Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) (16 page)

Melissa’s eyes seemed to relax.  Oh, yeah, Nicki was right.  Melissa was safer if she could get Nicki out, so she was
as
relieved
as Nicki, even though the woman tried to hide it
.  She pushed her chair out from behind her.  “Oh, sure, that would be fine.”

A tall, skinny man with dark hair
intertwined with
silver strands and dark
er
eyes entered from the living room, a gun in hand. 
Nicki
recognized Sterne from his description. 
Shit.
 
Not fast enough. 
And did he look pissed.  “I don’t think so.”  He pointed the gun directly at Nicki.  What did he plan to do?
  “You’re staying right here until I figure out what to do with you, reporter girl.”  He walked over to the door, drawing the gingham curtain aside a few inches and looking out.  Then he moved to the windows above the sink to look out the side of the house.

Nicki’s mouth had gone dry, as though she’d just swallowed a cup full of sand.  Sterne looked nervous and his moves were edgy, making Nicki wonder if he was tweaking too.  She didn’t hang around meth heads, but she’d seen her fair share, and this guy acted like he was on something.  She had to think, and she had to keep a cool head.  So what did she need to do to get out of here alive?

All she could think of was one thing…that she had her cell phone in her pocket, and that could be her savior.  It was already on and silent, so how could she use it to her advantage?  She’d had friends who could literally send texts without looking at their phones—they could even do it in their pockets
, and they were usually ninety-nine percent accurate (except that one time Brandy meant to type
cute boots
and instead typed
cute boobs
.  Nicki had thought her old friend had decided to switch teams and that was her way of telling her
until they had a good laugh about it later
)
.  Nicki didn’t feel that adept
at texting
, but she had to give it a shot. 
One
h
and
w
as
already in her lap, so maybe she could try…

In the meantime, Sterne was pacing back and forth behind Melissa.  He had the butt of the gun pressed up against his head as though it were an icepack and he had an injury.  He was muttering through clenched teeth, but Nicki couldn’t quite understand what he was saying.  She used the opportunity to slide her phone out
of her pocket
.  She didn’t know if dialing 911 would do any good.  Would the cops be able to figure out where she was and what was going on in time?
 
And would they be able to do it before Sterne got wise?
  Or would they hang up, thinking it was just another dumbass butt-dialing?

She didn’t trust them
to do the right thing
.  Sean had seen to that.

But Sean…Sean she trusted.  She pulled up her text window, her eyes darting from her hands under the table up to Sterne and then to Melissa, whose eyes were fixated on anything but Sterne or Nicki.  For now, she was staring at the salt and pepper shakers on the table, and her eyes weren’t budging.

Sterne stopped and turned, looking straight at Nicki.
  Had her eyes given her away?
  Nicki slid the phone back into her pocket and hoped her fingers would remember the right buttons to push. 
She already had Sean’s number locked and loaded, the message
ready to send
; she just needed actual
words in the
message. 
She didn’t know if she was glad right now that she’d never purchased a phone with a full keyboard or not.  She didn’t know that she’d be able to do this if she had a full keyboard, so she decided she was glad.  She had to trust that her brain and
thumb
could make this work.  In the meantime, though, she had to focus her eyes on crazy, crazy Sterne.

His eyes seemed even bigger than before.  He pointed the gun at her again, his arm fully extended.  He was across the table, though, so Nicki couldn’t have grabbed it if she’d wanted to.  Melissa could have, maybe, but Nicki didn’t expect that.  Sterne had stopped muttering, but his teeth were still clenched.  “You that bitch that visited my brother last week?”

Well, Edwards had certainly called her a bitch, and she’d gone to see him.  Visit, though…that sounded like a friendly word, and their exchange had been far from friendly.  But this was no time to be a smart ass.  “I had gone by his residence and tried to interview him. 
Last Thursday, I believe.”

His anger didn’t diffuse, but he did seem satisfied with her answer.  “So why are you trying to track
me
down, bitch?”

She felt a film of perspiration spread out over her upper lip.  The message was almost done.
  She just had to remain cool.
  She swallowed the nonexistent saliva in her mouth and then answered.  “I’m not.  Really.  I’m just trying to report the facts for the readers of the
Tribune
.”

He moved around the table to get closer.  She stopped punching buttons and sat still.  He dropped his voice.  “Then why you ask my old lady if she knows where I am?”

What could she say now to help him chill out?  God knew
.  She could only try a half-truth, but she didn’t want to get Melissa in trouble by telling him exactly what had triggered her question. 
“
I don’t know.  I just thought maybe she would know.”

“And why you think your readers need to know that shit, bitch?”

Nicki gulped again.  “I guess they don’t.  I guess I was just curious myself.”

“Fuckin’ stupid.”  He started muttering and pacing again.  Nicki punched the last button.  She allowed herself to glance at the phone to make sure everything looked okay, then pressed send.

But
that
was fuckin’ stupid, to use Sterne’s words.  He saw that she was preoccupied.  “What the fuck you doin’ over there, bitch?”  He stormed back over to her chair.  “Whatever you got in your pocket, take it out now.”  She took the phone and her car keys out and set them on the table.  He grabbed the cell phone.  “So help me, bitch…”  He started pressing buttons, Nicki figured to check out the last calls she made.  She felt overwhelming relief that she hadn’t dialed the police, because she was certain that would have been the last call she’d ever made.  Not that texting Sean would make this guy happy.

