Dead By Morning

Chapter 30

Meredith glared at Luke across the breakfast table. Despite having kept her up until the wee hours of the morning, he had knocked on her bedroom door at precisely seven-thirty and informed her that room service had just delivered their breakfast.

“I ordered the full English fry-up,” he had told her. “Eggs, bacon, sausages. Plenty of protein, along with baked beans, mushrooms, and fried bread. I expect you out here and ready to eat in ten minutes.”

Knowing that if she didn’t join him for breakfast within a reasonable time, he would come in and get her, she had grabbed a quick shower, washed her hair, and slipped into a pair of ratty sweat pants and a soft cotton T-shirt. Leaving the towel wrapped around her damp hair, she had arrived at the table less than ten minutes after he had summoned her.

“Eat hearty,” he said. “We have a lot to do. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, you’ll be working on all cylinders this morning.”

He had been referring to the fact that last night when he had placed what Luke had told her had been a set of cuff links owned by Anthony Linden in her hands, she had drawn a blank. It was if no one had ever handled the cuff links, other than Luke. After more than an hour of useless efforts to use the links as a conduit to previous wearers, Luke had told her to go to bed.

Now, as he sipped on his breakfast tea, she watched him until he set down his cup and looked at her. “What?” he asked.

“I’ve eaten all that I can. I’m fueled and ready to perform, hopefully on all cylinders,” she told him. “But if all you have for me to use is those cuff links, then forget it. For some reason, all I picked up when I handled them were some vague faces of various people. One I believe actually made the gold links and another was the jewelry store salesman. And you. I saw you tossing the cuffs back and forth in your hands.”

Luke’s lips twitched as if he were about to smile. He didn’t. “The cuff links never belonged to Anthony Linden. I purchased them new yesterday.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Why would you—? Damn you! You were testing me. Was that your idea or were you instructed to—?”

“Testing you with the cuff links was entirely my own idea.”

“Why?”

“Because although I’ve seen you in action a few times, I find it difficult to believe in what you and Dr. Meng and her other protégés do.”

Without giving any thought to what she was doing, Meredith shoved back her chair, stood, picked up a piece of the soft fried bread on her plate and flung it at Luke. It hit him mid-chest, the grease staining his navy blue polo shirt.

“What the hell,” he grumbled.

“Don’t you ever do something like that to me again.” She planted her hands on her hips.

“Go get dressed,” he told her. “I’ll change my shirt and then I’ll bring you something that actually belonged to Anthony Linden.”

“Are we going out somewhere today?” she asked.

“Probably not.”

“Then I’m dressed for the day,” she informed him. “I’ll go dry my hair and be right back.”

Luke shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

After slamming her bedroom door, Meredith debated whether or not to change clothes. She had brought along a pair of jeans, dress slacks, and several nice blouses. But fifteen minutes later, with her hair dry and pulled back in a loose ponytail, she stormed back into the living room wearing the same sweat pants and T-shirt.

The table had been cleared, with only a fresh pot of tea now in the middle of a tray that held two clean cups. Luke sat on the sofa in his khaki slacks and a navy and red striped button-down shirt, the short sleeves revealing his muscular arms.

“Sit down here beside me,” he ordered her.

She sat, obeying without question, although reluctantly and with great reservation. He glanced at the round coffee table in front of the sofa. There beside a clear glass vase filled with white lilies lay a rectangularshaped box.

“Open it,” Luke said.

She did. Inside, she found a handgun.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“It’s a SIG Sauer—”

“No, I don’t care what make and model the weapon is,” she told him. “I hate firearms of any kind. If this is another one of your tests—”

“It’s not a test. That pistol is supposed to have belonged to Anthony Linden and has never been owned or used by anyone else.”

When she simply stared at the gun for several minutes, Luke apparently grew aggravated with her. He removed the pistol from the box and held it out to her. “It isn’t loaded.”

“I should hope not.” She opened her palm and held out her hand.

The very instant he placed the gun in her hand and the cold metal touched her skin, she cried out.

“What’s wrong?”

