Dead by Morning (34 page)
“I’m a great deal of trouble, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, you are. But most things worth a damn are a lot of trouble.”
“Oh.”
“So, do we have a deal?”
“Yes, I suppose we do.”
She remained quiet for several minutes, and then she asked, “Luke, why did you call me Merry Berry?”
“Huh?”
“You called me—”
“It’s just something that popped into my head. Your name is Meredith, so the short version is Merry. And you’re covered in a million freckles that look like tiny copper berries.”
“Oh, I see. I’ve never had a nickname before. Hmm . . . Merry Berry.” She smiled. “I think I like it.”
Luke barely stifled a groan.
“The authorities have been notified,” Griff explained. “Sheriff Fulton will handle this case personally, as a favor to me. And he’ll deal with the TVAP. Fulton has promised to keep his personnel to a minimum and I’ve promised that we will cooperate fully with his department.”
Everyone seated at the conference table remained silent and attentive. Griff had called this meeting of highly trusted personnel to share information about Shiloh Whitman’s murder and how the crime would be handled by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, the TVA police, and the Powell Agency. Griff issued orders for the agents present to deal with their subordinates.
“I expect Sheriff Fulton’s team will arrive within the hour,” Griff said. “That gives us precious little time to prepare for their investigation and to secure Griffin’s Rest. At no time will any member of our staff interfere with the sheriff’s investigation. But that doesn’t mean our people can’t ask to see everyone’s ID, which I fully expect them to do.”
Derek watched and listened, his gaze moving from a haggard Griff to his equally fatigued wife. To a person, everyone in the room understood the significance of Shiloh Whitman’s death. Someone from the outside being able to break into Griffin’s Rest would be the equivalent of someone breaking into Fort Knox. The possibility of that happening seemed highly improbable. How could the Copycat Carver have gotten through security? How could a stranger have penetrated the seemingly foolproof protection surrounding the compound?
“I don’t think I have to tell y’all how Nic and I feel about Shiloh’s death.” Griff reached out to Nic, who immediately stood up and took his hand. “And you’ve all undoubtedly asked yourselves the same questions we did, and no doubt came to the same conclusions.”
“Since the copycat has murdered three Powell Agency employees and three members of employees’ families, it would be reasonable to assume the copycat killed Shiloh,” Nic told the group. “We are not ruling out that possibility. However, there are two very good reasons to consider an alternate possibility—that the copycat did not kill Shiloh.”
As if they were a tag team supporting each other through this ordeal, Griff took over again from Nic. “One: It would have been virtually impossible for a stranger to have gotten inside Griffin’s Rest. Two: Whoever killed Shiloh did not slit her throat nor did he mutilate her body in any way.”
“How was she killed?” Michelle Allen asked, her voice quivering slightly.
“From what we can tell—and an autopsy will no doubt reveal—Shiloh was attacked, subdued, and her head held under the water at the edge of the lake until she drowned. There is bruising on Shiloh’s body and upper arms.”
“So you can see that the killer’s MO does not match that of the copycat,” Nic explained. “But that does not necessarily mean the copycat didn’t kill her. If the Copycat Carver is, as we believe he is, a professional assassin, it would have been easy enough for him to alter his method.”
“But if the odds of the copycat breaching Powell security are slim to none, then we have to broaden our search and accept the possibility that someone on the Powell staff killed Shiloh,” Maleah said aloud what she knew everyone there was thinking.
Luke drove down Chequers Street until he reached St. Peters at the southern end of the main street in St. Albans. Then he headed down Hollywell and turned onto Sopwell Lane.
“There it is,” Meredith said. “The Goat Inn. It looks like a nice place.”
“There’s no point in going back to London tonight,” Luke told her. “I’ll see if they have a couple of rooms here. If they do, you can rest for a while after we eat lunch and maybe even take a nap.”
When she opened her mouth to argue, he held up his hand in a Stop gesture. “Remember our deal. You’re going to trust me to take care of you.”
She nodded.
After parking the rental car, they got out and walked into the Goat Inn in the old centre of St. Albans. The former coaching inn was now a bed and breakfast that also provided home-cooked meals.
When Luke tried to book two rooms, he was told that only one was available. “It’s a nice sunny room,” the proprietor told him. “And it has two beds.”
Luke booked the room, explained the situation to Meredith, and much to his surprise, she didn’t complain.
“I trust you,” she told him.
