by Lisa Jackson
Reed said, “I’m just escorting Ms. Gillette home.”
“Why?” Fred asked nervously, his gaze darting around the yard as if certain dead bodies would pop out of the ground at any second. “Do you think whoever broke into the apartment is back? Oh, my God, that would just be the worst. I’ve got to tell you that everyone in the building is nervous. Extremely nervous.” He adjusted his glasses and focused on Nikki. “They don’t like the fact that you’re attracting the attention of this killer, this Grave Robber, with your articles about him. It makes the tenants jumpy.” His hands were moving quickly as he gestured wildly to an apartment doorway. “Brenda Hammond on the first floor wants stronger locks on the doors and even more bars on the windows, and Mrs. Fitz, in 201, is considering moving. Can you believe that?” He wrung his hands in agitation. “She’s been here thirteen years and now, after last night, she’s ready to jump ship. Already packing.”
“I don’t think anyone else is a target,” Nikki said calmly, though the corners of her mouth were tight.
“But how do you know?” Fred demanded. “And what’s this ‘anyone else’? Do you think you’re a target, because if you are, that would mean he’ll be back. For the love of God, we can’t have a murderer stalking around the premises looking to get at you. Or…or anyone!” He was really upset now. He turned his fearful gaze on Reed. “Are the police providing round-the-clock protection for Ms. Gillette? Will there be extra patrols in this area? Surveillance?” He glanced nervously toward the street where several cars had been parked.
“The department is taking all the appropriate steps.”
“‘The appropriate steps?’ Meaning what? That just sounds like the company line to me.” He folded his arms over his ample chest.
“Believe me, Mr. Cooper, we are doing everything possible to get this guy. Just advise your tenants to be careful, use their heads, don’t go out alone and keep their doors and windows locked. Those who have security systems should use them. Those who don’t should get them installed.”
“And who will pay for that? Me?” Cooper was shaking his balding head, the horror of spending money edging out his fear of the killer. Temporarily. “Wait a minute.” He refocused. “Oh, dear God, you do think he’ll be back!”
“I don’t know what he’ll do, unfortunately. I’m only giving you the advice I’d give anyone in the city.”
“This is all your doing,” Cooper said, his features pinching as he glared at Nikki. His lips were pursed so tightly they turned white. “I warned you once before when you had that problem with that Sellwood boy.”
“It was my problem, not Corey Sellwood’s. I made a mistake.” She was getting angry now. Reed sensed the full-blown fight before it erupted.
“But he threatened you. Ever since then I’ve wondered if he’d try to get revenge by doing something outrageous. Or ugly. Or…or horrible. I’ve even thought he was the kind that might try to get even by torching this place.”
“Fred,” she said, holding up a hand, trying to rein in her temper, “you worry too much.”
“And you don’t worry enough. I’m serious about this, Nikki. I can’t have all the tenants here worried that someone might break in and kill them. It’s damned irresponsible of you to bring this kind of terror here.”
“All right. You’ve made your point. You’ve warned me,” she snapped. “So, now what? Do you want me to move? Are you suggesting that you’re going to evict me? Because some creep broke into my apartment?”
“Evict? Oh…no…I would never…” Cooper glanced anxiously at Reed. “I, um, just wanted to let you know that the other tenants are upset.”
“Fine. You’ve done your duty. I got it.” Leaving the manager standing on the walkway, Nikki stormed up the stairs. “I can’t believe it,” she muttered under her breath. “Like I’m trying to have my place broken into!”
“He’ll get over it.”
“You don’t know Fred!” she said, loud enough for the manager, still hovering at the base of the stairs, to hear. “He never gets over anything! He’s beyond anal!”
Two steps behind, Reed swallowed a smile and while following her, attempted not to notice the back of her leg peeking through the slit in the back of her raincoat as she climbed.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, reaching for her keys.
Reed caught hold of her wrist, then wrested her key ring from her fingers. “I’ll go first.”
