Beverly Barton 3 Book Bundle

by Beverly Barton

  Three miles from the small airport, Griff took a left on Elmwood Street, which meant he should be less than five minutes from the hospital where Gale Ann Cain lay in a semi-coma, heavily drugged, and teetering between life and death. The former Miss Universe contestant was only one in a long line of former beauty queens who had been savagely attacked in the past four and a half years. By Griff’s—and the FBI’s—count, Ms. Cain was victim number twenty-nine. But neither he nor the FBI could be sure that all twenty-nine murders had been committed by the same person, and therefore weren’t positive that the murders were all connected. Nor could they be certain that there hadn’t been other victims.

  Griff’s gut instincts told him all twenty-nine had a definite connection.

  The victims had not been confined to one city, county, or state, making their killer nomadic, a guy who traveled around in search of the perfect target. But these women had not been chosen at random. Not by a long shot. The common denominator in these crimes was the fact that each woman had been a winner in some kind of beauty pageant—local, statewide, national, or international. Not one victim had been older than thirty-five. And each had still been beautiful.

  Jennifer Mobley Walker had possessed a flashy kind of beauty: Big brown eyes, lustrous dark hair, full lips, large breasts, and long legs that went on forever. And she had been blessed with a bubbly, enthusiastic personality that drew people to her. To know Jenny was to love Jenny.

  No one had been more surprised than Griff when his old friend, Judd Walker, a confirmed bachelor, had fallen head over heels for the former Miss Tennessee and married her less than a year after their first date. Women throughout the state had mourned the loss of such a desirable catch. Rich, handsome, and charming.

  That had been then—five years ago.

  The three-story hospital came into view as Griff neared the turnoff on to Pickler Avenue. If Gale Ann Cain lived long enough to ID her attacker, they would have a chance of catching this guy and stopping him before he killed again. Griff wasn’t sure that arresting the man and bringing him to justice could save Judd’s soul, but it was sure and certain that nothing else would. During the nearly four years he had worked on this case, he had done his utmost to stay detached, as much as it was possible when a friend was involved. But both he, Sanders, and especially Lindsay had become borderline-obsessed with seeing justice done.

  After parking the rental car in the crowded visitors’ lot, Griff slipped on his leather gloves, tightened the silk scarf around his neck, and buttoned up his water-repellent overcoat. The harsh February wind bombarded him, chilling his face, and putting a giddyup in his step.

  At the information desk in the lobby area, he acquired instructions on reaching the ICU unit.

  As he stepped off the elevator, he unbuttoned his tan overcoat and unwrapped the scarf from his neck. He hated the sounds, smells, and sights in a hospital. Medicinal scents blended with the aroma of cleaning products and the stench of human sickness and death. Passing by patients’ rooms, he tried not to glance inside the open doors, tried to avoid viewing the weak, infirm, ill men and women. His avoidance came not from empathy, but from a lack of it, and Griff hated the phlegmatic elements in his nature that were so alien to his former self. A by-product of surviving at all costs, he surmised.

  When he entered the intensive care waiting room, a twelve-by-fourteen-foot, windowless cubbyhole filled with a small group of bleary-eyed, rumpled men and women, he removed his leather gloves and stuffed them into his overcoat pocket. A few of the people in the room appeared to have slept on the two brown vinyl sofas and in the mismatched collection of uncomfortable-looking vinyl chairs. An assortment of small pillows and blankets of various sizes and colors lay scattered about haphazardly on the furniture and the floor.

  Griff had no idea if Gale Ann Cain had a husband or siblings or parents besides her sister who might be here. The information Sanders had received had been sketchy, just a brief conversation with their government contact, an acquaintance of longstanding.

  Pausing in the open doorway, Griff scanned the area. Several people turned and stared at him; just as many others, engrossed in their own tragedies, ignored him completely.

  A woman sitting in the right back corner, deep in conversation with a lady who was sitting in a wheelchair, seemed to have sensed his presence. Her shoulders tensed. She sat up straight. After giving the other woman’s hand a gentle squeeze, she lifted her dark head and glanced over her shoulder.

