The Morning After (32 page)

“Reed,” Morrisette warned.

“Ms. Gillette’s agreed not to print any of this until such time as the department deems is acceptable.”

“Now you’re making deals? For someone off the case, you sure throw your weight around,” Cliff growled.

“Enough, already.” Morrisette glared at the two men. “Let’s just get this joker. You”—she pointed a finger at Nikki—“stay outside until we ask you in and then be careful where you step. Diane Moses—she’s the lead crime scene investigator—will tell you what you can and cannot touch, and if I were you, I’d do exactly as she says. Got it?”

Nikki nodded. “Got it.”

“And I’d find another place to spend the night.” Morrisette’s gaze swept to Reed’s face, then back to Nikki’s. “Somewhere safe. Maybe with your folks or a friend. Someone you can trust.”

“I already changed my locks,” Nikki protested.

“Not good enough. We might need more time. You can take a few of your belongings. A change of clothes.”

Nikki argued, “Now wait a minute, this is my home.”

“And it was violated once.” Detective Morrisette’s face was without a trace of humor. “Let’s not invite trouble back again. Got it?”

“Okay. Yeah…I got it,” Nikki said, staring up at the turret apartment and feeling a chill. The Grave Robber had been inside her home. The creep who tossed living women into coffins already occupied by decomposing bodies had walked through her tiny rooms, running his hands over her counter and bureau, maybe even lying in her bed, going through her drawers. She shuddered.

Morrisette was right.

She’d stay away tonight.

At least, this night. In her peripheral vision she caught a glimpse of a shadow and the lower branches of the laurel hedge shuddered. Nikki’s heart nearly stopped and she visibly jumped before she realized that her cat, spooked by the police, had darted under one of the police cruisers. His eyes were wide as he huddled behind one tire, staring out at her.

Nikki bent down on one knee. “Come on, Jen,” she said, feeling some of the animal’s unease. “It’ll be all right.”

But the cat didn’t budge. In fact, when she reached for him, he hissed, baring his needle-sharp teeth, then scrambled away to the far side of the vehicle where he continued to cower and stare at the house.

As if he sensed the very essence of evil.

As if the Grave Robber were lurking nearby.

Hiding in the shadows.

Watching.

Waiting.

Nikki’s throat went dry. She felt it then, that cold damp wind that rattled through the branches of the surrounding trees, masking sounds, the night itself hiding the most hideous of murderers, the killer who had decided to contact her.

A footstep scraped on the concrete of the parking lot.

She turned quickly and saw no one.

Or did she?

Was that a shadow in the foliage near the alley?

A dark figure walking by or a trick of light?

Did the fronds of a fern shiver as someone passed?

Suddenly frightened, she stepped backward and bumped into something, a person, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Nikki?” Reed’s voice asked. Turning quickly, she found the detective staring at her, studying her. “Are you all right?”

“Would you be?” she tried to quip back, though her voice faltered a little.

“Me? Hell, no. I’d be scared to death.”

“Yeah, well, that about covers it.” Shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, she said, “Can we go inside now?”

“I think so. Come on.” Once again he wrapped strong fingers around her arm and propelled her toward the walkway. As she looked ahead to the stairs that wrapped around the outside of the house she knew she’d never climb them again without a new, unwanted sense of trepidation. The Grave Robber had gotten into her home once. What was to stop him from doing it again?

Morrisette didn’t like what was going through her head as she drove through the empty, night-darkened streets of Savannah. Something wasn’t right about the investigation, something major. She was tired, cranky, worried about leaving her kids in the middle of the night with a bleary-eyed sitter and didn’t need this kind of gut-wrenching suspicion.

Reed and Nikki Gillette?

