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  “I don’t want to leave you with the dirty dishes and pots and pans.”

  “Go on,” Derek told her. “I’ll help Perdue clean up the kitchen.”

  Maleah groaned, making her displeasure known to anyone within earshot.

  Charles Wong roused slowly, at first uncertain what had awakened him. And then the doorbell rang again and again, loud enough to be heard over the racket coming from the television. Someone was at his front door. But who the hell could it be? He glanced around the room and realized that he had fallen asleep in the living room, on the sofa, while watching the late-night newscast. With Lily and the girls gone on the overnight Brownies camping trip, he had snacked for supper, then fixed himself a bowl of popcorn and settled in to watch TV. He missed his wife and stepdaughters. Being with them reminded him of how lucky he was and that working at being a better human every day had its rewards.

  The doorbell kept ringing.

  “All right, I’m coming,” he called loudly. “Be right there.”

  Barefoot and wearing a pair of loose-fitting sweatpants and a T-shirt, he got up, glanced at the time on the DVD player—11:52—and padded across the room. When he reached the front door, he paused before opening it.

  “Yeah, who’s there?” he asked.

  “Hey, man, it’s me. Let me in. I got a six-pack and some of the good stuff.”

  Charlie didn’t recognize the man’s voice. He probably had the wrong house. Charlie unlocked the door and, leaving the chain latch on, eased the door open a couple of inches.

  “Come on, man, let me in. I need to pee real bad.”

  The guy didn’t look familiar. Black hair, black mustache, dressed in cheap leather and sporting a sizable tattoo on his neck, he looked like some of the guys Charlie had known in his past.

  “Look, buddy, I think you’ve got the wrong house.”

  “You’re Charles Wong, right? You’re married to my cousin Lily, right? Didn’t she tell you I was in town and she offered to put me up a couple of nights?”

  Lily’s cousin? “No, she didn’t mention you.”

  “Hey, sorry about that. I guess she forgot. Probably too busy with plans for that overnight camping trip with the girls’ Brownie troop.”

  Charlie breathed a bit easier. Apparently his midnight visitor really was Lily’s cousin. Otherwise, how would he know about the Brownie troop’s camping trip?

  Charlie removed the safety latch and opened the front door. “Come on in. I’m afraid you’ll have to bunk on the sofa. We don’t have a guest bedroom.”

  “No problem. I’m grateful you’ll put me up a couple of nights while I’m in town.” He entered the living room and closed the door behind him.

  Charlie noticed the small tote bag in his hand. “You’re traveling light, aren’t you?”

  “Just a change of underwear and my shaving kit.” He set the bag on the floor.

  Charlie turned around and walked back toward the sofa. When he heard an odd noise behind him, he glanced over his shoulder. His eyes widened in shock when he saw the weird mask the man now wore. Charlie’s mind whirled with questions, but suddenly he recognized the mask at the same time he noticed the gun in his night visitor’s hand.

  “What the hell?” Charlie got out before the guy aimed and fired.

  The bullet hit Charlie’s left leg, just below the knee.

  He stared at his shooter with total disbelief as he went down to the floor, his hands gripping his bleeding leg.

  “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  The man fired the pistol a second time, the bullet piercing Charlie’s shoulder. This man was going to kill him. He had opened the door and let some crazy person into his home. Thank God Lily and the girls weren’t here.

  “Don’t do this,” Charlie said when the man hovered over him.

  He aimed the gun directly at Charlie’s head and said, “Dead by midnight.”

  Then he fired the fatal shot.

  Chapter 8

  Maleah and Derek had agreed to split the day guarding Lorie, even though Derek wasn’t officially a Powell agent. At this point, neither of them believed Lorie was in imminent danger since both of the other known victims had been killed at night, probably sometime around midnight. Derek had driven to Treasures with Lorie that morning and promised to stay in the background as much as possible so as not to arouse her customers’ curiosity.