She heard Luke’s question, but despite the fact that he was sitting right beside her, he sounded as if he were in another room. As people’s faces flashed through her mind like images from a television screen, moving at top speed, she sensed that all those people were dead. Three men, two women, and a child. When she closed her eyes, she saw only black emptiness and felt an odd rush of adrenaline soar through her body. And then the rapid fire of a pistol echoed inside her head.

“Oh God,” she whimpered. “He killed them. All of them.”

“You’re getting something about Linden. What is it?”

“He’s killed so many people with this gun. I saw them, six of them. One was just a boy.”

“We already know he’s a killer, that he’s a professional hit man. I need for you to move on from that and try to tell me something we don’t know. Try to focus on finding the son of a bitch, not taking a gruesome walk down memory lane.”

“Don’t . . . please . . .” Leave me alone. You don’t understand. I have very little control over what I see and what I feel.

She wrapped her fingers over the butt of the gun and clutched it tightly.

“He has a good job and he likes it. He likes it a lot,” Meredith said. “The money he earns affords him a lifestyle he enjoys. He tells himself that he kills for the money, but . . . he kills for the pleasure, too.”

Although she felt Luke’s hands on her shoulders, felt the non-too-gentle shake he gave her, only her body was in the room with him. She tried harder to concentrate on the man who had owned the gun, on his present location. Where was he right now?

The face that appeared to her kept changing. Dark hair, light hair, red hair, bald. Blue eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes. Mustache, beard, clean shaven, sideburns. Glasses. No glasses. The image of his features wasn’t clear. It kept changing too quickly for her to describe him.

“He wears disguises.”

“Meredith, concentrate completely on where he is right now, this very minute,” Luke told her as he ran his hands down her arms and then released her. “Any other information is useless to us.”

Concentrate. Concentrate.

I’m trying. I’m trying.

Suddenly she felt weightless. She floated above the earth as if she had wings. Clouds surrounded her, white and fluffy. She loved the sensation of flying and had had visions, for as long as she could remember, of leaving her body and soaring into the heavens.

And then all of her feelings of joy disappeared and a dark, foreboding fear claimed her. The hum of an engine grew louder and louder, and louder still, until it drowned out every other sound, every thought, every feeling.

She gasped for air, trying to escape from the onslaught of the roaring engine, and fought her way back to rejoin her mind with her body. Her head ached. Her stomach lurched with nausea.

As she slowly opened her eyes, the gun she had been clutching dropped from her weak hand and hit the floor. “He’s on an airplane.”

“Right now?” Luke asked. “Is he on an airplane right now?”

She stared at Luke. “Either now or very recently. He’s coming toward me.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He’s coming toward me,” she repeated half a second before she collapsed in a heap at Luke’s feet.

When Maleah and Derek had arrived at Griffin’s Rest late yesterday, they had found a high level of anxiety that spread from the very top and filtered its way down through every employee. If they thought security had been tight when they left there the last time, they found out as they drove through the security gates just how much tighter it could be. Barbara Jean had met them at the front door, and Maleah had noticed Brendan Richter hovering in the background.

“My God, you’d think we were being invaded,” Maleah had said as she entered the foyer. “Is all of this because of Saxon Chappelle’s niece?”

“Partly,” Barbara Jean had replied as she’d glanced from Maleah to Derek. “Sanders is waiting for you in the office. He needs to speak to you now.” She had looked up at Maleah. “Nicole wants to talk to you. She’s upstairs in her sitting room.”

After that, Maleah hadn’t seen Derek again last night. How long he spent in the auxiliary Powell office headquarters there at Griffin’s Rest, she didn’t know. Nor did she have any idea where he’d slept or if he had slept. She had spent more than two hours with Nic, after being allowed entrance into Nic’s bedroom suite by her private guard dog, Shaughnessy Hood. One look at her best friend and she had realized just how bad things were with her and Griff. Nic had looked like death warmed over.

“If you think I look bad, you should see Griff,” Nic had said. “He was in rough shape before Poppy Chappelle was killed, but now . . . Oh, Maleah, I’m worried sick about him. I haven’t seen him all day. He hasn’t ventured out of his den and my guess is that by now he’s drunk himself into a stupor and passed out.”

