Chapter 7
Maleah had needed time away from Derek.
Time to clear her head. Time to think. Common sense told her that
Derek was not her enemy, that she didn’t need to do battle with him
again and again just to prove a point.
And that point would
be?
He could not control her. She would
never allow anyone to have that kind of power over her, not ever
again. Just when she thought she had finally come to terms with the
terrors of her childhood and teen years, something or someone
forced her to face those old demons.
Admit it, you’re
tempted to lean on Derek.
The thought of being even partially
dependent on someone else for any reason terrified Maleah. And that
irrational fear demanded she never relinquish the control she
vigorously maintained over her life.
She had tried talking to her brother
Jackson about their childhoods, about their stepfather, about the
years they had lived under his tyrannical rule. But revisiting the
past had proved painful for both of them.
“There’s not a damn thing we can do to
change what happened,” Jackson had told her. “There’s no need to
dredge up the past. It’s better left there, dead and buried with
Nolan.”
Her brother was right, of course. But
sometimes she felt as if Nolan Reeves was reaching out from beyond
the grave to influence her decisions. Deep inside her, the little
girl who had lived in terror of her stepfather still existed. The
little girl who had not known that her older brother had made a
bargain with the devil in order to protect her. Nolan had punished
Jack for every perceived misdeed by taking him to the old carriage
shed and whipping him unmercifully. He had whipped the blood out of
Maleah’s legs and bottom only once. After that, although she lived
in constant fear, he had never touched her again. What she hadn’t
realized at the time was that Jack had taken all her beatings for
her.
She owed Jack more than she could ever
repay. He had protected her as best he could and she would always
be grateful. Jack’s bargain with Nolan had saved her from more
physical abuse, but not from Nolan’s iron-fisted control over her
life or his incessant verbal abuse.
Maleah had undergone therapy, paid for
by Jack, when she’d been in college. The months of in-depth
counseling had helped her immensely, enabling her to live a
reasonably normal life. Whatever normal is.
But nothing short of a lobotomy could erase the memories that still
plagued her, often on a subconscious level.
“Damn you, Nolan Reeves. Damn your
mean, blackhearted soul to hell.”
Maleah’s hands trembled. Her stomach
lurched as emotions from her long-ago childhood
resurfaced.
Don’t do this to
yourself.
Don’t let your fears
and uncertainties weaken you.
You have only one
battle to fight, one enemy, one combatant that you have to outsmart
and outmaneuver—Jerome Browning, not Derek
Lawrence.
Checking her wristwatch, Maleah noted
it was nearly eight o’clock. She had turned down Derek’s invitation
to join him for dinner that evening, but she couldn’t avoid seeing
him again tonight. They had made a deal—he would coach her on how
to handle Browning and he wouldn’t insist on accompanying her to
the visitor’s area at the prison.
She needed to freshen up and get her
head on straight before Derek showed up at her door. He tended to
be punctual, which meant she had less than ten minutes to throw
cold water in her face, smear on a little lipstick and add some
blush to her pale cheeks before he arrived.
Jerome usually spent the hours after
dinner working on his handbook, a sort of How to
Get Away with Murder manual. The idea had come to him nearly
a year ago after he’d had a dream about the night he had been
captured. In retrospect, he could see quite clearly the mistakes he
had made. If he had it to do over again . . .
But there would be no second chances to
get it right, only the opportunity to train others. He had no doubt
that once he completed his work on the informative handbook,
publishers would beat a path to his door. His book could make him
even more famous than he already was. And how opportune that Maleah
Perdue had come into his life today, just when he had begun
plotting the chapter on manipulation.
The chapter heading would be: How to
Use Others to Get What You Want.
And just what did he want from
Maleah?
Jerome smiled.
Maleah was a delectable little morsel.
She looked like nothing more than a sweet piece of blonde fluff.
But looks could be deceiving. He knew that fact better than anyone.
Hadn’t he used his handsome face to his advantage all of his life?
How many people had trusted him without question because of the way
he looked? Poor fools. They never suspected that behind the
pleasing façade, the mind of a genius existed, a mind capable of
executing brilliantly complicated plans.
