Tell Me (27 page)

Leaning over, she unzipped her boots and kicked them off. “Take it any way you want it.”

“As long as you understand that our deal is off.”

She started working on the zipper of the lightweight jacket she’d been wearing under Reed’s larger coat. “I’m not talking about this now. I figure we can do it later.” She let her sweater fall open.

“You think if you get me interested in you that I’ll forget that I’m changing the rules. Or that you can convince me to agree to let you work on the case.”

“I’m just going to take a shower, Reed,” she said. “You can join me if you want. If you don’t, fine.”

“I think I’d better deal with the dog.”

“Your choice.” She was already peeling off her clothes.

Once inside the bathroom, she turned on the taps of the shower, which was rigged over an old, claw-foot tub. The pipes groaned as the water turned hot, steaming the room as she dropped her clothes into a pile on the floor. She’d barely stepped inside the curtained enclosure when the door opened and Reed, stark naked, appeared.

“What about the dog?”

“He’s quick.”

“I guess. So did you have a change of heart?” she asked lightly, reaching for the soap.

“More like I saw an opportunity to spend some quality time with my fiancée.”

“Quality time,” she mocked. “Is that what this is?”

“What it isn’t, is you seducing me to get what you want.”

She watched as he deftly plucked the soap from her hand and stood between her and the spray, turning her to face the wall as he ran the slippery bar over her wet skin, causing the goose bumps rising on her flesh to disappear in the heat. Warm water sprayed over them, and she nestled against him, feeling the flat of his hand against her abdomen, drawing her near while her buttocks were pressed into his groin, his thick shaft already at attention and rubbing against her.

She closed her eyes and let the eroticism of the moment overtake her. Hot water, warm flesh, sudsy lather running down her legs and body. He kissed the back of her neck, where it joined with her shoulders, his lips tender, his tongue slick. His hands moved, one caressing a breast and toying with a wet nipple, the other, reaching lower, down her abdomen, to the juncture of her legs, where his fingers probed and her need began to pulse. She moaned over the rush of water, and she felt him lift her up as he thrust hard against her, driving deep, causing her to gasp.

Blood pounded in her ears, and her heart couldn’t keep up with her shallow, rapid breathing. Water splashed, she gulped in air and he moved inside her. Harder. Faster. Hotter.

“Oh, God,” she whispered as he held her fast to him. “Oh, God, Oh, God . . . oh . . .”

In a burst of heat she convulsed, gasping, panting, hearing his primal groan as his muscles tightened, then released, and his breath came out in a rush against her ear.

She went limp against him, but still he held her close, breathing hard, his slick body pressed intimately to hers.

“What got into you?” he asked on a gasp, and she laughed, realizing they were still joined.

“I think the answer to that is pretty obvious.”

Chuckling, the water still flowing, he kissed the top of her wet head and finally took a step backward, their bodies disconnecting. “Wanna hear the good news?”

“Mmm. Tell me.”

“At least we know we aren’t making a sex tape.”

“What a relief.” She turned and wound her arms around his neck, warm water spraying her face. “You know, Reed, while you were washing me? I think you missed a spot,” she whispered and kissed him hard on the lips.

“Did I?”

“Uh huh.”

“And I think you’re trying to mess with me.”

“See, you are good at your job,” she said and dragged him downward into the tub, where they were crunched in a tangle of arms and legs. “From now on, I’ll just call you Ace.”

His laugh was a deep rumble. “And you’ll be Bambi.”

“Bambi? Why?”

“Because you, darlin’, are trying to bamboozle me, and it’s just not going to work.”

“We’ll just see about that,” she said, because she knew, deep in her heart, she wasn’t going to quit her investigation. She had a job to do and she’d do it, with or without his help. For now, though, she’d close her mind to everything that had to do with the Blondell O’Henry case and pay attention to the man she was going to marry.

