Brazen Seduction (16 page)

It had only been a few days, and although she showed no signs of tiring of them or their unique ménage, he still wasn’t convinced that she’d stay.

He had taken heart on Tuesday night, when they’d sat at the table enjoying after-dinner coffee.

“I think you should find another job,” he’d said to Molly then. He really didn’t like the idea that some jerk with a partial claim to authority over her subjected her to sexual harassment. When she told him it wasn’t that, he’d corrected her. A man looks at a woman as if she’s naked, and he works at the same place and that look isn’t welcome, that’s sexual harassment.

Molly looked him in the eye and said, “I’m not a quitter.” He came back to the present when he realized he’d been standing by the stove with a spoon hovering over the rice for a couple of minutes.

He was getting himself all wound up when really, they were only beginning to discover each other. It did please him more than he could say that Molly seemed just as enamored of Alan as she did of him.

Alan came into the kitchen then, a worried look on his face.

“Have you seen the paper today?”

“Not yet, why?”

In answer, Alan handed it to him. Below the fold, front page, was the article that obviously upset his lover.

He immediately knew why.

130

Morgan Ashbury

He’d told Alan the other night about the disquiet he felt about the missing woman featured on the news last weekend, the one whose picture looked like Molly. He admitted that he had no reason for concern, really. And Alan, bless him, told him maybe it was his cop instincts giving an early warning

Now here was another missing woman who could have been Molly’s sister.

“Two women missing, one found dead. Both redheads.” Alan said.

“The police will be trying to put everything they have into saying it’s not a serial killer. But the public won’t buy it for long. I don’t buy it. I think I need to call my friend down at the Sixth. Both these women look enough like Molly to be her sister. If there’s a nut job running around the city targeting redheads,
I
want to know about it.” Alan leaned against the counter. Richard could see he didn’t like the co-incidence, either.

“I think we should tell Molly. She needs to be aware that she fits a certain…type. Be a little more vigilant herself.” Richard said.

She sat in the den, in the middle of the sofa, watching a movie.

Alan sat down on her left side. Richard sat on her right.

She looked at him and said, “Um, should I pause the movie?” He read the look in her eyes and knew what she thought. He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss.

“Yes, but not for more enjoyable endeavors. We wanted you to see this.”

He handed her the paper so she could read the article.

“Patricia Burdette. Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“Look at the picture. She looks like that other woman, Virginia.

Remember?” Alan said.

“Yes she does, a bit, doesn’t she?”

“And they both look like you,” Richard said.

“Well, the red hair, but that’s not so unusual,” Molly said.

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“No? Only two to six percent of the population of the United States has red hair,” Richard said.

“Oh.” Molly looked down at the article again, then back up at Richard. “For you to know that this must be something you’ve been thinking about?”

“You’ll find I’m very serious when it comes to looking out for what’s mine. Just ask Alan.”

“It’s true. He can be such a nag. But he really just does it out of concern, and he usually knows best.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“For the time being, just don’t go anywhere alone. And don’t talk to strangers. I’m probably overreacting. It doesn’t hurt to be cautious.”

“All right.” She returned the kiss he’d given her. “I’ll be careful.

And thanks for looking out for me.”

“Great. Now, dinner’s ready. You might as well stop the movie altogether, because I have plans for us after dinner that don’t involve watching television.”

Molly smiled. “Does it involve getting naked?”

“It does indeed,” he confirmed.

Richard’s sense of unease didn’t go away, even with Molly’s promise. He decided that first thing in the morning, he would go and see Thomas Brady.

* * * *

Thomas Brady wasn’t sitting down to dinner. Neither was he on his way back to his smaller-than-small apartment in the West End of the city, though he should have been.

He was in back of an abandoned factory in the industrial section of town, standing over the body of Patricia Burdette. The sound of a car door slamming made him look up in time to see John Poindexter heading his way.

132

Morgan Ashbury

“What do you have?”

“Female vic, aged about twenty-six. Her name’s Patricia Burdette, reported missing only this morning. She’d been missing since Tuesday night.”

“Shit. Redhead and wrapped in a sheet.”

“Yeah. We got the autopsy results on Ms. Townsend. The lady
did
die of cardiac arrest, but the M. E. reported numerous welts and abrasions on her. She’d also been restrained, raped, and sodomized several times.”

“Did
this
lady have a heart condition?”

“Not that we know of,” Brady said. “There’s a great deal of blood and some gray matter under her head. I’m thinking someone wailed on her over the head with something. So that’s different. But you can see there’s ligature marks on her wrists and on her ankles, which is similar. What do you want to bet we find similar wounds and assaults on her as we found on Ms. Townsend?”

“I’m afraid to bet. This is two, Brady, and that’s two too many,” Poindexter said.

“Yeah. I think the first one could have been an accident—the death, I mean— but not this one. It’s two, all right. If you look at their photos, they could be related. I’ve already got a call in to the Feds. If we have a serial killer, we have to be on the ball before the mayor comes and busts ours. So since I called the Feds, I called you, too.”

“Thanks. Are we going to have to put out a warning to the redheads in the area?” Poindexter asked.

The medical examiner indicated that it was time to take Ms.

Burdette into the morgue. Brady headed back toward his car, John walking beside him. “Let’s see what the M.E. says once he gets her into the morgue. And we should probably wait for the Feds. But I’m thinking we’re going to have to. We’d be irresponsible not to.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”

The marks he’d seen on Virginia Townsend and the kind he suspected that Patricia Burdette carried reminded him of an assault
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133

case he handled for an acquaintance, a friend of a former cop a few months back.

After he heard what all the cop experts had to say, maybe it would be a good idea to tap another source.

He didn’t know if they were dealing with a serial killer or some sex-fetish practitioner gone mad.