  Damn! He should have known she’d be here. The bane of his existence, the thorn in his side when it came to the Beauty Queen Killer case.

  She rose from the chair to her full five-ten height and faced Griff. Frowning, her pale tan eyes narrowed and her nostrils slightly flared, Special Agent Nic Baxter walked toward him, her gaze never wavering.

  He stepped out into the hallway and waited for her. If there was going to be a confrontation—and there always was whenever they shared the same space—it was better for the two of them to exchange insults out of earshot of other people. Especially people with loved ones in the ICU.

  She followed him into the hall. They faced each other.

  “You’re not glad to see me,” Griff said.

  “I’m never glad to see you,” she replied.

  “I noticed you were doing some hand-holding. Is she the sister of Gale Ann Cain or just a friend?”

  “I can’t order you to leave, as much as I’d like to, but I can warn you not to interfere in my investigation.” She shook her finger in his face. “Sooner or later, I’ll find out who keeps tipping you off and when I do—”

  “Why can’t you get it through that thick skull of yours that we’re on the same side?” Griff understood that federal agents could be territorial, that they often had to deal with inept local law enforcement and well-meaning civilians, but he was neither.

  “And why can’t you get it through your thick skull that tracking and apprehending serial killers is the bureau’s job, not a game for some know-it-all private dick?”

  Griff cocked one eyebrow and gave her a blistering glare. “Where’s Special Agent Jackson?”

  When the corners of Nic’s mouth lifted ever so slightly in a hint of a smile, he knew he wasn’t going to like her answer. “Curtis retired last month. Didn’t your mole in D.C. tell you?”

  Shit!

  Special Agent Curtis Jackson had been in charge of the Beauty Queen Killer case from the very beginning, heading up the FBI task force. He had liked and respected Jackson. A guy in his late fifties, with years of experience and a macho attitude that matched Griff’s, Jackson and he had gotten along just fine, even though the guy never shared any info with him and had warned him repeatedly to keep his nose out of federal business. Griff kept a professional profiler on the Powell Agency payroll. But despite having a likely description of their culprit, they were no closer to apprehending this monster than they had been three years ago. He suspected it was the same for the FBI.

  Nicole Baxter had come in on the case as a five-year veteran of the bureau, and although she’d graduated at the top of her class at Quantico, she’d had little field experience. From the moment they first met, she and Griff had mixed like oil and water. He didn’t like women who tried to prove that they were better at everything than men were. Maybe Special Agent Baxter wasn’t a die-hard feminist, but she came close enough to filling the bill.

  “If Jackson retired, does that mean you’ve taken over the Beauty Queen Killer case?” Griff knew, but he had to ask.

  She nodded. “That’s right. I’m heading up the task force now.”

  “Is there any way we can bury the hatchet and work together?”

  “Only if I can bury it in your back.”

  Griff let out a quiet yet dramatic groan. “You’re not going to give an inch, are you, honey?” He tacked on the generic endearment because he knew it would piss her off.

  She glowered at him. “I can be reasonable, honey.”

  “You can’t prove it by
me.” He shouldn’t have mouthed off, but couldn’t help himself. She brought out the worst in him and apparently he did the same for her.

  “Keep insulting me and see where that gets you.”

  “I guess I should apologize.”

  “That would be nice.”

  Damn, she actually expected him to grovel. “All right. I apologize.”

  She flopped her hand across her heart. “How sincere.”

  “It’s all you’re going to get. Take it or leave it.” Griffin Powell didn’t grovel. Not for anyone. Not ever again. He’d rather die first.

  “Look, if you’re willing to acknowledge that this is my case, that I’m the one who calls the shots and makes the decisions, I won’t cut your balls off and hand them to you on a silver platter.”

  Go to hell, bitch had been on the tip of his tongue. “In order to safeguard my balls, what do I have to do, sign an oath in blood that I’ll stay out of your way?”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Believe me, Special Agent Baxter, I would never intentionally tempt you.”

  Nic groaned. “Believe me, you have nothing to worry about on that count.”