A
ny way you cut it, the drive to Charleston was going to take more than two hours, probably closer to three. One way. And it would have to be in a rental car, as Nikki’s Honda was still being repaired. Well, so be it. As soon as Reed left for work in the morning, she found her way to the nearest agency, rented a subcompact, and was on her way. She’d mentioned to Reed that she planned to drive north to locate Lawrence Thompson, and he hadn’t been happy about it. He’d sternly told her to keep in contact. Their argument of the night before had diffused a little, and he was being more rational, accepting the fact that her job did come with a few built-in dangers, though he didn’t like it and made that point very clear as he’d dressed for work.

“Just be smart,” he’d cautioned as he found his keys near the front door. “And be careful.”

“I will.”

“And for God’s sake, keep me posted.”

“Don’t worry,” she’d said, bussing his freshly shaven cheek, the scent of aftershave tickling her nostrils. “I will. Promise.”

With that, he’d rolled his eyes and left, his own job calling. “I’m holding you to it,” he’d yelled over his shoulder.

As soon as the back door slammed shut, she’d gotten to work. Her calls to Jada Hill had gone unreturned, and she wasn’t having much luck with anyone else, including Steve Manning, the stoner whom Amity had dated in high school and who was now a security guard for On the River, a hotel not six blocks from where she worked. She’d learned when he would be on duty and planned to visit him when she returned from Charleston. Brad Holbrook, after college, had taken a job in Japan with an import-export business; as far as she could tell, he was married, with three stair-step children, and though he’d been in and out of the country, his work kept him mainly on the West Coast. According to his widowed mother, he “never came and visited, not like Peter,” who obviously, at least for the time being, was the “good” and favored son.

She would still love to talk to Brad, whose dreams of a career in major league baseball had fizzled out at Georgia Tech. Since Brad had been in school in Atlanta when Amity had been killed, he might have some insight into what had happened to her. She figured it was a shot in the dark, but worth the try.

The one person she did connect with was Ruby, Mikado’s dog groomer. “Does that little one need an appointment already?” Ruby had asked.

“Not yet,” Nikki said. “I was actually calling about something you said about your brothers and Blondell O’Henry.”

“Oh. All I can say is that they thought she was the hottest thing to ever hit Savannah. Woowee!”

“Did they ever say who was dating her? I mean, before Calvin?”

“That was a long time ago. I don’t think it was just one boy, and I didn’t pay much attention anyway, y’know. Oh, but there was something. The one of them that had been with her in high school? That would be Flint Beauregard.”

“Beauregard. Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. The boys were all goin’ on about it. And then he ends up bein’ the detective on the case.”

A cold feeling stole through Nikki. “Anyone else besides Beauregard?”

“Well, they were all braggin’ about her. That’s the way they were. Flint, though . . . they all knew about him.”

“Do you have their numbers? Your brothers?”

“Oh, no. The boys are gone now. Passed on a few years back, within six months of each other. Frank had a heart attack while he was workin’, and cancer got Jeb.”

“I’m sorry,” Nikki said.

“That’s just the way of it sometimes.”

A few minutes later, Nikki had hung up, lost in thought. She felt hollow inside. It couldn’t be, could it? That Flint Beauregard had fathered Amity O’Henry? Had he known? Why, then, would he pursue Blondell so vigorously, and why hadn’t Blondell cried foul, whatever the case?

No, she was missing something. An important piece. She thought of the girl she’d befriended. Amity had taken after her mother in so many ways, physically as well as in her attitude toward men. But Flint Beauregard? Maybe . . .

Amity, the girl everyone knew of, but no one really knew. “What happened to you?” Nikki wondered aloud.

“Tell me more about the lake,” Amity had pleaded once when they’d been hanging out that summer, just listening to CDs in Nikki’s room on one of the rare times Amity had come over. “Do you swim in it?” She was sitting on the bench at the vanity Nikki’s mother had insisted she needed, while Nikki was stretched out on her bed. The sun had been streaming through the windows, some Michael Jackson song playing, Amity picking up bottles of nail polish and reading the labels as they talked.

“We used to go there a lot when I was a kid, and yeah, I swam in it,” Nikki had admitted.