He turned around to the sink and dropped the phone in the glass of water.
  Had
the message
even made it out into the airwaves?  There was no way to know.
  “Nice try.”  He strode back over to where Nicki sat, pulled back the fist with a gun in it, and hit her across the cheek.  “Don’t fuck with me.”  He started pacing again.  He was trying to come up with a plan, Nicki thought.  She just hoped it took him a while to figure out and that Sean had his phone on.  More importantly, she hoped he knew what she meant by her message: 
help. at
m
jacobs house

But, since it was unlikely that Sean would ever get
t
he message, she needed to figure out a way to stay alive and get out of there.

Chapter Nineteen

NICKI BEGAN TO
feel like a stressed-
out meth addict just watching Sterne pace a rut in
Melissa
Jacobs’s
kitchen
floor.  In the past few minutes, Sterne hadn’t said anything, had just continued muttering
under his breath
.

Finally, he sat at the table, legs splayed, hand gripping the gun
as tight as a nervous mom might hold her three-year-old’s hand in a crowded mall at Christmas
.  “We’re gonna sit it out for a while.  Once I’m sure the bitch didn’t call the cops, we’re outta here. 
You better pray you didn’t, bitch, ‘cause now you’re a hostage.
  If you
did
call the cops, you’ll probably be a dead hostage.
”
  Sterne said
probably
as though it only had two syllables,
prah-bly
, but he pronounced
bitch
perfectly.

She’d already figured out
that her life was in danger
.
  She
’d assumed
she
was either immediate victim or long-term hostage.  At least being a hostage, she
had the
chance
of getting
out
with her body parts intact
.

When she looked down, s
he could see that her cheek had swollen.  It hurt like hell.  She had been asking herself why she’d thought becoming a reporter was such a great idea.
  She’d just thought it would be fun to see her name in print, to read her writing
in the paper
, have people
around town
talk about her insights.  She hadn’t stopped to think that she might actually be putting her life in danger or making people angry on a weekly basis.  No one had warned her about that possibility.  Then again,
if
the person training you is the Features reporter,
she
would have no
reason to
warn you about that.  The worst thing that happened to the Features reporter was either getting bombarded with questions from kids at the school
about what you ate for lunch
or being bored to death by old people recounting their lives when they were
young and
cool.  So Diane Glick couldn’t have possibly prepared Nicki for this scenario.
  Diane’s most dangerous day happened when she broke t
he heel on one of her shoes while
reporting
firsthand
about the Boy Scouts building a new hiking trail by Cedar Creek.

Melissa had mentioned that she had sons there to worry about.  Nicki wondered if the woman had made that up when she was trying to get Nicki to leave or if she really had kids and, if so, were they here?  If they were, they were quiet.

Sterne kept pacing, pacing, pacing, and if Nicki hadn’t been nervous before, she w
as
now.  The guy had a ridiculou
s amount of pent-up energy.  The energy sparking off him could rival the Hoover Dam.  Nicki knew, though, that he’d burn out at some point and then crash.  Too bad that
was far off in the future.

Not once since Sterne had entered the room had Melissa looked up from the table.  It was as though she were afraid to make eye contact, even with Nicki.  Then again, had she looked at Nicki, Sterne would probably think they were communicating somehow.  Nicki knew it was safer if they didn’t look at each other.
  But that also meant that Melissa would be no help.  In fact, she’d probably side with Sterne if it came down to it.

As the minutes ticked by on the worn white dusty clock on the wall, Nicki wondered if Sean had received her message.  She had to assume that he hadn’t…which meant she needed to figure a way out
on her own
.  If she just got up and walked out, she had no doubt that Sterne would kill her.  He had buck fever, and Nicki would be
his target
if she decided to run.  No, thank you.  She’d try another way.

Surely Sterne hadn’t always been this psycho, but drugs could push a person there.  Maybe, though, Nicki could try to tap into the rational part of Sterne.  She could talk to him and perhaps get him to think straight.

Nicki took a few deep breaths, trying to think of a calm way to engage Sterne in conversation that could be productive.  She decided to start with the most logical.

She took a
nother
deep breath and cleared her throat.  Sterne had walked to the door and looked out the window again, making sure the curtain covered the glass when he was done.  Nicki said, “Mr. Sterne, would you feel better if I interviewed you?  You would be able to tell your side of the story.  I wouldn’t discl
ose your location or how we met;
I’d just—”

Sterne knelt over so that his nose was close to hers.  She saw that
one of his front teeth was
chipped.  His voice was low
, but she had no problems hearing him
.  “Are you fuckin’ crazy?  Do you really think I want to tell you anything?  Do you think I want to share with the good citizens of
Winchester
just how I feel?
”  He exhaled.
 
“
The readers of your paper can go fuck themselves.”

Tell me how you really feel.
 
Well, it was obvious after spending this much quality time with Sterne that he and his brother Jason Edwards were definitely of the same stock.

And Nicki
figured out in no time
that
the appeal to reason
tactic
wouldn’t work
.  Sterne didn’t care what people thought.  Still
, she wasn’t able to let it go yet.  “I was just th
inking that if you’
re ever apprehended or if you were to turn yourself in and you went to trial, by having already told people your thoughts and feelings, you might have a sympathetic jury…which coul
d translate into less jail time, maybe a reduced sentence.”