by Lisa Jackson
“Here’s the deal,” Ina said. “The reason your first book worked so well, or at least in the publisher’s eyes, is your connection to the story, your involvement. That’s what you need.”
“That might have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” Nikki said as she twisted her pen between her fingers and rolled her desk chair back.
“Let’s hope,” Ina said. “Look, no one wants you to be a victim again. God, no. But you had a connection with the second book too.”
Therein lay the problem. She’d sold Coffin for Two, her first book, a true-crime account of the killer she’d dubbed the Grave Robber, a psycho who had rained terror on Savannah before targeting Nikki herself. She had no intention of coming that close to a psycho again—book deal or no book deal. Coffin for Two, into which she’d infused a little dark humor along with her own personal account of dealing with the madman, had sold thousands of copies and caught the eye of a producer for a cable network that was looking for particularly bizarre true-crime stories. The book was optioned, though not yet produced.
Her second book, Myth in Blood, also had a personal hook; she had been close to that true-crime story as it had unfolded. Working for the Savannah Sentinel, Nikki had pushed her way into the investigation, stepping on more than a few toes in the process and pissing off just about everyone in the crime department at the newspaper. That case, involving the rich and ill-fated Montgomery family, had had enough grotesque elements to appeal to the public, so another best-seller had been born. While trying to get close to that investigation, she’d met Detective Pierce Reed, and their relationship had developed to something deeper. Now they were engaged, and she was supposed to be writing book three of her publishing contract, but so far, no go. She just didn’t have a story.
Ina said, “You know, dozens of true-crime books come out every month, but the reason yours stood out was because of your personal involvement. Take a tip from Ann Rule; she knows what she’s doing. You’ve read The Stranger Beside Me. The reason that book is so damned chilling is because she knew Ted Bundy. She was there.”
“She seems to have done well with other books, where she didn’t know the killer.”
“I’m just sayin’ that we could use another Coffin for Two or Myth in Blood.”
“Or The Stranger Beside Me.”
“Yeah, I’d take that too.” Nikki heard the smile in her agent’s voice.
“I bet.”
“You can come up with something. I know it.”
“Easy for you to say.” Stretching her back, Nikki stood. She’d been sitting for hours, working on a story for the paper, and now her spine gave off a few little pops. She needed to get out. To run. To start her blood pumping hard. For as much as she was arguing with Ina, Nikki knew her agent was right. She was itching to get to work on another project, couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into a new book about some grisly, high-profile murder.
Cell phone pressed to her ear, she walked to the window, where she was lucky enough to have a view of Forsyth Park, with its gorgeous fountain and display of live oak trees. From her vantage point above the third floor, she could watch people in the park and look beyond the trees over the rooftops of Savannah. She loved the view. It was one of the selling features that had convinced her to buy this old, converted mansion with her advance from the book deal. She’d leased the two lower floors to renters and had kept the third, with this nicely designed loft office space, for herself. She was in debt to her eyeballs.
“Look, Nikki, it’s getting to be crunch time. Maybe you should talk to Reed, see if he’ll let you help with an investigation.”
Glancing at the diamond sparkling on the ring finger of her left hand, she said, “Yeah, right. You know I won’t use Reed.”
“I know just the opposite.”
Ina wasn’t one to mince words.
“Thanks so much.” Inwardly, Nikki winced as she glanced at a picture propped on her desk. In the photo, she and Reed were huddled close together, beach grass and dunes visible in the background, their faces ruddy from running on the sand. The wind was up, her red-blond hair blowing across Reed’s face. They both were smiling, their eyes bright. The photo was taken on the day he’d proposed on that same beach.
So now she was considering compromising their relationship?
“Okay, maybe not use him, of course, but maybe he could, you know, let you get involved in some way with a current case?”
“That’s not Reed’s style.”
“Seems you managed to squeeze into an investigation or two before,” her agent reminded her, and she squirmed a little in her chair. There was a time when she would have done just about anything for a story, but that was before she’d agreed to become Mrs. Pierce Reed.
