Chapter 10
The Assistant Superintendent, the Chief
Inspector, and Inspector Yates Thompson, who was in charge of the
Patterson murder case, met with Derek, Maleah, and Brendan Richter.
Derek seriously doubted that even the inspector would have agreed
to this meeting if not for Griffin Powell’s considerable influence.
How Griff went about getting what he wanted, Derek never asked, but
he had a pretty good idea that his boss used whatever means
necessary to achieve his desired goal.
After personally assuring them that
everything humanly possible would be done to find the person who
had killed Errol, the Assistant Superintendent shook their hands
again, as did the Chief Inspector. Pretty much as he had thought,
these two men had been commanded to put in an appearance, an order
no doubt issued by the Commissioner of Police himself. But it was
unlikely that they were expected to do more than that—show up, talk
the talk, make assurances and appease the Powell
agents.
“Inspector Thompson will answer any
questions you have,” the Chief Inspector said. “He will cooperate
with you in any way possible and will keep you updated on the
investigation.”
Once his superiors departed, the tall,
rawboned, ebony-skinned Thompson invited them to sit, which they
did. But he remained standing.
“My orders are to cooperate with you,”
Thompson said. “And naturally, I will follow the Chief Inspector’s
orders, although I am unaccustomed to civilians involving
themselves in police business.”
“We understand,” Richter said. “But
Errol Patterson’s murder is no ordinary murder case.”
“So I have been told.” Thompson glanced
from Richter to Derek and then his gaze settled on Maleah. “You
were Mr. Patterson’s friends, yes?”
“Errol Patterson worked as an agent for
the Powell Security and Investigation Agency, just as we do,”
Maleah replied.
Thompson nodded. “I understand other
Powell agents have also been murdered in the past few
months.”
“Before Mr. Patterson was killed, yes,
there were four others connected to our agency. We suspect all four
deaths were the work of a serial killer,” Derek said.
“One victim was an agent, one a
secretary, one the brother of an agent, and the fourth the father
of an agent,” Richter told the inspector.
Thompson nodded again. “And these four
people were murdered in a similar manner and you suspect the same
killer in all three?”
“That’s right,” Richter replied, a note
of aggravation in his voice.
Thompson tapped a file folder lying on
his desk. “Mr. Patterson died almost instantly. His jugular was
punctured, his trachea severed and his carotid arteries slashed.”
He paused, as if waiting for one of them to say something. When
they didn’t, he continued. “His wife found his body in the bathroom
next to the tub which was filled to overflowing.”
Derek and Maleah looked at each other,
but said nothing.
“Were the others killed in a similar
fashion?” Thompson asked.
“They were,” Richter said. “Was there
anything else, anything unusual about the body?”
Thompson’s lips curved downward in a
contemplative frown. “I assume you are referring to the triangular
pieces of flesh cut from the victim’s upper arms and
thighs.”
Yes, that was exactly what Richter had
been referring to, that final piece of information that irrefutably
linked Patterson’s murder to the other four.
“Yes,” Derek and Richter answered
simultaneously.
“An autopsy will be performed,” the
inspector said. “And a toxicology screening has been ordered. Mr.
Patterson was a large man in his prime, a security agent trained to
protect himself and others, so how was it possible for someone to
overpower him? And why did his wife sleep soundly while her husband
was being murdered?”
“They were both drugged.” Richter
stated the obvious.
“We suspect so, yes.”
Derek’s opinion of Inspector Thompson
as an investigator rose by several degrees.
“In the other four murders, the killer
left behind no evidence that could help identify him or enable the
police to track him,” Derek said. “Is that true in this
case?”
Thompson grunted. “Unfortunately, yes.”
He looked directly at Derek. “That is the sign of a true
professional, is it not, Mr. Lawrence.”
Thompson had done his homework, no
doubt running a check on the three of them, which meant he knew
that Derek was a former FBI profiler.