What was with the two of them? Were they involved…? The way they hung close to each other while Gillette’s apartment was searched felt odd…out of sync…like there was more to their relationship than met the eye. But Reed detested reporters, especially the pushy kind like Ms. Gillette. And yet…

Morrisette’s feminine intuition, which was sometimes a blessing but more often a curse, was working overtime tonight. And she wasn’t the only one who’d sensed the shift in the atmosphere. As she’d torn down the old Savannah streets, she’d tried not to notice that her new partner was brooding. Mad at the world. Cliff Siebert hadn’t uttered one word on the short trip to the station. He’d even given her that pissy don’t-ruin-my-lungs glare as she’d lit up. What a tight-ass. She turned onto Habersham and saw that Reed’s El Dorado was on her tail. Nikki Gillette’s little hatchback was behind him and all three of the cars rolled into the parking lot one after the other. Siebert had been watching their little parade in the side-view mirror and now, as she shoved the cruiser into park, his already grim expression darkened. He shot out of the car before Morrisette could cut the engine. Yep, he was gonna be lots of fun, she thought, a regular barrel of laughs. She decided to have a much-needed smoke before facing Reed and Siebert in the interrogation room. She paused for a cigarette, noticed that Reed and Gillette were way too chummy, huddling close together against the weather as they headed inside. Morrisette lit up and took a couple of quick hits of nicotine as she walked to the doors. She squashed out her half-smoked Marlboro Light in the ash can. Why was the Grave Robber singling out Nikki Gillette and Pierce Reed? What did they have to do with twelve? Reed had been involved with one of the victims, but, as far as Morrisette knew, Nikki Gillette hadn’t.

Maybe the notes would give them the clue they needed.

Inside the interrogation room, she took charge. Reed stood near the doorway, a concession to not being a part of the case, she supposed, while Siebert and Nikki Gillette claimed a couple of chairs. The station was quiet, only a few cops working graveyard. Even here, Savannah’s bastion of security, the night seemed disturbed. Out of sync. Even a little eerie. But then, everything about this damned case was.

Nikki Gillette offered up a list of her friends and associates and starred those that had keys to her apartment, or had used her keys in the time that she’d rented her apartment. The list was way too long for Morrisette’s way of thinking and, she imagined, incomplete, as it was put together hastily, but it was a starting point. Morrisette reminded the reporter that whatever they discussed was definitely off the record, then listened as Nikki Gillette explained about getting the notes on her car, in her house and the E-mail at work.

“It’s essentially the same things I received, only with different wording,” Reed said, then held up a hand to cut Morrisette off. “Ms. Gillette knows I got the E-mail. We’ve been over this. She’s not reporting this until we make an official statement.”

“But I am reporting that the killer contacted me,” Nikki cut in. She looked as tired as Morrisette felt. Dark smudges showed up beneath her eyes, her lipstick had faded and her hair was a tangled mess. But she was still feisty as hell. That probably came with being Big Ron Gillette’s daughter.

“I’d like to see the article before it hits the stands.”

“Too late.” Gillette trapped Morrisette in a sharp, green-eyed glare. “I left one draft at the paper with orders to print it if I didn’t get back with additional facts.”

Morrisette’s frayed temper snapped. “You’re impeding the investigation.”

“No, Detective, I’m helping it.” Nikki Gillette opened her voluminous bag, pulled out the notes, encased in plastic sacks, and tossed them onto the table. “These are copies. Reed has the originals.”

“Jesus,” Cliff muttered and wiped a hand over his mouth like some kind of pansy. He was an odd one, she decided, though Morrisette didn’t have time to analyze what was going through her new, scowling partner’s brain. All the same, she found herself longing to be hooked up with Reed again. Him, she understood. Or did she? From the corner of her eye she saw him fold his arms over his chest and lean one shoulder against the door frame. It bothered her that he’d linked up with Nikki Gillette. In Morrisette’s estimation, Reed was fraternizing with the enemy. Hadn’t he said a hundred times how he hated the press?

And now he was in bed with them…or one…or soon to be, if she read the signals right. What the hell was he thinking?

She read the message:

WILL THERE BE MORE?

UNTIL THE TWELFTH,

NO ONE CAN BE SURE.

“It
is
like the one you got,” she said to Reed.

“More than that. It’s a continuation.”

“What do you mean?” Nikki asked, but Sylvie Morrisette was on Reed’s wavelength.

“I get it. One line repeated…to link ’em…‘Now, we have number four. One third done, will there be more? Will there be more? Until the twelfth, no one can be sure.’”

“Singsong like a child’s rhyme,” Nikki said.

Siebert looked at the reporter and there was something in his eyes, a familiarity that he quickly disguised. “So what does the twelfth mean?”