  “Gossip is one of the favorite pastimes in small towns,” Lorie had told them. “And since the first day I returned to Dunmore, I’ve headed the list of favorite gossip topics. I don’t want to give the busybodies, especially the WCM ladies, anything to speculate about. And tongues are bound to wag when they see you hanging around the shop all morning.”

  Even though it wasn’t quite one o’clock and she wasn’t due to relieve Derek until two, Maleah scooped up her shoulder holster, wallet, Powell ID badge, and car keys from the top of the dresser in her bedroom. Plans had changed.

  After racing down the back staircase, she set the alarm, exited through the back door, and locked it behind her. Once settled into her GMC Yukon Denali and headed downtown to Main Street, she slipped on the Bluetooth earpiece and hit Mike Birkett’s number. He answered on the fourth ring.

  “Maleah?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “What’s up? Is Lorie all right?”

  “Lorie’s fine and I want to keep her that way.”

  “Something’s happened.”

  “Oh, yeah, you could say that.” She kept her gaze glued to the view through the windshield. Too many wrecks occurred when people were distracted by talking on their cell phones. She didn’t want to become another statistic. “I just got off the phone with Sanders, Griff Powell’s number-two man. The agency has been keeping close tabs on any reports of foul play involving the list of people involved with making the one and only adult film Lorie was in. It seems that another cast member has been murdered.”

  “Does Lorie know?”

  “I’m on my way to Treasures as we speak to give her the bad news. Sanders received the information about fifteen minutes ago and contacted me immediately. A guy by the name of Charles Wong was found shot several times, the fatal bullet right to the head. Sanders personally called the police chief in Blythe, Arizona, the little border town where Wong lived, and managed to get some info that wasn’t released to the press. It seems that Wong had been stripped naked and was wearing a mask.”

  “Son of a bitch. It has to be the same perp. It’s the same MO.”

  “I agree. That makes three victims that we know of, three actors who appeared in Midnight Masquerade, one killed each month since the first of the year. Sanders is going to contact Nicole Powell’s old friend, Special Agent Josh Freidman, at the Bureau and share what info we have. We seem to definitely have a serial killer on our hands and we’re going to need all the help we can get to find and stop him before he kills again.”

  “Before he gets to Lorie,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, before he gets to Lorie.”

  “Is Derek with you?” Mike asked.

  “He’s at Treasures with Lorie.”

  “I’ll meet y’all there. See you in about ten minutes.”

  Shontee Thomas twirled around and around on the podium, the full skirt of the satin bridal gown she wore swishing against the tulle netting beneath. She had never been this happy in her entire thirty years on earth. At long last, everything was coming together in the best way possible. In exactly two months, she would marry the most wonderful man in the whole world, Anthony Trice Johnson. They had met a year ago, introduced by mutual friends at the Atlanta nightclub Tony owned. Their relationship had started off on the fast track from the first date, which had ended at Tony’s apartment, in his bedroom, in his bed. At the time, she had been working as a waitress six days a week at a local restaurant and taking night classes to become a masseuse. A real ladies’ and gentlemen’s spa masseuse, not a hooker using the term “masseuse” as a cover for her real occupation.

&
nbsp; In the beginning, Shontee had hoped Tony would never have to know about her past as a porn star. She had made half a dozen films in her late teens and early twenties before quitting the business and undergoing antibiotic treatment for an unpleasant venereal disease. When she, along with three more of Travis Dillard’s clients, had tested positive for gonorrhea, her agent and producer had been forced to close down production on his latest movie. But after she and Tony had been dating for about three months, he had come right out and asked her if she’d made some porno movies using the name Ebony O.

  She had wanted to deny it, to lie to him, to tell him he’d gotten her mixed up with some other woman. But instead, she had told him the truth, the whole truth, about her life before and after she’d made those movies for Travis Dillard’s Starlight Productions. She’d thought for sure Tony would turn tail and run. But he hadn’t.

  “I’m not especially proud of a lot of things I’ve done to get where I am today,” he’d told her. “I’m no saint myself. Why should I expect my woman to be? I love you. What you did when you were just a kid doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is that you love me and treat me right.”