After lunch—hot baguettes, with ale for him and bottled water for her—they went upstairs to the nice sunny room. As it turned out their room was small and neat with white walls, blue curtains at the single window, and two beds with white and blue coverlets and blue throw pillows. One bed was a double and the other a twin.
“Lie down and rest,” Luke told her. “I’ll run out and see if I can pick up a few necessities like toothbrushes, deodorant and—” he ran his fingers across his jaw “—a razor.”
“You won’t go far, will you?”
“No, I won’t go far. Just lock the door when I leave and don’t let anyone in while I’m gone.”
When Luke returned with a small bag of toiletries that he had purchased at a local drugstore called Boots on St. Peters Street, he had checked on Meredith. After he found her sleeping soundly, he went back downstairs, drank a bottled lager beer and telephoned Griff.
“Meredith thinks she can find Linden,” Luke told Griff. “We’ve traveled north of London and have been eliminating village after village.”
“Linden may not be in the UK after all,” Griff said.
“What makes you think he might not be here? Meredith seems pretty certain that she is slowly but surely zeroing in on him.”
“Someone killed Shiloh Whitman last night,” Griff told him. “One of the guards patrolling the grounds found her body a little after daybreak this morning.”
“And you think it was the Copycat Carver. Was her throat slit?”
“No. She was attacked and held down in the lake until she drowned.”
“Then it may not have been the copycat.”
“Yeah, my gut tells me it wasn’t.”
“I believe Linden is in England. Between Meredith’s weird sixth sense and Mitchum’s team of experts, it’s only a matter of time until we find him.”
“Even if Linden is in England and you can track him down and eliminate him, doing that will solve only one of our problems. If Linden didn’t kill Shiloh that means someone inside Griffin’s Rest killed her, possibly someone employed by York.” Griff paused for a brief moment. “And then there’s York himself. Until we find the man masquerading as Malcolm York, no one I care about, no one I employ and no member of their family will be safe.”
Chapter 34
He would not depend on underlings to make this very important telephone call, as he had originally planned. No, he had decided that he wanted the pleasure of issuing this specific order himself. As he placed the call, he thought about Griffin Powell, a man he hated with every fiber of his being.
“I assume that Shiloh Whitman is dead, isn’t she?” he asked the moment his puppet inside Griffin’s Rest answered. “If you lie to me, I will know.”
“Yes. I did what you told me to do and I expect you to keep your part of our bargain. Don’t hurt her. Please. Let her go.”
“No one has hurt her. She is alive and well. And as long as you continue to follow my instructions, no harm will come to her.”
“I was told that if I killed—”
“Be very careful what you say. You do not want to be overheard, do you? It would be a shame if anyone found out what you had done, at least not before you are able to give me everything I want in exchange for what you want.”
“I am not going to kill anyone else for you!”
“Yes, you are, if you ever want to see her alive again.”
“Damn you!”
He laughed, gaining great pleasure from having caused so much anger and pain to someone Griffin Powell trusted. “I’ve chosen your next target. This time I want you to strike a lethal blow a little closer to Griffin and Nicole. I want this kill to be more personal than all the others. It’s time to up the ante before the Grand Finale of Act I.”
“Why do you hate Griffin Powell so much?”
“My motives are of no concern to you. Your only purpose is to obey my orders.”
“I swear to God if you hurt her, if—”
“You are in no position to make threats. But I have no reason to kill her. She is nothing more than a means to an end. As long as you do what you’re told, she stays alive. Tell me that you understand.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, while Griffin’s Rest is in a state of turmoil today, when no one is expecting another strike so soon, I want you to kill Maleah Perdue as soon as possible. Take her by surprise.”
“Maleah? You want me to kill Maleah? I can’t. I won’t.”
“Are you sure you are willing to trade one life for another? Does Maleah Perdue mean more to you than—?”
“How do you expect me to kill her in broad daylight with Powell agents and guards and the sheriff’s department covering every inch of Griffin’s Rest? It will be impossible to isolate her.”
“Find a way. If Maleah Perdue isn’t dead by morning, someone else who is very important to you will be.”
“No! God, no . . . I—I’ll do it. I’ll find a way.”
“Now, that’s what I want to hear. By following my orders, I will get what I want and you will get what you want.”
“What I want is for you to rot in hell, you son of a bitch.”
