As she walked down the hall toward the kitchen, Lindsay wasn’t sure if she dreaded or was looking forward to seeing Judd this morning. Perhaps both. Being near him was sweet torture. There was no better way to describe her feelings.
For six months, she had fought the memories. She had undergone therapy with Dr. Meng and had come through stronger and more determined than ever to give up her hopeless dreams about Judd Walker. It would be easier if she didn’t have to spend time with Judd. But if she gave up on him entirely, what would happen to him?
Preparing herself to face him with a friendly greeting, she entered the kitchen. She halted abruptly when she saw the crowd congregated in the room. Inez stood at the stove, flipping pancakes. She smiled and nodded when she saw Lindsay. The two had become fast friends, almost since the first day they met. Inez was sixty, fat, blond, and motherly. With a coffeepot in hand, Sanders moved around the table filling one empty cup after another. He didn’t seem to notice her, but that was just Sanders, a man who focused on one thing at a time.
Lindsay didn’t miss the way Barbara Jean offered Sanders a fragile smile and whispered “thank you” when he poured her coffee. Sanders’s gaze lingered on Barbara Jean, as if the sight of her pleased him.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if those two fell in love?
Mercy, Lindsay Leigh McAllister, you’re a romantic fool.
When Lindsay approached the table, where a place had been set for her, Yvette Meng spoke to her first, “Good morning. Did you sleep well?”
“Fair,” Lindsay replied. “You?”
“Quite well, thank you, but I always sleep well when I visit Griffin’s Rest.”
Although Lindsay was curious about Dr. Meng’s relationship with Griffin and Sanders—she appeared to have known them both for quite some time—Lindsay never asked. She suspected that Yvette Meng had somehow been a part of their lives during the missing ten years of Griff’s life.
“How many pancakes do you want?” Inez called. “I’ve put a sausage-and-egg casserole on the table, along with some banana nut muffins, and I’m working on the pancakes.”
“None for me, thanks,” Lindsay said. “The casserole and muffins will be more than enough.” Before she had a chance to request coffee, Sanders made his way around the table quickly to fill her cup.
He leaned down and said quietly, “Griffin is in the den, taking a phone call, and Mr. Walker hasn’t come down yet.”
Lindsay said, “Okay.”
No one else seemed to have paid any attention to Sanders’s private comment to her. Everyone was too busy either eating or talking.
Three other Powell agents were here this morning, two of them other female agents, Angie Sterling and Maleah Perdue, who would take alternating twelve-hour shifts guarding Barbara Jean around the clock. Rick Carson was pulling two-week duty here at Griffin’s Rest, in charge of security for the estate. Griff rotated Powell agents for this duty, changing them out every couple of weeks. It gave each agent a chance to take a break from outside assignments and at the same time familiarize himself—or herself—with the workings of Griffin’s Rest. At any given time, Griff had between fifteen and twenty agents on the roster. They worked out of a downtown Knoxville office building that Griffin owned. Occasionally, an agent moved on to another type of job, and two had even opened up their own small detective agencies in other states. But the turnover at the Powell Agency was minimal and the death rate among agents very low. In the seven-year history of the agency, only one had died in the line of duty and one in an off-duty car accident. The risks depended upon the individual assignment. The pay was excellent and the fringe benefits superior to those found anywhere else. Griff even had a retirement program in place for those who stayed with the agency twenty years or more. A third of his agents were married and another third were in committed relationships. Lindsay, Maleah, and Rick were part of that final third—single and alone. Angie was engaged to another Powell agent, Jason Blaine, and their wedding set for this June.
Just as Lindsay took her first sip of coffee, her telephone, which she kept in her pocket, vibrated and rang simultaneously. “Sorry,” she told the others, who had actually paid very little attention to her ringing phone.
She set her cup down on the saucer, pulled her phone from her pocket, and noted the call was from Griffin. Odd. Why hadn’t he simply used the house’s intercom system?
She flipped open her phone. “Yes?”
“Come to the den. Now,” Griff said. “Simply excuse yourself without any explanations.”
