The Morning After (48 page)

She finished loading and started out of the parking lot just as her cell phone rang. Wondering if Reed were calling, she checked Caller ID and saw her parents’ number on the display that also indicated her battery life was nearly depleted.

“Hello?” she said as she eased out of the parking lot for the last time.

“Nikki?” her mother asked, her voice faint, the connection faltering.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Nikki…it…it’s your father.”

Charlene sounded so tenuous. So unsure.

“What about Dad?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Is he sick?” Her heart rate kicked into high gear. “What about him?”

“I…Please…”

“Mom, call nine-one-one!”

“No! No!” Her mother sounded urgent, frightened. Oh, God, her father’s heart. That’s what it was.

“Then, I’ll call.”

“No, Nicole, don’t.”

“For crying out loud. Then call Lily or Kyle. I’m on my way. Mom?” Her cell phone died, the battery exhausted.

“Crap,” Nikki said, and punched the accelerator. She only hoped she could get to her father in time. The drive was only ten minutes, but that time could be critical. She punched out 911 on her cell, was connected, then heard the operator answer.

“Nine-one-one. Police Emergency”—before the connection failed.

“This is Nikki Gillette. Please send someone to my father, Ronald Gillette’s, address.” She yelled the address into her phone, then told the dispatcher to get hold of Pierce Reed, but it was to no avail. Her phone was dead.

Reed tried Nikki on her cell again. No answer. He left another message, then called the
Sentinel
and was told by an icy receptionist that “Nicole Gillette” was unavailable. When he pressed for a time he could expect her to return, the receptionist said she had no idea.

It didn’t feel right.

But then, nothing did.

He dialed her apartment and got the answering machine. For whatever the reason, Nikki was under the radar and he didn’t like it.

At all.

He grabbed his jacket and stopped by Morrisette’s desk.

She was going through a pile of paperwork but looked up at the sound of his footsteps. “I heard you tried to turn in your badge.”

“Good news travels fast.”

“Don’t do it, Reed.”

“Why not?”

“She’s not worth it.”

He waited.

“Look, I’m not blind, okay? I saw the two of you together. You’ve got it bad for Nikki Gillette, but she’s just playin’ you, man. Using you for all she can.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yeah. I am. And don’t ask me about the Grave Robber case, okay, cuz I can’t tell you anything.”

“Maybe I should try Siebert.”

“Be my guest.” Morrisette wasn’t about to budge.

“So, did you check out Corey Sellwood and Sean Hawke?”

“I warned you.” She glared up at him and shuffled some papers, then sighed. “Okay, I don’t see what this will hurt. They’re clean, all right. Iron-clad alibis. Not suspects, so forget them. When we find Chevalier, we’ll have our boy.”

“Then find him,” Reed said. “Fast.”

“We’re working on it.” He turned to leave and she cleared her throat. “I’m going outside for a smoke.”

“So?”

She looked him dead in the eye. “You’d better get out of here, Reed. I don’t need this kind of trouble.”

He got it then. Understood the unspoken message in Sylvie Morrisette’s determined glare. “Fine. I’ll see ya around.”

“If you’re lucky.”

He hurried out of the building and hunched his shoulders against a rain so cold it stung the back of his neck and chilled his skin. Where the hell was Nikki? What if the Grave Robber were playing with them—twelve jurors and three more people. Him, Nikki and an unknown. There had to be a reason for the killer to keep contacting Reed and Nikki…but who would be the third? The connection was the Chevalier trial, so who besides the jurors…The Judge.

Had to be.

Seventeen. Twelve jurors. The detective who was alive who had made the collar, the reporter who had reported on the trial and the judge.

Except the reporter nearly got the case thrown out. Maybe she was safe.

But she didn’t get it thrown out, did she? She failed Chevalier. As had Reed. As had the jurors. As had the judge.

Judge Ronald Gillette.

More certain than ever, he climbed into his El Dorado. He hadn’t gone two blocks when his cell phone rang. “Reed,” he answered crisply.

“Look, I’m sorry to give you the brush-off, but I’m walkin’ a fine line, here,” Morrisette said. “Okano tore me a new one this morning, okay?”