  “Oh, Tony, I do love you and I swear I’ll always treat you right.”

  She was one damn lucky sister and she knew it. She was going to be Mrs. Anthony Trice Johnson and live in a big fancy house with hot and cold running servants. She was already driving a cute little Mercedes convertible and wearing a three-carat diamond. Life didn’t get any better than this.

  “You look like a dream,” Tony said from where he stood in the doorway watching her. “A wet dream.” He winked at the gasping saleslady.

  “Behave yourself,” Shontee scolded him.

  “Aren’t you going to wear a veil?” he asked.

  “I don’t want a veil,” she said. “I want to wear a tiara. Diamonds and pearls. Something glittery and classy at the same time.”

  “Diamonds and pearls! Woman, do you think I’m made of money?” he teased.

  “We have some lovely rhinestone and freshwater pearl tiaras,” the saleslady informed them.

  Tony chuckled as he walked across the room and held open his arms. Shontee didn’t hesitate to sail off the podium and straight into his arms. He caught her around the waist, his big hands clasping her securely, and then set her on her feet. After he kissed her soundly, he glanced at the saleslady, a wide, toothy smile spreading from ear to ear.

  “If my fiancée wants diamonds and pearls, that’s what she’ll get. The genuine articles. No fake stuff for her.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course, Mr. Johnson.”

  Everybody knew who Anthony Trice Johnson was and showed him the proper respect, always calling him Mr. Johnson. Tony was a fucking multimillionaire, that’s who he was. A guy who had grown up in the projects and made something of himself. He owned a string of nightclubs in six major cities: Atlanta, Nashville, Memphis, Louisville, Birmingham, and Tallahassee. And little Shontee Rachelle Thomas from Greenville, South Carolina, a bastard child born to a fourteen-year-old girl who had been raped by her own cousin, was going to be Mrs. Somebody Important.

  It doesn’t matter where you came from or who your mama was or how you got born. All that matters is who you are now. Tony Johnson’s fiancée, soon to be his wife and the mother of his children.

  Shontee’s hand instinctively went to her belly at the thought of one day giving Tony a son. Thank God, those two abortions she’d had more than ten years ago and that bout with gonorrhea hadn’t screwed up anything inside her. She’d talked to her doctor right after Tony proposed, just to make sure her body was functioning like it should, that there was no reason why she couldn’t get pregnant.

  Thank you, Sweet Jesus, thank you. I might not deserve so much happiness, but I sure do thank you for it.

  Lorie knew the moment Maleah walked into Treasures that something was wrong. She wasn’t due to relieve Derek for another hour.

  Doing her best to concentrate on ringing up Mrs. Hightower’s order, Lorie tried to dismiss the thought that there might have been another murder. “Will there be anything else? You know we’ve marked all our Easter items twenty percent off this weekend.”

  “Nothing else today. But I’ll be back next weekend when you mark the Easter stuff down a little more.”

  Lorie forced a smile. Eloise Hightower was one of her best customers, a lady who loved to decorate and to collect. Lowering her voice to a whisper, Lorie leaned toward Mrs. Hightower and said, “Next weekend, we’ll mark down to twenty-five percent off, but that’s as low as it will go until after Easter, then we’ll have a fifty-percent-off sale.”

  Eloise grinned as if she’d just been awarded a prize. She whispered, “I won’t tell a soul.”

  Lorie hurriedly wrapped the breakable items and placed them carefully in three separate small plastic sacks before putting all of Eloise’s purchases in a large heavyweight paper bag with handles.

  Glancing across the room, she watched while Maleah approached Derek, who had been sitting at an antique writing desk working crossword puzzles in a puzzle book he’d brought with him. Lorie’s heartbeat accelerated.

  It’s bad news. I know it is.

  After handing the bag to Eloise and thanking her for her business, Lorie slipped from behind the counter. The chime over the front door jangled as Eloise left, and less than a minute later, it jangled again, alerting her that a new customer had just entered the store. Pausing for a second, she glanced toward the entrance. Mike Birkett, wearing jeans, sneakers, and a seen-better-days Roll Tide sweatshirt, looked right at her.