Unlike the other Powell agents who were assigned a bedroom in the house when they rotated shifts at Griffin’s Rest, Maleah had her own room, a perk of being Nic’s best friend. Since she spent almost as much time here as she did in her Knoxville apartment, she kept several changes of clothes in the closet and an assortment of toiletries in her private bathroom.

When she had finally gotten in bed well past midnight, she had tossed and turned for nearly an hour before dozing off to sleep. And she had awakened at a little after six, feeling a bit groggy and sleep-deprived. Her first thought had been about Derek. She had wondered if he was awake and if he was, had he already gone downstairs for breakfast. Odd that she should have had such an overwhelming desire to see him, talk to him, be with him.

Now less than an hour later, freshly showered, dressed for the day in tan twill slacks and a black, short-sleeved cotton sweater set, she found herself taking more time than usual to apply her makeup and fix her hair.

This is ridiculous. You’re primping like a teenager getting ready for the prom.

She stared at herself in the vanity mirror, her long hair framing her face as it fell in layers down to her shoulders. She had even taken great pains to use a curling iron to style her hair.

All because you want Derek Lawrence to find you attractive. And don’t you dare try to deny it.

She couldn’t deny it. Not to herself and not to the reflection staring back at her from the mirror. “All right, so what’s the big deal? Why shouldn’t I want to look my best this morning?”

While in the midst of having an in-depth conversation with herself, Maleah heard a repetitive rapping at her bedroom door. It might be Nic, even though she hoped her friend was in bed with her husband, the two of them getting some much needed rest. But more than likely Griff was still in his study and Nic had lain awake half the night worrying herself sick about him.

When she opened the door, she halfway expected to see either Nic or Barbara Jean, but instead Derek stood there, a dead serious expression on his handsome face.

“Good morning,” she said.

“How are you today?” he asked.

“I’m fine, all things considered. How about you?”

“I’ve been better,” he admitted. “May I come in?”

“Sure.” She moved back so that he could enter, and then she closed the door before asking, “What’s wrong?”

“I was up until after one this morning,” Derek said. “Helping Sanders with Griff. He . . . uh . . . he drank a little too much. We managed to walk him into the bathroom connected to his study, put him in the shower and finally got him into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Sanders sent me on to bed around one-fifteen. I think he sat up all night while Griff slept it off on the sofa.”

“I was with Nic until well after midnight. She wasn’t drinking, but she wasn’t in much better shape. She’s worried about Griff and she figured he was drinking.” She stared at Derek. “Tell me why a man who professes to worship the ground his wife walks on shuts her out the way Griff does Nic when he needs her the most. The way he’s acting is killing her.”

“I’ve told you that big strong men don’t like to appear weak in front of their women. No matter how misguided his actions, Griff’s intention is to protect Nic. He didn’t want her to see him the way he was last night.”

“Men! I don’t understand any of you.”

“That works both ways, Blondie. We men don’t understand you women either.” He looked her over and smiled. “You sure do look pretty this morning.”

She felt the warmth of a blush creep up her neck. Turning away from him, she picked up a pair of small pearl studs off her dresser. “Thank you for the compliment.” She slipped one stud and then the other through the holes in her ears before turning back around to face Derek. “Have you been downstairs yet?”

“I went down for a cup of coffee about fifteen minutes ago. Sanders and Barbara Jean are in the kitchen preparing pancakes and sausage. I spoke to Griff briefly before he came upstairs to see Nic.”

“Then they’re together now?”

Derek nodded. “Griff has a meeting planned for ten this morning in his office here at the house.”

“Who’s being invited to this meeting?”

“Only the people Griff and Nic trust with their lives—Sanders, Barbara Jean, you, me, and Yvette.”

She hadn’t realized that her expression had altered in any way at the mention of Dr. Yvette Meng, not until Derek said, “Making a face like that is a dead giveaway, you know. It implies that you don’t like Dr. Meng.”

“It’s not that I dislike Yvette. I don’t. She seems like a very nice lady, but . . .”

“But what?”

“Her presence here at Griffin’s Rest creates problems for Nic, for her marriage.”