“Professional in the sense that he was
no amateur,” Derek said. “He is a skilled killer, which tells us
that he’s killed before, perhaps numerous times.”
The thought that the copycat could be a
gun-for-hire had crossed his mind, but that possibility was only
one of several scenarios that he had considered. Until he had more
evidence to back up any one theory, he had no intention of
suggesting to Griff that the man they were hunting could be a
professional assassin.
As if understanding Derek’s assessment
of the situation, Thompson simply nodded before inquiring, “Is
there anything else you would like to know?”
“I think Ms. Perdue and I have what we
need,” Derek said.
“And you, Mr. Richter?”
“I would like to speak to the first
responders on the scene,” Richter said. “As well as any witnesses
your people interviewed. I’ll need copies of all the reports,
photographs, and preliminary findings.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Perdue will be
leaving Nassau tomorrow, but I will be staying on for several
weeks, as the Powell Agency representative.”
Inspector Thompson barely managed to
hide his negative reaction. He quickly turned his frown into a
forced smile as he shook hands with each of them.
“I wish you both a safe flight
tomorrow.” And then his dark gaze settled on Richter, each man
sizing up the other. “I have the greatest respect for you, as a
former ICPO agent, Mr. Richter. I suspect I may be able to learn a
great deal from you.”
Yes, Inspector Thompson had done his
homework. Derek didn’t doubt that the man probably knew what he,
Richter, and Maleah had each eaten for breakfast that
morning.
Nic knew her husband well enough to
understand that he was not concerned about his own life, but was
greatly concerned about her welfare as well as the lives of
everyone associated with the Powell Agency. He was a man who took
his responsibilities seriously. His primitive protective instincts
made him a dangerous opponent when those he cared about were in
danger, but those same instincts were his personal Achilles’ heel,
his only weakness. Griffin Powell’s ability to love equaled if not
surpassed the passion with which he hated. She admired his ability
to stay calm under pressure, a trait she tried to emulate. But
beneath that cool, controlled exterior, a violent rage smoldered
just below the surface.
And it was that rage inside Griff that
worried her.
They had calmly discussed the
untraceable phone call he had received at the Nassau resort. She
had struggled to match his restrained composure when faced with a
threat against both of them.
If I don’t decide to
kill her first, your wife will make a lovely
widow.
“He’s taunting me,” Griff had said. “He
wants me to know that all roads lead to Rome, that every murder is
leading him closer to me.”
“Maybe he just wants you to think that.
Maybe he’s trying to steer us in the wrong direction.”
“Maybe, but unlikely.”
Nic still wasn’t totally convinced that
Griff was the ultimate target, that the copycat killings were
connected to his past, to a dead man named York. Admittedly, that
possibility frightened her far more than any other. Was that why
she clung so doggedly to other theories?
At his request, she joined Griff in the
agency’s home office, an area inside their house that had been
designed to allow Griff to oversee his vast empire without ever
leaving Griffin’s Rest. The Powell Building, located in downtown
Knoxville, housed the inner workings of the agency, as well as the
staff for the numerous Powell philanthropic endeavors. Each year,
the Powell Empire required more and more employees, which meant
that at the present time, approximately two hundred people and
their families were at risk. Of course, those directly employed by
the Powell Agency comprised only the tip of the iceberg.
Indirectly, Griffin Powell employed countless
thousands.
When she entered the state-of-the-art
office suite, Nic paused in the doorway, allowing her gaze to
travel around the room and pause on each occupant. Her initial
thought—“round up the usual suspects”—would have made her smile if
not for the seriousness of the situation.
Dr. Yvette Meng, the epitome of exotic
elegance, stood away from the others, alone and infallibly serene.
If her goal had been to be as inconspicuous as possible, she had
failed. There was no way the dark-eyed beauty, whose very presence
in any room commanded attention, could be overlooked.
Sanders stood behind Griff, who sat at
the head of the conference table. She respected her husband’s guard
dog, which was the way she thought of the quiet, reserved man with
the perpetual hint of sadness in his dark eyes.