“Wait a minute.” She turned affronted green eyes up to his and he noticed the way they were shaped over a sturdy, straight nose, the way they darkened with the night. “This is my house, Detective. You don’t have to act like I’m a damsel in distress or anything.” Her hair was damp, her lips shiny from the mist, her anger at the manager, Reed and all men in general, palpable. And ridiculously sexy.
“Damsel in distress? Nikki Gillette? Trust me, I never think of you in those terms.”
“Good.”
“But I’ll go in first, anyway. Consider it part of my job.” He slid the key into its lock, then pushed the door open. Reaching inside, he switched on an overhead light and surveyed the living room and kitchen just as a fat yellow cat streaked its way through the door.
“Jennings!”
The apartment seemed empty. Sounded unoccupied. Carefully, Reed stepped inside. Nikki was right behind. In the kitchen she bent on one knee and cooed to the striped feline, “So you finally decided to come home, you bad boy.” She scooped up the tabby. He let out a soft yowl before rubbing the top of his head under her chin and purring loudly enough for Reed to hear. “Did you miss me, hmm? Or just your dinner?”
Nikki rid herself of her coat, draping it over the back of a chair, leaving her in a slim gray skirt and fitted black top that showed off her curves. Jesus, why was he even noticing? This was Nikki Gillette, a woman who would only get close to him to use him for information. Sexy. Tough. And the adversary.
He searched the rest of the small apartment while she fed her cat. Her home was still messed up from the investigation, but no one was lurking in a closet or behind a door or under the damned bed. Reed checked every nook and cranny, but he didn’t linger too long in Nikki Gillette’s bedroom, didn’t study the antique-looking bed, nor touch the soft blue linens that covered it. Doing so would bridge an emotional gap he thought better left unspanned and bring images to mind, mental pictures of Nikki in a nothing nightie on the bedclothes that he’d rather not face.
“You know,” she said when he returned to the kitchen area, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Always a good sign.”
“Don’t be smart.”
“You’d rather I be stupid?”
She grinned, flashing white teeth and showing off her dimple again. “So you do have a sense of humor.”
“Upon occasion.”
“Well, let’s be serious for a sec, okay?”
“Okay.”
As the cat ate noisily, Nikki pushed some paperwork to the side of her café table, clearing a working space, then reached into a zipper pocket of her bag and withdrew some folded sheets of paper. Carefully, she smoothed the pages over the Formica. Reed recognized copies of the notes she’d received from the killer.
He leaned closer, caught a whiff of her perfume.
“Look at these. Two of the notes are basic. Simplistic.” She pointed to the first two letters she received. “They’re kind of a ‘heads up, Gillette. Pay attention. I’m going to do something. Something big.’ They remind me of a little kid who’s jumped into the pool and is yelling at his parents, ‘Watch me. Watch me!’ She shifted the two simple notes to one side of the table. The words: TONIGHT and IT’S DONE seemed stark against the white paper. “These are obviously in reference to a killing, probably the second one, but the next communication I got”—she moved her hand to the final note—“is much more sophisticated. It’s lots different from the others. It’s a rhyme, in the same tone as the ones you received. Right?”
“Yes,” he agreed, eyeing the note, listening to
her logic.
“It’s another tone of voice, a bigger hint or broader clue: ‘Will there be more? Until the twelfth, no one can be sure.’” She tapped her finger on the poem as Jennings hopped on the table and began washing himself. Without losing her concentration, she placed the cat on the floor. “It’s not so much bragging as the first ones seemed to be. Uh-uh. It’s meant to be a clue, a seduction, almost a dare that begs me to solve the mystery. Just as the notes to you are. Look at the third line, ‘No one can be sure.’” Deep in concentration, her eyebrows yanked together, her teeth gnawing at her lower lip, she thought aloud, “First of all, the words ‘more’ and ‘sure’ don’t really rhyme, so I do think that this entire letter is supposed to be read after yours. But why repeat the line, ‘will there be more?’ Yours already had the ‘will there be more’ question. And check out ‘no one.’ Two words. Not ‘noone’ all put together as some people misspell it.”