“Forget it, Ina, okay? Look, even if I could get him to agree, and let me tell you that’s a gigantic if, it’s not like knife-wielding psychopaths run rampant through the streets of Savannah every day, you know.”
“Every city, or area around a city, has bizarre crimes. You just have to turn over the right rock and poke around. It’s amazing what you might find. People are sick, Nikki.”
“And I should be the one to capitalize on that.” Nikki didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“It’s what you do best. So dig a little,” Ina suggested. “Turn over those rocks. Squeeze Reed for some info on a new case, even an old one. There’s got to be something. What are the police working on now?”
“Reed doesn’t confide in me. Or anyone. It’s just not his deal.”
Ina wasn’t persuaded. “Not even pillow talk? You know, men really open up in bed.”
“Let’s not even go there.”
Ina sighed loudly. “Don’t play the blushing virgin card. I know you, Nikki. If you want something, you go after it and, hell or high water be damned, you get it.”
“Come on, Ina. Think about it. If there were another serial killer running loose in Savannah, don’t you think I would know about it?”
She could almost hear the gears turning in her agent’s mind. In her mid-forties and shrewd as hell, Ina was barely five feet tall and the only agent in New York who had wanted to take a chance on Nikki when she’d submitted her first manuscript. Ina had seen what others couldn’t, and now, damn her, she was trying to wring out of Nikki that same essence and perspective for a brand-new sales-worthy story. “So get creative,” she suggested, and Nikki heard bracelets jangling as she shifted her phone. “Maybe this time not a serial killer per se.”
“Just a really sick monster with some kind of a blood fetish?”
“Or foot, or hand or breast. Or whatever twisted obsession turns him on.” Ina gave a laugh that was deep and throaty from years of cigarettes. “Yeah, that would probably work.” Clearing her throat, she added more earnestly, “You know the book is due in six months. It has to be published next year if we don’t want to piss off the publisher and if we want to keep the Nikki Gillette brand out there.”
Oh, Nikki knew all right. The date was circled in red on two calendars and highlighted in the virtual office on her computer as well. She wasn’t about to forget, and she really couldn’t. The struggling Sentinel was a slim remnant of its former self. Layoffs had been massive and painful. Nikki was working part-time for the paper and lucky to have a job. More and more, she relied on the advances and royalties from her books. Between the economy, the new technology, and her own ambition, she’d backed herself into a financial corner. She would be an idiot if she didn’t make this work. “Okay, okay. I’ll come up with something,” Nikki heard herself say. As she hung up, she wondered what the hell that something would be.
She didn’t take the time to think about it now. Instead, she flew down the circular stairs to her bedroom below, peeled off her jeans and sweater, and stepped into her running gear; old jogging pants and bra, a stained T-shirt, and favorite, tattered sweatshirt with a hood. She’d never been one for glamour when she was working out. Her running shoes were ready, near the back door, and after lacin
g them up and tossing the chain with her house key dangling from it over her head, she took off down the interior stairs and out the back, then sprinted around to the front of her home, ignoring the coming darkness. Her mind was a jumble, not just from the pressures of coming up with a blockbuster idea for a new book, but also from the fact that she was about to marry Reed. In her family, happily-ever-afters rarely occurred, and now she was planning to marry a cop—one with a tarnished reputation who’d left a string of broken hearts from San Francisco’s Golden Gate to Tybee Island here on the Eastern Seaboard.
“You’re a masochist,” she muttered under her breath as she jogged in place, waiting for a light so she could run through Forsyth Park. And deep inside a hopeless romantic. The light changed, just as one last car, an Audi exceeding the speed limit, scooted through on the red, and Nikki took off again.
Starting to get into her rhythm, her heartbeat and footsteps working together, she ran beneath the canopy of live oaks, their graceful branches dripping with Spanish moss. Usually the park had a calming effect on her, brought her a sense of peace, but not today. She was jazzed and irritated; Ina’s call had only added to her stress level.
