Dead by Morning (30 page)
With a few twists, he locked the carbon steel talons of the compact grappling hook into position and sent the hook sailing up and atop the sloping roof at the back of the house. Testing the connection and finding it secure, he began his ascent up the lightweight nylon rope. Once on top of the roof, he made his way carefully over to the nearby single window, one he assumed would take him into a bathroom. He removed the glass cutter from his pocket, along with a suction device, and removed a section of the windowpane without breaking it. He reached through the opening, unlocked the window and raised it high enough to allow him enough space to slip inside the house.
As he had assumed beforehand, he now found himself inside a small bathroom, well lit with a decorative hot pink glitter nightlight. How lucky for him that he had, no doubt, entered through her bathroom window. Not having to search the entire upstairs to find her simplified his job enormously. The bathroom door stood wide open. With practiced stealth movements, he entered the bedroom silently, not making a sound. Another nightlight identical to the one in the bathroom cast a pink glow across the carpeted floor and moonlight streaming through the sheer striped curtains illuminated the wicker bed in which she slept.
He reached into his pocket, removed a small vial and a linen handkerchief and then opened the vial and soaked the linen with its contents as he crept closer and closer to the bed. She lay there in all her beautiful blond innocence, never knowing the part she would play in a madman’s diabolical scheme. But this specific madman paid extremely well. And it wasn’t his place to judge the people who employed him to do their dirty work.
He leaned down, placed the ether-soaked handkerchief over her nose and mouth and positioned his other hand in the center of her chest to hold her in place if she woke. Her eyes flew open. She stared up at him for a few moments and then closed her eyes as the anesthetic took affect. He reached inside the inner pocket of his snug-fitting jacket, removed an envelope and laid it beside her pillow. Without hesitation, he flung back the covers, lifted her up and into his arms and retraced his steps through the bathroom. He eased her through the window, placing her solidly on the roof before he climbed out and joined her. The moonlight struck the tiny pink sequins outlining the ruffles on the hem of her gown.
After checking below on the ground, he hoisted her up and positioned her beneath his arm, clamping her securely between the inner curve of his elbow and his ribcage. Mindful that one wrong move could result in him dropping her to the ground, he grasped the nylon rope and descended with careful precision. Once on the ground, he lifted her up and across his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes, and then ran up the alley toward the car he had parked there less than twenty minutes ago.
A private jet would be waiting for them in Nashville. In two and a half hours, he and his employer’s special guest would board the jet and be ready for take off to London by daybreak.
Chapter 30
Meredith glared at Luke across the breakfast table. Despite having kept her up until the wee hours of the morning, he had knocked on her bedroom door at precisely seven-thirty and informed her that room service had just delivered their breakfast.
“I ordered the full English fry-up,” he had told her. “Eggs, bacon, sausages. Plenty of protein, along with baked beans, mushrooms, and fried bread. I expect you out here and ready to eat in ten minutes.”
Knowing that if she didn’t join him for breakfast within a reasonable time, he would come in and get her, she had grabbed a quick shower, washed her hair, and slipped into a pair of ratty sweat pants and a soft cotton T-shirt. Leaving the towel wrapped around her damp hair, she had arrived at the table less than ten minutes after he had summoned her.
“Eat hearty,” he said. “We have a lot to do. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, you’ll be working on all cylinders this morning.”
He had been referring to the fact that last night when he had placed what Luke had told her had been a set of cuff links owned by Anthony Linden in her hands, she had drawn a blank. It was if no one had ever handled the cuff links, other than Luke. After more than an hour of useless efforts to use the links as a conduit to previous wearers, Luke had told her to go to bed.
Now, as he sipped on his breakfast tea, she watched him until he set down his cup and looked at her. “What?” he asked.
“I’ve eaten all that I can. I’m fueled and ready to perform, hopefully on all cylinders,” she told him. “But if all you have for me to use is those cuff links, then forget it. For some reason, all I picked up when I handled them were some vague faces of various people. One I believe actually made the gold links and another was the jewelry store salesman. And you. I saw you tossing the cuffs back and forth in your hands.”
Luke’s lips twitched as if he were about to smile. He didn’t. “The cuff links never belonged to Anthony Linden. I purchased them new yesterday.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “Why would you—? Damn you! You were testing me. Was that your idea or were you instructed to—?”
“Testing you with the cuff links was entirely my own idea.”
“Why?”
“Because although I’ve seen you in action a few times, I find it difficult to believe in what you and Dr. Meng and her other protégés do.”
