Dead By Morning

by Beverly Barton

  He had allowed her to see a side of him that she suspected not many even knew existed. Few people would believe that the debonair, sophisticated Southern charmer’s youthful past included a nefarious secret.

  By the end of her long walk—with Derek—she had come to the conclusion that she could handle only one major problem at a time. She’d just have to put her feelings for Derek on the back burner. Being in love was a foreign concept to her. She had spent her entire life trying to avoid repeating the mistake she had made with Noah—becoming involved in a committed relationship that could lead to marriage.

  After lunch, which she and Derek had shared with Nic, Griff, Sanders, and Barbara Jean, she had returned to the Powell Agency office there at Griffin’s Rest. With the bulk of the agency’s employees working day and night on the Copycat Carver case and with reports pouring in from various legal and illegal contacts the world over, the staff at their Knoxville headquarters was suffering from information overload. Add to that the fact that only a handful of agents were privy to the most sensitive information and that meant piles of reports were waiting to be read, studied, and digested. Everyone except Barbara Jean had worked all afternoon and until well past seven. They had taken a long overdue break only when Barbara Jean had summoned all of them to the dining room for dinner. The group had eaten in relative silence, their conversation limited to their compliments to the chef, Barbara Jean, on the delicious meal. She had smiled, said thank you, and had been gracious enough not to point out that no one had eaten very much. Afterward, Sanders had helped with cleanup and then he and Barbara Jean had bid everyone goodnight shortly after nine o’clock. Nic finally persuaded Griff to call it a night around 10:00 P.M., and Maleah had sensed from the way they’d been looking at each other, they wouldn’t be going to sleep anytime soon.

  Alone in the living room with Derek, she shifted the file folders in her lap into a neat pile and laid them aside on the sofa cushion beside her. She glanced at Derek, who seemed absorbed in a crossword puzzle he had ripped out of today’s copy of the Knoxville News Sentinel. As if he had sensed her staring at him, he glanced up from the newspaper and smiled at her.

  “Alone at last,” he said jokingly.

  “So it would seem.” She returned his smile.

  “I could fix us a drink,” he suggested. “Or we could raid the kitchen for another piece of BJ’s pecan pie.”

  “I shouldn’t have eaten the first piece.” Maleah patted her hips. “I think they’re an inch wider already.”

  Derek rose to his feet, dropped the folded newspaper in the chair, and came straight toward her. Before she realized his intention, he leaned over her and placed his open palms on either side of her hips.

  “They’re wider by a quarter of an inch at most,” he told her, barely managing not to laugh.

  All the while faking a frown, she swatted at his hands until he lifted them off the cushions and away from her hips. He dropped down on the sofa beside her and rested his head on the back cushion.

  “You’re tired, aren’t you?” she said.

  He glanced at her. “Yeah. You are, too. It’s been a long day.”

  “We should probably go upstairs and try to get some sleep,” Maleah said. “But I swear I’m so wired I can’t imagine being able to sleep right now.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s been a pretty intense day, starting with this morning’s top secret meeting. Griff’s wound so tight, he’s on the verge of snapping. His drinking binge last night didn’t solve anything for him and it sure didn’t take the edge off.”

  “I’m worried about Nic. I’ve never seen her so scared. I honestly think she’s afraid she’s going to lose Griff, that somehow their marriage is going to implode.”

  “When a husband and wife keep secrets from each other, it puts a major strain on their marriage.”

  “I agree,” Maleah said. “And the not knowing causes as much damage, if not more, than sharing the secret would. In theory, of course. With what’s happening now, a killer targeting the Powell Agency, finding and stopping the killer has to take priority over everything else in Nic and Griff’s life.”

  Derek pivoted his head so that he faced her. “In your life and mine, too.”

  She nodded. “Finding Anthony Linden has to be our top priority.”

  “You know, I think I have Anthony Linden figured out, at least as much as I can with the info I have and by gauging his personality by other professional killers I’ve studied. They all have certain characteristics in common. You’d be surprised at how much a hired assassin has in common with a Special Forces soldier, although society sees one as immoral and the other as a hero.”

  “Despite any similarities, there is a difference though, isn’t there?”

  “For some, yes,” Derek said. “The fine line that separates the two—villain and hero—is the reason he kills. That and the emotion or lack of emotion involved. Some men enjoy killing. Others hate it, even after it becomes easy to kill.”

  “The way it did for you?”

  “Yeah, the way it did for me.” He reached out and twined a tendril of her hair around his finger. “Did I ever tell you that I like blonds?”

  “You like brunettes and redheads, too.”

  “You’re right, I do, but I’m partial to one particular blond.”

  She allowed him to pull her toward him by gently tugging on her hair. When they were face to face, only a few inches separating them, she asked, “Is she anyone I know, this particular blond?”

  “All you have to do is look in a mirror.”

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She knew because she wanted that kiss every bit as much as he did. Maybe more. After all, she was in love with him, but she had no reason to believe that he felt the same way. For Derek, this was probably a flirtation that he hoped would lead to sex.