After being apprehended and charged
with nine murders, hadn’t he used his superior intelligence to
avoid the death penalty? He had been in possession of a valuable
commodity, one that both law enforcement and the families of six
missing girls had been willing to bargain for on his terms. The
whereabouts of those six teenage girls had been his ace in the
hole. Not quite a get-out-of-jail-free card, but the next best
thing.
He had been barely sixteen when he had
killed Mary Jane Ivy, a meek little mouse of a girl who had lived
down the street from him. He had never killed a person before that,
although he had fantasized about it for years. During the next four
years, he had killed five other girls. And he had gotten away with
all six murders. No one suspected the good-looking high school
jock, the boy voted most likely to succeed by his senior class. Not
being found out had been almost as exhilarating as the kills
themselves. Almost.
He had been locked up in this
godforsaken hellhole for nine years now, with only occasional
opportunities to participate in conversations that he found
intellectually stimulating. A rare visitor from time to time. An
intelligent, young minister certain he could save Jerome’s soul.
His former lawyer, who hadn’t been in touch since his final appeal
had been denied.
But tomorrow, Maleah would return for a
second visit, this time without her watchdog. He did not like the
man with the dark eyes who had studied him as if he were a specimen
under a microscope.
If he played this just right, he should
be able to gain hours of pleasure from holding out a carrot stick
in front of Maleah, letting her see it, smell it, lick it, even
nibble a tiny bite.
Jerome laid his journal aside, fell
back onto his cot and rested his hands behind his head. Closing his
eyes, he visualized the way she would look tomorrow morning, all
blond and golden and sweet. So very sweet.
“Ah, Maleah . . . Maleah . . .” He
whispered her name. “Sweet Maleah.”
The moment he tapped for the second
time, Maleah swung open the door and much to his surprise actually
smiled at him.
“Come on in.” She waved her arm through
the air, inviting him to enter.
He held out the plastic bag he had
brought with him. She eyed the offering.
“Thin sliced turkey on wheat,” he said.
“Lettuce, tomato, and mustard only. No mayo. No onion.” When she
accepted his gift, he added, “A small bag of baked chips and an
unsweetened tea, with several packets of Splenda.”
He watched the play of emotions on her
face and knew a part of her hated the fact that he remembered her
likes and dislikes, that he knew she never used mayonnaise and ate
only cooked onions. And she always preferred tea over cola, if tea
was available.
She grabbed the sack. “Thanks. I
appreciate your thinking of me, but I’m really not—”
“You’ve been skipping too many meals,”
he reminded her. “You need to eat.”
He closed and locked the door behind
him, then waited for her to blast him for daring to tell her what
she should do.
But she surprised him again by taking
the bag over to the desk, emptying the contents and saying, “You’re
right. I need to eat. And actually, I am hungry.”
He eyed her suspiciously. It was on the
tip of his tongue to ask her who she was and what she had done with
the real Maleah Perdue.
“Sit,” he told her. “Eat.”
She pulled out a chair and sat; then
she removed the paper wrapping from her sandwich and took a
bite.
“I’ll put on a pot of decaf coffee,”
Derek said. “Coffee will be good with our dessert.”
She looked at the two small Styrofoam
containers she had removed from the sack. “I usually don’t eat
dessert.”
“It’s Italian Cream cake.”
Maleah moaned. “My favorite.” She set
aside the cake containers, tore the paper from the straw and
inserted the straw through the hole in the lid of the iced tea
cup.
Derek had observed Maleah on a daily
basis while they had worked as partners on the Midnight Killer case
and knew she struggled to maintain control over every aspect of her
life. Being short and curvy, maintaining an ideal weight was a
challenge for her. Under ordinary circumstances, he would never
tempt her with a fattening dessert, but in an odd sort of way,
tonight’s meal paralleled the last meal served a person before they
were executed the next day. In the morning, she would be walking
into an arena to do battle against an opponent who would go for the
jugular. He would do it subtly, hoping to take her
unaware.
Derek rinsed out the coffeepot, poured
in fresh bottled water, filled the reserve tank, and added the
decaf provided by housekeeping. Once he set the machine to brew, he
glanced at Maleah, who had a mouthful of the turkey sandwich in her
mouth. He grinned.
“I spoke to Sanders this afternoon,”
Derek told her. “He wanted us to know that, by sometime tomorrow,
they should have the names of everyone who has visited Browning and
the dates of the visits.”
