“I do not need you or anyone to take care of me.” She kept her gaze focused straight ahead. If she looked at Derek, she might be overcome by the urge to slap him. “I’m an adult, not a child. I don’t need or want anyone to fight my battles and take the hits meant for me. And I certainly don’t need anyone overseeing my meals to make sure I eat properly.”
“I realize that. What I should have said is that we’re partners and partners depend on each other, right? I’ve got your back and you’ve got mine. Nobody’s the boss. We’re two equals doing a job and looking out for each other.”
“Griff told you to take care of me, didn’t he?”
Derek shrugged. “You know Griff.”
“Yes, I do. He thinks I can’t take care of myself.”
“That’s not it. He’s concerned. After all, you’re Nic’s best friend and—”
“I’m going back to the prison alone tomorrow morning to see Browning.”
“All right.”
“That was too easy. You agreed too quickly.”
“You can see Browning without me. I’ll wait in the warden’s office.”
“What’s the catch?”
“The only catch is that we make a bargain.”
“Uh-oh, I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You can see Browning alone, but you’ll allow me to coach you before every visit.”
“You mean you want to tell me what to do and what to say and—”
“I want to coach you, advise you, work with you.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“It’s not negotiable,” he told her. “We strike a bargain or you don’t see Browning alone.”
Michelle Allen watched her seven-year-old niece Jaelyn as she swung across the monkey bars on her backyard swing set. Her brother’s only child reminded her of herself in so many ways, and not just physically, although the resemblance was striking. But then she and Keith looked enough alike to be twins. She had always been a bit of a tomboy and enjoyed playing sports. She had excelled at basketball in high school and won a basketball scholarship to college. She’d been good, but not quite good enough for the WNBA.
“Watch me, Aunt Chelle,” Jaelyn called to her. “I’m going to do a somersault in mid-air.”
Michelle jumped to her feet. “Be careful. Don’t fall.” She raced toward the swing set positioned over an enormous bed of mulch, put there to protect Jaelyn if she fell. Keith and Shannon were conscientious parents and tried not to be overprotective. But it wasn’t easy for them, walking that fine line, especially not with an only child, a child they knew would be their only biological offspring. And since at thirty-nine, Michelle doubted she would ever have children of her own, she felt a strong maternal protectiveness toward her niece.
Since Keith and Shannon didn’t entrust their daughter to just anybody, they seldom had any alone time for just the two of them. When she was given a week off from work after her last assignment for the Powell Agency, Michelle offered to babysit her niece so that her brother and his wife could get away for a long weekend alone. They had left early Saturday morning and were due to return sometime tonight. A part of her was eager to return to work, to become involved with a new case, but another part of her hated to leave Paducah and the genuine pleasure she found in playing doting aunt to a child she loved as if she were her own.
Jaelyn performed a perfect mid-air somersault, caught hold of the overhead bars and lifted herself atop the swing set. Beaming with pride about her accomplishment, she tossed back her head and laughed. Michelle released the anxious breath she’d been holding and smiled adoringly up at her niece.
Michelle applauded. “Great job, sweetie. Now, come on down and let’s go clean up for supper. Your mom and dad are due home later, so we’ll want you fed and bathed and in bed before they get here. We don’t want them to think I’ve been spoiling you.”
“But you do spoil me, Aunt Chelle.”
“That should be our little secret.”
Jaelyn climbed down the side steps, taking her own sweet time. When her feet hit the ground, she raced straight to Michelle and threw her arms up and around her aunt’s waist.
“I love you to pieces,” Jaelyn said. “I wish you didn’t have to leave when Mommy and Daddy come home. I wish you could live with us all the time.”
Michelle leaned down, hugged Jaelyn and then lifted her off her feet for a forehead kiss. “I love you to pieces, too, angel pie.”
As Michelle eased her niece back on her feet and grasped her little hand, Jaelyn giggled. “That’s such a silly thing to call me—angel pie. Why do you call me that?”
“That’s what my daddy used to call me,” Michelle said. “You don’t remember Papa Allen. He went to heaven before you were born.”
“He was my daddy’s daddy, too, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right. Your Papa Allen called me angel pie and he called your father pudding head.”
“My daddy’s a pudding head. That’s so funny, but sometimes my daddy is funny. Mommy tells him he’s being silly.”
“Oh, he’s silly all right.”
Hand-in-hand, sharing aunt-and-niece conversation, they walked across the yard, onto the back porch and into the kitchen, both of them smiling happily. Tomorrow morning, she would return to Knoxville and return to work. But tonight, she would eat hot dogs and potato chips, oversee a seven-year-old’s bath, watch the Disney Channel until eight o’clock, and listen to Jaelyn read aloud another chapter of
Tonight was the night. In a few hours he would slip the scalpel into his pocket, leave his room, and follow through with his plan for the fifth Copycat Carver murder. The closer it came to the actual moment when he would jab the scalpel into the side of the victim’s neck and then slice across his throat, the more excited he would become. It had always been that way for him, even that first time, so many years ago. To say that he had been born to kill might be inaccurate. Surely no one was born to be a killer. But even as a child, he had derived a thrilling pleasure from capturing and killing animals. Birds and rabbits and squirrels. And then later on, neighborhood household pets. Cats and dogs.
He had been fourteen when he’d graduated from animals to human beings. He clearly remembered that day as if it were yesterday and not thirty years ago. They say you never forget your first. And that was certainly true for him. Renee Billaud had been a promiscuous sixteen-year-old with enticing tits the size of ripe cantaloupes. He had followed her into the woods where she had met a local man, a married man whose wife had been a friend of his grandmother’s. He had watched them fucking, his penis growing steadily harder with each passing minute. As soon as the man had finished with her, he had zipped up his pants and walked off, leaving Renee lying on a bed of leaves beneath an enormous old oak tree. While her blouse was still unbuttoned, revealing her luscious breasts, and her skirt was still hiked up around her waist, he had come out from behind the bushes and stared her.
“What were you doing, you nasty boy, spying on me?”
He hadn’t answered her. Instead, he had pounced on her. At first she had fought him like a wildcat, but once he’d managed to unzip his pants and free his penis, she had settled down and begun laughing when she realized he didn’t know what he was doing.
“You’ve never done this before, have you?”
She had reached down, circled his penis with her hot little hand and guided him into her. He had pumped up and down only a couple of times before ejaculating. Renee had seemed to think his premature climax was amusing and proceeded to joke about what a poor lover he had been.
He would never forget the look in her eyes when he had tightened his hands around her neck and squeezed. And squeezed. Until she was gasping for air and struggling to loosen the death grip he had on her throat.
He had never known such pure pleasure as he did the moment she stopped breathing. A sexual orgasm paled in comparison.