“Got it.”

“But I thought you should know that the nine-one-one dispatcher called me. Nikki Gillette called in about ten minutes ago, identified herself and then the connection was lost. They called back to the number dialed in, but she didn’t answer. It was her cell phone. I tried her home and office and got no answer and a strange response at the
Sentinel.
I was just about to call you when you stopped by my desk. You might want to check up on her.”

“I will,” Reed said.

“I’ve already got a unit sent to her apartment and another one to the
Sentinel
. If she’s located, I’ll let you know. To hell with Okano.”

“Thanks. I think Nikki Gillette’s a target. One of seventeen,” Reed said, his voice devoid of emotion as he told Morrisette his theory.

Morrisette listened. “You sure?” she asked and he heard her making the sounds of lighting up.

“It’s all I’ve got. As I said, it’s not perfect.”

“Shit. Nothing is.”

He didn’t want to believe his theory himself as he watched the wipers slap away the rain. He silently prayed that this was just a mistake, that was all. He ached to think that Nikki was fine. A part of him trusted that she was okay. But the other part, the logical cop, knew better. A darkness settled in his heart and he felt a fear as deep as he’d ever known.

“Mom! Dad!” Nikki yelled, throwing open the garage door of her parents’ house and bursting into the kitchen, but no one answered. Aside from the clock on the wall ticking and the refrigerator droning, there was total silence. Sandra wasn’t in the kitchen cooking, but then, Nikki realized, this was her day off. The TV wasn’t blaring, nor did she hear her mother’s off-key humming.

So, where were they? And why were the lights so dim?

“Mom?”

Had they gone to the hospital?

Both cars were parked in their respective spots in the garage; Nikki had checked on her way inside. So, unless they’d called an ambulance or a friend…Anxiety tensed her muscles. “Mom?” she said again, shaking the rain from her coat.

Again, no response.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

It’s only your case of nerves because of the phone call.

She reached for the phone as she noticed a flickering light from the den. The television. But no sound.

She carried the portable phone with her. Rounding the corner to the den, she felt an instant’s relief. Her father was half lying in his favorite recliner, his feet propped up, the television on but muted. He looked sound asleep. Dead to the world.

“Jesus, Dad, you scared me,” she said softly, hoping he would rouse. She set the phone on a table. “Where’s Mom? She called frantic a while ago.” When he didn’t respond, she walked to the chair and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, Pops.” No response. She felt a new niggle of worry. “Dad? Wake up.” His head was lolled to one side and his breathing was so shallow. Or nonexistent? Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Dad?” she said more loudly, leaning over him, bending close, listening for some sign of life as she shook his shoulder.

But there was no whisper of breath from his lungs. “No…oh, God, no…Dad!
Dad!
”

Then, she noticed the blood. Not on him, but from the corner of her eye she spied what appeared to be a trickle of red running from the hallway.

“Mom?” she said, her heart in her throat.
Oh, dear God, no!
Why the blood? Why? Was her mother wounded? Every hair on the back of her arms raised as she heard a low moan. Her mother’s soft voice. “Mom, I’m coming. I’ll get help,” she called, running toward the hallway when she heard something behind her, a footstep that had come from the direction of the kitchen.

She whirled.

And saw him.

Bloody and wet. His face set and hard, eyes glittering beneath a high forehead and a hank of dripping hair that fell over eyes so cruel she screamed. In one hand he held a hypodermic needle. In the other a bloodied hunting knife.

The Grave Robber.

Icy fear scissored through her as she recognized him. “Where’s my mother?” she demanded, backing up, her pulse thundering loudly.

No answer. Just a glitter of satisfaction in his gaze.

“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you, you sick, twisted son of a bitch,” she hissed, backing up. There were loaded rifles in the gun closet, carving knives in the kitchen, the phone receiver only inches away on the table. Only three more steps.

“Your turn, Nikki,” he said with a cold, sardonic smile that was pure evil. And the blood. All the damned blood. Whose? Her mother’s?

Oh, God.
She couldn’t outrun him; he’d be on her before she’d gone three steps. Somehow, she had to beat him, trick him.

