Page 108 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

“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?”

“I don’t know,” Reed heard himself say, though the bad sensation he’d felt in her apartment was deepening. “Here, let me look.”

She found a flashlight in the glove compartment and they shined it all through the interior of the little car. Reed checked under the seats, on the floor, in the side pockets, on the visors, in the glove box, then swept the flashlight’s weak beam under the car.

Nothing.

The phone was definitely missing.

“It’s not here.”

“No,” she cried, her chin wobbling. “Oh…no.”

He placed an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t borrow trouble,” he said, but he felt it more intensely than ever in the dark night. The dawning of a new, profound terror. If Nikki hadn’t left her cell phone at her parents’ house, or her office, Simone Everly was in trouble.

CHAPTER 24

Not Simone…please, God, not Simone!

Nikki’s world turned black and desolate. She leaned heavily against her car, the fog sliding around her, fear burrowing deep into her heart. The Grave Robber couldn’t have stolen her phone and called Simone to set up a meeting. No, no…she was jumping to conclusions. Just because someone, most likely the killer, had broken into her place didn’t mean that he had her phone and had set up an appointment with her best friend. “This has got to be a mistake or a prank or something,” she said to Reed, willing her fear to subside and trying to think logically. “Someone got hold of my cell phone, probably at work…maybe Norm Metzger or Kevin Deeter, and whoever it was they called Simone because she’s on speed dial, so…” So why set up an appointment? Pretend to be Nikki. Her insides turned to water and she sank against her car. No one would do that.

“Let’s go to the gym. See if she made it to class. Come on.” Once again Reed threw a strong arm over her shoulders, then shepherded her toward his Cadillac. For once Nikki didn’t resist letting a man guide her. For once she was grateful for a strong arm to lean on. Adrenaline shot through her bloodstream. Guilt gnawed at her brain. How could she have lost her phone? Shaking, she dropped into the passenger seat of the El Dorado, then leaned against the door.

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