Nic rounded the corner of the second block, picking up speed, pushing herself, as her mind replayed the final clue. Rubies and lemon drops. She had driven herself crazy trying to figure out what the hell that meant. Griff had half his staff at Powell’s trying to come up with something.
Griff. She’d spoken to him once since they’d parted company early yesterday morning. He had called her shortly after eight last night. He was back at Griffin’s Rest and doing what she was doing—waiting for the inevitable. And hoping beyond hope that they could figure out who the next victim might be.
Before it was too late.
There would be no way to get Griff out of her life now. If the killer continued to phone them both with clues, they would have to compare notes on a regular basis. And, as Griff had told her, he would stay either one step ahead of or one step behind the authorities on every case.
She had talked to Doug again. “I think the killer wants me heading up this case. Why else would he choose a victim from Alexandria, in my territory? I think he picked me just like he picked his victims.”
“Isn’t that reason enough not to play along?” Doug had asked her.
“I have to do this. He knows that. Talk to Ace Warren. Persuade him to use his influence to see that I’m put in charge. Make us the office of origin on this case and the others the Auxiliary offices. After all, our killer is talking personally to me and not to any other agent.”
“He’s also talking to Griffin Powell,” Doug had reminded her. “Want me to put him in charge, too?”
“Very funny.”
“I’ll talk to Ace.”
“Thanks.”
Nic had spent more than four years of her career tracking down the BQ Killer and when Cary Maygarden had been unveiled as the murderer, that should have put an end to it. Unfortunately, one small but significant clue had kept her from writing “The End” to the story that everyone else had said was concluded. Two bullets had been found in Maygarden’s body. One bullet had come from Powell’s sharpshooter Holt Keinan’s rifle and the other from an unknown source. Although the bureau and the local authorities in Knoxville had looked into the matter, nothing had ever come of it. Dead end. Only she and Griff had been convinced that there had been a second BQ Killer, one who had ended the deadly game—the dying game—by shooting his partner.
The second killer had laid low for a whole year, killing again almost a year from the day that Cary Maygarden had died. Coincidence? No way.
As Nic power-walked block after block, her mind moving as quickly as her feet, her brain jumped from thought to thought. But she finally realized that it all came back down to that final, perplexing clue—rubies and lemon drops.
By the time she had come full circle and returned to her block, dawn light was spreading across the eastern horizon in vibrant splashes of color. A pink glow so dark it was almost red, fringed in pale gold. Something she’d heard her grandmother say when she was a child came to mind. “Red sky in the morning is a sailor’s warning.” A red morning sky forecast rain.
Nic slowed when she reached her driveway, tossed her head back, and sucked in huge gulps of fresh air. Her gaze lingered on the sky, alight with color, red and gold, pink and yellow.
Red and yellow.
Rubies and lemon drops.
Damn! Could it be that simple?
Had the final clue been the colors red and yellow? If so, what could it possibly mean? The color of her hair? Blonde. The color of her car? Red? That couldn’t be it.
Colors. Think colors. Paints, crayons, eye color, hair color, skin color.
Wiping the perspiration from her cheeks with the back of her hand, Nic paused at her kitchen door. She removed the mint green plastic spiral wristband with her key attached and unlocked the door.
Think sports. Colors. School colors?
Was there any college with red and yellow as school colors?
Nic closed the door behind her, walked into her kitchen, and saw that the coffeemaker she had set the night before had brewed eight cups of heavenly smelling black coffee.
Shower first. Coffee later.
School colors. Red and yellow.
If you mix red with yellow you get—orange.
Orange was the dominant color for how many colleges?
Nic yanked her cell phone from the clip on her walking shorts, hit the programmed number, and held her breath until she heard his voice.
“Rubies and lemon drops,” she said. “Red and yellow. Mix those colors and you get orange.”
“So you do.” Griffin Powell sounded wide-awake and not the least surprised to hear from her.
“Think school colors—what comes to mind when you say orange?”
“My first thought is UT, of course.” He cursed softly under his breath. “That’s too simple, but—”
“What if the woman he intends to abduct this morning is a basketball player from UT? I know it’s a long shot, but—”
“It’s better than nothing.”
“I can contact the campus police,” Nic said. “They may think I’m crazy and I can’t say I’d blame them, but—”
“Let me handle this,” Griff told her. “I’ve got an in at UT. I know the head of campus security and if I ask him to check on all the blonde players on the UT women’s basketball team, he’ll do it.”
“Thanks, Griff.” She hesitated, hating that, in this case, he could do more than she could and do it quicker. “Call me as soon as you find out anything.”
“You realize this could turn out to be nothing. Yes, red and yellow make orange and orange is a UT color. But you’ve already admitted that it really is a long shot. We’ve probably got it all wrong.”
“You mean I’ve got it all wrong.”
“If we’re partners, then we’re both wrong or we’re both right.”
“We are not partners.”
“Whatever you say, Nicki.”
Before she could come up with an adequate snappy comeback, he hung up. Smart-ass.
Nic eyed the coffee. She could almost taste it. Resisting temptation, she hurried to the bathroom, placed her cell phone on the vanity, and stripped. Once under the shower-head, she closed her eyes and let the warm water pepper down over her head and body.
