Dead Certain - Mariah Stewart [114]
“Maybe we should let him see her move back in, but have a clear police presence around for a day or two,” Miranda suggested. “You know, a cruiser in the driveway twenty-four/seven for the first thirty-six hours or so.”
“To frustrate him.” Annie nodded. “I like it. We flaunt her, make him itchy to get her.”
“Then we pull the cars and the obvious surveillance . . .”
“And once he thinks no one is watching her anymore, he’s not going to be able to wait any longer. He’ll think she’s a sitting duck.”
“Except this little ducky will have a few surprises under its little wing.” Miranda grinned.
Annie rolled her eyes and laughed.
“When do we start?” Sean asked, not in the mood for jokes.
“No time like the present,” Miranda told him. “We start first thing in the morning.”
“You know, I just thought of something.” Anne Marie’s eyebrows knit together. “If Channing’s victims were all people who had pissed off Giordano, and Giordano’s victims have all had some connection to Lowell . . .”
She seemed to wrestle with a thought for a moment, before asking, “Doesn’t it follow that once he’s out of prison, Lowell is going to be going after someone connected to Curt Channing?”
The thought surged around them like a sudden gust of wind. Finally, Sean stacked his papers and stood up. “One step at a time. Let’s get Vince Giordano first, then we’ll worry about what Archer Lowell might be up to.”
At two the following afternoon, Chief Robert Benson called a press conference, at which time he announced that they had identified one Vinnie Daniels as the killer of Connie Paschall. Further, he continued, the bullet used to kill Paschall was fired from the same gun used in the shooting of a Broeder antiques dealer. He displayed a hastily sketched drawing of the dark-haired Vinnie Daniels, then mentioned that the FBI had already tracked Daniels into upstate New York. It was believed that the suspect was heading toward Canada.
Vince laughed out loud and turned up the volume on the television in the living room of the late Derek England. He wasn’t sure where Derek’s friend Clark was, but it hardly mattered. Vince wasn’t worried about him. He knew he could take him blindfolded and with one arm tied behind his back. He knew it could be risky, coming back to Broeder so soon, but he couldn’t think of anyplace else to go. When he left for good, he didn’t want to leave any unfinished business behind him, and that meant Amanda Crosby.
Damn, but it would annoy the hell out of him if he wasn’t able to finish his task, as he now thought of it. Curtis had left a loose thread—he hadn’t managed to take out Mara Douglas—but that was okay. Vince didn’t hold it against Curtis, didn’t see it as a failure on Curt’s part. After all, he had rid the world of Vince’s pain in the ass ex-mother-in-law and that bitch judge, hadn’t he? Curtis had done just fine, and Vince would get Mara himself, sooner or later. He wasn’t in any big hurry.
But he did want to take care of this last bit of business. He would do so with pleasure.
This one wasn’t going to be a quickie with the old gun to the head. And it wasn’t going to be a quick slash and slice, either.
He was going to savor his date with Amanda. She was young and beautiful and would put up one hell of a fight.
He liked a little fight in his women.
All along, he’d figured his best bet was taking her in her own home. He’d studied the house, knew how to get in and out without being seen, knew which of the stairs squeaked and how many steps there