The Morning After (33 page)

Big Ron believed in being armed and he had the shotguns, revolvers and AK-47s to prove it.

“I’ll see you in the morning.” She made her way up the stairs to the room she’d grown up in and snapped on the bedside lamp. Warm light illuminated walls papered in a floral pattern she’d helped her mother choose over twenty years earlier. The maple bed with its matching desk and bureau were situated exactly as they had been when Nikki was growing up.

“Jesus, this is almost spooky,” she thought aloud as she fingered the tennis trophies she’d won in high school that were mounted on a shelf. The corsage from her senior prom was still pinned to a bulletin board and there were snapshots from high school as well as her college years. The faded tassel from her mortarboard hung over the corner of a mirror, hiding a picture of Andrew and Simone Nikki had tucked into the mirror’s frame. She pulled it out now and stared at the image.

Andrew, so vital and alive, his arm slung around Simone’s shoulders. Dark-haired, willow-slim Simone with her trace of Mediterranean ancestry evident in her dark eyes and deeper skin tones, and Andrew, tall and fair, built like an athlete, reminiscent of a Norman warrior. In that frozen instant in time, when the camera had flashed, Simone had stared up at him as if he were a god. Or a fallen idol, Nikki thought, chewing on her lower lip and wondering what it was that bothered her about the picture and coming up blank.

“You’re just tired,” she muttered, replacing the photo to glance around her old room. Obviously Charlene Gillette was a firm believer in holding on to the past, no remodeling or updating or redecorating her children’s rooms into sewing centers or mini gyms or even guest rooms.

At the desk, Nikki opened a drawer and found a dusty photograph album. Her album. Inside were her favorite snapshots from grade school, high school and college. She flipped the pages quickly and saw pictures of her family and friends. Andrew, of course, was predominate. His smiling image leapt off the pages, whether he was clowning around or posing in a football uniform. His hair was always cut short, his face clean shaven to show off a square jaw that was identical to their father’s.

Andrew had been built like Big Ron, strong as an ox, yet fast enough to play tight end or quarterback on the football team. Though smart enough, he’d lacked the ambition and dedication of the man who had sired him and had taken the easy path too often…unlike herself. She was the one of Ronald Gillette’s children who had inherited the old man’s drive. Lily and Kyle were in many of the family photographs, but it was Andrew to whom the camera gravitated and Nikki wondered if it was just that her eldest brother had been so photogenic, or that the eye of the photographer had always been looking for him.

There were others in the pictures as well. Cliff Siebert was sprinkled into the snapshots, clowning with Andrew, making faces at the camera, occasionally mugging and leering at Nikki. Simone appeared in the later shots, either laughing with Nikki or hugging Andrew. A stunning couple, they’d been so much in love.

Or so it had seemed.

But it had been a lie. Andrew had broken up with her.

“You’re making too much of it,” Nikki whispered, realizing she was dead on her feet. Yet she continued to flip through the pages, to shots of college and the summers between, including her first real newspaper job at the
Sentinel
. There was a picture of Nikki and Sean, their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, the wind catching their hair as they stood on a sand dune, beach grass ruffling at their bare feet. Sean had looked younger then, his face clean shaven, his smile more boyish and innocent, but he’d been fit and strong, about to join the navy and probably already involved with the other woman. Nikki wondered what had happened to that girl…what had her name been? Cindy Something-Or-Other. She hadn’t lived in Savannah and Nikki had never heard what happened to her, though she didn’t care enough to take Sean up on his offer of a drink or to catch up. It had been too painful a time in her life; not only had Sean dumped her, but she’d nearly screwed up her career and ruined her father’s reputation all because of the LeRoy Chevalier trial. She didn’t want to think about Chevalier, how he’d butchered a family, his
girlfriends
family.

And now he was out…not because of Nikki, but because technology had caught up with the crime and DNA testing had suggested there might have been another murderer, that the case against LeRoy Chevalier was much weaker than originally thought.

Nikki shuddered. She remembered the lifeless eyes of Chevalier as he’d sat in the defendant’s chair, never showing any emotion, not even when the photographs of his girlfriend and her two dead children were shown to the jury. Not even when the one surviving boy had testified and shown his brutal wounds.

So, he’d served only a few years of his life sentence. So much for justice.

