Chapter 2
“ARE YOU SURE YOU CAN’T COME TO RALEIGH WITH ME?” I asked my husband, Zach, as I packed my things into an overnight bag at our cottage in Parsons Valley, North Carolina.
“I wish I could, but I’ve got to go back to Knoxville today to testify. Why can’t Derrick meet you here in Asheville instead of making you drive halfway across the state?”
“My syndicator claims he’s meeting me in the middle between here and Richmond,” I said as I added a few more tops to the growing pile. I had a tendency to over-pack wherever I went, and even though I was just going to be gone three days, it felt as though I was taking enough clothes for a week.
“Don’t forget your pads and pencils,” he said as he added a handful of each to the heap.
I picked them up and moved them to another stack. “These go in my briefcase. I really wish you were going with me, and not just for selfish reasons. If you drove the four and a half hours to Raleigh, I could come up with two of my puzzles for next week.” That was my job, creating logic and number puzzles found in some of the best secondary market newspapers in the country. The puzzles varied from week to week, and sometimes it was a real challenge making everything come out in the end.
“Sorry, Savannah. If I don’t testify, the Slasher might not get convicted, and we don’t want to live with that on our consciences, do we?” My husband, the former chief of police for Charlotte, North Carolina, had been shot in the chest while off duty, and the bullet had left a scar too close to his heart. He’d been forced to retire, and we’d moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains. His departure from law enforcement hadn’t lasted long though, and he was currently working as a consultant to any police department that had a tough case and the budget to hire him.
I shivered at the mention of the case he would be testifying at soon. The Slasher had been a bad one, preying exclusively on single mothers alone in the world. I was sure there was some psychological reason for his obsession, but as far as I was concerned, once he was in prison, he could have all the therapy he wanted until they marched him down the hall to the electric chair.
“I know you have to go. I’ll be fine,” I said as I finally finished packing. “If I’m going to make it in time for our meeting, I’d better hit the road.”
My husband wrapped me up in his arms, and I felt my heart skip a little, despite all of our years together. I couldn’t help myself. Whenever he held me, I felt safe, and not just because he was over six feet tall and built like a bear. It was more because he was mine and I was his, and neither one of us would have had it any other way.
After a lingering kiss, he said, “Don’t forget to call me when you get to Winston-Salem.”
“That’s just halfway to Raleigh from here. Should I call you from Hickory, too?”
“That depends,” he said as he picked up my overnight bag. “Are you going to go see Tom?”
My Uncle Thomas lived in Hickory, and though I didn’t visit him very often, I tried to pop in whenever I could manage it. He was all that was left of my mother’s generation, or at least he had been until my Uncle Barton had come back into our lives.
As we walked to my car, Zach had my bag and I had my briefcase. I said, “No, he and Uncle Barton are still in Alaska.”
He looked surprised by the news. “I thought they were supposed to be home last week.”
“I guess when you have the kind of money Barton has, you can pretty much play things by ear.” My prodigal uncle had made a fortune after leaving home with my grandparents’ money, and ever since he’d come back into our lives, he’d been trying to make up for his past sins.
“I suppose that’s true, though I doubt we’ll ever know what it’s like,” Zach said.
After I unlocked my car door, I slid my briefcase onto the seat beside me.
As I buckled my seat belt, my husband added sternly, “Savannah, I don’t want you working on any puzzles while you’re driving, do you hear me?”
I laughed. “I’m not crazy. It takes too much concentration to do that. I’m not about to take any stupid chances.”
“Good,” he said as he slid my bag onto the backseat. “I still think you should have let Barton buy you a new car when he offered to.”
“You know me better than that.”
“I do,” he said with a grin as he leaned in and kissed me again. “Be careful, sweetheart.”
“You’re testifying in open court against a serial killer, and you’re telling me to be careful?”
“Are you kidding? I’d love it if he took a swing at me.”
“I know you would,” I said. There was a side to my husband that he kept hidden away most of the time, but I knew he could be swift, cruel, and even deadly, if the circumstances called for it. It was as though there was a beast inside him, one he kept carefully chained away unless he needed it.
“Talk to you soon,” I said as I drove away.
From Parson’s Valley, it was a short drive to Asheville, where I picked up I-40, the road I’d be taking all the way to Raleigh. Interstates were great for getting from one place to another, but they weren’t much for scenery. The miles seemed to melt into each other as I drove almost due east. I made a quick stop in Statesville for gas and a bathroom break, and then, against my better judgment, I picked up a Snickers and an icy cold Coke for the road. My husband always protested that he loved me no matter what size I was, but as a rule I didn’t want to put that belief to the test.
I was lost in my own thoughts when my cell phone rang on the seat beside me. How sweet. It appeared that my dear husband couldn’t wait until Winston-Salem to talk to me.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the one who was calling.
“WHY AREN’T YOU HERE YET?”
“Our meeting isn’t for another two hours, Derrick,” I said as I glanced at my watch. I’d left myself plenty of time to get from Parson’s Valley to Raleigh, and if I was being honest about it, I was in no hurry to get there early.
My puzzle editor and syndicator, Derrick Duncan, wasn’t a pleasant man on his best days, which were too few as a rule in the minds of anyone who had ever had to deal with him. I’d signed a contract with him to distribute my puzzles, and each of us had grown to regret it many times since. I wasn’t that thrilled dealing with his abrasive personality, and he felt that his commission was less than it should be.
“You should have planned better, Savannah.”
“I planned it perfectly,” I said. The less time I spent with him, the better. Since Zach had to stay at the Slasher trial at least two days, I’d budgeted some fun time for myself once I was finished with Derrick. I planned to go to the North Carolina Museum of Art, have a hot dog at the Grill, and generally just act like a tourist. I had a friend in town I’d be staying with, Jenny Blake. We’d been roommates in college, and we tried to do something together every year, though she was still trying to make partner in her law firm and worked some horrendous hours. She’d been thrilled when I’d told her about my meeting with Derrick in Raleigh.
“I need you here now,” Derrick said abruptly.
“I can’t drive any faster than I already am,” I said. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“You’d better,” he said, and before I could say another word, he hung up on me. I slammed the phone down onto the passenger seat, determined not to let him ruin my trip. We’d have his precious meeting, and then Jenny and I would have fun, and I’d do my best to forget that the man ever existed.
The phone rang again not three minutes later. I was still fuming when I answered. “What do you want?”
“This isn’t a good time, is it? You’re not in bad weather or heavy traffic are you, Savannah?”
It was my husband, and I’d just bitten his head off for no reason whatsoever. “I’m sorry. I thought you were Derrick.”
“Wow, that’s just about the most insulting thing you could have said to me.”
“I know. I’m really terrible. Forgive me?”
“Sure, why not? What did your fearless leader want?”
“He expected me to move up our meeting,” I said as I clinched the steering wheel with my free hand. “When
