Page 123 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

Reasonable doubt, my ass.

So, why now, after getting off for the murders, would Chevalier start this rampage, daring the police to catch him? It didn’t make sense.

Reed listened to the wind slap the branches of a tree against the window and wondered if Nikki was getting any sleep on the other side of the door. He considered checking on her, but decided against it. No need to tempt fate any more than he already had.

Where am I?

Simone’s eyes flew open. She’d been asleep or…or drugged and had the feeling of oppression, a huge weight was laying heavy on her chest. She was so uncomfortable and she was gasping for breath. The nightmare had been so real…and then she knew, she hadn’t been asleep at all. She’d passed out. Inside the coffin with the body.

Oh, God…Her mind slipped in and out of consciousness as she tried to fight, tried to think of a way out, but the corpse beneath her, the small space and lack of oxygen played upon her, tricked her mind.

Screaming frantically, she recoiled as the sound rebounded back at her, ricocheting like a million lunatics railing upon her. She thought something moved against the back of her neck and she squealed again, her scream echoing and reechoing through her brain.

There was no hope. No way out. Something squished beneath her. Bones scraped her naked skin and her mind fragmented into a thousand painful shards. Memories of Andrew skittered through her brain.

Far in the distance, somewhere in the darkness where her soul had run to, she knew she was going

to die. What remained of rational thought shriveled at the thought of the dead person beneath her, the sharp ribs and fleshless fingers that were scratching up at her. Trembling, she felt the slimy soft tissue clinging to her skin, rubbing into her hair.

Tears streamed from her eyes. She coughed and tried vainly to drag in enough air for her tortured lungs. Feebly she kicked at the sides of the coffin as the oxygen ebbed.

In a last fit of sanity she realized she was doomed.

To die like this.

Horribly.

She thought of Andrew one last time and gave up a final, harrowing scream.

The smell of coffee and a dog yapping in the distance roused Nikki from a heavy sleep laden with nightmares. A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes and a heavy weight, like an anvil, pushed down on her chest. It was just the effects of the bad dreams, that was it.

Her eyes flew open. Oh, God, Simone was missing. And Pierce Reed was in the living room…it wasn’t part of a nightmare. The dog was Mikado. She flung back the covers, walked to the bathroom, used the toilet and flung water from the sink over her face. She looked like hell. Black smudges of mascara rimmed her eyes and her hair was even more unruly than ever. Not that she could do anything about it now.

She snapped her hair into a ponytail, scrubbed her face and slid into a pair of khaki pants and a knit top before opening the door and having Mikado launch himself at her. “Hey, how are you?” she asked, rubbing the dog behind his ears.

“Not glad to see you,” Reed observed sarcastically. The little dog streaked around the coffee table, running in fast, furious circles as from the top of the bookcase Jennings eyed the rambunctious white tornado with feline contempt.

She finally caught the dog and was rewarded with an enthusiastic face wash. “Slow down, you,” she said, giggling despite her worries.

“Coffee?” Reed poured a big mug from a pot he’d obviously brewed this morning. A dark beard shadow covered his jaw, his hair was mussed, the tail of his shirt hung outside his pants and his feet were bare, but he still looked sexy as hell as he glanced at her over his shoulder. “Black?”

“Today—yes. The blacker, the better.” She remembered drinking more wine than she should have, kissing him on her little couch, then nearly making love to him only a few hours earlier. It seemed foolish now in the light of day. She put a wiggling Mikado down on the floor and he immediately walked into the kitchen, inspecting Jennings’s empty food dish.

“Don’t let him fool you. I already fed him and took him outside for his morning constitutional.”

“And brewed the coffee.”

“Efficiency’s my middle name.” He handed the steaming mug to her and she took it gratefully.

“I guess, but you’re in trouble, Reed, because now I know your secret,” she said, blowing across her cup.

He arched an eyebrow, silently encouraging her as he leaned his hips against the counter and drank from a chipped cup she’d bought years ago at a garage sale.

“Hard-boiled ace detective at night, domestic goddess in the morning.”

He nearly choked on a swallow. “Yeah, that’s me, all right.”

“You could hire out.”

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