The odds were her guess about the color orange was wrong, which would make their second guess that the potential victim was a UT basketball player also wrong.
Oh, God, please, please let me be right. And if I am, don’t let it be too late to save her.
Amber Kirby went for her morning run. During the week, she got up earlier than on weekends and usually had the trail to herself for at least part of her run. When the fall semester started and there were more students on campus, the trail wouldn’t be as solitary as it was today. She didn’t mind the solitude because she often used earphones to listen to her favorite tunes on her iPod.
Just as she made it to the halfway point and was heading back, she met a man walking the trail instead of running or jogging as most people did. Because he was only the second person she’d seen in her three-mile jog this morning, she glanced at him, her gaze connecting with his for half a second. He looked like someone who needed exercise. Although he wasn’t fat, his body looked soft and pudgy and his face was round and full.
He smiled as she whizzed past him. She returned his smile.
An odd shiver rippled along her nerve endings.
Okay, so there had been something strange about the guy. That didn’t mean she should be afraid. After all, it was obvious that she could easily outrun him. And even though he was a man, she’d bet she was as strong as he was. Maybe stronger.
Ignore your gut feeling that something’s wrong. Just keep running.
Amber glanced over her shoulder.
Walking in the opposite direction at a plodding speed, the man was almost out of sight. He hadn’t stopped. He hadn’t turned and followed her.
How silly of me to think that that pudgy-looking guy was dangerous.
Although Nic wa
s still officially on vacation, she’d driven into D.C. to Justice Square and met Doug just as he arrived at the office. If she had stayed at home, the waiting would have driven her stark, raving mad. It had been over three and a half hours since she’d spoken to Griff and he hadn’t called back. She figured he didn’t have anything to report, that she hadn’t solved the rubies and lemon drops word puzzle. After all, what were the odds that they’d actually been able to put all the pieces together using those last two asinine clues?
Nic had wanted to see ADIC Ace Warren, but Doug hadn’t been able to arrange a meeting.
“Ace can’t fit you in,” Doug had told her. “I’ll see if I can get you a few minutes of his time tomorrow. In the meantime, go home, take it easy. You’re supposed to be on vacation, you know. A much-needed vacation.”
There was no point in her hanging around here, accomplishing nothing except irritating Doug. She knew the wheels were turning, if somewhat slower than she would like. But the field offices in each state where a woman had been murdered—shot in the head, scalped, and hung by her feet—had been notified, and agents were checking into the matter and comparing notes. If she made a pest of herself, she wasn’t likely to endear herself to either Doug or Ace Warren. And the last thing she wanted was to piss off either of them. What she wanted was for Ace to put her in charge of the bureau’s investigation into this serial killer case when the bureau actually became officially involved.
Just as Nic slid behind the wheel of her Chevy Trail-Blazer, her cell phone rang. With shaky hands, she jerked the phone from her pocket, noted the caller ID, and flipped open the phone.
“Yeah, what?” she asked.
“You were right,” Griff said, but he didn’t sound pleased.
“Right about?”
“She’s a basketball player for UT. Her name is Amber Kirby. She’s twenty, blonde, and runs early every morning as part of her daily fitness routine.”
Nic swallowed hard, her gut warning her that something was wrong. Bad wrong. “Just tell me.”
“Amber Kirby went for her morning run three hours ago and hasn’t been seen since.”
“Son of a bitch!” Emotion tightened Nic’s throat. “He’s got her.”
“Yeah, more than likely.”
“If only we’d figured out that final clue sooner.”
“Don’t go there,” Griff told her. “This is not our fault.”
“If we just had some idea where he’s taken her and what he’s going to do to her. Assuming he stays true to form, we have twenty-one days to find her before he kills her.”
“Twenty-one days or twenty-one years, it doesn’t matter. We don’t have the slightest idea where he’s taken her.”
“He’ll call us,” Nic said. “He’ll give us more clues.”
“Maybe.”
“I’m right. You wait and see. He enjoys tormenting us far too much not to continue forcing us to play his game. He may not call today or tomorrow, but he’ll call.”
“Nic?”
“Huh?”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“Yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Right.” He paused for a couple of seconds, then asked, “Are you still on vacation or have you—?”
“Officially, I haven’t gone back to work yet. I was supposed to take two weeks, but I can’t. Not now. I’ll save a week for later on.”
“I have a suggestion.”
“What?”
“You could come here to Griffin’s Rest for a few days.”
“Why would I do that?”
“You could meet some of my team, work with us, and we’d be together when the Scalper calls again,” Griff said.
“The Scalper, huh?”
“You and I both know that it’ll take some time for the bureau to coordinate things with local and state authorities. It could be another week or two before they form a task force, if then. Work with me and we could be ahead of the game.”
He made it sound so tempting. “Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.”
“Okay. Have it your way.”
“Griff?”
“Yeah?”
“If he calls you—”
“I’ll let you know immediately.”
“Same here.”
“Take it easy, honey. And stop beating yourself up for not being Wonder Woman.”