Maleah swallowed, wiped her mouth on a
paper napkin and said, “It’s possible that our copycat killer and
Browning exchanged letters and that Browning may have called him,
but both the letters and the phone calls were probably monitored
since he’s a high-risk prisoner. Browning would have had to be very
careful about what he said over the phone.”
“Yes, he would have,” Derek agreed. “My
guess would be that if there has been any contact between the
copycat and Browning, it started with a visit.”
“I understand that my meeting with
Browning in the hopes of bargaining with him for information is my
top priority, but I don’t want to be excluded from the
investigation. I want to be part of every aspect of—”
“No one is going to exclude
you.”
“But if I’m at the prison every
day—”
“Who said you’d be visiting Browning
every day?”
“I just assumed—”
“You assumed wrong.” Derek strode
across the room, his gaze linked with hers as he approached.
“You’ll see him tomorrow, but after that, we will take it slow and
easy. We want him playing this game by our rules, not the other way
around.”
“I understand.” She nibbled on the
sandwich.
Derek reached over, grasped the back of
a chair by the windows and dragged it over to the table. After he
sat, he picked up the bag of chips, opened it and offered it to
her. She shook her head. He pulled out several chips and popped
them into his mouth.
“When the time comes, I want to be the
one who questions each of Browning’s recent visitors,” Maleah
said.
“If we can locate them, and that’s a
big if, we will question them together, as partners. If the copycat
visited Browning, I don’t think he would have used his real name or
given his current address, do you?”
“No, of course not, but the Powell
Agency has a high success rate of tracking down people who do not
want to be found.”
“We’re overlooking one other
possibility—our copycat may not have visited Browning. He may not
have ever been in contact with him.”
“Then how could he possibly know so
many details about Browning’s murders, details that were never
released to the press?”
“He could be in law
enforcement.”
Maleah frowned.
“Or he could have hired a PI or be a PI
himself and found a way to dig up the info.”
She shook her head. “I think Browning
knows something.”
“Browning wants you to believe he knows
something.”
After finishing off one half of her
sandwich, she washed it down with the tea and dumped the rest in
the wastebasket by the desk. She wiped her hands off on the napkin
and tossed it, too.
“You’re practically psychic when it
comes to reading people.” Maleah might not be Derek’s biggest fan,
but she respected his ability as a profiler and more recently as a
detective. “Paint me a picture. In your opinion, does Browning have
any personal connection to the copycat?”
“I’m intuitive, yes. Psychic, no. I
leave all that paranormal stuff to Dr. Meng and her
protégés.”
“I’m surprised Griff didn’t enlist
Yvette or one of her protégés to interview Browning.” Maleah eyed
the cake container.
“I doubt Browning would have agreed to
see anyone other than you. Griff knew the right person to send.
Neither Griff nor I think it was a coincidence that the copycat
chose to mimic the killer who murdered your former boyfriend. It’s
as if he chose you for a specific reason.”
“Yeah, but the only problem is that we
have no idea what that reason is.”
“We can make some educated
guesses.”
“Such as?” she asked.
“Such as you’re the copycat’s ultimate
target.” When her face paled, Derek quickly added, “Or you were
chosen because you’re Nicole Powell’s best friend. Or because the
copycat is using your connection to Browning as a red herring to
send us off on a wild goose chase.”
“What’s your intuition telling
you?”
“The copycat and Browning have, at the
very least, met and talked. I don’t know if Browning is pulling the
strings and the copycat is a disciple or if the copycat used
Browning’s knowledge for his own purposes.”
“Neither Griff nor Nic were involved in
Browning’s capture and arrest, nor was I. Why would he be targeting
the Powell Agency?”
“Excellent question. Griff has a
theory, as does Nic. And I have several scenarios in mind, too, but
we have absolutely nothing conclusive at this point.”
“We need information from that son of
bitch and he knows it.” Maleah grabbed the cake container, flipped
open the lid and eyed the cake hungrily. “He’s going to want to
bargain with me, to see what he can get out of me in exchange for
what he knows.”
Derek slid the other cake container
over in front of him, then removed the cellophane wrap from two
plastic forks and handed one fork to Maleah. She eyed the fork as
if it were a snake and then grunted and snatched the fork out of
his hand. He sliced his fork through the moist cake, balanced a
bite on the fork and lifted it into the air, saluting her with the
delicious morsel. She watched while he put the bite into his
mouth.