“It shouldn’t,” Derek said. “Yvette Meng isn’t a threat to Nic’s marriage. If ever a man was completely in love with his wife and totally dedicated to his marriage, that man is Griffin Powell.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“That’s my gut instinct. If there was anything more than friendship between Griff and Yvette, it’s in the past, and Nic needs to believe that.”

“So you do think there was something more than—?”

“Whoa there, Blondie. Don’t put words in my mouth. I said if there was.”

Maleah felt the need to defend Nic. “I think Nic has every right to feel the way she does. How would you like it if the woman you loved moved a dear old friend, who just happened to be male, into your home? And you knew with absolute certainty that she loved this man?”

“There’s love and then there’s love,” Derek said. “I’m surprised that a woman such as Nicole Powell would be so insecure.”

“Loving someone the way she loves Griff can make a woman vulnerable, even someone like Nic.”

“Yeah, love can make us all vulnerable,” Derek agreed. “And to answer your question—no, I wouldn’t like it if the woman I loved brought an old friend whom she loved into our lives on a daily basis, had him practically living at our back door, especially if I thought they had once been lovers. But I’d deal with it somehow, if the only alternative was giving up the woman I loved.”

“That’s what Nic is doing, what she’s been doing ever since Griff built the sanctuary for Yvette and her protégés here at Griffin’s Rest.”

“You disagree, don’t you?” Derek asked. “What would you do? How would you handle the situation differently?”

Maleah hesitated, uncertain just how honest she should be with him. To hell with it. “If I were in Nic’s shoes, I’d tell Griff to choose. He could either have Yvette living within a stone’s throw of us, a constant presence in our lives, or he could have me. If he didn’t move her out, then I’d leave.”

“Why do you think Nic hasn’t done that?”

“I think the answer to that would be obvious.”

“Enlighten me.”

“No.” She had already said too much about her best friend’s personal life. Her only excuse was that it had become so easy to talk to Derek.

“Nic’s afraid that if she demands he make a choice between Yvette and her, he might choose Yvette,” Derek said. “That’s the reason.”

Maleah didn’t confirm his assessment of the situation, but she wasn’t the least bit surprised that he had zeroed in on the exact reason.

“I’m hungry,” she said, deliberately changing the subject. “Let’s eat breakfast. I love Barbara Jean’s pancakes.”

Derek nodded, and then opened the door and offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

She slipped her arm through his. “Derek?”

“Hmm . . . ?”

“I don’t think I ever thanked you properly.”

“For what?”

“For looking out for me after that last interview with Browning.” It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, thank you for taking such good care of me. For holding me, comforting me, letting me draw strength from you.

“Hey, no problem, Blondie. That’s what partners do, right?”

“Yeah, right.”

Why was it that she wished he’d said he had done it because he cared about her and not just because they were partners?

The phone rang at precisely at 7:30 A.M. that morning.

“Well, hello there. What a nice surprise to hear from you. How are y’all doing? How’s—?”

“Listen very carefully,” he said. “You are going to receive a phone call later today with instructions on what you have to do, and if you don’t do exactly as he tells you to do, she’s going to die.”

“What are you talking about? Who’s going to call me? Who’s going to die?”

The caller explained about the kidnapping, that the person they both loved had been kidnapped, taken from her bed in the middle of the night, and a note had been left on her pillow. Someone had managed to break in through an upstairs bathroom window, go into her bedroom and abduct her without anyone being the wiser.

Whoever had taken her was not an amateur. He had to be a professional.

Had the Copycat Carver taken her? If so, why had he changed his MO? Why had he kidnapped her instead of killing her? It didn’t make any sense.

“You understand, don’t you?” the caller asked. “If you don’t do what he tells you to do, we’ll never see her alive again. Please, please tell me that you’ll do whatever he asks you to do.”

“Yes, of course I will.”

“Swear to me.”

“I swear.”

The reality of the situation was difficult to grasp. This was a nightmare of monumental proportions. Life or death. But no matter what the instructions or how difficult the assignment, the orders would be carried out. There was only one choice—to do whatever was necessary to save her life.