Griff had taken his small, single-engine fishing boat out onto the lake earlier today and had spent a couple of hours in the fresh air and sunshine. He owned several seacraft, everything from the fishing boat to a yacht he kept docked in Charleston, where he owned a beach house. As much as he enjoyed deep sea fishing, there was something to be said for hours of lazy, relaxed fishing on a tranquil lake. As a boy he’d gone fishing in any branch or stream he could find, and his mama had always fried up his catch for supper. Those had been lean days when a fat catfish on their dinner table had meant the difference between eating and going hungry.
A part of him missed that time in his life. Not the being poor or going hungry, but his mother’s smile and her tender touch. Griff had been on the verge of being able to afford to give her a better life, a life of ease and luxury. Getting drafted by the NFL would have been only the beginning.
He couldn’t go back, couldn’t change anything that had happened. If he could, he would. He’d be twenty-two again, fresh out of college, with the world at his feet. His mama would still be alive and he’d take good care of her.
She had lived a hard life and had died far too young.
“There’s a phone call for you,” Sanders said, bringing Griff back to the present moment.
Griff lifted his gaze and looked up at Sanders. After lunch, he had gone into his study, chosen the latest presidential biography he’d purchased recently and sat down to read.
“Who is it?” Griff knew it wouldn’t be the Scalper. He would call Griff’s cell number.
“It’s Ms. Smithe, sir.”
“Lisa Kay? Tell her that I’m—no, wait. I’ll take the call.” There was no point in his sitting around here waiting and worrying. A pretty woman to distract him was just what he needed.
Griff got up, walked over to the extension on his desk, and picked up the receiver. “Hello, honey, how are you?”
“I’m missing you, sugar. You haven’t called since I last saw you on Saturday.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy. I do work, you know.”
She giggled. “How about working on me? You could come to Knoxville and spend the night or I could drive out there.”
“Make reservations someplace nice,” he told her. “I’ll drive into Knoxville and pick you up around six thirty.”
“Bring your toothbrush.”
“I’ll pack an overnight bag.”
“Drive the Porsche, will you? I just love the way people turn green with envy when I step out of that thing.”
Griff chuckled. “Sure thing. I’ll drive the Porsche.”
He had been dating Lisa Kay Smithe on and off for a couple of months. They’d met at a party in the home of a mutual acquaintance.
He’d turn forty in a few months, but he didn’t feel forty and sure as hell didn’t think of himself as approaching middle age. He kept his body in good shape and he wasn’t a bad-looking guy, but he didn’t kid himself about why women of all ages swooned at his feet. They were all impressed with his big bank account. Most men his age were either married or seriously considering finding a suitable mate.
But he wasn’t most men.
If he wanted a wife, he could easily buy one. And he could have his pick. The only problem was, he didn’t want a woman who could be bought.
Amber awoke slowly, her mind groggy, her eyes gritty, and her body sore. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she hold her eyes open for more than a couple of seconds? Why did her head ache as if she’d been hit with a two-by-four?
Think, Amber. Focus.
What was the last thing she remembered? Her alarm had gone off at five twenty.
She’d dressed quickly in her shorts and tank top, slipped into her running shoes, and … Had she fainted? Had a heat stroke? Been mugged?
She had gone for her usual three-mile jog.
Forcing her eyes to stay open, she tried to focus, but her vision remained blurred. Something was wrong with her. Was she sick?
She opened her dry mouth and licked her lips. God, she was thirsty.
“Hello,” she called, her voice little more than a croaky whisper.
She leaned forward and realized she was sitting, her back braced against a cool, damp wall. Get up. Move around. Figure out where you are and what happened to you.
When she rose to her feet, her vision slowly cleared, then she realized her ankles were bound together and so were her wrists. She looked around, left, right, up, down. The area was dark, the only illumination coming from a bare bulb hanging from a socket in the ceiling. The ceiling? Old wooden beams covered with cobwebs. The floor was brick, and dirty and damp, as were the walls.
She was in a basement. Maybe the cellar of an old building.
How had she gotten here?
She tried the shackles that bound her and managed to walk two feet before the length of chain on her ankles and wrists stopped her. Glancing over her shoulder, she looked back and saw that the restraints had been attached to the wall. They were new, shiny chains, unlike the row of old, rusty, and broken manacles that lined the wall on either side of her.
Oh, God! Oh, God! Where was she? What had happened to her?
Amber opened her mouth and screamed.
Upstairs in the kitchen, Pudge sat at the table enjoying a slice of Key Lime Pie. A late-night snack before he went to bed.
When he heard the screams, he smiled.
Ah, she’s awake at last.
Poor darling.
She would probably scream until she was hoarse and then cry herself to sleep. In the morning, he would go down into the basement, introduce himself, and explain the rules of the game they would be playing together for the next few weeks.
Chapter 8
Nic woke before the alarm chimed, but when she heard the rain, she turned off the alarm and rolled over, lifting one of the pillows over her head. She had spent another night tossing and turning, waking frequently with thoughts of Amber Kirby flashing through her mind. She wasn’t sure if anything the Scalper would do to Amber could be worse than the horrendous things Nic had been imagining.
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