“The twelfth of December?” Nikki said. “That’s so soon.”

“What about number of victims?” Reed ventured and Siebert sent him a look guaranteed to kill.

“Twelve? There will be twelve?” Gillette, to her credit, seemed horrified.

Morrisette ended the speculation. “Let’s not throw theories around. And remember, everything you heard here is off the record.”

“For now,” she said. “Once the investigation is over—”

“Let’s just solve it first,” Siebert cut in.

Amen
, Sylvie thought. It was the first time she’d agreed with her new partner. She figured it might just be the last.

Twelve.

That was the key. Nikki’s brain was too tired to think what it could possibly mean, but there was something important in the number, something she’d have to research she thought as she drove to her parents’ house. She’d called her father from the station, explained only that she needed a place to crash, and knew she’d get the third degree upon her arrival. Which was fine. Better her parents hear what was happening from her lips rather than through the gossip mill that churned out fact and fiction twenty-four hours a day in Savannah.

Twelve, twelve, twelve. Half of twenty-four. Half a day? Twelve numbers on a clock face? Twelve doughnuts in a dozen, twelve members of a jury, twelve days of Christmas…The song popped into her brain as it was the season.

“On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…twelve…oh, drummers drumming…” she sang off-key, then glanced in her rearview mirror. The street was deserted aside from the twin headlights behind her.

Detective Pierce Reed.

On the job.

Following her.

Making certain she was safe.

Somehow the thought that he was nearby made her feel safer as she drove down the cold, lonely streets and watched the play of light from her own beams splash against the boles of trees, white fences and the road winding ahead of her. She saw a few cars going the opposite direction and her beams had caught the eyes of an opossum before it lumbered beneath a hedge of azaleas and ferns. In a weird, all-too-needy way, Nikki was touched that Reed had elected to escort her home. It was the kind of emotion she usually detested.

But then, she was dead on her feet. Not thinking clearly. That explained her odd feelings for Reed. Had to. Nothing else made sense. Even though in a few hours her page one story would hit the stands, she couldn’t wait up for it. She pulled into her parents’ tree-lined drive and parked. Reed’s Cadillac glided into the spot next to hers. He rolled his window down. “I’ll wait until you get inside,” he said.

“Thanks.” Waving, she hauled her bag to the garage, punched in the code for the doors to open and walked past her mother’s fifteen-year-old Mercedes and her father’s new BMW convertible—a midlife crisis except for the fact her father had sped past midlife ten or fifteen years earlier. As she opened the door to the kitchen, she nearly ran into her mother, frail thing that she was, all wrapped up in a fluffy yellow bathrobe and matching slippers.

“My God, Nicole, what’s going on?” Charlene asked, worriedly fingering the diamond cross that forever hung around her neck. “It’s this Grave Robber thing, isn’t it?”

Nikki couldn’t lie. “Yes. Please, Mom, don’t panic, but since you’re going to read the papers in a few hours, you may as well know that the guy contacted me.”

Charlene gasped. “The killer?”

Her father filled the doorway to the den. “Contacted you?” he repeated gruffly, his voice still deep from recent sleep, his thinning hair mussed, eyeglasses a little angled over his nose. “How?”

“It’s a long story, Dad, and I can’t keep my eyes open. I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.”

“Are you in danger?” he demanded.

“Oh, God.” Charlene rubbed the diamond cross as if in so doing she could ward off the devil. “Of course she is. She courts it and now…if that monster is contacting you…”

“I don’t know that it’s him for certain,” Nikki answered honestly. “It could be someone else just jerking my chain, but I don’t think so.” She lifted a weary hand. “So, it’s okay if I crash here?”

“Of course.”

Her father managed a smile as he engaged the alarm system. “Always, Firecracker. You know that. If anyone tries to mess with you here, he’ll have to deal with me.”

“And your personal arsenal.” Nikki unbuttoned her coat.

“That’s right.”

Her father was ex-military, but took the Second Amendment to the nth degree. His right to bear arms was one he’d fight for to the death. His life had been threatened on more than one occasion. And he’d been on the bench long enough that criminals he’d put away for life, were now, thanks to prison rehabilitation or trusting parole boards, on the streets again.