The Morning After (46 page)

No telling what she’d do. He saw the car door fly open and then she was hidden from view as she leaned over. No doubt losing her breakfast. He waited and she eventually sat up again and wiped a sleeve over her mouth. He wasn’t able to define her features through the foggy glass, just her small silhouette.

He’d always considered her a pain in the butt. A privileged brat with brass balls to accompany her brains, a pushy reporter who got under his skin and a person to avoid. Now, he didn’t want to think too closely about his conflicted feelings for her. Nor did he have the time.

He only hoped she’d brace herself and, despite all of his previous grumblings about her, mentally crossed his fingers that she was as strong and tough as he’d once thought. He stepped back into the tent and stood near one of the plastic walls.

Show time.

The coffin was being hoisted out of the grave and into the tent. Diane Moses barked orders, kept a log, and made sure that nothing was damaged, no evidence lost, destroyed, or tampered with as the exterior of the casket was photographed and examined for tool marks, fingerprints or scrapes.

Reed waited, his stomach in knots as the coffin lid was raised. The stench of death rolled out of the tomb and caught on an easterly wind.

“Shit,” Morrisette said, turning away from the two bodies.

Cliff Siebert took a long look, then dragged his eyes away. “Son of a bitch.”

“You know this woman?” Diane asked.

“Simone Everly.” Reed turned his back on the open casket, unable to gawk at the bruised, naked body and unblinking eyes of Nikki’s friend. Her hair was matted and wild, caught in the remnants of flesh beneath, and her skin where it wasn’t contused was the pale gray shade of death. Once beautiful features were marred and broken where she’d banged her head on the lid and her fingers, as Bobbi’s had been, were covered in blood, the skin rubbed off, bare flesh exposed. “She went missing yesterday.”

“There’s something in here…a microphone and some kind of note.” One of the officers of the crime scene waited until the photographer had done his job, then carefully pried an envelope from the side of the coffin where it had been taped near Simone’s head.

“Don’t mess with the tape,” Diane warned sharply. “It could have fingerprints.”

If the guy’s stupid or careless,
Reed thought, but didn’t say it. He didn’t have to. Morrisette stepped up to the plate.

“I doubt that Chevalier would make that kind of mistake.”

“Anyone can get distracted and slip up.”

The investigator removed the envelope and Reed’s name was written in block letters.

“This guy’s got a hard-on for you,” Morrisette muttered. Reed donned gloves, extracted the single sheet of paper and read:

FOUR ALREADY GONE,

TOO MANY MORE STILL ALIVE.

NO LONGER TWELVE,

NOW TEN AND TWO AND FIVE.

“What the hell does that mean? Four already gone?” Morrisette growled, motioning toward the open casket. “What four? I count six.”

“He’s talking about a total number of victims. Seventeen. Look at the last line. Ten, two and five. Seventeen.” Reed’s mind was spinning ahead as he read the note again and again, comparing it to the others that had been received.

He thought hard. Why up the tally? Were they barking up the wrong tree? This had to be Chevalier’s work. All of the victims had been jurors…so far. What if he’d expanded his list. But who…or why?

“I don’t get it,” Morrisette grumbled.

“Some of the people died of natural causes, right? Maybe that’s what he’s talking about. He’s going to kill twelve, but four were already dead.”

“Three, Reed.” She held up three fingers and dropped them one at a time as she said, “Brown, Alexander, and Massey.”

“There could be someone else we haven’t found yet.”

“We checked. We’re all out of dead jurors. Everyone’s alive and accounted for. Kinda blows your whole jury panel theory then, doesn’t it? Unless the freak is so hung up on the number twelve, why not just kill the remaining jurors who were alive? Why isn’t the number nine? Seventeen? Crap! This doesn’t make any sense.”

“He’s giving us a clue,” Reed insisted.

“Or just messing with us!” Morrisette said irritably as wind lashed at the flaps of the tent.

“No…I don’t think he would bother. The words on the note add up to seventeen. That’s the number he’s working with now.”

“Well, since you seem to think you know how this perv’s thought processes work, you’d better figure out what he’s talkin’ about, and fast.”

