Heir Apparent - Joel Smith, #2

Many executives long to become the boss, the leader of their corporation. But only one person gets to fill that role, and opportunities to succeed the CEO of a successful company are few and far between. Execs battle one another, hoping to hold the unofficial title of 'Heir Apparent.'In a large Midwestern city, one Heir Apparent is about to slip off the CEO track. Permanently. There is still time to stop it, but at quite a cost.
By carefully eliminating the cause of the coming derailment, the executive can even speed the succession process. Doing so, however, requires multiple murders of a sort so foul, they terrorize the entire corporate community and captivate the media. Thus, the Kansas City CEO Serial Killer is born. Joel Smith, a retired CIA field operative, is hired by George Crawford, CEO of Sangreen Industries, to make sure he doesn't become the killer's next victim.
Smith works closely on the case with Evangelina (Van) Sikes, a homicide detective and savant working for KCPD. As the FBI digs into the serial killer concept, Smith and Sikes alone continue to pursue the theory that the killer is a close business associate of one of the first two victims. As the pair close in on the killer, the stakes get higher as they become targets themselves.