  Derek released her hair, leaned forward enough so that their mouths touched, and whispered against her lips, “I swear to God, I won’t ever hurt you. I’d cut off my right arm first.”

  Excitement and anticipation ignited inside her and spread through her like a wildfire when he kissed her. Aggressive yet gentle, he took her mouth, but otherwise didn’t touch her. She returned the kiss eagerly, wanting him and needing so much more.

  The urge to touch him became overwhelming. She lifted her arms and draped them around his neck as she deepened the kiss. Taking his cue from her, Derek delved his tongue inside her mouth as he eased his hands beneath her and lifted her up and onto his lap. With their mouths fused together and their bodies straining for closer contact, she clung to him. He roamed his hands over her back and hips while she forked her fingers through the long, thick hair at the nape of his neck.

  When they finally came up for air, both breathing hard, their gazes connecting, Derek smiled and then glanced at her throat and the expanse of flesh exposed by the V-shaped neckline of her blouse.

  “We have on too many clothes for what I have in mind,” he told her.

  She nodded. “Your room or mine?”

  He chuckled. “Whichever is the closest.”

  “Mine,” she said.

  He stood, taking her up with him, still holding her in his arms.

  “We’ll get there faster if you put me down and let me walk.”

  He eased her slowly to her feet, her body sliding along his, arousing them both even more. She grabbed his hand and yanked him along with her as she raced out of the living room, down the hall and up the stairs.

  Shiloh Whitman often wondered why Dr. Meng had accepted her as a student and wondered if the others saw her as a wannabe psychic. After all, how valuable would she ever be as anything other than a sideshow amusement? She didn’t possess the gift of clairvoyance or channeling or precognition or psychometry or telepathy. All she had was the ability to sense psychic energy and entities and to see the aura around a person.

  When she was a child,
her siblings and cousins had laughed at her when she told them they had different colored lights shining around them. And her parents had scolded her, telling her to stop lying or people would think she was crazy. She had always been a misfit, the one thing she did have in common with the others, especially with Meredith. A sympathetic friend in college had told her she should find someone to help her figure out what was wrong with her. And oddly enough less than a year later, Dr. Meng actually found her, quite by accident, in of all places a bookstore in New York City.

  Looking back now, she realized that if Dr. Meng hadn’t taken her back to London with her, she wouldn’t have survived. She had been on the verge of suicide, her life meaningless.

  Shiloh had never been happy and never expected to be. There was an emptiness inside her that couldn’t be filled. But she lived a productive life by keeping busy, studying, practicing, and assisting Dr. Meng in any way possible.

  Lately, she had begun to feel an inexplicable restlessness and deliberately stayed away from the other students, not wanting anyone to probe inside her mind.

  Tonight the peculiar restlessness had grown worse, so much so that she felt as if she were on the verge of climbing the walls in her room. Feeling trapped, smothered by the confinement, she knew she had to find a way to go outside, to breathe the night air, to look up at the stars, to escape from that overpowering sense of imprisonment.

  But Dr. Meng had warned them not to go anywhere outside the sanctuary alone, to go in pairs and always with one of the guards.

  If she slipped out the back way, who would see her?

  What if one of the others realizes you’ve gone outside alone?

  That wouldn’t happen. One of Dr. Meng’s strictest rules was that none of her students could use their gifts to invade the privacy of another.

  Hurriedly changing from her pajamas and house slippers into a jogging suit and running shoes, Shiloh prepared for her escape.

  I can’t kill her.

  I won’t do it.

  But he’s given you no choice.

  You must take a life in order to save a life.

  Do what you must do. Do it quickly. She doesn’t have to suffer. Make it as painless as possible.

  You mustn’t let yourself hesitate at the last minute. Once she sees your face, once she can identity you, you will have no choice.

  There she is. See her. She’s all alone, as if she’s waiting for you.

  Slipping away had been much easier than Shiloh had thought it would be. Perhaps because she had been keeping to herself so much lately, no one really cared where she was or what she was doing. And although the guards roamed the grounds day and night, she had been able to avoid them without a problem. And even the two agents staying at the sanctuary, Ms. Allen and Mr. Redmond, had no idea she wasn’t sound asleep in her bed. After all, they assumed that all of Dr. Meng’s protégés would request permission to leave and then be given an escort.

  She promised herself that she wouldn’t stay outside for very long, only long enough to clear her head and relieve the nagging restlessness keeping her on edge. Even with the bright moonlight, darkness filled the night, and only the security lights around the sanctuary kept the hovering black shadows at bay.

  As she followed the clear path along the lake, one used by residents and guests alike for morning and evening jogs and leisurely walks, she paused occasionally to look out over the river. A feeling of calm began growing inside her and ever so gradually the restlessness that had forced her out into the night subsided, leaving her in peace.

  She heard footsteps behind her. Had one of the guards seen her? Or had one of the others followed her?

  Shiloh turned and stared into the darkness. “Hello. Is anyone there?”

  Silence.

  It must have been a nocturnal animal scurrying through the underbrush or perhaps it had been nothing more than the wind. She turned around, breathed in the fresh night air and looked at the moonlight dancing on the water.

