in America. We have no evidence to
indicate a connection between him and these murders.”
“Yes, I know. And the only apparent
connection between the agency and the murders is
Maleah.”
“She is going to freak out when we tell
her that our research shows the three previous murders almost
identically mimic the murders committed by the Carver and that one
of his first victims was Noah Laborde.”
“It’s no coincidence that the original
Carver murdered Maleah’s college boyfriend. What it means, we can’t
be sure, not at this point. But sooner or later—”
“Maleah has become my best friend.” Nic
rested her head on Griff’s shoulder. “What better way to get to me
than by using my dearest friend?”
“And what better way to send me a
warning than to use my wife and her best friend to send that
message?”
“Maleah will want to follow through and
see this out to the end. You know she will. She’ll feel that it’s
personal because the original Carver killed Noah
Laborde.”
“Yes, I know, she will. I also know
that we need Derek’s expertise. We need a professional profile of
our killer. And Derek has a keen sixth sense about these things. I
can’t give him and Maleah the choice of not working together,
despite their personal animosity,” Griff said. “I’m putting the
entire staff—office employees and agents in the field—on high
alert. This case takes precedence over every other case. Until we
find and stop this killer, no one connected to the Powell Agency is
safe.”
Nic turned into Griff’s arms. He
cocooned her within his embrace.
She might have doubts about why this
was happening and about who was responsible, but Griff didn’t. Not
really. She knew her husband. No matter what she said to him or how
many scenarios she presented to him, he laid the blame squarely on
his own shoulders. He truly believed that innocent people were now
paying for his past sins.