Barbara Jean, her friend and confidant,
glanced up from where she sat in her wheelchair at the far end of
the table. She offered Nic an encouraging smile. One of the many
things Nic loved about Barbara Jean was her optimistic outlook on
life, which considering the tragedies she had endured was in and of
itself a miracle.
Powell agents filled five of the ten
chairs at the table, leaving the end chair—her chair—unoccupied. As
she entered the office, she quickly noted which agents had been
called in for duty at Griffin’s Rest. Shaughnessy Hood, who had
been with the agency since its infancy, a bear of a man at six-six
and three hundred pounds; Luke Sentell, a former Black Ops
commando, the most mysterious and most deadly member of the team;
Saxon Chappelle, a Harvard graduate, who like Derek Lawrence
possessed a borderline genius IQ. And then there were the two
female agents: Feisty, petite Angie Sterling Moss, five months
pregnant and presently on restricted duty. And Michelle Allen, an
expert in martial arts, recruited after the death of her fiancé
with whom she had owned a franchise of martial art studios
throughout the state of Tennessee.
As Nic approached the conference table,
Griff looked at her. The moment she took her seat, Griff broke eye
contact with her and surveyed the others in the room.
“Starting today, from now until the
Copycat Carver is apprehended, security at Griffin’s Rest will be
tripled and access both in and out of the estate will be limited.
Those living here should be safer than any of the Powell employees
living and working on the outside. Unfortunately, we have no way to
predict who the copycat has chosen as his next
victim.”
An unnatural silence fell over the
room.
“Luke will be leaving tomorrow for an
assignment in London,” Griff said.
Nic tensed. Griff had deliberately not
discussed Luke’s new assignment with her. She knew he had been
trying to protect her, trying to postpone the inevitability that
his actions would upset her, and trying to avoid yet another
argument. But what she couldn’t get through his stubborn head was
how that type of protective maneuver only made matters worse in the
end.
“Angie, you may choose whether you want
to stay here at Griffin’s Rest or if you prefer to take a temporary
leave of absence. Talk it over with your husband and let him know
that he’s welcome to stay here with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Angie replied. “Thank
you.”
“I’m bringing in Cully Redmond,” Griff
said. “He will join you three—Michelle, Shaughnessy, and Saxon—who
will rotate between the house here and Dr. Meng’s retreat. You will
be on duty twelve hours and off twelve, but you will not leave the
estate.”
Griff had made his decisions without
including her in the process. Oh, she could call him on it and he
would tell her that they had discussed the
situation. They had, to some degree, but talking about something
and making definite decisions on how to handle the problem were not
the same thing.
She knew he was doing what had to be
done, and she agreed with his decisions, even the one to send Luke
Sentell to London. She also knew that he would move heaven and
earth to protect those he loved. And in her heart of hearts, she
knew that he loved her more than anyone or anything and that he
would die to protect her.
Poppy Chappelle loved her grandmother,
loved the big old house in Ardsley Park, Savannah’s first suburb, a
mere ten-minute drive from downtown, and loved her summers here
with her father’s family. She had been barely two years old when
her parents divorced, so she couldn’t actually remember a time when
the three of them had been together. Her memories of her dad were
sketchy, but she had a picture in her mind of a big, sandy-haired
man who had laughed a lot and had called her “my little sugarplum.”
He and his latest lady friend had died when his single-engine
Cessna had crashed on their flight back from Vegas five years
ago.
“Miss Poppy,” Heloise, her
grandmother’s housekeeper and companion for the past forty years
called to her just as she reached the front door. “Your grandmother
wanted me to remind you that she is expecting guests for dinner.
You need to be home no later than five-thirty.”
“I’ve already promised her that I won’t
be late. She knows that I’m going sailing with Court and Anne Lee
this afternoon.”