  Odd how bright the moonlight is. Shimmering. Intense. And very white.

  Mesmerized by the unnatural radiance of light, she moved closer to the water’s edge. Fixated on the glow, she gasped as she realized what she saw was not moonlight, but the reflection of her own aura. Transcendent. Spiritual. Non-physical.

  A white aura often signified a new undesignated energy in a person’s aura. Or it was a harbinger of—

  There it was again. The same noise she had heard earlier. Footsteps directly behind her.

  She turned, sighed heavily, and said, “It’s you. I thought I heard someone. Have you been following me?”

  “Yes.”

  Even in the darkness, Shiloh saw the other person’s aura, heavy swirls of gray and black smoke, dirty, muddy colors indicating dark thoughts and fear and negative energy. And in that moment, seconds before her life ended, Shiloh understood why her aura had been such an intensely bright white.

  A glowing white aura was also a harbinger of death.

  Chapter 33

  Maleah and Derek barely made it to her room before tearing at each other’s clothes. The moment Derek kicked the door shut behind them, his mouth and hands otherwise occupied, Maleah attacked the buttons on his shirt. When she ripped open his shirt, he slid his hands up under her blouse and paused to fondle her breasts through her bra.

  “Lift your arms,” he told her.

  She did. He pulled her buttoned blouse over her head, yanking at the sleeves to free her arms. He threw the blouse on the floor. Repaying him in kind, she shoved his shirt off his shoulders and tossed it on the floor on top of her blouse.

  Derek walked her backward toward her bed, all the while unbuttoning her slacks and lowering the zipper as she unbuckled his belt and unsnapped his jeans. When he toppled her over onto the bed, he rose up long enough to yank her slacks down her legs and then divest himself of his jeans.

  She reached for him, wanting the feel of him against her, needing to touch him, kiss him, love him. He straddled her, his long, hairy legs brushing her smooth legs as he looked down at her, his gaze moving appreciatively over her from face to thighs.

  “If I tell you how absolutely gorgeous you are, will you slap me?” he asked, a playful grin curving the corners of his mouth.

  “Not if you don’t mind my telling you that you’re pretty gorgeous yourself, Mr. Lawrence.” She reached up and caressed his chest, loving the feel of the curly hair covering the well-defined muscles.

  “I don’t mind at all. As a matter of fact, I insist you tell me.”

  She laughed. “I’ll bet you make all your women feed your ego with flattery, don’t you?”

  Bracing on his elbows, he lowered himself until his lips reached hers. “As far as I’m concerned, there are no other women, and there never have been. There’s only you, Blondie, only you.”

  Emotion caught in her throat. Damn it, she should have known he would know the perfect thing to say. After all, he was a renowned charmer, wasn’t he?

  “How many women have believed that smooth line?” she asked as she nuzzled his neck.

  He kissed her ear.

  She shivered.

  “You’re the first one I’ve used it on, honey. How do you like it?” He circled her ear with the tip of his tongue, and then took her earlobe between his teeth and nipped playfully.

  “I like it just fine,” she said. “And just for tonight, I’ll pretend you mean it.”

  Gazing into her eyes, he reached under her to unhook her bra. With their gazes solidly melded, he eased the bra down her shoulders, taking his time, letting the soft material rake over her hard, sensitive nipples.

  She gasped.

  He smiled.

  They didn’t break eye contact until he laid the bra aside and looked down at her bare breasts.

  “I meant what I said,” he told her. “I mean it tonight and I’ll mean it tomorrow and—”

  She placed her index finger over his lips, silencing him. “No promises, no vows, no declarations.”


  “Is that what you want or is that what you think I want?”

  “You have commitment issues, remember,” she told him.

  “And you have control issues.” He pressed his erection against her. “But tonight we’re going to share the control. I’m going to show you that you can trust me to never make you do anything you don’t want to do. And you’re going to willingly give yourself to me, no strings attached, solely because you want me as much as I want you.”

  “I guess we both have something to prove, to ourselves and to each other.”

  “I’m going to start right now by proving to you that I want to make love to you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  The moment his mouth covered her breast, her hips bucked involuntarily, lifting her lower body hard against his. He groaned deep and low as he slid his hand inside her silky panties and cupped her mound. When he inched his fingers lower until he found her clitoris, she rubbed his penis through the thin material of his briefs. He caressed her intimately, eliciting a throaty moan.

  “I’ve got some condoms in my pants pocket,” he told her as he inserted two fingers inside her.

  As her body gushed around his fingers, she writhed beneath him. “You came prepared? You must have been pretty sure of yourself. Or do you always carry around condoms in your pocket?”

  “Blondie, I put those condoms in my pocket when I got up this morning because I knew that I couldn’t go another day without staking my claim on you.” He removed his fingers from inside her, slipped his hand out of her panties and hooked his thumbs beneath the elastic waistband. He kissed her and then lifted his head. “Before you open your pretty little mouth to protest, you should know that before tomorrow morning, I expect you will have laid claim to me, too, lock, stock and barrel.”