  He held out his hand, offering her a truce. “Let’s agree to disagree. I’ll stop hoping for cooperation from you, and you don’t put up any roadblocks in my path.”

  She stared at his hand as if it were a poisonous snake, then reluctantly shook hands with him. A quick, let’s-get-this-over-with exchange.

  “If you start interfering, our deal is off. Understand?”

  He nodded. He understood all right; he just wasn’t sure how long he could play nice in the sandbox with this particular she-cat.

  Seemingly satisfied, Nic nodded toward the ICU waiting area. “The woman in there is Barbara Jean Hughes. She’s Gale Ann Cain’s older sister and the one who found her only moments after she was attacked and left for dead.”

  Griff’s gut instincts kicked into play. “Tell me that the sister caught a glimpse of our killer.”

  “I might as well tell you since I can’t stop you from talking to Barbara Jean. And you are going to talk to her, aren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  Frowning, Nic said reluctantly, “When Barbara Jean was entering her sister’s apartment building over on Loretta Street, she saw a man in a trench coat and sunglasses coming down the stairway.”

  “Can she describe him in more detail?”

  “I think she can,” Nic said. “But she’s scared to death—for herself and her sister.”

  “So, even if the sister dies, we’ve still got a possible witness.”

  “You’re a cold-hearted bastard, Powell. You know that, don’t you?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “One other thing, Mr. Powell—we, as in you and I, don’t have anything. I gave you the info about Barbara Jean because you’d get it anyway. But that’s it. The sister is the bureau’s eyewitness. And it will be our responsibility to protect her, if that becomes necessary. Do I make myself clear?”

  Griff grinned. “Crystal clear, honey.”

  Nic groaned.

  Chapter 3

  The old hunting lodge looked deserted, as if it hadn’t been occupied in a decade or longer. Actually, the place hadn’t been used for its original purpose in well over fifteen years, not since Judge Judson Walker IV died. Judd had not enjoyed hunting as much as his ancestors had, instead preferring polo and tennis to killing for sport. He had turned the old lodge into a weekend getaway, and as a young bachelor had hosted numerous parties for his friends; but word had it that because his bride hated the great outdoors and roughing it in the woods, Judd had closed up the place during his brief marriage.

  The road leading to the lodge had never been paved and was now little more than a winding path overgrown with snow-topped grass, weeds, and dead leaves. Towering trees surrounded the drive and the old lodge itself: Ancient hardwoods, worth their weight in gold to any lumber company, their limbs bare and coated with a thin layer of ice; huge cedars shimmering with a frozen glaze; pines tipped with small, glistening snowballs.

  A two-story structure created out of native stone and brick, the hundred-year-old building boasted numerous long, narrow windows, four chimneys, and a wraparound front porch. Out back, there was a small carriage house that had been converted into a garage in the late 1930s. Peeling paint on the eaves and window seals of both the house and garage exposed their neglected state. Two broken windowpanes on the second story of the lodge begged for repair.

  Lindsay pulled her Trailblazer to a halt directly in front of the wraparound porch, but she left the truck’s motor running. The freezing rain had stopped a good twenty miles back, and the sun was fighting to make its way through the thick clouds. The temperature gauge on the dashboard read thirty-four degrees, which meant it had warmed up just enough to begin the thawing process. But by nightfall, those temps would drop again, probably into the twenties, and refreeze any remaining moisture.

  If possible, the place looked sadder and more dilapidated than when she’d last seen it over six months ago. Dripping icicles hung from the edges of the roof. Melting snow clung in clusters to the grassy lawn and several inches of the white stuff, hidden in corners protected from the struggling sunlight, rose several inches high. Lindsay’s gaze traveled up the stone and brick front steps to the porch, then to the huge wooden door with decorative black iron bars crisscrossing the series of descending four-by-six-inch glass panes.

