Page 101 of The Killer’s Mark

‘She doesn’t want her intellect to die when she does.’

‘But how …’

His question died when someone with a strong Louisiana accent said, ‘Washington Poe, why am I not surprised to be hearing from your lily-white ass?’

Chapter 83

Poe had worked with Special Agent Melody Lee twice before. The first time was when she’d warned him about a murder-for-hire psycho who called himself the Curator. She’d been in FBI exile at the time, the pain-in-the-ass agent who believed in the existence of the figurative bogeyman, but she’d reached out when Poe’s case bore striking similarities to her own. And the following year she’d travelled across to the UK and helped him break up a gang who smuggled looted antiquities. Poe had always seen a kindred spirit in her. She had more write-ups on her personnel file than he’d had when he was in the NCA. And he’d had a lot. But more importantly, she had just as many collars.

‘What’s new, Poe?’ Lee said. ‘Tilly tells me you married that pathology chick.’

‘Professor Lady Doyle-Poe is sitting next to me and you’re on speakerphone.’

‘But I am a bit of a chick, Special Agent Lee,’ Estelle said, winking at Poe.

‘I didn’t know you and Tilly kept in touch,’ Poe said, eager to nip this conversation thread in the bud.

‘Sure we do. She schedules regular video calls. We catch up with all kinds of shit. That’s how I know you two got hitched. Gotta tell you, Poe, I’m kinda hurt I didn’t get an invite.’

Poe rolled his eyes. ‘You were invited, Special Agent Lee. You RSVP’d that you couldn’t make it.’

‘Yeah, I know. I was just busting your balls. I had … a thing. Serial killer. Needed my undivided attention.’

‘You catch him?’

‘Her. And yes, sir, we did. Now, what can I help you with?’

‘Vincent du Buk.’

‘Even if you were still NCA, I couldn’t tell you what we have, Poe. You know that.’

‘I do.’

‘Yet my jambalaya cools before my eyes.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Ah, it’s OK,’ she said. ‘DC restaurants can’t cook it for shit anyway. They don’t get the spice right. And if this is andouille sausage, my pop was a Klansman.’

‘I don’t need what you have,’ Poe said. ‘I need what you don’t have.’

‘Colour me intrigued.’

‘I know all about the Red Chamber’s business model. How the women are recruited, how they’re trained. The horrific way it ends.’

‘Sick fucking bastards,’ Melody Lee spat. She took a moment to gather herself. ‘Although I can’t give you anything official, I’m glad you’re up in their assholes, Poe. They’ve been getting away with this shit for far too long. What’s this thing you need that we don’t have?’

‘I was told all the women are sterilised before the contract begins.’

‘I heard the same.’

‘That their fallopian tubes are tied.’

‘Yup.’

‘My medical doctor wife tells me that this procedure can be undone.’

‘It’s called tubal ligation reversal,’ Estelle said.