“It must’ve been fun.” She’d seemed sad for a second, as if reflecting on her own home life and making comparisons. For the first time, Nikki had actually been embarrassed about her bedroom, with its designer quilt and coordinating curtains.

“It was.”

“With your cousins. Hollis and Elton?”

“Sometimes. Mom and Hollis’s mom don’t really get along.”

“Why not?”

Nikki had shrugged. “They just don’t like each other. Hollis seems to think it has to do with some big secret, but then Hollis is always thinking there’s a major scandal somewhere.”

“Is there?” Amity had asked quietly, as she stared into the mirror, her gaze finding Nikki’s in its reflection. “A scandal.”

“I don’t know, but Hollis sure thinks so. She thinks her mother is a big fake or something.”

“Maybe she is.”

“I guess.” Hollis had always been making up stories, creating drama, believing the worst about anyone, including Amity, though Nikki hadn’t mentioned
that.
Instead, she’d picked up her old stuffed elephant, which at the time had been fifteen years old and missing an eye.

“Can we go there sometime?” Amity had asked, her eyes shining with anticipation. “To the cabin?”

Nikki had shrugged. “It’s pretty rustic. I never really liked it, and most of the time we went, my sister and brothers and me, it was with Hollis and Elton and their parents. But that was a long time ago. No one goes up there much anymore.”

“We should go!” Amity had said. She pulled her hair away from her face in both hands and turned her head, looking this way and that, eyeing her reflection in the mirrors. “I mean it. Let’s go there.”

“Sure, I guess.”

Letting her hair down, Amity had twisted on the bench. “It could be fun,” she said, never mentioning the two bottles of nail polish she’d hidden in her hand and, when she’d thought Nikki wouldn’t notice, had tucked into the pocket of her jeans, folding her T-shirt over the bulge.

Nikki had never mentioned the theft to anyone.

Now, as the miles rolled under her rental’s wheels, she thought about Amity and her desire for things she couldn’t have. It had been hard for her to be Nikki’s friend, hard to want so many things that were out of reach. Was Flint Beauregard Amity’s father? If so, what difference would that have made in Amity’s life if it were known?

With an effort, Nikki dragged her thoughts back to the case itself. She’d already decided that she was going to attend the next service of the Pentecostal sect run by Ezekiel Byrd, June Hatchett’s brother. She didn’t really see why anyone who was religious enough to handle snakes would use one as a weapon or a threat, but it was the only lead she had. Earlier this morning, she’d called all the legitimate reptile dealers in the area and, as it was early, left messages asking about recent sales of copperheads. She’d looked online, at craigslist and other Web sites, even searched through the previous week’s free advertisements in the
Sentinel,
but so far she’d found no copperheads for sale, nor any that had gone missing from a lab that collected snake venom; she’d even called the local zoos.

Nothing.

Not that she couldn’t have missed something, and there were dealers who worked under the radar, as well as hunters who trapped their own. So far, the whole snake lead was a bust. But it was still early. She could get lucky with one of the dealers. Well, maybe.

Reed was still working on the DNA of the old cigarette butt found at the scene. Nikki hadn’t spoken with Roland Camp, but any conversations she’d tried to have with Calvin O’Henry had been useless.

She felt as if she were getting nowhere, trudging in quicksand, and the more she struggled, the less footing she found.

But someone who had a fondness for snakes apparently thought differently.

 

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Morrisette said when Reed arrived at the office and caught up with her at the coffeepot in the break room.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes,” he warned her as she filled her cup from a fresh pot that had the room smelling of some kind of fresh roast.

“There’s a surprise,” she said with more than a smidgeon of mockery as she returned the glass carafe to its warming plate.

A couple of uniformed officers sat at a table near the windows, perusing the headlines of the paper and sipping from their cups before starting their shift. A huge bowl of popcorn, half eaten and left by someone from the night shift, sat on the table, and one of the officers was picking at it as he read the news.