134

Morgan Ashbury

Molly was never so glad to see a Friday. Wednesday and Thursday had been all-right days. But only, she acknowledged to herself, because Brian didn’t show.

This morning when she’d gotten out of her car and thought about going inside to her office, sitting down at her desk, her stomach clutched and a sick dread hung at the back of her throat.

Those feelings only intensified a half hour later when she looked up and saw Brian entering his office.

She wasn’t a quitter, but maybe Richard was right. Maybe the time had come to look for another job.

She told Norm she’d do her best to put up with his slug of a nephew, but maybe there was more going on if she had this queasiness in her gut. Maybe she wasn’t as happy with just doing her job as she’d always been.

“Are you ready for me, Molly?”

She turned her gaze from her computer screen. He looked as if he’d been in danger of being late and left home before he finished getting ready. That seemed odd, for Brian usually presented a meticulous appearance.

Molly gave herself an inner shake when the queasiness intensified. He was just a man, not very tall, not very muscular.

Certainly nothing to fear. So why did a fine tremor snake through her as she met his gaze?

“If you’ll take a seat, we can get started.” She indicated the extremely uncomfortable wooden chair on the other side of her desk.

“Of course.”

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135

She opened her mouth to protest when he brought the chair around so that he could sit beside her. Molly scanned the office outside her door. She could see her own staff and a few members of the sales department as well. And they could see her thanks to the glass that made up the walls of her office.

She let her glance take Brian in for just a moment and recognized the smirk. She ignored it and his move. Instead, she opened one of her drawers and took out a pad of yellow paper and a pen.

“You’ll want to take notes.”

“As you say.”

Fuck him
. She recognized prime asshole attitude when she encountered it. She would start in and too bad if he didn’t understand or follow along.

“Each month I’m responsible for gleaning all the data input by the various departments—manufacturing, sales, service, R&D, quality control, payroll—and producing the financial statement. The statement gives Mr. Nicholson a concise picture of how the business is doing, how much profit there is, how the sales are faring, and so on.”

“I’m quite aware of what a financial statement is as I am fully aware of your purpose. More so than you are, in fact.” Molly gritted her teeth. Comments like those—skirting, but not quite going over the line—really got under her skin.

One of her staff came in and handed her a journal entry ready to be approved. Since one of her goals was to bore this idiot stupid, she gave Tracy a smile.

“Thanks, Tracy. I’m showing Mr. Horner the ropes. I’ll enter this one for you.”

Molly decided to make sure she took Tracy out to lunch soon because the older woman didn’t bat an eyelash, just nodded and said,

“You wanted me to remind you that you planned to show me the Kilmer account right after lunch.”

There was no Kilmer account. “So I did. Thank you, Tracy.”
136

Morgan Ashbury

Tracy smiled and returned to her desk. Molly could see her from where she sat and that fact gave her an odd kind of comfort.

“Since the very basis of producing the financial statements rests on journal entries, I’ll do this one now so you can see how it’s done.” She was able to tune him out as she opened the program, citing the tiny minutiae associated with the process.

“You can look over my shoulder and stop me if I make any keying errors,” she invited.

That ruse allowed her to simply key the information while ignoring him completely. His periodic sighs, indicative, she thought, of boredom, pleased her immensely.

“It is nearly lunch time. You’ll have lunch with me, of course.

And you can use that time to detail for me the status of the company and your role in it.”

Arrogant bastard
. The lunch hour was unpaid time and therefore not company time. And hell would freeze over before she would consent to have lunch with him.

“I’m sorry, I have an appointment.”

“I suspect you don’t. No matter. The time will soon come when much will depend on your being more…amenable to my dictates.” He got up from his chair and let his eyes roam over her in a way that sparked her fear and her temper.

Molly watched him walk out, walk down the corridor toward the front of the building.
Insulting little slug
.

He likely thought his uncle prized him and would give him a promotion that would put him directly over her.

Molly smirked. If that day ever came, she would have only two words to say to Norm Nicholson—I quit.

Molly grabbed her purse and headed out, needing some fresh air.

The way she felt right then and there, it took no effort to see herself saying those two words to Norm Nicholson sooner rather than later.

* * * *

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137

Richard took the steps up to the entrance of the Sixth Precinct two at a time. Just stepping inside the place brought back memories—

some good, some not so good.

He’d been a pretty good cop back in the day. He knew some of the men and women he’d worked with teased him unmercifully when he’d made the decision to “go private.” Working for Alex in his private investigation agency had been a necessary step. While working with Alex, and thinking back to his days on the force, it astounded Richard how many people ended up victimized simply because they didn’t take proper care of themselves.

Grant Security did just that. Most of his clients were middle-income families and came to him thanks to word of mouth.
Uncle
Henry told us how you took care of making sure his home was secure
and it didn’t cost much. He said we should look you up
.

His more prosperous clients, businesses as well as the wealthy, paid the bulk of his wages and overhead, but it felt gratifying to be of service to anyone who needed him.

“Hey, Grant, ready to come back yet?” Richard smiled at the desk sergeant, a veteran of over twenty year’s service to the police force. “Not yet, Jonesy. Is Thomas on today?” Thomas Brady had never been his partner, per se. They didn’t work with regular partners at the Sixth, but they’d worked together from time to time and always respected each other as cops.

That didn’t change when Richard struck out to go private.

“Yeah, the LT is in his office. Go on up. He might be happy to see a
familiar
face for a change.” Richard nodded, tucking away the information Jonesy had just given him. Apparently his old friend was being besieged by unfamiliar faces. Richard knew enough of the job to understand that meant political types from the mayor’s office and federal types from the FBI.

138

Morgan Ashbury

Not surprisingly, Thomas Brady sat at his desk, phone receiver to his ear and eyes down as he studied a file while apparently on hold.