She continued to turn the pages. There were no further snapshots of Sean Hawke, and those of Andrew suddenly ceased altogether. In the remaining few pictures the faces that the camera caught after that Christmas had lost their sparkle, the smiles seemed forced, the images sober.

Nikki had kept the card from Andrew’s funeral and it, now fading, was pressed into the album. How gruesome, she thought now, removing the faded card…a few lines dedicated to his brilliant, if short, life. Nikki felt the same old sadness steal over her as always when she considered how tragically his life had ended. Such a waste. She wadded the damned reminder in her fist, then shoved it into her purse rather than leave it in the trash for her mother to find.

A floorboard in the hallway creaked and she heard her father’s quiet cough. Hastily she shoved the album back into the drawer and turned just as Big Ron, backlit by the corridor lights, filled the doorway. In his hand he held a gun.

Her heart nearly stopped.

“I thought you might want this,” he said as he came into the room.

“A pistol? You thought I’d want a pistol?”

“To protect yourself.” He handed her the small caliber Colt.

“Is it loaded?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it, Dad, this is scary.”

“The safety’s on. It’s not cocked.”

“I hope not. Dad, I don’t think this is a good idea. In fact, I know it isn’t! I don’t even have a gun license.”

“You know how to shoot.” He wrapped her fingers around the pistol’s grip and the cold metal felt surprisingly familiar. “At least, you did. I took you bird hunting. You were a good shot.”

“That was about a billion years ago. With a shotgun.”

He chuckled. “Don’t make me any older than I am. Besides, I took you with me when I went target shooting. You used a handgun.”

“I’m really not into weapons, Dad. I’m not gonna run around with a loaded pistol in my purse or strapped to my leg like you do.”

He grinned widely, lines bracketing the sides of his face. “I’ll have you know that I don’t keep any guns in
my
purse. Now, promise me you won’t print that.”

“Very funny.”

“But this isn’t, Firecracker,” he said, turning sober again. “This business with the Grave Robber is serious. Keep the pistol or let me find you something you’re more comfortable with.”

“No. No more.” She had images of her father handing her a semiautomatic weapon with clips, or one of those ammunition belts that the bad guys wore in all the old Spaghetti Westerns he watched. “This will do just fine, but let’s unload it.” She did just that, taking out the bullets and dropping them into her pocket.

“What’re you going to do if you’re attacked? Pistol-whip the guy?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” The gun was suddenly heavy.

“I’ll sleep better knowing you’re protected.” He offered her another, weaker smile. “Be careful, Nicole. Your mother and I…we love you and we sure as hell don’t want to lose you.”

Her throat closed and tears burned the back of her eyelids as he gave her a bear hug. The scents of cigar smoke and whiskey, a combination that had been a part of him for as long as she could remember, clung to him. “I love you, too, Daddy.”

“You’re a good kid.” Releasing her, he walked into the hallway and she heard the stairs moan under his weight as he made his way to the den.

Nikki sank onto the edge of the bed and held the unloaded pistol in one hand. She hated the thought of it, was radically against handguns in general, but with the Grave Robber breaking into her apartment, she did need to protect herself.

She slid the Colt into her purse.

CHAPTER 21

It was time to move. He could feel it. The restlessness. The need. The hunger, a craving he could satisfy only one way. He turned on the tape player, listened to the screams. Barbara Jean’s were desperate, panicked, shrieking and begging, while the old lady’s were reduced to mewling and prayers…. He’d blended the two together and as he sat at his table, running his fingers over the plastic coated pictures—graduation shots, business photographs, even a prom picture, he closed his eyes, imagining what it would sound like when all of the damned had been captured, buried and recorded. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids, his hands shook and yet he smiled as he imagined their fear, sensed their terror, wondered if they would ever understand why they were being punished, why the retribution.

Twelve years had passed…and now all twelve tormentors would pay…one or two at a time…they would live his hell, feel his pain, experience the torture that he had suffered. Some had died already, others had no idea that their days on earth were about to end. Some lived nearby. In this very neighborhood, living their lives without concern, others had drifted to more distant vicinities, but he knew where they had landed and they could not hide. No, they were not safe.

The tape clicked to a stop and he closed his scrapbook.

It was time.

