teenager.”
What the hell did he know about her personal life? Was he simply guessing? Or did he actually know something?
“I’m not here to discuss me,” she said. “I’m here to discuss you and your association with Albert Durham.”
Browning shrugged. “But, sweet Maleah, I find you as fascinating as you find me. So, if you give me what I want, I’ll give you what you want. You tell me what I want to know and I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“What do you want to know, Jerome?”
“Oh so many things about you, my dear.”
“My favorite color is pink. My favorite food is anything chocolate. My favorite song is—”
He burst out laughing; and all the while his gaze never left her face. “And your favorite way to fuck is? Do you like to be on top? Or do you secretly prefer for the man to dominate you? What was Noah Laborde’s favorite position? I’ll bet he enjoyed your riding him like a bucking bronco, didn’t he?”
“Is that what interests you, Jerome, other people’s sex lives?” she asked in a calm voice. She was still in complete control. “You have no sex life of your own so you get your kicks living vicariously through hearing about how other people fuck.”
His jaw tightened. His gaze narrowed. His nostrils flared.
Oh yes, she had pissed him off. That taunting verbal arrow had hit its mark.
After several tense moments, he visibly relaxed. He had suffered nothing more than a flesh wound. He was ready for battle again.
“Noah was a handsome young man. The two of you must have made a striking couple.” Browning leaned forward ever so slightly. “Why didn’t you marry him?”
“I didn’t love him enough to give up my freedom,” Maleah answered honestly and quickly turned around and asked for payment in kind. “Did you think of Durham as your protege? Is that why you agreed to share the details of your kills with him?”
“Durham is an admirer, not a protege. The way Elvis Presley admired Roy Orbison’s voice, Durham admired my skills. I think of us more as colleagues than teacher and student.”
As she absorbed what she instantly knew was significant information, she did her best not to act so damn pleased. Did he realize just how much he had told her? “Then you knew, from the very beginning, that Durham wasn’t a writer?”
“Did I say that?”
“Yes, I think you did.”
“You’re free to interpret what I say any way you please.”
“You knew all along, from his first visit, that the man really wasn’t Albert Durham and that he wasn’t interviewing you for a biography,” Maleah said. “You lied to me.”
“If you say so.”
He looked at her, his gaze moving from one eye to the other and then traveling slowly up to her forehead, his gesture indicating that he was taking an authoritative position. She understood that at that precise moment, he felt he was in charge and she was subservient to him.
“Did you also know that the phony Durham was not a novice at killing?”
“What makes you think Durham wasn’t a novice?”
“Are you saying he was?”
“Perhaps.” He nodded his head. “Perhaps not.” He shook his head.
He was having fun at her expense. He knew she had initially been trying to read his body language and now he was mocking her.
“Tit for tat, Maleah. You give, I give. Don’t forget the rules.”
“Noah was my first lover,” she said, giving him the answer to his much-too-personal question about her sexual relationship with Noah. “He was a gentle, considerate lover and not much more experienced than I was. We were young and in love. We were good together.”
“Young and in love. How sweet. But you weren’t in love enough to marry him, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“How did you find out about his death?” Browning rubbed his hands together, anticipation evident in the gesture.
“His sister called me.”
“Were you shocked?”
“Yes.”
“Sad?”
“Yes.”
“But not devastated. Not broken hearted.”
“I was shocked and sad and angry. But no, I wasn’t devastated by Noah’s death. I hadn’t seen him or spoken to him in well over a year. We had both moved on. I still cared about him and wanted him to have a good life. It did break my heart to think he would never marry and have children and reach his full potential in his profession.”
“I took all that away from him.” Browning steepled his fingers.
She understood that he wanted her to admit that he had possessed the power of life and death over Noah.
“Yes, you took it all away from him.”
“Do you hate me, Maleah? Do you wish you could rip out my heart? Or perhaps you wish you could slit my throat the way I slit Noah’s throat.” He lunged toward her so quickly that she barely had time to react and draw away from him before the brawny black guard grabbed his shoulders and forced him back into the chair.
He sat there, his breathing accelerated, his pulse throbbing in his neck, his cheeks flushed. And then his lips lifted upward forming a self-satisfied smile.
Maleah struggled to control the unexpected fear that surged through her, telling herself that the only reason she was afraid was because she hadn’t anticipated Browning’s actions.
“I hate what you did to Noah and to your other victims,” Maleah finally managed to say. “I hate that there are people like you in the world. I think you should have been executed for your crimes and should be rotting in hell right now.”
Browning sighed as if her answer had given him some sort of deeply gratifying satisfaction. How sick was that!
“After his first visit, I suspected Durham was not who he said he was,” Browning told her. “On his second visit, when I confronted him, he did not try to lie to me. He told me he respected me too much. And that’s when we made our bargain.”
“What was the bargain?”
Browning shook his head and made a clicking noise with his tongue. “I gave you what you paid for. No freebies.”
“Of course not. What was I thinking?” She rose to her feet.
Browning looked up at her. “You aren’t leaving so soon, are you?”
“Game playing wears me tee-totally out.” She planted her hands on her hips. If he wanted to continue their game, she was ready, but she was damn tired of being jerked around. “If you want me to stay—”
“Sit back down, Maleah.” Browning’s voice was harsh, almost angry.
She ignored him.
“Please, sit back down,” he said.
“Give me a reason.”
“Durham—or whoever the hell he is—wanted details about my life as the Carver. In exchange, he offered to hire me a new lawyer and provide me with a female friend.”
Maleah sat. “You have no idea who he really is?”
Using his clenched fists, Browning drew an X across his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He was lying, damn him. He was lying through his pearly white teeth.