She was right. Reed rubbed the back of his neck and wished he understood the cryptic note. As far as the police knew, Pauline Alexander, Thomas Massey and Tyrell Demonico Brown were the only three jurors who’d died of natural causes. Another three, Barbara Marx, Roberta Peters and now Simone Everly had been buried alive. At the Grave Robber’s hands. The other six jurors were alive and under police protection. And that total was only twelve. Why up the score by
five
? What was the significance of that particular number? He thought of Nikki and how the Grave Robber had chosen her to contact. To terrorize. The creep had been in her apartment? Bugged her? Why? And why contact Reed as well?

Because you both were involved in the Chevalier trial. This all has something to do with what went down then when Chevalier was arrested and sent to prison.

Reed had already gone over all the notes of the trial, had requested all the prison records on the guy and found nothing that would help. Maybe if the senior detective who had helped collar Chevalier were still alive, he would remember something about the trial that would help. But Reed’s ex-partner was dead.

“I tell ya, the guy’s messin’ with us. Ten and two and five?” Morrisette cut in.

“It’s his way of telling us there will be seventeen bodies, and, check it out, the note had to be seventeen words long.”

“What a crock,” Siebert cut in.

Morrisette glared at the note as if it were pure evil.

“Listen, this just doesn’t make any sense. The guy’s way off.” Cliff was obviously not buying into Reed’s line of reasoning. “There weren’t seventeen jurors.”

“What about alternates, or other people involved in the trial?” Reed asked, thinking aloud. “We’re not talking about a rational guy, you know.”

“Shit, no,” Morrisette muttered under her breath, lines creasing her forehead.

The new note from the Grave Robber meant more death. More killing. More work and more frustration.

“There aren’t five alternates on a jury panel, you know that. And why up the score now?” Morrisette wondered aloud and Reed could almost see the wheels turning in her mind. “To confuse us? Jesus, this is one sick prick.” She stared at the damned note. “I hate to say it, but I think you’re right. For whatever the reason, the bastard’s definitely talking about seventeen.”

“Son of a bitch,” Siebert growled.

Haskins stared at the note. “I’ll check with our profiler. See what she says about this guy.”

“This guy? Meaning you don’t think it’s Chevalier?” Morrisette exchanged looks with Reed.

The FBI agent held up a hand. “I’m just covering all the bases, but yeah, I think it’s Chevalier. Everyone who died suspiciously who was on the jury—even good old Tyrell here—kicked off
after
Chevalier was released. Coincidence?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Morrisette said. “I’m an ‘everything for a reason’ kind of girl.”

Reed’s cell phone beeped. Turning his back on the crowd in the tent as the wind tugged at the flaps, he answered, “Reed,” seeing from Caller ID that the call was long distance.

“Rick Bentz, New Orleans P.D. You asked me to call you when we located Vince Lassiter.”

“I did.”

“We found him today in a hospital in San Antonio. Drug OD, no ID on him, so it took a while for us to piece it all together. According to hospital records, he was admitted five days ago, comatose, only regained consciousness late last night. Doesn’t look like he’s your boy.”

“It sure doesn’t,” Reed agreed. He’d already struck Bobbi Jean’s brother from the list of suspects.

“How’s the investigation coming along?”

“Unearthed another body today. Same M.O. Buried alive.”

“Hell.”

“Yeah, that’s what it’s been around here.”

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

“I will,” Reed agreed before hanging up and deciding he had to face Nikki. He slipped through the vent in the tent and saw her stiffen in the passenger seat. Other reporters, all clustered near the front gate, started hurling questions at him, but he ignored them, didn’t even bother acknowledging their presence. No doubt he was being filmed from the news chopper overhead and from the handheld cams on the other side of the iron bars. He only hoped that the footage would be edited out before the story aired and that Nikki Gillette wasn’t recognized as the woman sitting in his car.

What were the chances of that?

Without a word he opened the car door, slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “I’m sorry,” he said and she let out a weak gasp. She looked away, through the passenger window as he drove away from the cemetery.

