“Very effective,” Griff said, once Hank was out of earshot.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“You as good as told old Hank that you intend to have your way with me tonight.”
“I do,” Laura said, a wistful expression on her lovely face. Then her expression changed, hardened; and she laughed. “Let’s call it what it is, shall we?”
“And that would be?”
Still smiling, she lowered her voice ever so slightly. “A farewell fuck.”
Never let it be said that Laura didn’t know how to make a point. Griff placed his hand on her back and let it trail slowly downward, stopping just below her waist. When she started to speak, he grasped her elbow and maneuvered her forward, directly toward her former fiancé. Before they reached Royce Palmer, Griff leaned down and whispered in Laura’s ear.
“I think a farewell fuck should always be memorable, don’t you?”
As if she hadn’t even heard him, Laura held out her hand to the man she had once been engaged to. “Royce, darling, how good to see you.” She turned to Griff. “Sweetheart, this is Royce Palmer, an old and dear friend.” She hugged closely to Griff’s side as she zeroed in on the other man. “You know Griffin Powell, don’t you? The Griff Powell, UT legend, and one of the most sought-after bachelors in the state of Tennessee.”
Shortly after three in the morning, Ruddy removed his tuxedo jacket and hung it in the closet, then removed the diamond cuff links from his white shirt and placed them in the jewelry case. He’d left the party rather early because he’d been bored.
Ruddy hated being bored.
But a man in his position had to attend a certain number of these mundane affairs. It was expected.
After removing his shoes and stripping out of his other clothing, he retrieved a pair of silk pajamas from the wardrobe drawer. He stroked the luxurious fabric. Ruddy bought only the best.
Once attired in his pajamas, leather house slippers, and quilted satin robe, Ruddy went downstairs and entered his study. After pouring himself a small nightcap, he walked straight to the wall of bookshelves on the right, removed a specific book, pressed the button on the wall, and waited for the secret compartment to open. That’s what he loved about this old house—the secret chambers. Like something out of a 1930s movie. How utterly delicious. There was one chamber between the study and the front parlor and another in the basement. Since he seldom went down to the basement, except when he personally retrieved a bottle of wine, he preferred the small, private, upstairs chamber.
Entering this room transported Ruddy into another world, a realm of pleasure and satisfaction that he had created for himself four and a half years ago. He flipped on the light switch. Soft, mellow illumination filled the eight-by-fourteen-foot room. He moved slowly along the back wall, studying the photographs mounted side by side. Thirty-two enlarged photos of sixteen different women, each one a true beauty. Ruddy paused in front of the most recent addition to his collection: Gale Ann Cain—before and after. The before photograph had been taken years ago when she’d won the Miss USA contest and gone on to compete in the Miss Universe Pageant. The after snapshot had been taken with Ruddy’s tiny digital camera moments after he had killed her, less than forty-eight hours ago.
“Thank you, my pretty flower,” Ruddy said.
After months of searching, he had specifically chosen Gale Ann because of her fabulous red hair. Redheads were the most rare, the most precious.
His fingertips traced his handiwork, gliding smoothly across the snapshot, pausing on her slender ankles.
The sound of her screams echoed inside Ruddy’s head.
The first kill had been the most difficult. He had hated the woman’s screams. But with each kill, the act itself had become easier, and eventually, he had begun to enjoy hearing their screams.
* * *
“The Beauty Queen Killer has struck again.”
The words were no sooner out of Sanders’s mouth than Lindsay McAllister shot out of bed and ran barefoot to the open doorway of her bedroom where her boss’s personal assistant stood. He had awakened her moments before with a loud knock and an urgency in his voice when he called her name.
“Have you gotten in touch with Griff?” she asked, knowing their employer had probably spent the night with his latest lady friend, a Kentucky divorcée who was visiting her sorority sister in Knoxville. The woman’s family raised thoroughbred Derby winners, and Griff had invested in the faltering horse-breeding farm last fall. She often thought her boss had a white knight complex. He seemed to like nothing better than rushing in to save the day.
“Yes,” Sanders replied. “He’s on his way home. He should be here soon.”
“Give me fifteen minutes to shower and dress,” Lindsay said.
Sanders nodded. Not for the first time, she noticed the man’s military bearing. Although she had worked with him for three and a half years, she knew absolutely nothing about his past, but she suspected that at sometime in his life, he had been a soldier. She had no idea how old he was, but guessed his age to be somewhere between fifty and sixty. At five-ten, he was not a large man, but stocky-built, and with his head shaved as slick as a billiard ball, he looked like a muscular, physically fit fireplug. But what set him apart more than anything else were his eyes. An intense brown so dark that they appeared black. And there was an emptiness in those hypnotic eyes that perpetually puzzled Lindsay.
“I’ll have coffee ready for you when you come down.” Sanders turned to leave.
She called to him, “Who, where, and how?”
Sanders paused, but kept his back to her. “Gale Ann Cain. Williamstown, Kentucky. He chopped off both of her feet.”
“She was a dancer.” Lindsay voiced the comment more to herself than Sanders. The killer that the Powell Agency had been tracking for nearly four years murdered his victims in various ways, each specific to the former beauty queen’s talent in her pageant’s contest.
Sanders’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly. “Lyrical dance. She’s a former contestant in the Miss Universe Pageant.”
“You mean she was,” Lindsay corrected.
“No, I mean she is. Ms. Cain is still alive.”
“What!”
“She didn’t die. Her sister found her before she bled to death.”
“My God! Do you know what this means?”
Sanders nodded, then walked away.
Lindsay’s heartbeat accelerated. Her pulse pounded loudly in her ears. After over three and a half years of searching for a manically clever killer, they had finally gotten a break. If the victim was still alive …
Lindsay closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for a woman she had never met, for a woman lying in a Kentucky hospital, missing both of her feet, the victim of a man to whom murder was some sort of sick game.
After