“Just one piece of cake won’t hurt
you,” he told her. “Think of the pleasure it’ll give you. There’s
nothing quite like a sugar high to perk a girl up when she’s
down.”
“I don’t need a crutch of any kind. Not
alcohol or drugs or gambling or shopping . . . or
sugar!”
Without a moment’s hesitation, she
jabbed the fork into the cake and then shoved her piece of cake,
container and all, across the table and into the
wastebasket.
Stunned for half a second, Derek stared
at her, then burst out laughing. My God, she had no idea that her
biggest weakness, the crutch she relied on every day of her life,
was being a major control freak.
When they returned from a moonlight
stroll on the beach, they found a gift basket waiting for them
outside their suite. Errol lifted the basket while Cyrene opened
the attached card.
“It just says Happy Honeymoon.” Eyeing
the bottle of wine, the box of gourmet Swiss chocolates, the
luscious in-season fruit and a sampling of imported cheeses, Cyrene
moaned with anticipation. “I can’t think of anything better than a
glass of wine before bedtime.”
Hoisting the gift basket so that he
could hold it with one hand, Errol reached out and unlocked the
door to their suite. As his bride slipped past him, he whispered,
“I can think of something better than wine.”
Understanding the implication of his
comment, she giggled and began undressing the moment he closed the
door behind them and dumped the basket on the table in the
entryway. Taking his cue from Cyrene, he unbuttoned his shirt and
tossed it on the floor. By the time he loosened his belt, she had
already stripped down to her panties.
He couldn’t get out of his slacks and
briefs quickly enough, but for a full sixty seconds, he stood and
watched—totally spellbound—as his wife slowly, provocatively slid
her bikini panties down, down, down, and off. His heart beat
wildly. His penis hardened.
When he reached for Cyrene, she evaded
his grasp. Instead, she raced over to the bed, the covers already
turned down by maid service, and placed herself in the center. She
arched her back, the action thrusting her breasts up and inviting
him to touch and taste and enjoy. Errol kicked his briefs aside and
moved toward the bed, never taking his eyes off the long, slender
naked body of the woman he loved.
He straddled her hips and positioned
himself over her. She lifted her arms up and around his neck,
pulling him down until it was flesh against flesh. His penis probed
for entry. She opened her thighs, lifted her hips and took him
inside her body.
“Oh God, baby, you feel so good,” he
told her, his voice a husky moan.
“I love having you inside me,” she said
and then kissed him.
They made love for the fourth time that
day and yet were as hungry for each other as they had been that
morning. Errol wondered if he would ever get enough of Cyrene.
Probably not. Even when they were old and gray, he would still want
her, still love her, still be grateful that she had agreed to be
his wife.
An hour later, shortly after midnight,
they emerged from the bathroom where they had showered together.
Errol belted his white robe and walked over to the entryway table
while Cyrene slipped into a red lace teddy and sat on the edge of
the bed to towel dry her curly hair.
He picked up the gift basket. “Want
some wine now, Mrs. Patterson?”
“Wine would be lovely, Mr. Patterson.”
She glanced at the bedside clock. “We can toast to another glorious
day of married life. It’s after midnight, so if it’s already
tomorrow that means I’ve been Mrs. Errol Patterson for eleven
days.”
Errol removed the huge red bow and the
clear cellophane wrapping from the gift basket, lifted the wine
bottle and inspected it. “Hey, this is some of the good stuff.
There’s no twist-off cap.” He chuckled.
“Only the best for us,” she
teased.
“I’ve got the best.” He winked at
her.
“Want me to get the
glasses?”
“No need,” he told her as he
transferred the bottle to his left hand and retrieved the two
long-stemmed wine glasses from the basket. “Want some chocolate or
cheese or—?”
“I want it all,” she admitted, “but
I’ll be a good girl and limit myself to one glass of
wine.”
He brought the bottle and glasses over
to the bed. She took the glasses from him and held them while he
rummaged in the nightstand drawer for the corkscrew that he had
left there after opening the bottle of champagne the hotel had
included in their “Welcome” package the day they arrived. After
uncorking the wine, he poured each glass half full before placing
the bottle on the nightstand.
He took one of the glasses from Cyrene.
