You Can’t Stop Me by Max Allan Collins, Matthew Clemens Read Free Book Online

you’ve told me a dozen times you believe in my potential. I’m just asking for the chance to prove you right.”
    Was that a smile? Small, barely discernible, but…a smile?
    She sat forward. “Give me the name of the man at that seed company, and I’ll follow the lead wherever it goes. I’ll give you the info, all the info, and you can decide who deserves the story—Shayla or me. Is that blackmail?”
    He considered that, then asked, “Why didn’t you just ask me for the name of my plant guy? Make up a reason, or just not go into what you’d found?”
    “I owed you more than that.”
    Harrow grunted a laugh. “Call Settler Seed in Dekalb, Illinois—your old stamping grounds. The man you want is Dr. Brent Caldwell. Tell him I sent you. See what you can get, and be back here within twenty-four hours.”
    She burned with pleasure, pride, enthusiasm, and outright glee, but remained coolly professional as she said, “Yes, sir.”
    Rising slowly, forcing herself to move deliberately, she eased toward the door.
    The sound of Harrow’s voice stopped her. “Carmen?”
    Turning, she said, “Yes?”
    “The killer cut off Mrs. Ferguson’s finger. My wife didn’t suffer that…indignity.”
    “No.”
    “But her killer did take her wedding ring.”
    “Mrs. Ferguson’s killer did too—he just took the finger along with it.”
    A deep crease formed between Harrow’s eyes. “Why, do you suppose?”
    “If it’s the same killer…and I think it is…he’s devolving.”
    “And if he’s devolving…”
    “He’ll accelerate. There’ll be more killings. Soon.”
    He was nodding, slowly. Then he said, “Get back to it.”
    And she did.

Chapter Six
    Shortly before the special live-broadcast season finale of Crime Seen! went on air, Dennis Byrnes—early forties, close-clipped black hair, languid gray-green eyes, five o’clock shadow, thousand-dollar Armani suit (charcoal)—surveyed his kingdom.
    During a broadcast, the control room was surprisingly silent but for the piped-in studio sounds, even though a dozen technicians hovered over control boards and personal monitors, the audio world sequestered in a booth off at right. The near silence was punctuated by commands from director Stu Phillips, who perched stoically in the center of the back of three tiered rows—the eye of the storm. In his late fifties, Phillips had been at both NBC and CBS, where his fortunes had fallen in favor of younger men, and thanks to the competition’s shortsightedness, UBC had snagged a real pro.
    Byrnes liked to brag that “UBC is a young network, but we don’t put up with ageism,” though he neglected to mention that he could get away with paying older pros like Phillips half, or less, of what the big boys had.
    Behind the director, show-runner Nicole Strickland leaned against the back window wall, her arms folded, her mouth a tight, thin, straight line. The slenderly shapely, striking woman’s tousled red hair vied for attention with her green eyes. This evening she wore a sharply cut, cream-colored Dolce & Gabbana suit with matching Jimmy Choos. Byrnes relished having a beautiful woman as his hatchet man.
    Also against the back wall, in the center where an aisle cut down the three tiers of techs, stood Byrnes himself, with a perfect view of the large plasma screen (labeled: PROGRAM ) above the bank of similar oversized monitors, whose screens were sectioned into eight windows reporting individual camera shots, remote feeds, and cued-up prerecorded material. The PROGRAM flat-screen reflected the finished product going out over the airwaves.
    Crime Seen! had saved two very juicy cases for the finale, and Byrnes would be shocked if this were not the highest-rated episode of the season. He watched with half-lidded eyes as Carlos Moreno demonstrated that two young girls had not been kidnapped, as their mother had reported, but were murdered by her and buried on a piece of farmland owned by the mother’s parents. Footage of her