Heloise snorted. “Mr. Court and Miss
Anne Lee are totally irresponsible. Your grandmother is sorely
disappointed in those two.”
“It’s hardly their fault if they’re
spoiled brats,” Poppy said. “Grandmother should blame their parents
for their behavior, but she won’t criticize Aunt Mary Lee the way
she does my mother because she’s her daughter.”
“I have no intention of getting into a
conversation with you about the dynamics of the Chappelle family.
It’s not my place to agree or disagree with you. I shouldn’t have
said anything about your cousins. I simply meant to remind you not
to be late this evening.”
Poppy rushed over to Heloise and hugged
her. The dour-faced old maid who seldom smiled cleared her throat
and patted Poppy’s back.
“You’re a good one, Miss Poppy. You and
your uncle Saxon. You two are the best of the lot, if you ask me.”
She shoved Poppy away and gave her a push toward the front door.
“You behave yourself with those hooligan cousins of yours and don’t
let them get you into any trouble.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
A car horn announced her cousins’
arrival. Poppy opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. She
paused, glanced over her shoulder and waved at Heloise, then
bounded down the brick steps and hopped into Court Dandridge’s
black BMW M6 convertible.
Maleah and Derek ordered dinner in her
suite, the same luxury suite that Nic and Griff had occupied before
their departure from Nassau that morning. Nic had insisted she use
the suite since it was paid for through the end of the week. The
butler, included with the suite, cleared away the table, stacked
the dishes on a serving cart and wheeled it away.
“Will there be anything else, ma’am?”
the prim and proper butler asked.
“Uh . . . no, thank you.”
“Very well.”
As soon as he pushed the cart out into
the hallway and closed the door behind him, Maleah
laughed.
“What’s funny?” Derek
asked.
“I’m glad I’m not rich. I don’t think
I’d ever get used to hot and cold running servants.”
Derek stared at her, an odd expression
in his black eyes. “You have to be the only woman I know who
wouldn’t love having servants to do her bidding.”
“You need to get to know a better class
of women.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, maybe I
do.”
She eyed their twin laptops, provided
by the agency, lying side by side where they had placed them on the
coffee table when the butler had set the table for their dinner.
“We should check to see if Sanders has any new info for us before
we go over the list Warden Holland gave you.”
“You check your e-mail and I’ll pull up
the file containing the list of Browning’s visitors, telephone
calls, and correspondence.”
Maleah picked up her computer and took
it with her over to the sofa. She kicked off her low-heel sandals,
wriggled her toes, and settled at the end of the sofa. After
flipping open her laptop, with an attached USB-Connect device, she
logged on to her Powell Agency e-mail account.
“Nothing from Sanders,” Maleah
said.
After removing his sports coat, neatly
folding it and laying it across the back of one of the chairs at
the dining table, he got his laptop and joined Maleah on the sofa.
They sat at opposite ends, leaving a wide space between them. Derek
pulled up the file that Warden Holland had sent him about an hour
ago. This was his first chance to take a look at the
lists.
“Want me to read it to you or would you
rather we take a look at this together?” he asked.
She shrugged. She wanted to read the
info herself, but that meant close contact with Derek, something
she usually avoided.
Grow up, will you,
Maleah, she told herself. He may have a Don
Juan reputation, but it’s not as if he’s going to try anything with
you. The guy is no more interested in you—in that way—than you are
him. You’re not his type. And God knows he’s not your
type.
Who was she kidding? Derek Lawrence was
every woman’s type.
She scooted across the sofa until she
sat beside him, only inches separating their bodies. He grinned.
She faked a pleasant smile. He lifted his laptop and rested it
between them, one edge on her left knee and the other edge on his
right knee.
Look at the damn
computer and stop thinking about Derek’s knee pressed against
yours.
“The first list has the names of all of
Browning’s visitors for the past year,” Derek said.
They looked over the list, which turned
out to be extremely brief.
“There are only three names,” Maleah
said.