“Here’s to our being this deliriously happy for the rest of our
lives.”
She clicked her glass to his, said,
“Amen to that,” and lifted the glass to her lips.
After he dimmed the lights, leaving the
room bathed in moonlight, they sat in bed together, talking,
laughing, sipping the wine, and making plans for their return to
Tennessee. He knew that Cyrene was eager to decorate their new
house in Farragut, a small town not far from Powell Agency
headquarters in Knoxville. They discussed how lucky she was that
there had been a teaching position open at a local elementary
school. With school starting in early August, she would have about
five weeks to put their new house in order.
Errol yawned. “Man, I’m getting sleepy.
Must be the mixture of great sex and good wine.” He removed the
white terrycloth robe and flung it to the foot of the
bed.
Cyrene sighed and nodded. “Must be. I
can barely keep my eyes open.”
Errol switched off the bedside lamp and
then leaned over, kissed her, ran his hand from her shoulder to her
hip and stilled instantly. The last thing Cyrene remembered was the
sound of her husband snoring.
He had waited patiently. The lights in
the luxury villa suite had dimmed over an hour ago, but he hadn’t
rushed in immediately. The odds were that Mr. and Mrs. Patterson
had been sound asleep for most if not all of that hour, while he
had been waiting and watching. But it was better to be
certain.
Errol Patterson never left his wife’s
side. The two had been inseparable since they arrived in the
Bahamas. He really didn’t want to kill them both. Doing so would
have meant deviating from the plan. The Carver had never murdered a
couple.
His solution to that problem had been
to send them a gift basket that included a bottle of expensive
“doctored” wine.
He approached the French doors that
opened onto the villa’s private patio and pool. He stopped,
listened, and peered through the doors into the darkened bedroom.
Moonlight cast a glimmering path across the floor to the bed. After
removing the small, carbide steel-bladed glass cutter from his
inside pocket, he worked several minutes to make a precise round
incision near the door handle. Once that was done, he pushed gently
on the circle until it fell inward and hit the tile floor with a
tinkling crash. He returned the cutter to his pocket. Without
hesitation, he reached through the opening and unlocked the door
from the inside.
He eased open the door, slipped into
the room and managed to avoid stepping on the broken glass. Pausing
to allow his eyesight to adjust to the darkness, he heard a mixture
of sounds. Snoring. Deep breathing. The ocean waves hitting the
nearby beach. The hum of distant music, no doubt coming from the
resort’s patio lounge that stayed open until 2:00 AM.
He walked over to the bed. Two bodies.
One male. One female. Both deep in sleep. Sufficiently
drugged.
He smiled.
The sheet rested at the woman’s waist.
Her breasts strained against the sheer lace material of her teddy.
He was tempted to touch her, but he didn’t.
The kill would take only seconds, the
death less than two minutes. But moving the body would require more
time.
He reached inside his jacket pocket and
removed the new scalpel, the fifth in a package of ten. Drawing
closer to the edge of the bed, he studied the man’s head and neck
before choosing the exact spot—the jugular vein. With one quick,
precise move, he jabbed the scalpel blade through the flesh and
into the vein beneath. Blood gushed. He slid the blade down and
across, slicing through the carotid arteries on both sides. He
watched the life drain out of Errol Patterson’s body.
I’m sorry to make you a
widow while you’re still on your honeymoon, lovely Cyrene. And I’m
sorry that you’ll awaken to a bloody bed and a dead
husband.
Errol Patterson was a rather large man,
probably six feet tall and weighing in at around one-ninety. But he
could handle Patterson. He had maneuvered larger
bodies.
He flipped back the bloody sheet, took
hold of Patterson’s ankles and dragged him off the bed and onto the
floor. As his body hit the hard tile, it made a loud thud. He
glanced up at the sleeping woman. She hadn’t moved.
Good.
He pulled Patterson’s blood-splattered,
lifeless body from the bedroom and into the bathroom. Then he
turned on the tub faucets.
I never left them where
I killed them. I moved the body, usually near a river or lake or
stream. I even dragged a woman from her bedroom outside to her
pool. There is something peaceful about water, don’t you
think?
Near the bathtub overrunning with water
would have to do. He saw no point in dragging the body outside to
the pool and certainly not all the way to the beach. No need to
risk being seen.