Beneath the Skin

13 NOTHING CONVENIENT

WASHINGTON, D.C.

March 25

“YOU’RE LATE,” CELESTE UNDERWOOD said as her assistant slid into the seat across from her at her booth in Applebee’s. “I hope you have a good excuse.”

“Sorry, ma’am,” SB Field Agent Richard Purcell said. Rain beaded the shoulders of his black trenchcoat and glistened in his honey-blond hair. “Traffic sucked.” He set his sleek, black briefcase beside him on the orange vinyl seat.

“So does that excuse,” Celeste said, dipping a chunk of grilled chicken into the small bowl of cayenne-spiced lime juice beside her plate.

Purcell met her gaze, sympathy in his eyes. “I heard the news,” he said quietly. Almost too quietly, given the noise level in the restaurant—clattering plates, the high-decibel buzz of dozens of conversations accented with short bursts of laughter and children’s shrieks—and the precise reason Celeste had chosen the restaurant for their discussion. No need for audio jammers. “My sympathies.”

“The bitch got off. Self-defense. The jury actually bought her story.” Celeste pushed her folded-up newspaper across the table to Purcell. He flipped it open and scanned the headline that had burned itself into her retinas:

VALERIE UNDERWOOD ACQUITTED IN MURDER-FOR-HIRE CASE; MOTHER OF TWO WEEPS AS VERDICT READ, THANKS JURY.

Celeste chewed her bite of lime-and-chili grilled chicken, but she didn’t enjoy it. She swallowed hard, forcing the chicken down.

“Convenient that the man Valerie hired to kill your son hanged himself in his cell,” Purcell said. “With shoelaces he wasn’t even supposed to have.”

Celeste laid her fork carefully on her plate. “Also handy that he left a note stating that he’d implicated Valerie in Stephen’s murder as payback for rebuffing his advances. Painted her as the virtuous wife.”

“Very handy,” Purcell agreed. “And your custody suit?”

“Quashed. Null and void.” She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. She picked up her wineglass. “Valerie sent me an e-mail this morning saying I’d never see the girls again. Those girls are all I have left of Stephen. And she knows that.”

“I’m truly sorry, ma’am. What can I do to help?”

A waitress stopped at the table and took Purcell’s order for a grilled cheese sandwich and an iced tea with lemon.

Celeste took a sip of wine, a house zinfandel, good, but not too sweet. “You were there when Wells and Moore were programming Prejean. Fragmenting his memories.”

“Yes, ma’am. For most of it, anyway.”

“So you know how Prejean’s programming works? How to activate it?”

A knowing light sparked in Purcell’s eyes. “Yes, ma’am, I do. Once you have the little fucking psycho in hand, we can flip the switch and put him to work.”

“And switch him off again? Permanently?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Celeste nodded, then took another sip of wine. “Good. I’ve never been fond of vampires.” She doubted that her so-called daughter-in-law would find anything convenient or handy about Prejean when he showed up on her doorstep or climbed in through her window.

No, not at all.