“Who?”
“Sean.”
“He’s back in the picture?”
“No way, but he claims he wants to be.”
Trina lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s truly sorry for being such a jerk and now that he’s sown his wild oats and realized that not all women are as cool as you are, he’s making his play.”
“Doesn’t sound like the Sean I know.”
“Oh, give the guy a chance.”
“So you don’t believe in the ‘once burned, twice shy,’ adage.”
“Isn’t it ‘once bitten, twice shy’…oh, whatever, it doesn’t matter. As for me, I believe in love. I’m totally an incurable romantic.”
“Who’s never married.”
“I said I like ‘romance,’ not drudgery.” Trina’s cell phone jangled with a Latin tune.
“I don’t even believe in the romance part,” Nikki said, though a part of her suspected that she was stretching the truth a bit. She didn’t like to think of herself as one of those clingy, lovelorn single women looking for a possible husband in every man she met. And she wasn’t. But if the right man happened to cross her path, she might just sing a different tune. She just couldn’t cop to it. At least not now, not before she proved herself.
Trina rolled into her cubicle and whispered into her cell phone while Nikki sorted through her mail and E-mail, finding nothing out of the ordinary, no other notes from the Grave Robber. Her voice mail was filled with congratulations from some friends for her latest story on the Grave Robber and she had a few calls from reporters at rival papers and local news stations, all of whom hoped to cozy up to her and get an interview.
“Nikki, this is Stacey Baxter, remember, we went to school together. I’m with WRAW in Louisville and I’d love to talk to you about what’s going on with the Grave Robber. Give me a call back at…”
“Nikki Gillette? Max O’Dell, WKAM. Heard about the break-in. Call me at…”
“Ms. Gillette. Steve Mendleson with The Spirit. My number is…”
So, now she knew how it felt to be hounded by the press, she thought, eyeing the flowers and plucking off a few petals that had already started to turn brown. No doubt the flowers had been on sale, a bargain basement bouquet. It was just the way Sean had always operated she thought as the voice mail messages streamed into her ear.
“Nikki, it’s Lily. Okay, I was out of line last night. Way out of line. Sorry. I’m gonna be out today, so I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Nicole? This is Dr. Francis. I saw your article and it was fine, but I think it should be part of a series about the school district. Call me.”
“Wow, look who’s on the front page all the time!” Simone’s voice was a breath of fresh air. “Pretty soon you’ll be getting a swelled head and you’ll forget the little people like me. Let’s celebrate. We could go out right after class tonight…”
Damn, Nikki thought, tired to the bone. The last thing she wanted to do was anything more strenuous than lying in front of the television with a bag of chips.
“…I can safely assume you’ll make it tonight, right? Maybe, with your newfound celebrity you’ll be able to convince Jake to join us? I’ll buy. Again.” She laughed. “Hey, it looks like I might move to Charlotte, after all! Well, unless I can make something work with Jake. Call me and I’ll fill you in on all the details.”
Nikki didn’t want to think about Simone moving away. It was too damned depressing. Nor did she want to have to admit to Simone that she was considering blowing off kickboxing. It would be better to call her tomorrow, once the class was over. Nikki was a firm believer in asking forgiveness rather than permission. Tonight, Simone would be disappointed, maybe even angry about Nikki skipping out, but tomorrow, especially if things went well with Jake, Simone would have forgotten all about the fact that Nikki had stood her up again. She only felt a little niggle of guilt as the next message began to play. “Hi, Nik. It’s me. I’d really like to see you again.” Sean’s voice. She dropped her hand, l
etting a few petals fall on her desk. There was something about the timbre and expression in Sean’s voice she found unnerving. Though she didn’t care for him any longer, just the fact that he’d dumped her seemed to make her overreact to him. “I heard about what happened, the break-in and all,” he’d recorded. “Pretty scary stuff, Nik. Hope you’re okay. Why don’t you give me a buzz?” It would be a cold day in hell before that happened. “My cell number is…”
She didn’t bother to write it down, nor did she intend to call him or anyone else for that matter. Not even Simone. Not today. She didn’t have time. She had another story to write about the Grave Robber, one with more information…
The recorder beeped, indicating there was another voice mail message. She listened, but no one left a message. Whoever had called must’ve thought better of it because there was a pause with some low-level background noise, then the distinct sound of a phone clicking as it was hung up.
Whoever it was would call back she figured as she turned her attention to her computer to recheck her E-mail before digging into her next story. She found more of the same kind of well wishes and requests that had been on the phone. But there was no new message from the Grave Robber. No dancing coffins or twirling, disintegrating corpses.
She tapped her pencil on the desk.
For the moment, the killer seemed to be silent.
Which was good. Right?