The Morning After

  “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.”

  Reed only hoped Cooper got the chance to ream Nikki out, but as he drove through the rain and gathering darkness to the Sentinel’s offices, he couldn’t shake the sensation that something was very wrong. No one had called him, even though Morrisette had promised that if the units she’d sent to Nikki’s apartment and the newspaper offices had found anything out, she would call. Reed couldn’t sit around and wait. He decided to check things out for himself.

  He didn’t feel much better once he was at the newspaper. Nikki had been there, but had cleaned out her desk and no one, not even her friend Trina, had heard from her since.

  Not that it was all that odd, he supposed, and yet as he stood at her empty workstation, looking at the crime scene wallpaper of her computer monitor, he experienced and ever increasing sense of anxiety.

  However, Tom Fink, the aptly named editor, wasn’t worried. “Look, as I told the other cops, she got her knickers in a knot, cleaned out her desk and stormed out.” A pompous ass if ever there was one, Fink leaned a hip against what had been Nikki’s desk and folded his arms over his chest. “She’s a hothead.”

  “Why’d she leave?”

  “Didn’t want to do a story I assigned her.”

  “And what was that?” Reed asked.

  “Another installment on the Grave Robber.”

  “And she objected?” Reed knew what was coming. “Let me guess…it was a story around the latest victim, right?”

  Fink shrugged. “We heard that he got Simone Everly. She was a friend of Nikki’s. It seemed like a natural.”

  “To sell more newspapers.”

  “That’s our business, Detective.” Norm Metzger, the Sentinel’s smarmy crime reporter, sidled up to the group. He’d obviously been eavesdropping from behind the stub wall. “She should have been objective. Sure, she lost a friend, but how can she help her or save the next potential victim if she doesn’t tell her story and warn the public? We just wanted to do a tribute to Simone Everly and report what had happened to her. It’s news.”

  “It’s always news until it’s someone close to you. Then, it’s personal and called sensationalism.”

  “As a reporter, she should remain objective,” Fink stated.

  “No wonder she walked out.”

  “Listen, Reed, you do your job and I’ll do mine. I don’t need any bullshit from the police department.”

  Reed felt the cords on the back of his neck stand out and it took all his strength to keep his hands from curling into fists. “And we don’t need any pseudo-sanctimonious crap from the press.” He turned his gaze to the next cubicle where a wide-eyed Trina had listened to the entire exchange. “If you hear from Ms. Gillette,” he instructed, “please have her call me ASAP.”

  “Absolutely.” She took down his cell number, sent a withering glare in Fink’s direction and rolled her chair toward her desk.

  “I’ll be calling your superior,” Fink threatened.

  “Please. Do,” Reed invited. “Show her what a stellar, public-serving individual you are!”

  Reed left the Sentinel with a worse opinion of journalists than he’d had when he’d walked in. Which, considering his viewpoint, was damned near impossible.

  Scum.

  Maggots.

  Vultures.

  Tom Fink and Norm Metzger fit right into the pathetic mold, he thought, ignoring the rain as it swirled from the sky. He’d nearly reached his car when Trina, shoulders hunched against the cold, ran to catch up to him. “Detective Reed,” she called, waving to flag him down, her slim skirt and high-heeled boots making her steps short and quick. She was breathless and soaked by the time she reached him. “I just wanted you to know that Nikki was really upset when she left. I don’t know what went on in the meeting she had with Tom, but she was furious. I tried to talk her into staying, but she’d made up her mind.”

  “Do you have any idea where she’d go?” he asked and Trina lifted a shoulder.

  “Only home. She had all the stuff from her desk with her. But she did get a couple of calls that were inadvertently sent to my voice mail.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, her teeth chattering. “Celeste, our receptionist, is an idiot.” A streak of lightning hissed through the sky. Trina jumped.

  “So, who phoned?”

  She handed him a wet note with numbers that had begun to run. “The first one is from Sean, he’s an old boyfriend who doesn’t seem to know how to take a hint, and the second is her mother.” Trina’s dark eyes clouded as thunder pealed over the rush of traffic. “It was an odd call. Mrs. Gillette sounded upset.”

  Reed was reminded of the message left on Nikki’s home machine. “Thanks.”

  “If you…no, when you find her, will you let me know?” Trina asked. “I’m worried. The Grave Robber was contacting her directly.”

  “I’ll have Nikki call.”

  “Thanks.” She started toward the office and Reed was left more anxious than before. He tried Nikki’s cell phone again, but there was still no answer. The same with the Ronald Gillette home. Maybe one of her parents had taken ill and she’d rushed them to the hospital—no, that didn’t explain why her cell phone wasn’t working. Unless it was out of battery life.

  He dug through his notebook and located her brother and sister’s phone numbers. As he drove, he first called Kyle, who sounded irritated about being pulled away from the television blaring in the background and who informed him that he hadn’t seen Nikki since Thanksgiving. Another strike. Reed then called Lily. Another piece of work.