Get over it. You can handle this. You know you can.
The air was heavy with the scent of rain. Deep, dusky clouds moved lazily overhead, and the temperature was warmer than usual for this part of November. She sent a worried glance toward the sky. If she were lucky and kept up her brisk pace, she might just be able to make it home before the storm broke and night completely descended.
With that thought, she increased her speed.
A few pedestrians were walking on the wide paths, and the street lamps were just beginning to illuminate. A woman pushing a stroller and a couple walking a pug made her feel a little calmer, because the truth was that Nikki wasn’t as confident as she seemed, wasn’t the pushy cub reporter who’d been irrepressible and fearless in her youth. She’d had more than her share of anxiety attacks since her up-close-and-personal meeting with the Grave Robber. To this day, small, tight spaces, especially in the dark, totally freaked her out. So she ran. In the heat. In the rain. In the dark. Even in the snow during the rare times it fell in this part of the country. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her she was trying to run from her own demons or that her claustrophobia was because of her past. She was well aware that she was walking on the razor’s edge of some kind of minor madness.
Hence, she flew down the cement sidewalks and cobblestone streets, along asphalt county roads or muddy paths, speeding along the beach or cutting through woodlands. Mile after mile passed beneath her feet, and as they did, the nightmares that came with restless sleep and the fears of closed-in spaces seemed to shrivel away and recede, if only for a little while. Exercise seemed safer than a psychiatrist’s couch or a hypnotist’s chair or even confiding in the man she loved.
You’re a basket case. You know that, don’t you?
“Oh, shut up,” she said aloud.
By the time the first raindrops fell, she’d logged three laps around the perimeter of the park and was beginning to breathe a little harder. Her blood was definitely pumping, and she slowed to a fast walk to alleviate a calf cramp that threatened, veering into the interior of the park again, only to stop at the tiered fountain. Sweat was running down her back, and she felt the heat in her face, the drizzles of perspiration in her hair. Leaning over, hands on her knees, she took several deep breaths, clearing her head and her lungs.
Straightening, she found herself alone. Gone were the dog walkers and stroller pushers and other joggers.
No surprise, considering the weather.
And yet . . .
She squinted and found she was mistaken.
On the far side of the fountain, beneath a large live oak, stood a solitary dark figure.
In the coming rain, she and the man in black were alone in a shadowy park.
Her heart clutched, and a sense of panic bloomed for a second as the stranger, an Ichabod Crane figure, stared at her from beneath the wide brim of his black hat, his eyes hidden.
Every muscle in her body tensed. Adrenaline fired her blood.
It was so dark now that even the streetlights cast an eerie hue.
It’s nothing, she told herself, cutting her rest period short. With one final glance at the man over her shoulder, she took off again, feet splashing through new puddles, her lungs burning as she cut through parked cars, ignored traffic lights, and sprinted home.
He’s just a guy in the park, Nikki. Sure, he’s alone. Big deal. So are you.
Nonetheless, she raced as if her life depended upon it, and as the rain began in earnest, fat drops falling hard enough to splash and run on the pavement, she came around the huge, old mansion she now owned and, taking the key from the chain on her neck, unlocked the back door, then ran up the stairs two at a time.
Once inside her own space, she threw the dead bolt and leaned against the door, gasping for breath, trying to force the frantic images of confinement and darkness from her brain.
You’re okay. You’re okay. You are o—
Something brushed her leg.
She jumped, letting out a short scream before recognizing her cat, who was attempting to mosey through a series of figure eights around her legs. “For the love of God, Jennings, you scared the crap out of me!” She slid onto the floor.
When had she become such a wimp?
But she knew . . . trapped in the coffin, listening to dirt being tossed over her, feeling the horror of a dead body beneath her, the smell of rotting flesh surrounding her . . . in that moment her confidence and take-the-world-by-the-throat attitude had crumbled into dust.