“Albert Durham, Cindy Di Blasi, and
Wyman Scudder,” Derek read. “Scudder is listed as his lawyer. He
visited him twice.”
“The other two are listed as
friends.”
“Did the warden send Sanders a copy of
this?”
“I don’t know, but I forwarded it to
him before lunch, just in case.”
“Then it’s too soon for us to expect
Sanders to have found out anything about these
people.”
Derek grunted. “Let’s move on to
telephone calls.”
“Same three names,” Maleah said. “His
lawyer and his two friends. One call to the lawyer, one call to
Durham and one call every week to Ms. Di Blasi.”
“Curious. I’m surprised Browning hasn’t
asked for conjugal visits.”
“Don’t make me sick. What woman in her
right mind would willingly have sex with a psycho like
Browning?”
“Different strokes for different
folks,” Derek told her.
Maleah groaned. “Don’t remind me about
how many screwed-up women there are in this world, women who
willingly demean themselves. They make me ashamed of my own
sex.”
“Women don’t hold a monopoly on
stupidity. The world is full of pussy-whipped men being led around
by the nose by heartless bitches who get their kicks out of
emasculating the idiots.”
Maleah snapped her head up and stared
at Derek. Their gazes joined instantly, fusing together like two
pieces of hot metal. Good God Almighty! She and Derek were two
sides of the same coin. Why had she never realized that fact until
two seconds ago?
“Uh . . . did we just say the same
thing, sort of?” she asked, still partially puzzled by the
revelation.
“Sort of,” he agreed. “You have no
respect for weak, spineless women who let men use them. I have no
respect for weak, spineless men who let women walk all over
them.”
If you know what’s good
for you, you’ll break eye contact with him. Do it now before
something happens between the two of you that you will
regret.
“We should look at the third list,” she
said, her voice softened by emotion.
“Right.” He looked straight at the
computer as he brought the next list up on the screen.
“Hmm . . . two names,” Maleah said.
“Albert Durham and Cindy Di Blasi. He received two letters from
Durham and sent two replies to the man.”
“Cindy has written to him every week
for the past four months and he has replied to every letter.” Derek
went back to the first list. “Check out the dates. Durham visited
for the first time five months ago, and then four months ago, Di
Blasi visited for the first time. Why did they both start visiting
Browning all of a sudden?”
“What about the phone calls?” Maleah
asked.
They scanned the list of Browning’s
telephone calls again, checking the dates. “He called Durham two
days after Durham’s first visit.”
“And he called Di Blasi two days after
her first visit.” Maleah pointed to the date. “Do you think there’s
a connection between Durham and Di Blasi?”
“There could be,” Derek said. “It
depends on exactly who Cindy Di Blasi is and what her relationship
with Browning is and how long they’ve known each other. She could
be just one of those women who is fascinated by hardened
criminals.”
“And if she’s not some wacko who’s
fallen in love with Browning?”
“We don’t need to get ahead of
ourselves and put the cart before the horse. Until Sanders does a
background check and we know who these people are, we’re wasting
our time trying to figure how they’re connected to
Browning.”
“Call Sanders and ask him to do a rush
job on those background checks,” Maleah told him. “And I’m going to
get in touch with Warden Holland.”
“Dare I ask why you’re calling the
warden?”
“He told me that he needed twenty-four
hours’ notice for me to see Browning again. I plan to talk to
Browning again tomorrow afternoon.”
When Derek didn’t respond, she said,
“Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good. I’m glad we’re in
agreement.”
“We’re not in agreement,” he told her.
“But I choose my battles wisely.”
Ignoring his remark, she said, “The
copycat killer is going to strike again. We all know it’s only a
matter of time. If there’s one chance in a million that Browning
knows something about the copycat, I’m willing to do whatever it
takes to get him to tell me what he knows.”
“And I’ll do whatever it takes to keep
you safe.”
Their glazes clashed, but neither said
anything, each knowing the other would not give an inch in a
confrontation.