“All right.” She slipped the phone back in her pocket, scooted back her chair, and stood. “If y’all will excuse me.”
Lindsay and Sanders exchanged pensive glances before she exited the kitchen. Sanders knew Griffin had called. She wasn’t sure how he knew, but he did. Sometimes she felt as if Griff and Sanders communicated telepathically.
Two minutes later, she reached the den door, which was closed. She knocked.
“Come in,” Griff said. When she did as he requested and entered the den, he told her, “Close the door behind you.”
She closed the door. “What is it?” She could tell by the stern expression on his face that the news was not good.
“He’s struck again. In Tupelo, Mississippi. Sometime last night or early this morning.”
Lindsay’s empty stomach soured, a feeling of nausea pulsating through her. “It’s too soon, isn’t it?”
“I think that what we’ve feared is happening—he’s narrowing the time between kills, escalating the game plan.”
“Who was she? How did he—?”
“The son of a bitch chopped off both of her arms.”
Salty bile rose up Lindsay’s esophagus. Even after knowing the details about so many gruesome murders the Beauty Queen Killer had committed, each time brought new disgust, anguish, and anger.
“You’re okay, aren’t you?” Griff asked. “You look a little green.”
“I’m okay. I just haven’t had my coffee yet.”
Griff nodded. “Her name was Sonya Todd, former Miss Magnolia. She was a violinist.” Griff positioned his big arms in the stance a violinist would take when holding the musical instrument. “The method always matches the woman’s talent in the contest, and it’s just a part of the game to him. He thinks it’s clever. He thinks he’s clever.”
“He is,” Lindsay said. “This woman is his thirtieth kill, that we know of, and he hasn’t been caught.”
Griffin slammed his fist down on his desk. “I want that bastard. I want him dead or alive.”
“You sound like Judd.”
He looked directly into Lindsay’s eyes. “Do I?”
“Yes, you do. And that bothers me.”
“What does—the fact that I could kill the man with my bare hands or that you think my attitude borders on the unstable?”
“I don’t know. Both. Neither. It smacks of vigilante justice. As a former police officer, that goes against everything I was taught. By my dad, at the police academy, and while on the force.”
“Theoretically, allowing our legal system to punish criminals is the right thing to do. But sometimes, a man has no choice but to take the law into his own hands.” A far-off, detached expression on his face told her that Griffin was thinking of something other than the most recent murder.
“Are we going to Tupelo?” she asked.
“Yes, I’ve called Jonathan and told him to have the jet ready to leave this morning.”
“Who’s going with us?”
Griffin grinned. “You assume you’re going?”
“I’ve been working on this case with you since the beginning. My going with you to Tupelo wasn’t an assumption, it was a statement of fact.”
“Just the two of us and Judd are going.”
“Nic Baxter will break her neck to get there before us,” Lindsay said.
“All the more reason for us to get a move on,” Griff told her. “Do you want to tell Judd or shall I—”
“I’ll tell him. He’s still upstairs.”
When she turned to leave, Griff reached out and grasped her arm. “Just because he’s doing his best to play nice doesn’t mean he’s changed in any way. Remember that.”
Swallowing hard, she nodded, then hurried out of the den.
Judd stood by the windows gazing down at the bleak winter landscape. He had gotten, at most, four hours of sleep. Four hours was a lot for him, at least in one stretch. There were nights when he didn’t sleep at all and stayed up prowling around the old lodge or taking midnight walks in the woods. Other nights, he’d fall asleep at two or three in the morn ing and sleep until daylight. And then there were the nights when he passed out drunk.
Had he actually become an alcoholic during the past few years? Were his drinking binges more than sporadic self-pity parties? When the pain became too great to bear, wouldn’t anyone choose whatever method possible to alleviate some of the pain, if only temporarily? Sure they would. That’s how people became drug addicts—and how they became alcoholics.
What did it matter? It wasn’t as if his life meant a damn thing to him or to anyone else.
That’s not true, he reminded himself. Lindsay McAllister cares.
His life meant something to her.
The woman had to be crazy to waste her time on him. He’d tried to convince her to forget about him, to write him off. It’s what he wanted.
