He watched the play of emotions on her face and knew a part of her hated the fact that he remembered her likes and dislikes, that he knew she never used mayonnaise and ate only cooked onions. And she always preferred tea over cola, if tea was available.
She grabbed the sack. “Thanks. I appreciate your thinking of me, but I’m really not—”
“You’ve been skipping too many meals,” he reminded her. “You need to eat.”
He closed and locked the door behind him, then waited for her to blast him for daring to tell her what she should do.
But she surprised him again by taking the bag over to the desk, emptying the contents and saying, “You’re right. I need to eat. And actually, I am hungry.”
He eyed her suspiciously. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her who she was and what she had done with the real Maleah Perdue.
“Sit,” he told her. “Eat.”
She pulled out a chair and sat; then she removed the paper wrapping from her sandwich and took a bite.
“I’ll put on a pot of decaf coffee,” Derek said. “Coffee will be good with our dessert.”
She looked at the two small Styrofoam containers she had removed from the sack. “I usually don’t eat dessert.”
“It’s Italian Cream cake.”
Maleah moaned. “My favorite.” She set aside the cake containers, tore the paper from the straw and inserted the straw through the hole in the lid of the iced tea cup.
Derek had observed Maleah on a daily basis while they had worked as partners on the Midnight Killer case and knew she struggled to maintain control over every aspect of her life. Being short and curvy, maintaining an ideal weight was a challenge for her. Under ordinary circumstances, he would never tempt her with a fattening dessert, but in an odd sort of way, tonight’s meal paralleled the last meal served a person before they were executed the next day. In the morning, she would be walking into an arena to do battle against an opponent who would go for the jugular. He would do it subtly, hoping to take her unaware.
Derek rinsed out the coffeepot, poured in fresh bottled water, filled the reserve tank, and added the decaf provided by housekeeping. Once he set the machine to brew, he glanced at Maleah, who had a mouthful of the turkey sandwich in her mouth. He grinned.
“I spoke to Sanders this afternoon,” Derek told her. “He wanted us to know that, by sometime tomorrow, they should have the names of everyone who has visited Browning and the dates of the visits.”
Maleah swallowed, wiped her mouth on a paper napkin and said, “It’s possible that our copycat killer and Browning exchanged letters and that Browning may have called him, but both the letters and the phone calls were probably monitored since he’s a high-risk prisoner. Browning would have had to be very careful about what he said over the phone.”
“Yes, he would have,” Derek agreed. “My guess would be that if there has been any contact between the copycat and Browning, it started with a visit.”
“I understand that my meeting with Browning in the hopes of bargaining with him for information is my top priority, but I don’t want to be excluded from the investigation. I want to be part of every aspect of—”
“No one is going to exclude you.”
“But if I’m at the prison every day—”
“Who said you’d be visiting Browning every day?”
“I just assumed—”
“You assumed wrong.” Derek strode across the room, his gaze linked with hers as he approached. “You’ll see him tomorrow, but after that, we will take it slow and easy. We want him playing this game by our rules, not the other way around.”
“I understand.” She nibbled on the sandwich.
Derek reached over, grasped the back of a chair by the windows and dragged it over to the table. After he sat, he picked up the bag of chips, opened it and offered it to her. She shook her head. He pulled out several chips and popped them into his mouth.
“When the time comes, I want to be the one who questions each of Browning’s recent visitors,” Maleah said.
“If we can locate them, and that’s a big if, we will question them together, as partners. If the copycat visited Browning, I don’t think he would have used his real name or given his current address, do you?”
“No, of course not, but the Powell Agency has a high success rate of tracking down people who do not want to be found.”
“We’re overlooking one other possibility—our copycat may not have visited Browning. He may not have ever been in contact with him.”
“Then how could he possibly know so many details about Browning’s murders, details that were never released to the press?”
“He could be in law enforcement.”
Maleah frowned.
“Or he could have hired a PI or be a PI himself and found a way to dig up the info.”
She shook her head. “I think Browning knows something.”
“Browning wants you to believe he knows something.”
After finishing off one half of her sandwich, she washed it down with the tea and dumped the rest in the wastebasket by the desk. She wiped her hands off on the napkin and tossed it, too.
“You’re practically psychic when it comes to reading people.” Maleah might not be Derek’s biggest fan, but she respected his ability as a profiler and more recently as a detective. “Paint me a picture. In your opinion, does Browning have any personal connection to the copycat?”
“I’m intuitive, yes. Psychic, no. I leave all that paranormal stuff to Dr. Meng and her proteges.”
“I’m surprised Griff didn’t enlist Yvette or one of her proteges to interview Browning.” Maleah eyed the cake container.
“I doubt Browning would have agreed to see anyone other than you. Griff knew the right person to send. Neither Griff nor I think it was a coincidence that the copycat chose to mimic the killer who murdered your former boyfriend. It’s as if he chose you for a specific reason.”
“Yeah, but the only problem is that we have no idea what that reason is.”
“We can make some educated guesses.”
“Such as?” she asked.
“Such as you’re the copycat’s ultimate target.” When her face paled, Derek quickly added, “Or you were chosen because you’re Nicole Powell’s best friend. Or because the copycat is using your connection to Browning as a red herring to send us off on a wild goose chase.”
“What’s your intuition telling you?”
“The copycat and Browning have, at the very least, met and talked. I don’t know if Browning is pulling the strings and the copycat is a disciple or if the copycat used Browning’s knowledge for his own purposes.”
“Neither Griff nor Nic were involved in Browning’s capture and arrest, nor was I. Why would he be targeting the Powell Agency?”
“Excellent question. Griff has a theory, as does Nic. And I have several scenarios in mind, too, but we have absolutely nothing conclusive at this point.”
“We need information from that son of bitch and he knows it.” Maleah grabbed the cake container, flipped open the lid and eyed the cake hungrily. “He’s going to want to bargain with me, to see what he can get out of me in exchange for what he knows.”
Derek slid the other cake container over in front of him, then removed the cellophane wrap from two plastic forks and handed one fork to Maleah. She eyed the fork as if it were a snake and then grunted and snatched the fork out of his hand. He sliced his fork through the moist cake, balanced a bite on the fork and lifted it into the air, saluting her with the delicious morsel. She watched while he put the bite into his mouth.
“Just one piece of cake won’t hurt you,” he told her. “Think of the pleasure it’ll give you. There’s nothing quite like a sugar high to perk a girl up when she’s down.”
“I don’t need a crutch of any kind. Not alcohol or drugs or gambling or shopping . . . or sugar!”