“Who was Simone with?” she asked.

“A man by the name of Tyrell Demonico Brown.”

“A juror?”

“Yes.”

She sniffed loudly and from the corner of his eye he saw her chin tighten as if she were willing herself to be strong. In more ways than one she was Ronald Gillette’s daughter.

“Get him, Reed,” she said, dashing away her tears. “Get the son of a bitch.”

“I will.” He turned onto a road leading away from the city. “That’s a promise.”

Nikki wanted to believe him. Desperately she wanted to think that justice would be served, that Chevalier would rot in hell for his crimes. “Did you find any other evidence?”

“Another note.”

“Oh, God, no.”

“Addressed to me.”

“What did it say?”

He explained and she listened, horrified. “More? More than twelve? Seventeen,” she whispered as they drove across the bridge to Tybee Island. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace quiet. Just for a little while. To regroup.”

“On Tybee?”

“Got a better idea?”

“I wish.”

They stopped at the beach and walked along the dunes and beach grass, not saying a word, smelling the salty sea air as a thick mist rolled in from the sea. Reed draped an arm over her shoulders and she huddled close to him as her pain lessened and the guilt she clung to so tightly eased a little.

“Are you going to be all right?” he asked and she nodded, squinting up at him, feeling the wind snatch at her hair and pull at the hem of her coat.

“I have to be. We Gillettes, we’re survivors…well, except for Andrew.” She sighed and admitted something she’d held in for twelve years. “I think he committed suicide. There was talk of an accident and that’s what Mom and Dad choose to think, but when you examine the facts, Andrew hated to lose and the fact that he couldn’t get into the law school he wanted, even with Dad’s pull as an alumnus and a judge, Andrew decided to flick it in.” She plunged her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and stared out to sea where the gray water met the dark clouds.

“But you’re different.”

“I hope.” She managed a weak, watery smile. “Okay, Detective, so you brought me out here to help me shake off the guilt and, I assume, to be away from the prying eyes of the other cops and journalists. So, now what?”

He drew her closer still and lowered his head to hers, kissing her so hard, with such desperation that she couldn’t resist him and kissed him back. Over the rush of the sea she heard his heart, steady and strong, felt his heat at odds with the weather, and realized that in the past few days she’d started to fall in love with this brusque, hardheaded cop.

He pressed his tongue against her teeth and she opened to him, clinging to him, feeling his body, hard and wanting beneath his clothes. The winter air swirled around them, the sea pounded the surf, and for just a few vital minutes Nikki forgot about everything, all the pain, all the guilt and grief, everything except this one lone man.

It felt so good to forget. If only for a few minutes.

With a groan, he lifted his head and loosened his hold on her. “I hate to cut this short, really, but I have work to do.”

“
We
have work to do,” she corrected. “And I’ll take a rain check.”

“You’ll get it.” His tone was soft, his gaze concerned. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“Not all right. But as right as I ever was.”

“Then, I’ll drive you to a car rental agency.”

“That, Detective, would be an excellent idea.” She slid into the Caddy’s interior and knew that she’d have to face Norm Metzger and Tom Fink and all their questions. Metzger had seen her with Reed. Hence she’d have to endure the third degree, but so be it.

She’d do whatever she had to to help bring Simone’s killer to justice.

Now is the time.

Everything is in place.

The Survivor glanced at the unmoving body on his floor. Not dead. Just out cold. Death would come soon. Around his room, television screens flickered with images of Peltier Cemetery. The police and FBI had been there
en masse
. He knew. Just as he knew they would be. Looking in the other direction.

That had been earlier today and the stations had been replaying the footage over and over again. He was pleased. At least the media was finally taking notice. Giving him the proper respect.

Two of the televisions were playing DVDs. His favorites. The two with which he could identify most closely.
Rambo
filled one screen and he noticed Sylvester Stallone in the title role, silently eluding the army, and on another screen, a sleeker avenger, Neo, in
The Matrix.

He, too, was an avenger. A seeker of justice. A victim of the system and one who would right the wrongs cast upon him.