Or was it?
Griff’s words echoed in his mind. You’ve depended on her caring, wanted it, craved it.
He hated admitting that his old friend was right, but God damn it, he had depended on Lindsay. He had needed her to care.
You do want her, Judd told himself. You want her so bad you can almost taste it. Taste her. You crave her the way a man dying of thirst craves water.
That night six months ago when he had come close to raping her, he had told himself that he was doing it to scare her, to force her to see him for the sorry son of a bitch he was. But that wasn’t the only reason.
You wanted to have sex with her.
Un-uh, no half-truths, he told himself. Be completely honest with yourself. You wanted to make love to Lindsay. And that scared the shit out of you. The way she makes you feel scares you.
Hell, the very fact that she made him feel anything at all was enough for him to hate her.
As if on cue, Lindsay called his name as she tapped softly on his bedroom door. “Judd? Are you awake? I need to talk to you.”
“Come on in,” he said, not giving his state of undress a thought. Not until she opened the door and stood there staring at him, her eyes wide, her full, pink lips slightly parted.
“You’ve seen me in less,” he told her, then reached over on the floor and picked up his discarded jeans where he’d tossed them last night.
She didn’t respond until after he had pulled his jeans on over his briefs and zipped them. “He’s killed again. A former Miss Magnolia in Tupelo, Mississippi.”
Judd’s guts twisted into knots. “When?”
“Last night or early this morning.” She stared at his naked chest, but when she realized what she was doing, she cleared her throat and looked right into his eyes. “Griff’s ordered the jet readied for us. We need to leave immediately.”
He inspected her briefly, noting that she wore a jogging suit. “Do I have at least ten minutes? You don’t look like you’re ready to travel.”
She glanced down at her baggy gray jogging suit. “I’m heading to my room to change and pack an overnight bag. We leave for the airport in thirty minutes.”
Judd ran his hand over his face. “I’ll need to grab a quick shave. My being clean-shaven is one of Griff’s stipulations for being allowed to participate in the investigations again.”
The corners of Lindsay’s lips lifted marginally, just a hint of amusement. “I’ll meet you downstairs in thirty minutes or less.”
He walked toward her. She backed up, out into the hall. It was then that he realized that when she had entered his room, she had stopped just over the threshold and stayed there. By the time he reached the door, she was outside, obviously keeping several feet between them.
“Was she a blonde, brunette, or a redhead?” Judd asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What was her talent?”
“She was a violinist.”
“So, how did he kill her? Cut off her hands or—”
“He chopped off both of her arms.”
Judd clenched his teeth. He and Lindsay stared at each other, but neither of them spoke again. She turned and walked down the hall. He closed the door, shut his eyes, and leaned his head against the door as memories of Jenny engulfed him. Jenny sitting on the kitchen floor, her arms tied above her head, her hands hacked off and lying on either side of her body.
God in heaven, would he never be able to erase that memory from his mind?
* * *
The Powell jet landed at the Tupelo Regional Airport shortly before noon. A Town Car, ordered by Sanders, waited in the parking lot, and the chauffeur met them inside the terminal. Their driver was a tall, lanky black man named Devin Cham-ness, who owned and operated his own limo service in the Tupelo area. He often escorted wealthy visitors and politicians. Lindsay knew that if Sanders had hired Mr. Chamness, the man was topnotch, the best in his field, and the type to keep his eyes and ears open and his mouth shut as far as his client’s business was concerned.
The short drive from West Jackson Street, where the airport was located, into downtown Tupelo took them along Madison and straight onto Court.
“I spoke to Chief Winters before we left Knoxville,” Griff had told them during the flight. “Lieutenant Bobby Skillman is the CID detective in charge of the Sonya Todd case. The chief told me that his department would cooperate with us, up to a point.”
Up to a point could mean that local law enforcement would share no more with them than what they told the press or it could mean they would share almost everything with them. On past Beauty Queen Killer cases, Lindsay had seen the locals clam up completely and resent the Powell Agency’s presence. She’d also seen police chiefs or sheriffs who were very forthcoming with information—until the FBI showed up and took over the case. If Nic Baxter was already on the scene, she would be doing all within her power to lock Griff out of the inner circle.