Without giving any thought to what she was doing, Meredith shoved back her chair, stood, picked up a piece of the soft fried bread on her plate and flung it at Luke. It hit him mid-chest, the grease staining his navy blue polo shirt.
“What the hell,” he grumbled.
“Don’t you ever do something like that to me again.” She planted her hands on her hips.
“Go get dressed,” he told her. “I’ll change my shirt and then I’ll bring you something that actually belonged to Anthony Linden.”
“Are we going out somewhere today?” she asked.
“Probably not.”
“Then I’m dressed for the day,” she informed him. “I’ll go dry my hair and be right back.”
Luke shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
After slamming her bedroom door, Meredith debated whether or not to change clothes. She had brought along a pair of jeans, dress slacks, and several nice blouses. But fifteen minutes later, with her hair dry and pulled back in a loose ponytail, she stormed back into the living room wearing the same sweat pants and T-shirt.
The table had been cleared, with only a fresh pot of tea now in the middle of a tray that held two clean cups. Luke sat on the sofa in his khaki slacks and a navy and red striped button-down shirt, the short sleeves revealing his muscular arms.
“Sit down here beside me,” he ordered her.
She sat, obeying without question, although reluctantly and with great reservation. He glanced at the round coffee table in front of the sofa. There beside a clear glass vase filled with white lilies lay a rectangularshaped box.
“Open it,” Luke said.
She did. Inside, she found a handgun.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s a SIG Sauer—”
“No, I don’t care what make and model the weapon is,” she told him. “I hate firearms of any kind. If this is another one of your tests—”
“It’s not a test. That pistol is supposed to have belonged to Anthony Linden and has never been owned or used by anyone else.”
When she simply stared at the gun for several minutes, Luke apparently grew aggravated with her. He removed the pistol from the box and held it out to her. “It isn’t loaded.”
“I should hope not.” She opened her palm and held out her hand.
The very instant he placed the gun in her hand and the cold metal touched her skin, she cried out.
“What’s wrong?”
She heard Luke’s question, but despite the fact that he was sitting right beside her, he sounded as if he were in another room. As people’s faces flashed through her mind like images from a television screen, moving at top speed, she sensed that all those people were dead. Three men, two women, and a child. When she closed her eyes, she saw only black emptiness and felt an odd rush of adrenaline soar through her body. And then the rapid fire of a pistol echoed inside her head.
“Oh God,” she whimpered. “He killed them. All of them.”
“You’re getting something about Linden. What is it?”
“He’s killed so many people with this gun. I saw them, six of them. One was just a boy.”
“We already know he’s a killer, that he’s a professional hit man. I need for you to move on from that and try to tell me something we don’t know. Try to focus on finding the son of a bitch, not taking a gruesome walk down memory lane.”
“Don’t . . . please . . .”
Leave me alone. You don’t understand. I have very little control over what I see and what I feel.
Leave me alone. You don’t understand. I have very little control over what I see and what I feel.
She wrapped her fingers over the butt of the gun and clutched it tightly.
“He has a good job and he likes it. He likes it a lot,” Meredith said. “The money he earns affords him a lifestyle he enjoys. He tells himself that he kills for the money, but . . . he kills for the pleasure, too.”
Although she felt Luke’s hands on her shoulders, felt the non-too-gentle shake he gave her, only her body was in the room with him. She tried harder to concentrate on the man who had owned the gun, on his present location. Where was he right now?
The face that appeared to her kept changing. Dark hair, light hair, red hair, bald. Blue eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes. Mustache, beard, clean shaven, sideburns. Glasses. No glasses. The image of his features wasn’t clear. It kept changing too quickly for her to describe him.
“He wears disguises.”
“Meredith, concentrate completely on where he is right now, this very minute,” Luke told her as he ran his hands down her arms and then released her. “Any other information is useless to us.”
Concentrate. Concentrate.
I’m trying. I’m trying.
Suddenly she felt weightless. She floated above the earth as if she had wings. Clouds surrounded her, white and fluffy. She loved the sensation of flying and had had visions, for as long as she could remember, of leaving her body and soaring into the heavens.
And then all of her feelings of joy disappeared and a dark, foreboding fear claimed her. The hum of an engine grew louder and louder, and louder still, until it drowned out every other sound, every thought, every feeling.
She gasped for air, trying to escape from the onslaught of the roaring engine, and fought her way back to rejoin her mind with her body. Her head ached. Her stomach lurched with nausea.
As she slowly opened her eyes, the gun she had been clutching dropped from her weak hand and hit the floor. “He’s on an airplane.”