  Butterflies danced in her stomach.

  Would the day ever come when she could look at him and not want him?

  Mike had always been good-looking. Tall at six-two, and muscular, with wide shoulders and a broad chest. His hair was that deep black that glistened with navy blue highlights, and he wore it long enough so that it curled just above his collar. But it was his eyes that were so remarkable. At a distance, they appeared black, but on closer inspection, they glistened a dark indigo blue.

  Mike moved his gaze away from her and scanned the shop until he saw Maleah and Derek. As he headed toward them, Lorie rushed to catch up with him, but was waylaid by another customer.

  “Do you have any more of those pastel lights, the kind I can use to decorate my Easter egg tree?” Carol Greene asked. “I can’t find the ones I bought last year and I’ve looked high and low.”

  “I’ve sold out of them,” Lorie told her. “But I’m expecting more in a new shipment that should arrive by Wednesday.”

  “Oh, good. Would you put back a couple of strands for me?”

  “I’ll be more than happy to. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

  “That was it. The kids would be so disappointed if I didn’t decorate that little weeping willow we’ve got in the front yard.”

  As soon as Carol walked off, Lorie made her way straight to where Maleah, Derek, and Mike were involved in a hushed conversation. She glanced around the shop and noticed that there were two customers still rummaging around. One customer, Paul Babcock, was shuffling through the assortment of antique postcards, the display arranged on top of one of the various glass cases in the store. Paul could spend hours searching for just the right card to add to his collection. She didn’t recognize the other customer, a young woman who seemed to be simply browsing.

  As she approached them, Maleah, Derek, and Mike stopped talking and turned to face her. She ran her gaze from Maleah to Derek and then to Mike. Their somber expressions concerned her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Is there any way we can talk in private?” Maleah asked. “Don’t you have somebody who comes in to help on weekends?”

  “One of my part-time workers has a stomach virus. The other, who wasn’t supposed to work today, went out of town for the weekend.”

  “Could you close the shop for, say, thirty minutes?” Derek asked.

  “I cou
ld, but I still have two—” The doorbell chime jangled. Lorie looked over her shoulder. The lone remaining female customer—the one she didn’t recognize—walked out onto the sidewalk as the shop door closed behind her.

  “Paul Babcock is deaf in one ear, but he refuses to wear a hearing aid,” Mike said. “He was in a hunting accident a few years back. I think we can feel certain he won’t overhear anything from where he’s standing over there.”

  Maleah looked right at Lorie. “There’s no easy way to say this, so here goes. A man named Charles Wong was murdered last night in his home in Blythe, Arizona. His wife and young stepdaughters found his body this morning when they returned from an overnight camping trip.”

  Lorie remembered Charlie. He’d had a wicked sense of humor and was always playing practical jokes. She had really liked him. How awful that he had become the killer’s most recent victim.

  “Do you think that the same person who killed Dean and Hilary killed Charlie?” she asked.

  Maleah nodded. “Same MO, I’m afraid. Shot several times, one final fatal shot to the head. He was naked and the killer had placed a fancy mask on his face.”

  A flash of memory jolted Lorie. Charlie Hung dancing around the Midnight Masquerade set between takes wearing a pair of gym shorts and that strangely beautiful joker mask. All the masks for the movie had been purchased secondhand, but were good quality party masks. The joker mask was stark white, each side marked with a different color stripe, one red and one black, and a glittery gold star accented the left eye-slit.

  “The mask—was it a joker mask?” Lorie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Maleah replied. “I didn’t ask about specific details.”

  “Why do you ask?” Derek questioned.

  “Because…” She swallowed and deliberately avoided looking at Mike. “Charlie wore a joker mask in the movie.”

  “We need to find out if each of the victims was wearing the same type of mask they wore in the film,” Maleah said.

  “If the killer somehow got hold of the original masks from the film and is using them to decorate his victims, Powell’s might be able to find out what happened to those masks after the movie was completed,” Derek added.