  Inside, she remembered, just beyond the front entrance, lay a small foyer that opened up on either side to large sitting rooms. Each room boasted a massive stone fireplace, hardwood flooring, and dark wood paneling. In the room to the left, trophy deer heads hung on either side of the fireplace; in the room to the right, mounted and framed prize catches from the Tennessee River lined the walls, three fish on either side of the fireplace. She had not seen the upstairs bedrooms, but she assumed that they, too, screamed macho domain, no women allowed.

  The thought of facing Judd, of looking into those cold, topaz gold eyes, kept Lindsay from leaving the warm safety of her SUV. Repeatedly, she had told herself that she didn’t love him, that she never had. She had felt sorry for him, wanted to comfort him, tried to help him.

  All those introspective talks she’d given herself over the past six months had convinced her that what she felt for Judd Walker was a combination of sympathy and lust, not love.

  So, if she didn’t love him, why was she so afraid of seeing him again?

  You can’t put it off forever, you know. Get out of the car and go knock on the door. Face your fears. Prove to yourself that Judd no longer has any power over you.

  After donning her red knit cap and matching gloves, Lindsay buttoned her navy peacoat, shut off the ignition, and opened the car door. As she stepped down, her black leather boots hit a slushy spot on the ground, shooting muddy ooze over the one-inch heels and rounded toes. By the time she reached the porch, the wet grass she’d trekked through had absorbed most of the mud on her boots.

  Taking a deep breath, she faced the front door. Stretching her gloved fingers back and forth, she garnered up her courage, then lifted her right hand and knocked. Once. Twice. Three times.

  No response.

  She knocked again. Harder. Louder.

  Still nothing.

  She banged repeatedly. “Judd, if you’re here, let me in. I have some news for you. It’s about the Beauty Queen Killer case.”

  Silence.

  Damn it. Maybe he wasn’t here. Maybe he’d moved away to some unknown location. A part of her prayed that he had.

  Lindsay tried the front door knob, twisting it this way and that. The door didn’t budge. Locked. So much for that.

  She went to the nearest window and peered in through a fine layer of dirt and grime. The left parlor lay in semidarkness, the furniture still covered with protective cloths. After checking out the other parlor through an equally filthy windowpane, she walked the expanse of the wraparound porch, stopping
at a side door leading through a narrow hall into the kitchen. She tried the door and surprisingly found it give. Unlocked. The door creaked loudly as she pushed it open. She hesitantly entered the dark hallway. Cobwebs shimmied along the walls.

  “Judd, are you here?” she called as she made her way toward the kitchen.

  No answer.

  She found the kitchen empty. But a half-full coffeepot sat on the warmer, and a stained mug rested on the counter beside the coffeemaker.

  He was here. Upstairs? In the basement? Taking a walk in the woods?

  If he was in the house, he would have heard her calling him. Unless he was asleep or passed out drunk. The first year after his wife’s death, Judd had drunk himself into a forgetful stupor on a fairly regular basis. But the last time Lindsay saw him, he’d been stone cold sober. A drunk Judd she could deal with more easily than a sober Judd. Drunk, he was hateful and belligerent. Sober he was apathetic and deadly.

  “Judd, if you’re here, please answer me. Don’t make me search the whole house for you.”

  Nothing.

  “The Beauty Queen Killer has struck again, but this time his victim didn’t die. Not yet. She’s still alive.”

  No reaction. No response.

  “Did you hear me?”

  Creak. Stomp. Creak. Stomp.

  Lindsay heard heavy footsteps on the backstairs that led from the kitchen to the second floor. Her heartbeat accelerated.

  “Judd?”

  The footsteps grew louder as they descended the creaking stairs.

  Lindsay crossed the linoleum-floored kitchen and waited at the foot of the stairs, her pulse racing as she clutched both hands into tight fists on either side of her hips.

  Barbara Jean Hughes, confined to a wheelchair since a terrible car crash five years ago, responded to Griffin Powell’s charm the way most other women did—she practically melted into a puddle. Good grief! Nic didn’t get it. Yes, he was good-looking, masculine to the nth degree, dressed like a GQ model, drove a fancy sports car, and was reported to be a multimillionaire. Those qualities alone would be enough to make the average female swoon. But if there was one thing Nicole Baxter had never been, it was average.