Luke had begun to think Meredith would sleep all night. She had certainly slept the day away. But she roused a little before seven and after freshening up, she met him downstairs for a bite of supper. She ordered tiger prawns for a starter, and then honey roasted ham, served with fried eggs, house fries, and baked beans. She ate like a ravenous wolf, as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Luke had settled for the homemade lasagna, and when Meredith had suggested dessert, they had both ordered the sticky toffee pudding.
Just as the waitress set their puddings in front of them, Luke’s phone rang. “Excuse me.” He removed the phone from his jacket’s inner pocket.
Meredith nodded. “Yes, of course.” She picked up the dessert spoon.
“Sentell here,” Luke said.
“We have a couple of possibilities,” Mitchum told him, skipping any preliminary pleasantries. “All parties who arrived by private plane in the specific twenty-four-hour period have been accounted for except two. A guy named Horacio Vasquez Luna. He has a Venezuelan passport and he was traveling with a female, supposedly his wife. No one by that name has checked into any hotels in or around London. He hasn’t rented a condo, a house or an apartment. And there is no record of a car service picking him up at the airport.”
“Any physical description?”
“Late fifties, heavyset, beard and mustache.”
“Our guy isn’t that old, but then we have reason to believe he’s a master of disguise. Keep looking for Luna,” Luke said. “Who’s the other possible?”
“A man named Zachary Fairweather. He had a British passport. Our report said early forties, average size. No one at Heathrow remembered much about him, but they all remembered his daughter.”
“His daughter?”
“What?” Meredith dropped her spoon in her halfempty pudding dish, the metal clinking against the china.
“Hold on a minute,” Luke told Mitchum. He asked Meredith, “Are you okay?”
“Whose daughter are you talking about?” she asked.
Glancing around the noisy pub, Luke realized that no one was paying any attention to them and figured that, over the loud din, it was highly unlikely anyone could hear more than a word or two of their conversation.
“A man who may be our guy got off a private plane at Heathrow last night, along with his daughter,” Luke told her. Before he could say more, her eyes widened and she suddenly turned as white as a sheet. “Damn, Meredith, don’t you pass out on me.”
“Luke . . . Luke . . .” She gasped for air. “His female companion. Not sex. Oh, God, oh God . . .”
“Pull yourself together.” He reached across the table and grabbed her hand. Then he said into the mobile phone, “Call me back in five—”
“There’s something else you need to know about Fairweather’s daughter,” Mitchum said. “She’s a child of six or seven.”
“Then Fairweather wouldn’t be our guy, would he?” Luke squeezed Meredith’s hand and then released it. “He would hardly be traveling with a kid.”
“I don’t know,” Mitchum said. “Can you think of a better cover?”
“His female companion is a little girl,” Meredith said in a strong voice. And when Luke nodded, she told him, “Don’t hang up. Find out everything about this man right now.” She offered Luke a weak smile. “I’ll be all right.”
“Anything else?” Luke asked Mitchum, all the while looking directly at Meredith.
“Zachary Fairweather hired a car,” Mitchum said. “We’ve been able to trace the route the car traveled out of London.”
“And?” Luke prompted.
“Fairweather rented a black Mercedes C220 Europcar.” Mitchum recited the tag number. “He took M10 north out of London.”
Well, I’ll be damned. North of London, just as Meredith had said.
“Run a detailed check on Fairweather.”
“I have people working on that as we speak.”
“Contact me again when you have more information on both Luna and Fairweather.”
“Fairweather,” Meredith whispered the name. “Fairweather.”
“What about him?” Luke asked.
“Forget about the man named Luna. Concentrate on Fairweather.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
Luke relayed the message to Mitchum, ended the conversation, and stared at Meredith. “You’re picking up on something, aren’t you? What happened? What got your woo-woo mojo working again?”
“Tell me everything Mitchum told you and don’t leave out even the most insignificant detail.” She shoved back her chair and stood. “We need to leave now. We have to go farther north as soon as possible.”
By late afternoon, the invasion of Griffin’s Rest by what seemed to be half the law enforcement personnel in the state of Tennessee had begun to wane. Sheriff Fulmer was still with Griff, the two overseeing every aspect of the investigation, but only a CSI team and a few deputies remained on the property. Shiloh’s body had already been taken to the lab in Knoxville for an autopsy. The detectives had questioned everyone there at the compound, beginning with the guard who had found Shiloh’s body. And Sanders had followed up with interviews of his own.