She looked up at him with her intelligent green eyes and it clicked. He reviewed the other notes he’d received.
TICK TOCK,
ON GOES THE CLOCK.
TWO IN ONE,
ONE AND TWO.
Then,
ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR…
SO, NOW, DON’T YOU WONDER HOW MANY MORE?
And finally,
NOW WE HAVE NUMBER FOUR.
ONE THIRD DONE,
WILL THERE BE MORE?
“They all have twelve words,” he said, “including the one you received. That’s why the meter’s off and the first line of your note repeats the last line of mine.”
“Exactly!” Her expression was serious, but her eyes glittered with anticipation and he noticed striations of gold punctuating her dark green irises. “And when we put the two together, it makes sense. The way I read mine was that on December twelfth, something would happen, and it may still, yet. You know, twelfth month, twelfth day, but really, the killer wants us to tie the two notes together, making the meaning entirely different. Your half didn’t indicate a date at all, but by saying a third was done with four deaths, gave you the clue that there will be twelve victims, and that probably both people in the coffins were part of the master plan.”
“Except he didn’t kill Thomas Massey or Pauline Alexander.”
“But they were chosen for a reason.”
Reed agreed and let her run with her theory. “And that is?”
“I don’t know but I keep coming back to the apostles. Thomas is one, Pauline or Paul the other, Barbara Marx, as Mark, and Roberta Peters obviously for Peter. Could he possibly be killing people he considers somehow represent Christ’s disciples?” she mused, frowning. “Perhaps that’s how he chooses the people already in the coffin, because of their names.”
It was possible, he thought, though far from solid.
“He has to prove he’s smarter than everyone, especially the police. That’s why he’s taunting you and showing off to me. I can get him press coverage and he’s chosen you, because you were the brains behind cracking the Montgomery case last summer and therefore the most challenging adversary. He might not have even known about you and Barbara Marx.” She held up a finger. “No. He did know! Don’t you see,” she said, getting more excited as she talked, “the Grave Robber wants us to work together. It’s the best of both worlds. He contacts me and is assured of a page one spread. He contacts you and he knows, because of your involvement with Barbara Jean Marx, that you’ll try your damnedest to expose him. He’s laughing at us both because this is a game. His game. And he expects to win.”
“I agree with you about the reasons he’s contacting us,” Reed said, turning everything over in his mind and stepping backward to put some space between them. He needed to focus. Concentrate. “But I’m not sure I buy the apostle angle. At least, not yet.”
“It only makes sense.”
“If the killer wanted to get to me with Bobbi Marx, then he’s killing everyone else just to link them to a biblical reference?”
“Who knows what’s going on in his sick mind?”
“So far, it’s just a theory.”
“But a strong one. You have to admit.”
“One we’ll consider, but,” he added, realizing the basis for her enthusiasm, “you’re not going to print it.”
She hesitated.
“Whoa, Gillette. Until you have the facts and the go-ahead from me or the department, you will not report any part of this. Nothing about the notes, nothing about the victims, nothing about your hypothesis or the killer’s M.O.”
“But—”
“Nikki,” he said, leaning forward again. His nose was less than an inch from hers. “I mean it. If you go off half-cocked and any of what we’ve discussed here is in the newspaper, I’ll personally see that you are arrested.”
“For?”
“Hindering an investigation, to begin with.”
“Damn it all, Reed, I thought we had a deal.”
“We do. When it’s all over, you get the exclusive. The inside view. If we capture the guy alive, I’ll see that you can interview him, but until then, you have to be very careful what you say. And I have to approve it.”
Little lines pulled her eyebrows together and she seemed about to protest, but eventually let out her breath and acquiesced. “Okay. Fine. But I get credit for this twelve-word thing and you keep me abreast of the investigation.”
He lifted one side of his mouth. “I’m not involved in it anymore, remember.”
