her bad. But being a perfectionist and expecting everyone else to live up to her high standards did not endear her to the people she referred to as “the hired help.” This included the young man who cleaned the pool each week.
Heloise gently dumped the berries into a colander she had placed in the sink, turned on the water and used the sprayer to wash the berries.
A bloodcurdling scream startled Heloise. Who was screaming? The sound was coming from somewhere outside, wasn’t it?
Heloise wiped her damp hands off on her apron as she headed for the back door, running as fast as her old legs would carry her. She searched the rose garden for any sign of Miss Carolyn, but quickly realized the screams were coming from the pool area.
And then she saw Miss Carolyn, soaked through and through from head to toe, on her knees, slumped over something—no not something, someone—lying at the edge of the pool.
Heloise rushed through the open gate leading from the garden to the pool. “I’m coming, Miss Carolyn. I’m coming.”
As she drew nearer, Miss Carolyn stopped screaming and looked up, her eyes glazed with shock. When she glanced down at the person Miss Carolyn was holding in her arms, Heloise barely managed not to scream herself. Apparently Miss Carolyn had jumped in the pool and pulled Little Miss Poppy’s body from the water. But it was more than obvious that the child hadn’t drowned. Someone had slit her throat and hacked out pieces of flesh from her arms and legs.
Salty bile rose up Heloise’s esophagus. She was on the verge of vomiting.
“Call nine-one-one,” Miss Carolyn said in a choked voice. “We have to get her to the hospital as soon as possible.”
“Oh, Miss Carolyn . . .”
Heloise would call 911, but knew there was nothing anybody could do to save Poppy Chappelle.
Maleah thought she had prepared herself for the worst, and had believed she could listen to Browning describe in detail how he had murdered Noah and still remain in control of her emotions. She’d been wrong. Nothing had prepared her for Browning’s self-satisfied smile or his giddy excitement as he recalled, step-bystep, the last moments of Noah’s life.
While he relived what for him had been an exhilarating experience, Maleah envisioned, with sickening horror, Noah Laborde’s death.
“Can you imagine it, Maleah? Noah’s shock? When he woke that morning, he had no idea it would be the last day of his life. What must he have been thinking in those final few seconds before he died?”
Maleah swallowed.
She could give Browning a little of what he wanted—her blood, sweat, and tears—without pretending. What she felt at that precise moment was all too real.
“I—I can imagine.” The tremor in her voice was not faked. “Noah must have been shocked by what happened and so very afraid of dying.”
Browning chuckled. “I’m sure he was. He knew that I possessed all the power and he was powerless. He knew that I had taken his life away from him.”
“That’s what it was all about for you, wasn’t it—power and control?”
“God, yes! You have no idea . . .” He paused, leaned forward and glared directly into her eyes. “But then again, maybe you do. You’re a lady who prides herself on being in control, aren’t you?”
A red warning flag popped up in Maleah’s mind. How could Browning know that she had dealt with control issues most of her life?
When she didn’t reply to his question, he smiled. God, how she hated his smile.
“What would it take to snap that tight control you maintain?” he asked. “I would love to see that happen. I’d enjoy breaking you, taking your power away and controlling you.”
Maleah understood that for Browning, killing another human being was far more about power and control than about their pain, but the rush he experienced when he took a life was probably the same as a sadist who physically tortured his victim.
“I’m not good at play-acting,” she told him. “You know how difficult it was for me to listen to you tell me the details about Noah’s murder. What more do you want from me?”
“Ah, yes, it was difficult for you. I noticed your misty eyes, but there were no real tears, no weeping. I heard the tremor in your voice, but you didn’t scream with uncontrolled outrage.” Browning leaned back in his chair and studied her for a moment. “It wasn’t enough. No, not nearly enough. I want much more.”
“So do I,” she told him. “Up to this point, I’ve been doing all the giving and you’ve been doing all the taking.”
“All right, then. If you want payment for the pleasure you gave me, I’ll pay up. After all, fair’s fair.” He tilted back his head, pursed his lips and hummed. Then he lowered his head and looked at her. “I don’t know Durham’s real name. He didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. But he was younger than he appeared to be. Being a keen judge of human beings, I’d say that his disguise added ten or fifteen years to his appearance. The man you’re looking for is probably in his forties. He was average height and build, but he was muscular, his body well-toned. Look for a man who keeps his body in tiptop shape.”
Although she was slightly stunned that Browning had willingly given her the information, when he stopped talking, Maleah managed to ask, “Do you recall anything else about his physical appearance? Moles, scars or tattoos? Were his arms hairy? Did he speak with an accent of any kind?”
“No visible moles or tattoos,” Browning said. “His arms had a fine dusting of light brown hair, his eyebrows and lashes were the same color and his eyes were blue. Of course he could have been wearing contacts. As for an accent . . . well, he wasn’t from the South. He had more of a Midwestern accent, as if he had practiced the way he talked, trying to make his speech pattern as nondescript as possible, you know, the way English and Australian actors speak when they’re mimicking an American accent.”
“Do you think he was British?”
“Possibly.”
“What about—?”
“That’s all for now. If you want more, you’ll have to give me more.”
Maleah nodded, understanding that he was ready to put her through Act Two of
Derek paced back and forth in the warden’s office, unable to sit down, let alone relax. Everything in him wanted to rush down to the interview room, barge in and rescue Maleah from Browning’s evil machinations.
All he could do was wait. And worry.
The waiting was difficult, but the worry came all too easily. He repeatedly reminded himself that Maleah was a big girl, strong, tough, tenacious, her soft underbelly well protected. But she would not come away unscathed. He had warned her that if she revealed even a hint of weakness, Browning would go in for the kill.
Derek didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. It wasn’t like him to go all chest-beating, manly-man protective where a woman was concerned. Any woman. He honestly couldn’t remember ever feeling like this. When they’d been kids, he’d run interference between his kid sister and his mom and even between his older brother and Mommy Dearest a few times. But he’d done that more to piss off their mother than to protect either sibling.
For the past forty-five minutes, Claude Holland had done his best to engage Derek in conversation, but had soon realized keeping Derek’s mind off Maleah’s visit with Browning was an impossible task. Finally, the warden had settled down to business as usual, made a couple of phone calls, went over various paperwork, and drank three