  “I haven’t heard from Nikki since she stood me up. Again. I wanted her to baby-sit and she bagged out on me, which is par for the course. Her M.O. All Nikki really cares about is her job, or more specifically, her ambitions…. She wants to be the best damned crime reporter this town has ever seen and it really pisses her off to be on the town meeting desk or whatever it is she does. So now she’s hot on the trail of the Grave Robber, just like she was last summer when that other serial killer was running around. I’m telling you, if she keeps this up, she’s going to end up dead herself. God, she’s just so…so Nikki!”

  Reed waited until she’d quit ranting, then asked, “So what about your parents? Have you heard from your mother today?”

  “No…why?” Instant concern.

  “Your mother left several messages for her. She sounded worried. But she didn’t call you?”

  “That’s odd,” Lily said, all of her anger suddenly vanishing. “I mean, usually, if Mom needs anything—and I mean anything—she calls me.
Nikki’s convinced my parents that she’s too busy, so they don’t rely on her. But I’ve been home all day and Mom never called. Not once.”

  The muscles in the back of Reed’s neck tightened. “You’re certain?”

  “Of course I am. But I’ll call right now.”

  “Good. Keep trying. I phoned earlier and left a message. No one’s called back.”

  “Oh, my God, you don’t think something awful has happened, do you?”

  “Probably not,” he said, not believing it for a minute.

  “I’ll go over there.”

  “It would be best if you stayed by the phone. I’ll dispatch a unit,” he said.

  “If you’re sure.”

  “Absolutely. I’m already on my way.”

  “Then you’ll have Mom call or you’ll phone me, right?”

  “Yes.” He hung up and floored the Cadillac, heading straight to the upscale neighborhood of three acre lots where Judge Ronald Gillette had retired. Traffic was light, the streets dark with winter dusk, the intense rain slamming against the windshield and blurring the red glow of taillights.

  He pulled into the driveway and his heart nosedived when he recognized Nikki’s rental car parked outside the garage where the door was left wide open, two vehicles visible in the wash of his headlights. An older Mercedes sat next to a sleek new BMW convertible. But the house and garage were dark.

  No lamplight glowed through the windows of the graceful old home, not even a porch light was lit. The other houses on the street were separated by fences, hedges, dense shrubbery and rolling acres.

  Reed didn’t like what he saw. Not at all. He punched out Morrisette’s cell phone number and explained what was going on as lightning forked and thunder clapped.

  “Jesus Christ, Reed, wait for backup,” Morrisette ordered. “This could be some kind of trap. Chevalier probably knows we’re on to him.”

  “I’m going in.”

  “No way. Don’t do it. We’ll be there in less than ten minutes.”

  “Make it five.” He hung up. Going against all of his training, he followed his instincts. There was a good chance Nikki was inside. He intended to find her.

  No security lights blazed as he approached. No face appeared in a window. No sound escaped from the two stories of white clapboard and green shutters. Steeling himself, he crept through the garage, then pushed open the door. “Police!” he yelled. “Drop your weapons!”

  From far in the distance he heard the wail of a siren, but inside, the house was silent as death. Dark.

  Heart pounding in his ears, he snapped on the switch. The mud room was suddenly illuminated. No one. No sound. He took a deep breath, then moved quickly. Stealthily. Two steps to the wall. He reached around the open door casing and flipped on another light. The kitchen was now illuminated and still no one moved, there wasn’t a sound.

  “Police!” he yelled again. “Drop your weapons and kick them into the kitchen. Then come out with your hands over your head where I can see them!”

  Again, all he heard was silence and the low hum of the furnace forcing air through the ducts while the wind kicked up outside. If he stepped into the light now and the killer was waiting around the corner, he’d be a sitting duck.

  He could wait a few more minutes.

  “Ummph.”

  The low moan sent a shock wave through him.

  His ears strained. “Is anyone there?”

  Another muffled groan over the sound of a siren splintering the night. Tires screeched outside and he heard Morrisette barking orders.

  Seconds later she was at his side. “We’ve got the place surrounded,” Morrisette stated. “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Not sure. But someone’s over there.” He motioned across the room to a doorway hanging slightly ajar about the same time that Cliff Siebert joined them in the mud room. “Cover me.”

  “You got it,” Siebert said and Reed sprinted across the kitchen, then flattened to the wall beside the open door.

  “Police!” he yelled again and the muffled cry increased. It sounded like a woman’s voice. He could barely breathe. “Nikki?” he yelled and the response was another muted cry.

  “Don’t go in there!” Morrisette warned. “I’ve got a man outside and he’s reported that he can’t see through the window. The shades are pulled down.”

  Tough.

  Weapon drawn, Reed whipped around the corner, kicked open the door so hard it banged against the wall and snapped on the light. He stared in horror at the scene before him and yelled over his shoulder, “Get an ambulance! We need EMTs. NOW!”

  Inside, bound and gagged, was a frail woman Reed recognized as Charlene Gillette. Her eyes were wide and terror-riddled and she was shaking, whimpering behind the gag. All around the woman was a dark, coagulating pool of blood.