“So what is it?” He poured himself a cup as they left the room, passing Agnes, one of the clerical workers, as she headed in the opposite direction. Phones were jangling; a printer somewhere spewed out pages, as laughter and conversation eased through the hallways.

Morrisette and Reed made their way through the rabbit warren of offices to the room where they’d been working on the O’Henry case. Boxes were stacked on the ends of tables that also held labeled evidence, and two standing corkboards displayed pinned-up photographs of the crime scene, suspects, and notes about everything. Front and center was a glossy eight-by-ten of Blondell O’Henry, the photo Morrisette bitingly called her “professional head shot,” though it wasn’t all that flattering.

“So, okay,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Actually, I have good news and bad news and worse news,” Morrisette said.

Irritated, he said, “Whatever.”

“The lab ran down the serial number of that camera you gave them and tracked it to a store right here in Savannah. They’ve called the owner of the shop and we can swing by there today. It’s a place called Max’s Spy World, on the south side, not far from the mall. If they keep decent records, you should know by the end of the day who bought the equipment and who’s been surreptitiously observing Ms. Gillette.”

“Good.” He couldn’t wait to come face-to-face with the bastard who was playing Peeping Tom. “So what’s the bad news?”

“DNA came back on the cigarette found at the cabin twenty years ago. It was pretty degraded, but it looks like it doesn’t match up with any of the known players back then. All they can determine is that it is a Winston and was smoked by a male.”

“The Winston part we knew,” Reed said; the name of the brand had been visible on the butt. “And the rest of the information eliminates half the population but won’t exactly break the case wide open.”

She nodded. “You ready for the worst?”

“Hit me.”

“Blondell O’Henry’s going to be released,” Morrisette said.

“It’s decided?” Reed asked, surprised.

“Jada Hill pled her case, and the powers that be decided not to pursue keeping her locked up. Twenty years is enough if she did it, and way too much if she didn’t. The statement’s going to be announced later today, and she actually gets out tomorrow, after all the red tape is cut. So all of this,” Morrisette said, motioning to the boxes of evidence stacked onto the tables, “is moot.”

Reed stared at the piles of evidence sorted and stacked on tables. “So it’s over. Just like that.”

“It’s over as far as prosecuting Blondell O’Henry is concerned, but now the case is open because we can’t prove that she did it. Looks like she’ll be suing the state for her pain and suffering or whatever, and let me tell you, Deacon Beauregard is fit to be tied, claiming his father is ‘rolling over in his grave’ and that a ‘grievous injustice’ has been done to Amity O’Henry, her siblings, the constituents of the great state of Georgia, and all people everywhere, or some such shit.” She drained her cup and set it onto the table with a bang.

“But you agree with him?”

Her lips pursed and she looked away. “I thought I’d never say this, but unfortunately this time, yeah, I do.”

Leaning a hip against the table, he said, “You know, Morrisette, it’s barely eight. How do you know all this?”

“Got here early this morning. Bart had the kids, and I thought I could get something done here when it was a little quieter, y’know, just before the shift change, but that didn’t work out. The department’s gearing up for a press conference sometime tomorrow. Abbey Marlow’s already all over it, talking with everyone, getting her ducks in a row. I talked to her already, but she might want to double-check with you.”

“Fine.”

“She won’t be the only one talking to the press. I’m pretty sure Jada Hill will hold her own chat with the media, with or without Blondell. That woman loves the cameras.”

“Comes with the territory,” he said, glancing around the room. Most of the musty, twenty-year-old evidence had been sorted through and organized, important pieces clipped together or added to the corkboards outlining the crime. Though Reed wasn’t a hundred percent convinced that Blondell O’Henry was the shooter, he’d been working on that assumption.

“Someone tried to warn Nikki off yesterday with snakes up at the cabin,” he said.

“I heard.” Morrisette glanced at the suspect board and stared at the woman in its center. “But not Blondell. She’s still locked up for another day.” Running a hand through her short, choppy locks, she walked toward the board. “Who the hell left the snake in the car? If she hadn’t just seen a copperhead in the cabin itself, I’d have maybe thought it was a coincidence.”