“Shove it, Reed. I want to know what you know, when you know it.” She scraped her chair back. “Oh, geez, I forgot.” She was looking at her phone, focusing on the message light that was flashing dimly on an older-model answering machine. “Just a sec.”
Leaning a hip against the counter, she punched a button.
A mechanical-sounding techno voice stated, “You have three new messages. First message.”
There was a click and then a hang up.
“Great. Another one,” she said. “I got a hang up at work today.”
“At the office?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yeah. It happens sometimes. People are impatient.”
“Second message,” the mechanical voice said.
“Hey, Nikki, are you avoiding me? Come on, give me a call.” A decidedly male voice gave her his phone number and Nikki frowned.
“Old boyfriend,” she said and Reed felt an inexplicable spurt of jealousy. “Sean Hawke. He dumped me several years back and doesn’t get it that I’m not about to come running back to him.”
“Maybe you should,” he said, testing.
“I’ll think about it. The day after hell freezes over.”
“Third message.”
“Nikki?” A woman’s voice. “I had a helluva time deciphering the message you left earlier. If it wouldn’t have been for Caller ID, I wouldn’t have guessed it was you, so get rid of that piece of junk that you call a cell phone, would ya?”
“Simone?” Nikki whispered.
“Anyway, I guess we have time for that drink, so I’ll see you at Cassandra’s! Maybe after a couple of martinis I’ll have the nerve to ask Jake out again. He wouldn’t turn me down twice, would he? See ya at seven.”
“Seven? Shit!” Nikki’s face turned white as she looked at her watch.
“What?” Reed demanded. “Don’t tell me you stood her up.”
“There are no more messages,” the machine informed them.
Nikki’s face was suddenly white as death. “It’s eight-fifty. That was Simone. Simone Everly. I…I never called her and I blew off the class.” She checked her watch again and replayed the message. “Damn it all to hell. She’s talking about the kickboxing class we take together. It’ll be over in ten minutes.” Nikki searched wildly in her bag for her phone. “I didn’t call her. Not on my cell. Not on any phone. Where the hell is it?” She was pawing through the purse wildly. “Oh, God. It’s not here. But it has to be. It has to!” In a full-blown panic she dumped her purse upside down. Pens, notebook,
makeup case, recorder, change, stamps, and brush fell to the table, clattering, rolling to the floor, but there was no phone. “What did she mean, I called her? I haven’t used the cell!” She searched the clutter, as if the phone would suddenly materialize beneath a pile of stamps and hair doodads.
“When’s the last time you used it?”
“I don’t know…last night, maybe…Oh, damn, when was it?…I…talked to my sister while I was driving.” She hesitated. “I remember Lily hung up on me and I dropped the phone into the cup holder in my car. That’s where it is!” Nikki was already scooping her things into her purse and grabbing her coat.
“You haven’t used it since the call last night?” he asked and felt that familiar, sickening sense of doom that came upon him right before bad news.
“No. I couldn’t find it at the office today and just thought it was in the car, then I forgot all about it…I couldn’t have called her…. I didn’t…this has got to be a mistake…” She was racing out the door and down the stairs into the foggy night.
Reed locked the door, then was at her heels, catching her at the parking lot.
Fumbling with her keys, she tried to peer through the driver’s side window. “I don’t see it. Jesus! Please, please…don’t tell me…”
“Don’t you have an electronic lock?”
“It’s broken.” She finally jabbed the key into the lock and flung the door open. Quickly, she slid into the driver’s seat. Reed watched as she cast about the car. Her fingers scrabbled in the empty cup holder, console and floor mats. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “It’s gone.” Turning horrified eyes up at Reed, she choked out, “My phone’s not here and…and…I didn’t make that call…you don’t think…I mean, if someone stole my phone or…found it and then called Simone…it couldn’t…wouldn’t be the Grave Robber, would it?” Her face was twisted with a hideous fear. “He wouldn’t have called Simone and arranged a meeting?”