Maleah and Derek arrived at Griffin’s Rest that evening well before sunset. They would have arrived sooner, but they had backtracked to Dunmore to pick up Maleah’s vehicle, a new Chevy Equinox. Although they had lost sight of each other during the trip from Alabama to northeastern Tennessee, he caught a glimpse of her in his rearview mirror just before the I-40 Bridge crossing Douglas Lake. The moment he saw her, he couldn’t help wondering if she was pissed because he was ahead of her in the home stretch. Not that he had consciously been trying to arrive at Griffin’s Rest before she did or that he saw everything in life as a competition. But during their working partnership on the Midnight Killer case, he had come to realize several things about Maleah. She hated to come in second to anyone, but especially to any man. The fact he had reached the gates outside the Powells’ Douglas Lake retreat moments before she had seemed completely insignificant to him, but probably not to Maleah. Sometimes her competitive spirit drove him nuts.
“You’ve never had to struggle for anything in your entire spoiled rotten rich life,” she had once accused him. “You’re an arrogant son of a bitch because you have an inflated ego. You overestimate your self-worth.”
“And I believe you underestimate yours,” he’d told her.
His comment had ended that conversation once and for all. Didn’t she realize that he could see past all the pseudo-confidence she tried so hard to project? He suspected that deep inside Maleah Perdue a small, helpless, vulnerable child warned her not to give up a single ounce of the hard-won control she had over her life.
Derek stopped his silver Corvette at the enormous iron gates flanked by two massive stone arches decorated with large bronze griffins. After he used the voiceactivated entry code, the gates opened and he drove onto the long, tree-lined lane leading to the house overlooking the lake. Maleah followed at least twenty feet behind him. He parked in front of the house, got out, and waited for her as she pulled in behind him.
The Powell home was large, approximately ten thousand square feet, but actually rather modest for a man worth billions. Despite the mansion’s size, there was nothing ostentatious about either the house itself or the decor. It had been built and decorated to accommodate the man who owned the property. Since his marriage to Nicole Baxter a few years ago, Griff had allowed his wife to make any changes she wanted. But almost as if she didn’t quite think of Griffin’s Rest as her home, Nic had made few alterations.
Derek snorted. Good God, why did he always do that? Why did his brain instantly delve into other people’s psyche and try to figure out what made them tick? Instinct, pure and simple. His instinct dictated that he profile everyone.
Maleah emerged from her white SUV, slung the straps of her small leather bag over her shoulder and approached him. If she took more time with her appearance, she could be strikingly beautiful. She had all the ingredients, from pretty face to shapely body. Shapely?
“Waiting on me?” she asked.
“Yeah. What took you so long?”
She glared at him, giving him an eat-dirt-and-die look. “I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’m totally pissed at you.”
“What did I do now?”
“You drove like a bat out of hell, that’s what you did.”
He stared at her, totally puzzled by her comment. “You lost me somewhere there, Blondie. I have no idea —”
“I got a speeding ticket, thanks to you.”
He grinned. “How is it my fault that you got a ticket?”
Glowering angrily at him, she clenched her jaw and huffed. “Never mind. Forget I mentioned it. Let’s go inside and—”
Before she could finish her sentence, the front door opened. Sanders glanced from Maleah to Derek. “Please, come in. Griffin and Nicole are waiting for you.”
Sanders had been Griffin Powell’s right-hand man for as long as Derek had known either of them. Griff and Sanders’s association went back a good twenty years. Rumor had it that they had met during the ten missing years of Griff’s life, when he had disappeared off the face of the earth shortly after graduating from the University of Tennessee nearly two decades ago.
A couple of inches short of six feet, the bald, dark-eyed, brown-skinned Sanders possessed the bearing of a much larger man. His stance, his attitude, and his appearance practically screamed military background. His slightly accented English suggested a foreign birth and upbringing.
Ever the gentleman his mother had raised him to be, Derek waited for Maleah to enter first. Sanders led them past the large living room with the floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace and down the hall to Griffin Powell’s private study. The door stood open and inside Griff sat behind his antique desk placed in the corner by the windows overlooking the lake. The moment he saw them, he lifted his two hundred and forty pound muscular body from his desk and stood at his impressive six-four height. Griff was a big man, his mere physical presence intimidating. Include his wealth and power and that added up to a man only a fool would ever cross.
But out there somewhere was a fool who was killing people connected to the Powell Agency.
Nicole Powell stood with her back to them in front of the massive rock fireplace, one of several in the house. When Griff rose from his desk, she instantly turned to face them, her soft tan eyes focusing on her friend Maleah. Physically, the two women were opposites. Nic was a tall brunette; Maleah a petite blond. Whenever he saw Nic, the first thought that came to mind was Amazon Warrior. Standing five-ten in her bare feet, with an hourglass figure reminiscent of Hollywood sex symbols of the 1950s, the lady’s size was every bit as impressive as her husband’s. Derek genuinely liked both Mr. and Mrs. Powell, but it had been easier to like Nic immediately because of her outgoing personality. Griff was more reserved, a man who made others earn his approval.
“Please, come in,” Griff said, then he looked at Sanders and told him, “Close the door.”
Once the five of them were closeted in Griff’s private study, everyone except Sanders seated, Griff spread his big hands out over the folders lying atop his desk.
“These contain all the information we have on the four murders. The info on Winston Corbett came in mid- afternoon, so we’ve had a chance to go over it.”
“As you already know, Ben’s dad’s murder fit the same pattern as the previous three,” Nic said. “We don’t need to wait on the autopsy report to know that.”
“Our killer, for whatever reason, has targeted Powell employees and members of their families.” Griff reiterated an undisputable fact.
Studying the big man’s somber expression, Derek noted suppressed anger combined with grief and frustration.
Sanders said, “Protecting the Powell Agency employees and their families is of paramount importance.” He stood, as he so often did, at Griff’s side, his body stationed slightly behind his boss.
“Everyone is vulnerable because there is no way to predict who will be chosen as the next to die.”
“I’ve given orders for the security here at Griffin’s Rest to be expanded. As of tomorrow morning, we’re doubling the guards and bringing in more agents to the estate,” Griff explained. “There will be guards here at our home, twenty-four/seven, as well as at Yvette’s retreat.”
Most people would not have noticed the slight tensing in Nic’s body, but being an observer of human nature, Derek noticed. Whenever Griff mentioned Dr. Yvette Meng, Nic reacted in a subtle, barely discernable way. He suspected Nic’s friendship with Yvette hinged precariously on Nic believing that her husband had never shared a sexual relationship with the exotic Eurasian beauty. Derek also suspected that there was far more to Griff’s apparent symbiotic relationship with both Sanders and Dr. Meng than anyone, including Nic, knew.
“Obviously, the problem is that we have no idea who the killer has chosen as his next victim,” Nic said. “We’ve read and re-read the reports.” She glanced at Griff’s desktop. “The only thing the four victims had in common was their link to the Powell Agency. They were different ages, different sexes, were murdered in different states. One was a Powell secretary, one an agent, one a lawyer who was the brother of an agent. And now, Ben’s father, a retired businessman, has been killed.”
“If we could figure out how he chooses his victims—” Nic said.
Derek cut her off. “To date, he’s chosen two women and then two men. If he follows this pattern then the next two victims will be female.”
Griffin grunted, the growling sound coming from deep in his chest. “If that’s the case, then every female
