grip mechanical pencil in the other, he glanced up from the crossword puzzle and motioned for her to join him. As she approached, he laid down the paper and pencil and rose to greet her with a smile.
“Morning, sunshine.”
God, she hated that he could be so chipper at sixthirty in the morning. And she hated even more that she had noticed how damn good he looked. Derek was nothing more to her than her partner on this case, just as he had been on the Midnight Killer case. Their personal relationship went no farther than that. They certainly weren’t friends, not by any stretch of the imagination. On good days, they worked well together. On bad days, they tolerated each other.
“Have you eaten?” she asked.
“Nope.” He glanced at the half empty cup on the table. “However, this is my second cup of coffee.”
“Coffee sounds good. I think I’ll grab some cereal and a cup of yogurt.”
“You do know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he told her. “You should fill up on protein—bacon and eggs. And of course, a couple of biscuits smothered in butter and jelly.”
“If I ate like that every morning, I’d soon be waddling when I walk.”
When she headed toward the self-serve breakfast setup, she felt Derek’s gaze on her and knew he was looking at her butt. Okay, so she had a bit of a hang-up about her wide hips and ample rear-end. Nic had told her guys didn’t like flat asses, that her JLo butt was a definite asset. If that was true, then why was it that Derek seemed to prefer the long, lean, borderline skinny model types?
Maleah hurried through the line, grabbed a carton of non-fat strawberry yogurt and, deciding against eating cereal, headed toward the coffeemaker. Not fully concentrating on what she was doing, she bumped into Derek and quickly apologized before she even looked at him.
Their gazes met and locked for a full thirty seconds before Maleah broke eye contact.
“It’s okay to be nervous about meeting Browning,” he told her.
Ignoring his comment, she grabbed a cup, filled it with hot coffee, and picked up a packet of Splenda and a stir stick.
By the time Derek joined her at their table, she had drunk half her coffee. As he set down a plate filled with bacon, eggs, and biscuits, he glanced at her unopened yogurt carton. After he sat across from her, they ate in relative silence for several minutes.
“You aren’t nervous, are you?” Maleah asked.
“Unsettled would be a better word to describe how I feel about meeting Jerome Browning this morning,” Derek told her. “Unsettled, curious, and wary. You need to be wary of him, too. He’s cunning. If he senses any weakness in you, he’ll use it against you.”
“And you and Griff think I’m weak, don’t you? You think I’ll fall apart just because Browning murdered my college boyfriend.”
“Neither Griff nor I think you’re weak. But you will be vulnerable because of your connection to Noah Laborde.”
She heaved a heavy, labored huff. Derek was right. There was no use denying the obvious.
He reached over and laid his open palm across her tightly fisted hand. The moment he touched her, she jerked her hand away and lifted it off the table.
Ignoring her reaction, he said, “The way I see this interview with Browning is you and I act as a tag team, both of us questioning him. If at any time you become uncomfortable and want to terminate the interview, then don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“And you’ll whisk me up in your big strong arms and carry me off on your gallant white charger.” The moment the silly comment left her lips, Maleah regretted it. She had a problem about speaking before thinking things through, and this was especially true with Derek.
He didn’t respond.
She groaned. “Sorry.”
He laughed. “I didn’t know you thought of me as a knight in shining armor.”
She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. “Most of the time, I think of you as a royal pain in the butt.”
“Likewise, Blondie.” He lifted his coffee cup and saluted her with it.
Barbara Jean had lived at Griffin’s Rest for several years, ever since Griff had placed her under the agency’s protection during the hunt for her younger sister’s killer. Within a few days, he had put her to work, there in his home, under Damar Sanders’s guidance. Her attraction to Sanders had not been love at first sight, but rather a recognition of two lonely, wounded souls in need. Despite the fact that they were lovers and sometimes in their intimate moments she called him Damar, she thought of her friend and lover as Sanders. No one used his first name, not even Griff and Yvette, his closest friends.
She admired and respected Griffin Powell as she did Sanders and shared a deep affection with Nicole. She considered Yvette Meng a friend, but they were not close, not the way she and Nic were. The beautiful Eurasian psychiatrist possessed a quiet, gentle personality. Almost shy. Her unique empathic abilities that allowed her to gain insight into a person’s thoughts and feelings by a mere touch separated her from others. Until recently, Yvette had lived in London, half a world away. But then, three years ago, Griff had begun construction at Griffin’s Rest on a retreat for Yvette and a small group of her proteges, young men and women with special psychic talents.
Barbara Jean knew less about the missing years of her employer’s life, from age twenty-two to thirty-two, than Nic knew. And even though Sanders had told her that he and Yvette had shared those years with Griff, he had not divulged very many details. Sanders had been married long ago and had lost his wife and child. He had never told her the specifics and she had never asked. He, Yvette, and Griff had been held captive on an uncharted Pacific island by an insane billionaire named Malcolm York. They had eventually escaped, after they killed York. The horrors they had endured together had united them as comrades and bound them to one another forever.
Nic and Yvette shared a precarious friendship, somewhat one-sided since Nic couldn’t quite manage to overcome her concerns about Griff’s love for the other woman. Where Nic needed to know more about her husband’s past and allowed the secrets he couldn’t share with her to come between them, Barbara Jean accepted Sanders for who and what he was. His past was just that—his past. It had made him the man he was today, but other than that, it had nothing to do with her.
If only Nic could see things as she did.
Barbara Jean maneuvered her wheelchair out onto the patio where Nic sat in a chaise lounge, her computer resting in her lap.
“I’ve put on the kettle for tea,” Barbara Jean said. “Would you care for a cup?”
“No, thanks.” Nic glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “I’ve been going over the information on Jerome Browning again and some things don’t add up.”
“Such as?” Barbara Jean asked as she wheeled herself out into the morning sunshine.
“The original Carver didn’t mail the pieces of flesh he removed from his victims to anyone. Those triangular pieces were never found.” Nic paused for a moment, closed the lid on her laptop and faced Barbara Jean.
“So, the copycat killer is not following every detail of the Carver’s MO, is he?” Barbara Jean said.
“No, which makes me ask why he isn’t. And if he’s differing in one aspect, then he’s possibly going to differ in other areas.”
“I haven’t actually studied copycat cases in general, but it stands to reason that there might be differences between the original and the copy.”
“In most cases, the copycat closely mimics the original, but often deviates in small details,” Nic said as she closed her laptop and set it on the glass and metal side table to her right. “Our killer sending Maleah the triangles of flesh from the first four victims, coupled with the fact that he’s copying the killer who murdered Maleah’s college sweetheart, tells me that he wants her involved.”
“Does that mean that neither you nor Griff is his ultimate target?”
“I don’t know. My gut tells me that it’s one of us, but what if this new Carver has been killing Powell Agency people in order to set things up to lure Maleah into some sort of vicious game he’s playing?”
“Have you talked to Griff about your theory?” Barbara Jean asked.