Leaving the televisions glowing, he slipped through his private entrance and up the vine covered brick stairs to the brisk air of the night. The storm was coming. Ice and sleet headed south from Tennessee and the Carolinas. Unusual for this climate. But perfect. He felt its breath, coveted the chill it would bring to his victims.

The drive to the river was uneventful. The night quiet. He hid his truck nearly a mile away from his boat’s hiding spot, parking in a lane overgrown with brambles. Then he jogged back to the sandy dunes where he’d tucked the rowboat with its specialized equipment. Quickly, he stripped off his street clothes and pulled on a wet suit that was as black as the night. It was now or never, he thought, knowing the risks, anticipating resistance from a security guard or dogs. As much as he hated guns, he was prepared, the Glock in a water-tight pouch. Shoving off, he glanced to the stars, high above thin clouds, and a slice of moon barely visible. With even strokes he paddled against the current, his eyes trained on the shoreline and the point that jutted into the river.

Stroke, stroke, stroke, the little boat knifed through the water as he sweat inside the tight suit. Around the bend in the river, closer to the shore, to the old Peltier Plantation. Once renowned for the rice it grew, the plantation was now home to a private cemetery and one very special plot. He guided his craft to the shoreline, donned night-vision goggles and saw the path that curved upward to the higher ground to the graveyard. Carefully, he removed his tools from the boat. Creeping silently, he made his way up the smooth dirt trail and walked unerringly through the graying headstones until he found the grave he was looking for.

Then he began to dig.

The woman was writhing beneath him, whispering his name, sweating and hot. White, slick skin, breasts with dark areolas, legs that wound around his as he made love to her. “Pierce,” she whispered against his ear, and his blood sizzled in his veins. God, she was hot. And slick. The scent of her perfume mingled with the heady, musty odor of sex.

Her back arched and he opened his eyes, staring down at her dark eyes. She licked her red lips, her tongue flicking outward. He pumped harder. Faster.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered and he felt a niggle of doubt. As hard as he was, he sensed something wrong. “He’ll kill me.”

“What?”

Oh, God, he was gonna come. He held onto a breast, felt it shift and looked into her eyes again, but they were no longer a deep, warm brown, but green, her hair a red-blond, a dusting of freckles bridging her nose. “Nikki?”

She smiled up at him, a naughty provocative smile, her eyes nearly laughing. He felt a moment’s confusion, but she reached up and wound her arms around his neck, dragged his head down to hers, kissed him hard, her mouth opened to him, inviting more. Her tongue found his, twisted and mated. God, he wanted all of her. He lifted her legs to his shoulders and plunged deeper into her moist warmth.

“That’s it, Reed,” she whispered throatily, moving with him, her heart beating wildly, her breath as rapid as his own. “More…more…”

Dear God, he was lost inside her.

“Help me! Pierce, please…I’m cold…please…” She screamed beneath him, but not the wild, abandoned cry of passion. It was an ear-splitting, terror-riddled shriek that tore through his brain. She changed then, morphing from Nikki to Bobbi in his arms, and her eyes, so recently burning with desire, widened in terror and glazed over, her face becoming a death mask. He tried to move and realized that he couldn’t. That they weren’t making love in a bed, but a box…a coffin, and someone was bolting down the lid.

His heart seemed to stop. He tried to move, but couldn’t as the coffin’s lid was pushing downward, against his shoulders and back, pressing him into Bobbi, now dead, her flesh disintegrating beneath him, the stench overpowering…“No!” he yelled.

His eyes flew open at the sound of his own voice.

Heart thudding, he found himself in his dark apartment, only the ghoulish light from the television giving off any illumination whatsoever. “Damn it,” he muttered, running a shaking hand over his chin. Sweat dried on his body as his erection withered, thankfully, but his muscles were still tense. His half-drunk beer was on the side table where he’d left it as he’d clicked on the eleven o’clock news. Which was now long over. Instead, Jay Leno was interviewing Nicole Kidman. Reed clicked off the set, then snapped on a table lamp. Jesus, where had that dream come from? His skin crawled when he remembered the feeling of sheer panic at being locked in the coffin…and why had he pictured himself making love to Bobbi, then Nikki, then Bobbi as a corpse…as if they were all one woman?