Maleah had spent most of the day glued to Nic’s side, the two women supporting each other. And Derek had been going over the personal files of everyone living and working there at Griffin’s Rest, searching for anything that might alert him to a problem. Every guard employed by the Powell Agency who had undergone a thorough background check before being hired and, to a person, each man and woman now working at Griffin’s Rest had been with the agency for years. There was not one single new employee working there at present.
As for the Powell agents on duty at Griffin’s Rest . . .
Derek didn’t want to consider the possibility that one of them could have killed Shiloh Whitman. He knew these men and women and was on a first name basis with most. In his opinion, both personally and as a professional profiler, they were all good people. Not one of them would kill without just cause.
Or unless they were under duress, forced to act against their will.
“Hey you.” Instantly recognizing Maleah’s voice, Derek turned to glance at the open office door where she stood staring at him. “It’s about time for a late afternoon break, isn’t it?”
“Hi yourself.” He closed the file folder in front of him, shoved back his chair and stood. “What do you have in mind?”
She came over to him, lifted her arms up and around his neck and kissed him. As she ended the kiss, she murmured against his lips, “I still love you.”
He grinned as he cupped her butt. “I’m glad to hear it since it just so happens that I still love you, too.”
Maleah eased her arms downward and spread her hands out across his chest. “I wish we could pretend that everything is all right, that none of these horrible things have happened. I wish we could concentrate on each other and forget everything and everyone else.”
He reached up, took her hands in his hand, and held them between their bodies. “Want to get out of the house and leave all this behind for a while?”
“Is that possible? The grounds are crawling with law enforcement and—”
“I think we’re down to a few essential crime scene investigators for the most part.”
“I guess I’m behind on the latest. Nic and I have been holed up in Griff’s study for the past few hours.”
“How’s Nic doing?”
“She’s tough. She’ll be okay. She’s worried about Griff more than anything else,” Maleah said. “He just came back up to the house and found us in the study. So, I thought I’d make myself scarce and give Nic time alone with her man while I went to look for my man.”
“Your man, huh? I like the sound of that.”
She pressed her cheek against his. “Don’t remind me later on that I ever said this, but . . . I need you, Derek. I need for you to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be all right.”
“In case you didn’t already know it, Blondie, I need you just as much as you need me.” He tugged on her hands. “Come on, let’s go outside and sit on the patio. We can breathe in a little fresh air and soak up some sunshine while we’re holding on to each other.”
As they made their way through the house like two kids rushing away from school to play hooky for the day, they crossed paths with Sanders and Barbara Jean, who were walking toward the kitchen. Brendan Richter and Shaughnessy Hood were following them.
“We’re all in need of a caffeine pick-me-up. I’m going to put on a couple of pots of coffee,” Barbara Jean said. “There will be plenty in the kitchen if y’all want some.”
“Thanks,” Derek replied.
A few minutes later, Derek and Maleah found the patio deserted. There wasn’t another person, not even a Powell Agency employee or a sheriff’s deputy, anywhere in sight. Derek guided Maleah to the canopied swing at the edge of the huge brick and stone floored patio that overlooked the lake. He sat down and pulled her onto his lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her head on his shoulder.
“We should be talking about you and me and being in love and what we’re going to do about how we feel,” Derek said. “But instead of being able to focus on the two of us, we’re embroiled in what would appear to be a never-ending nightmare.”
“God, Derek, who could have killed Shiloh Whitman?”
He hugged her to him and nuzzled her cheek, his actions comforting. “I don’t believe it’s possible that anyone from the outside could have somehow gotten through security and into Griffin’s Rest.”
“I think you’re right, so that means . . .” She paused, obviously reluctant to say aloud what they both knew to be true. “That means whoever killed Shiloh is either working here or lives here.”
“I’ve spent most of the afternoon going over the personal files on every guard and every agent who is here at Griffin’s Rest right now.”
“I can’t believe that it’s one of the agents. It couldn’t be.” Maleah lifted her head and looked at Derek, her eyes wide and round. “What about one of Yvette Meng’s protégés?”
“I seriously doubt that one of them killed Shiloh.”
“No, I didn’t mean I thought one of Shiloh’s fellow students killed her. What I was thinking, wondering really, is why didn’t Yvette or any of her other students sense that Shiloh was in danger? They’re a group of psychics, aren’t they? You’d think one of them would have seen it coming.”
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