Page 127 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

“I got a package. A recording…oh…God, it’s Simone. He killed her. That damned bastard buried her alive and sent me the recording.” She was crying. Hiccuping and sniffing.

“Where are you?” Holding the phone to his ear, he found his keys and started the engine.

“In an alley. Not far from home.” She gave him the cross street and address.

“Are you safe?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did anyone follow you?” He nosed the Caddy into traffic.

“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered and there was a pause. “I don’t know.”

“Lock the doors and stay on the line with me. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Good.”

He made it in seven and Nikki was never so glad to see anyone in her life. She threw open the car door and flung herself into his arms. “That son of a bitch. That goddamned son of a bitch killed her.” She wanted to sink into the strength of him, to close off the world, to find some kind of solace in someone stronger.

“Shh,” he whispered into her hair as raindrops fell from a gray Savannah sky. He held her close. So close and it felt so right. “I’m here.”

She shuddered, trying to erase Simone’s screams from her mind, knowing, rationally, that she couldn’t help her friend by falling apart and yet emotionally splintering into a million painful pieces. “He left it in my car,” she said, sniffing and finally pulling her head back to look up at him and see the concern etched upon his features.

“Was the car locked?”

“No, but maybe I forgot…I don’t know…he’s been in the car before. Got my cell phone.”

“Do you have an extra key?”

“No…well, yes. I left one with my

dad years ago, with the house keys. You know, in case there was a problem. Kind of a backup?”

“No one else?”

“No, I don’t think so…”

“Simone?”

Nikki snorted as she thought of her friend’s sleek BMW. “She never borrowed it, no.”

“What about that old boyfriend?”

“Sean?”

“Yeah.”

“Not recently. But maybe. Oh, I let lots of people use it over the years. It’s old enough to have a cassette player rather than a CD player.”

“Can I see the tape?”

She nodded.

“Listen to it?”

“Oh, God.”

“It can wait.”

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