She’d been fighting hard to reclaim it ever since.
She was safe now, she told herself, as she reached up and checked the door to see that it was locked a second time, then a third, and after pushing herself to her feet, she made a perimeter check of the house. All windows and doors were locked tight, and no boogeyman hurled himself at her when she opened closets and checked inside.
Unconcerned about Nikki’s paranoia, Jennings hopped onto the counter while Nikki, still edgy, downed a glass of water at the kitchen sink and stared through her window to her private garden three stories below. Rinsing her glass, she sneaked a glance at the gate. Still latched. Good. She took another look around the garden area, with its small table and chairs and huge magnolia tree, now devoid of leaves, but saw no malicious figure slinking through the shadows, nor, when she stepped out onto the small balcony, was anyone hiding on the fire escape that zigzagged its way to the ground. Double-checking that dead bolt as well, she decided her home was secure.
Finally, she let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
For the love of God, pull yourself together, Nikki. Do it, now!
Kicking off her wet shoes, she walked through her bedroom, where she saw her wedding dress, wrapped in its plastic bag, hanging from a hook on the closet door. Her heart tightened a bit, and she ignored the thought that perhaps she was marrying Reed for security’s sake.
That wasn’t true, she knew, peeling off her soaked sweatshirt and stripping out of the rest of her clothes. She loved Reed. Wildly. Madly. And yet . . .
“Oh, get over yourself.” In the shower she relaxed a bit, and once the hot spray had cleaned her body and cleared her mind, she felt better. There was no dark, sinister madman after her any longer. She loved Reed, and they were going to get married. Her bank account was low, but she could sustain herself for a few more months . . . so all she had to do was come up with a dynamite story for her publisher.
“Piece of cake,” she said as she twisted off the taps and wrapped her hair in a towel. “Piece of damned cake.”
Within twenty minutes she was back at her desk, a power bar half eaten, a diet Coke at her side, her hair air-drying in wild ringlets. Scanning the newsfeed on her computer, she noticed a breaking-news report running beneath the screen:
Blondell O’Henry to be releas
ed from prison.
She stared at the words in disbelief. “No!” Quickly, she googled for more information.
Blondell Rochette O’Henry, a beautiful enigma of a woman, had already spent years behind bars, charged with and convicted of the heinous crime of killing her own daughter, Amity, and wounding her two other children in a vicious, unthinkable attack.
Nikki’s heart pounded as she remembered all too clearly the blood-chilling crime. Her mouth turned to dust, because Amity O’Henry had been her best friend back then, and Nikki knew, deep in her heart, that in her own way, she too was responsible for the girl’s untimely and horrifying death.
“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, wondering if the report was true as she worked the keys on her computer, searching for verification of the story. In her mind’s eye, she saw the image of Amity, who at sixteen was whip-smart and as beautiful as her mother, with thick, auburn hair framing a perfect, heart-shaped face, wide, intelligent eyes, lips that were sexy and innocent at the same time, and legs that wouldn’t quit. And Amity O’Henry had the same naughty streak and sexual allure as her mother.
Nikki skimmed story after story, but they were all the same, nothing of substance, no details as to why Blondell was being released.
Nikki worried her lip with her teeth. She’d never really told the truth about the night Amity had been killed at the cabin in the woods—never admitted that Amity had asked her to come—and she’d buried that guilt deep. But maybe now she’d have her chance. Maybe now she could make right a very deeply felt and festering wrong.
Her search earned her an article about Blondell, written years before. The picture accompanying the article didn’t do the most hated woman in Savannah justice, but even so, dressed in a prim navy-blue suit for her court date, her blouse buttoned to her throat, her makeup toned down to make her appear innocent, almost as if she were about to attend church in the 1960s, she was beautiful and still innately sensual. Her hair was pinned to the back of her head, and even though her lawyer was hoping she would appear demure, it was impossible to hide her innate sexuality.