“Right now?” Luke asked. “Is he on an airplane right now?”
She stared at Luke. “Either now or very recently. He’s coming toward me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He’s coming toward me,” she repeated half a second before she collapsed in a heap at Luke’s feet.
When Maleah and Derek had arrived at Griffin’s Rest late yesterday, they had found a high level of anxiety that spread from the very top and filtered its way down through every employee. If they thought security had been tight when they left there the last time, they found out as they drove through the security gates just how much tighter it could be. Barbara Jean had met them at the front door, and Maleah had noticed Brendan Richter hovering in the background.
“My God, you’d think we were being invaded,” Maleah had said as she entered the foyer. “Is all of this because of Saxon Chappelle’s niece?”
“Partly,” Barbara Jean had replied as she’d glanced from Maleah to Derek. “Sanders is waiting for you in the office. He needs to speak to you now.” She had looked up at Maleah. “Nicole wants to talk to you. She’s upstairs in her sitting room.”
After that, Maleah hadn’t seen Derek again last night. How long he spent in the auxiliary Powell office headquarters there at Griffin’s Rest, she didn’t know. Nor did she have any idea where he’d slept or if he had slept. She had spent more than two hours with Nic, after being allowed entrance into Nic’s bedroom suite by her private guard dog, Shaughnessy Hood. One look at her best friend and she had realized just how bad things were with her and Griff. Nic had looked like death warmed over.
“If you think I look bad, you should see Griff,” Nic had said. “He was in rough shape before Poppy Chappelle was killed, but now . . . Oh, Maleah, I’m worried sick about him. I haven’t seen him all day. He hasn’t ventured out of his den and my guess is that by now he’s drunk himself into a stupor and passed out.”
Unlike the other Powell agents who were assigned a bedroom in the house when they rotated shifts at Griffin’s Rest, Maleah had her own room, a perk of being Nic’s best friend. Since she spent almost as much time here as she did in her Knoxville apartment, she kept several changes of clothes in the closet and an assortment of toiletries in her private bathroom.
When she had finally gotten in bed well past midnight, she had tossed and turned for nearly an hour before dozing off to sleep. And she had awakened at a little after six, feeling a bit groggy and sleep-deprived. Her first thought had been about Derek. She had wondered if he was awake and if he was, had he already gone downstairs for breakfast. Odd that she should have had such an overwhelming desire to see him, talk to him, be with him.
Now less than an hour later, freshly showered, dressed for the day in tan twill slacks and a black, short-sleeved cotton sweater set, she found herself taking more time than usual to apply her makeup and fix her hair.
This is ridiculous. You’re primping like a teenager getting ready for the prom.
She stared at herself in the vanity mirror, her long hair framing her face as it fell in layers down to her shoulders. She had even taken great pains to use a curling iron to style her hair.
All because you want Derek Lawrence to find you attractive. And don’t you dare try to deny it.
She couldn’t deny it. Not to herself and not to the reflection staring back at her from the mirror. “All right, so what’s the big deal? Why shouldn’t I want to look my best this morning?”
While in the midst of having an in-depth conversation with herself, Maleah heard a repetitive rapping at her bedroom door. It might be Nic, even though she hoped her friend was in bed with her husband, the two of them getting some much needed rest. But more than likely Griff was still in his study and Nic had lain awake half the night worrying herself sick about him.
When she opened the door, she halfway expected to see either Nic or Barbara Jean, but instead Derek stood there, a dead serious expression on his handsome face.
“Good morning,” she said.
“How are you today?” he asked.
“I’m fine, all things considered. How about you?”
“I’ve been better,” he admitted. “May I come in?”
“Sure.” She moved back so that he could enter, and then she closed the door before asking, “What’s wrong?”
“I was up until after one this morning,” Derek said. “Helping Sanders with Griff. He . . . uh . . . he drank a little too much. We managed to walk him into the bathroom connected to his study, put him in the shower and finally got him into a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Sanders sent me on to bed around one-fifteen. I think he sat up all night while Griff slept it off on the sofa.”
“I was with Nic until well after midnight. She wasn’t drinking, but she wasn’t in much better shape. She’s worried about Griff and she figured he was drinking.” She stared at Derek. “Tell me why a man who professes to worship the ground his wife walks on shuts her out the way Griff does Nic when he needs her the most. The way he’s acting is killing her.”
“I’ve told you that big strong men don’t like to appear weak in front of their women. No matter how misguided his actions, Griff’s intention is to protect Nic. He didn’t want her to see him the way he was last night.”
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