Griff, who was sitting up front with the driver, turned and looked into the backseat at Lindsay and Judd. “Lieutenant Skillman is set to make a statement to the press at noon outside the crime lab on Court Street.”
Lindsay checked her watch. “It’s five till.”
“We’re only a block away,” Devin informed them, but kept his gaze focused straight ahead.
A horde of people, mostly local and state press, congregated on the sidewalk at 324 Court Street, many of them spilling out into the street. Camera crews zeroed in on the plainclothes detective at the makeshift podium, a guy in his early forties, with thinning black hair and a slight stoop to his broad shoulders.
Devin slowed the Town Car, but didn’t stop. Griffin rolled down his window to get a better look. Cold air seeped into the car’s interior. Despite the warm noon sunshine, the temperature hovered near fifty. The loudspeaker broadcast the detective’s deep, aw-shucks, Mississippi drawl.
“Park up the street,” Griff said. “We’ll walk back.”
Within minutes, Devin had pulled the Lincoln into a parking place a block away; and before he killed the engine, Griff swung open his door and got out. He was several steps ahead of them before Lindsay and Judd caught up with him. The three of them hung back, staying on the periphery of the assembly, listening to the completion of the officer’s statement, waiting for their chance to approach him after the press conference ended.
“There have been no arrests in this case,” Lieutenant Skillman said. “And at this time we have no suspects.” He took a deep breath. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll now take a few questions, but please make them brief. Y’all have five minutes.”
The news people bombarded him with questions, which seemed to fluster him greatly. No wonder. A brutal murder occurring in Tupelo was hardly an everyday event. It wasn’t as if the detective was accustomed to answering these types of questions. Finally, Lieutenant Skillman pointed to a man closest to the podium. “Yeah, you, Joe Mitchell.”
Mitchell barked out his question, “How was Sonya Todd murdered? We’ve heard she was hacked up into little pieces.”
“I am not at liberty to reveal that information at this time,” Lieutenant Skillman replied.
A collective groan spread through the reporters, along with a couple of boos and one distinct hiss.
A petite redhead shoved her way through the throng, all the while shouting her question. She might be little, but she had a big voice. “Is it true that the police department suspects that the notorious Beauty Queen Killer is responsible for Sonya Todd’s death?”
“No comment.” Lieutenant Skillman’s cheeks flushed and perspiration dotted his forehead despite the February chill.
The Powell Agency already knew more than the press did. The fact that Griffin had been given details that were not being revealed to the press told Lindsay that Griff had somehow persuaded the local chief to divulge classified information.
Lindsay stood on tiptoe and, in order to be heard over the den of the crowd, shouted into Griff’s ear, “What did you do, use the ‘I’m Griff Powell, former UT football star’ to make brownie points with the chief?”
Griff frowned at her. “You underestimate my notoriety as a rich and famous private investigator. Chief Winters was very interested in the fact that I was hired by one of the victim’s husbands to search privately for the Beauty Queen Killer.”
“Well, I’m impressed. You didn’t have to bribe him or anything, huh?”
Before Griff could respond, another reporter managed to shout louder than the others and make his question heard above the clamor.
“Has Chief Winters called in the FBI?” The tall, skinny, forty-something TV reporter had a cameraman behind him taping everything.
Lieutenant Skillman had that deer-trapped-in-the-headlights expression, and he stuttered when he tried to respond. “At this time … er … we … that is Chief Winters … has … er … has—”
“The FBI was notified,” a strong, clear feminine voice called out from the back of the crowd, on the opposite side from Griff, Lindsay, and Judd.
All but strutting, Nic Baxter parted the reporters, like Moses parting the Red Sea. “I’m Special Agent Baxter, and as of now, the lieutenant will not be answering any further questions. This is officially a federal case.”
“Shit,” Griff mumbled under his breath.
“She’s not going to let us get anywhere near Lieutenant Skillman,” Lindsay said.
“Probably not,” Griff replied. “But as we all know, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.”