She whipped around, turning as if to run.

He sprang, his weapons clenched in his fists.

Instantly, she dived, spinning on one leg, kicking up hard with the other.

Her boot connected with his groin.

“Oooh!”

With a yowl, he went down. The knife clattered to the floor, but he grabbed it quickly and managed to hold fast onto the needle. She kicked again, aiming for his nose, but he drew back his head and she crashed the heel of her boot into the side of his face.

“You bitch!” he roared, dropping his needle and scrabbling at her boot, his fingers raking down the leather as she started to run, fast, snatching the handheld phone on the fly.

He was on his feet in an instant, bearing down on her. She punched nine, snagged a photo from the wall and hurled it at him. She hit one and one again as she flew out of the house and down the two short steps into the garage. “Help!” she cried, gasping into the receiver. “I’m being attacked! By the Grave Robber. My mother’s hurt. The bastard killed my dad. Send someone to—” But the phone was dead, too far from the base to pick up a signal.

Damn! Her keys! Where the hell were her keys! She fumbled in her pocket, found the single key to her rental car. He was in the garage, his face enraged as he stumbled, running. She slid into the rental, slammed the door and locked it with shaking fingers. Her cell phone! Where was it?

He leaped, pounded on the windshield.

Frantically, seeing his bloody face smashed against the windshield, she jammed her key into the ignition. The engine turned over.

He was only inches from her. Separated by a thin layer of glass.

The engine caught and she jammed the car in reverse, gunned the throttle and glanced in the rearview mirror to see a pickup, a huge pickup blocking her path.

No!
She jammed on the brakes.

He must’ve been waiting for her in the next alley, his lights dimmed, and rolled quietly behind her while she walked into her parent’s house.

She reached for the cell. Maybe there was a little life in the battery.

Crash!

Glass splintered everywhere as the driver’s-side window smashed.

Nikki screamed and jumped, but it was too late; she saw the deadly needle a split second before it jabbed hard into her shoulder. “You can’t get away,” he said with chilling calm. An evil smile slid from one side of his bloodied face to the other. His eyes glittered maliciously.

She screamed at the top of her lungs.

Tried to fight through the shards of shattered glass.

But it was useless.

She could barely move. The door to the car opened and he was there, looming in the night, the bloody knife a testament to his killing. Fleetingly, she thought of her mother, of her father, her family and Pierce Reed before the darkness dragged her under.

CHAPTER 29

With each passing minute, Reed’s panic increased. He’d stopped by Nikki’s apartment and found no sign of her, even after coercing that lame-brained manager Fred Cooper to let him inside. Everything looked pretty much the same as it had when he’d left this morning. The cat regarded them suspiciously from the top of the bookcase and the little dog danced around his feet.

“She has another pet, you know.” Cooper said. “She knows better. There are no dogs allowed in this building. I told her the cat was even iffy when she moved in.”

“It’s a friend’s dog,” Reed said, then listened to the messages on her answering machine. Messages, Cooper told him, the other officers had already heard.

There were two. “Hey, it’s Sean. Come on, Nik, cut me a break, would ya? Give me a call. You know the number.” Reed’s jaw clenched at the sound of the guy. There was a pause before the next message played. “Nikki?” a frail woman whispered. “Nikki, it’s…it’s Mom…call me…it’s, um, it’s urgent.” Another long pause. “It’s about Dad.”

The message on the phone was timed at four-seventeen. A couple of hours earlier.

He called the number listed on Caller ID for Ronald Gillette. The phone rang until an answering machine picked up and Judge Gillette’s voice boomed through the wires, instructing the caller to leave name, number and message.

Reed complied. “This is Detective Pierce Reed of the Savannah Police Department. I’m looking for Nicole Gillette. If you hear from her, please have her call me.” He left his number and hung up.

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do about this dog,” Fred Cooper said, his lips pursed as he stared at the little mutt. “I already said as much to the other officers who were here a little while ago.”

“I do. You’re going to leave him right here for now. Until you hear from Nikki.”

“But, I have a legal obligation to…” He sighed and backed down. “All right. For now, he stays. But the minute she gets back, the
minute
, I want to speak to her.”