The Watcher. BEVERLY BARTON

Doug was right. Maybe she’d become so consumed with her two-killer theory that she wasn’t thinking straight. And an agent who couldn’t think straight couldn’t do her job.

      Besides that, she hadn’t taken a vacation in years, not since Greg died and she’d thrown herself into her work. Work had saved her sanity when she lost her husband. Work had become her passion, her only passion.

      Hell, who was she kidding? From the day she’d been recruited by the FBI, a green kid fresh out of college, she’d been consumed with proving herself, showing everyone that a woman could be the best. The very best.

      And, yeah, maybe her attitude had a great deal to do with her male chauvinist father.

       Damn it, Nic, let it go. You came to terms with your father’s overbearing influence a long time ago. Don’t rehash the past. It serves no purpose.

      Six months of grief counseling had done more than help her deal with Greg’s death—it had made her open up to a therapist about her life in general, especially the formative years that had created Nicole Baxter, the real woman, the woman few people ever truly knew. To be honest, there were times when she wasn’t sure even she knew who she was.

      “Take two weeks off.” Doug Trotter, one of the Special Agent’s in Charge at the D.C. field office where she worked, hadn’t given her much choice.

      “I’ll go nuts,” she’d replied.

      “Give it a try. Go somewhere fun. Go to the beach. Put on a bikini. Flirt with beach boys. Get drunk and get laid.”

      If she and her boss hadn’t been good friends as well as colleagues, he never would have added that final comment.

      “I’ll take two weeks off,” she’d told him. “But I’m not into boys. If I’m going to get laid, I want a man doing the

      job.”

      Doug had laughed.

      So, here she was in a rental cabin in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the heart of the Great Smoky Mountains. She had arrived last night. Slept like the dead. Ate a big breakfast she’d cooked herself. Soaked in the hot tub for twenty minutes, then showered and thrown on some old, comfy clothes.

      Day One in her first week of R&R and she was bored out of her mind.

      Pudge exited off Interstate 49, took a right turn at the end of the ramp, and went in search of Catfish Haven, which was advertised on the FOOD AND LODGING sign. There it was, up ahead on the left. The restaurant was housed in a new building, constructed of old lumber to give it that aged quality, and possessed a rustic metal roof, a sprawling front porch, and a large parking lot half-filled with vehicles.

      Pudge eased his rental car into a slot near the entrance. Good parking karma. He smiled. The gods were looking down on him today.

      Before he went inside and dined on the local cuisine, he had two phone calls to make. Thinking about a solution to his problem as he’d been driving, he had come up with a brilliant idea. Just the thought of it excited him.

      He didn’t need a partner in crime in order to have a competitor. All he needed was an adversary. Someone with whom he could share certain aspects of his planning, execution, and subsequent triumph. Someone intelligent. Someone who would have no choice but to play the game with him. What fun it would be to outsmart that person, to stay one step ahead of him or her.

      Leaving the motor running so that the air conditioner would keep him cool—Pudge hated to be uncomfortable— he opened the glove compartment and removed one of the four prepaid phones he had placed there before leaving for Arkansas three days ago.

      He had both cell numbers memorized, of course.

      Which to call first? Hmm …

      Save the best for last.

      As he tapped the first number into the cell phone, he imagined the look on the man’s face the moment he realized there was a new game under way.

      Griff had forgotten to put his phone on vibrate, so when it rang during dinner, he apologized to the others and excused himself. While everyone continued their meal that was spread out on the two tables near the pool in Lindsay and Judd’s backyard, Griff walked around the side of the house and found some shade under a couple of massive old oak trees.

      Even though he didn’t recognize the caller’s number, he answered on the fifth ring. Only a handful of people had his private number.

      “Powell here.”

      “Hello, Griffin Powell. How are you today?”

      Griff didn’t recognize the voice. Clearly not disguised. Southern accent. A tenor voice, bordering on alto, soft and slightly high-pitched for a man. But it was definitely male.

      “Who is this and how did you get my number?”

      Laughter. “There’s a new game afoot.”

      “What did you say?”

      “Does Mrs. Powell’s little boy want to come out and play?”

      Griff’s muscles tightened as he gripped the phone. A rush of pure adrenaline raced through his system.

      “That depends on the game,” Griff said.

      “Tell me what you and I know about the Beauty Queen Killer that others don’t know and I’ll tell you a little something about my new game.”

      Griff’s heartbeat accelerated. Goddamn! Was this guy for real?

      “Cary Maygarden had a partner,” Griff replied.

      More laughter. “Very good, Griffin. Very good indeed.”

      Griff’s instincts told him that this caller was the second Beauty Queen Killer, the one who had gotten away because no one knew he existed. Only Griff and Special Agent Nic Baxter believed Maygarden had had a partner. And try as she might, Nic had been unable to convince her superiors to reopen the Beauty Queen Killer case because she had no substantial evidence, no way to prove there had been a second killer.

      “When do you intend to start your new game?” Griff asked.

      “I’ve already begun the new game.”

      A sick feeling hit Griff square in the gut. This lunatic had already killed again?

      “When?” Griff asked.

      “I’ll give you a clue—Stillwater, Texas. Four weeks ago.”

      Before Griff could respond, he heard dead silence at the other end of the line. His caller had hung up, effectively ending their conversation.

      As lightning streaked the sky and rumbles of thunder echoed through the mountains, Nic sat curled in the chair-and-a-half in the corner of the cabin’s wood-paneled living room. The paperback she’d been reading lay open in her lap as she struggled to stay awake. If not for the occasional booms of thunder, she’d probably be snoring right now.

      Suddenly a vicious crackle of lightning hit somewhere nearby and startled Nic from her semiasleep state. Mercy! That was close. She shifted in the chair, accidentally dumping the book and the lightweight cotton throw she’d wrapped around her bare legs onto the floor. A gentle surge of cold air coming from the nearby floor vent wafted across Nic and created tiny goose bumps on her bare legs and arms.

      Just as she reached down to pick up the book and the throw, she heard her cell phone ring. Why hadn’t she just turned off the damn thing? Since she was officially on vacation, the call wouldn’t be work-related. That meant it was personal. So it was probably her mother, her brother, or her cousin Claire.

      If it was her mother, she’d call back. She always did. She would call and call and call until Nic responded.

      If it was her brother, he’d leave a message and she would return his call. She and Charles David had been close all their lives and despite the fact that they lived three thousand miles apart—he in San Francisco and she in Woodbridge,