  He bent over her and tore off the gag as footsteps pounded behind him. “I’m Detective Reed with the police department, Mrs. Gillette. Hang in there.”

  “I’ll take over.” A young EMT with a military haircut, whip-thin body, and commanding attitude had snapped on gloves and knelt beside the shivering woman. “No visible wounds,” he muttered as he unbound her.

  “But all this blood?”

  “Holy shit!” Morrisette appeared in the doorway. “Okay, we need to preserve this scene. Touch as little as possible!” Her eyes moved from the woman to one wall where Gillette family memorabilia hung. “Jesus Christ,” she whispered and Reed turned to the wall where awards, certificates and pictures were hung neatly.

  His stomach clenched. “That son of a bitch.” Portraits of the family, snapshots of crucial moments blown up and mounted, even some pictures with pets were framed and placed side by side. It was the pictures that held his attention. There was a message hurriedly scrawled on the wall beneath a blown up snapshot of Nikki Gillette and her father at her college graduation. It was a clear summer day, Nikki’s wild hair was tousled in a breeze, her father’s arm draped over the shoulders of her graduation gown, her mortarboard at an angle as she smiled and squinted into the camera. Judge Ron towered over her, grinning proudly.

  The single word message that ran and streaked down the knotty pine wall read: LE BLANC.

  French for “The White.”

  And the name of a cemetery on the north side of town.

  Nikki opened a bleary eye and felt pain jarring through every bone in her body. But it was too dark to see and she was disoriented, her mind thick, her mouth tasting foul. She had the sensation of movement, but that was ridiculous, right? She was lying in her bed…no…where was she? Thoughts drifted in and out of her mind in restless waves, as if they were carried upon a sluggish, murky sea.

  She remembered that Simone was dead…Oh, no…maybe that was a dream and…She lifted her head.

  Bang!

  Ouch!

  Her forehead rammed into something hard.

  Tears sprang to her eyes. Dear God, what was happening? She tried to raise her hand to rub the knot on her forehead but she could barely move…it was as if she were wedged into a box…a tight box and…and…Oh, dear Lord, something was wrong, something she should remember. Think, Nikki, think! Where the hell are you? You should know. She willed her brain to concentrate, but she kept wanting to fall back to sleep.

  You can’t! Something is terribly, terribly wrong….

  She tried to reach around her, but could barely move and the panic she felt was fuzzy and far away. She felt the mattress beneath her. Lumpy. Soft and cold and uneven pressing into her back and on her shoulders. When she moved her head, the back of it connected with something hard…and…and…Oh, no!

  Her eyes fluttered open. Her mind was so foggy, she had to strain to think. Where was she? She’d been looking for someone…and…and…. Oh, God, was she, like Simone, packed into a coffin? With a dead body beneath her!

  She should try to fight, to scream. She was going to be buried alive. That part she remembered. She had to do something fast. But still her mind was like molasse
s, the drug she’d been given pulling her under again. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. It was as if she were slogging through quicksand and her mind wouldn’t clear. She remembered the needle and blacking out.

  Maybe this was all just a dream, a really bad dream. She tried to grasp onto conscious thought, but the drug in her system kept working on her, dragging her back into the blissful blackness…and with terror lurking in the dark corners of her consciousness, she quit fighting and let go, slipping once again into the void.

  The bitch had hurt him. His crotch still throbbed where she’d nailed him in the nuts and the side of his face ached, compliments of her sharp-heeled boots.

  But she hadn’t gotten away. No. She was getting everything she deserved. Finally. Like the rest.

  Nikki Gillette was already in a casket. Soon to draw her last breath, soon to know the fear and pain, the sheer terror of being helpless, at the mercy of someone stronger. She, like the others, had crumpled before him, always underestimating his strength and cunning.

  As he drove outside of the city, The Survivor swiped a bloody hand over his forehead, catching a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. Blood covered a face streaked with mud, compliments of Le Blanc Cemetery. His hair was wet and plastered to his head, his muscles sore from the hard work and the wounds she’d inflicted.

  But he’d suffered worse and survived. Nikki Gillette’s pathetic attempt at harming him was nothing.

  His mission for the night was nearly accomplished. Soon, the police would arrive and he imagined the look of horror on that bastard Reed’s face as he opened the coffin buried deep in the mud of Le Blanc Cemetery.

  “Too late,” the Grave Robber said aloud as he headed steadily north, wipers slogging through the rain that pummeled his windshield. Past the lights of the city, he saw a flash of lightning sizzling through the night sky. Rolling claps of thunder followed.

  It seemed fitting.

  A storm was raging as Nikki Gillette breathed her last.

  Unfortunately he couldn’t finish all of his business. Not right away. He would have to lay low for a while. Now, for certain, the police would know who he was and it would take time, after tonight, for him to be able to continue his quest. But the principals had been punished. Those who’d been most influential at the trial.