Page 14 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

She took a corner a little too fast and her wheels squealed. She really wanted to talk to Detective Pierce Reed himself, but that would be tricky. She’d tried to get close to him during the Montgomery murders, but he’d been reticent—no…downright bristly whenever she’d approached him. He had a reputation for not being fond of the press and she didn’t blame him after the woman had died during the stakeout. It seemed that even though he’d been cleared of any wrongdoing through the San Francisco Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit, the media had crucified him.

There was a good chance her father knew more about Reed than she did.

Nikki scowled as she dimmed her lights for an approaching car. She didn’t like asking “Big Ron” Gillette for any favors. Never had. Wouldn’t do it.

Sure you would, Nikki-girl. You’d do anything for the right story. She could almost hear her older brother taunting her, which was impossible as Andrew had been dead a long time. Her internal temperature seemed to drop as another car whooshed past and her wipers slapped the rain from the windshield.

Andrew, the star athlete.

Andrew, the exceptional student.

Andrew, groomed to follow his illustrious father’s footsteps.

Andrew, dead from a fall from a deck thirty feet above the ground.

Andrew, body broken, blood-alcohol level in the stratosphere, traces of ecstacy and cocaine swimming in his veins.

Andrew, a victim of an accident. Or had it been suicide?

Coincidence that only the week before he’d been turned down for law school by Harvard, his father’s alma mater.

Nikki set her jaw. Squinted into the night. It had been eight years since her elder brother’s death and still it lingered, a dark veil appearing when she least expected it. She shook off the old feelings of disbelief and despair as her little car shot past a milepost sign indicating Dahlonega was still nearly a hundred miles away.

She pulled into the next gas station/mini mart she came across and filled her tank. Inside, the acne-faced kid behind the counter looked about fourteen, but sold the guy in front of her a six-pack as if he’d done it all his short life. As she grabbed a Diet Dr. Pepper from a cooler, she overheard the customer, an unshaven guy in his late sixties with unruly gray eyebrows and a couple of teeth missing say, “What’s all the fuss up ta Blood Mountain?”

The kid rang up the sale, snagged the proffered bills and handed out change. “Don’t really know that much ’bout it, but a couple of hunters got spooked, one ended up fallin’ or bein’ pushed down a ravine. Got himself life-flighted to Mason General in Atlanta.”

Nikki, edging past the Cheetos, was all ears.

“I heard the police are crawlin’ all over the place. That they’re findin’ graves up there.”

The kid wasn’t about to show any interest. He lifted a shoulder and handed the customer his change.

“Ye-ep, old Scratch Diggers claims that they’ve already dug up two bodies.”

“What would Scratch know?”

“A lot. His wife works police dispatch.”

“Scratch talks too much.”

“Fer sure. But he usually gets his facts straight.”

Two bodies—maybe more. So what did that have to do with Pierce Reed? Nikki picked up a package of Doritos and a magazine, then perused the pages as if she were interested in the latest celebrity gossip. All the while her ear was trained on the conversation.

But it was over. The old guy was ambling toward the door with its quaint bell and high-tech video camera mounted over the jamb. “See ya later, Woodie. Say hi ta yer folks.”

“I will,” the kid promised as the bell rang and the customer left.

Nikki made her way to the checkout stand. “Is that true?” she asked, feigning innocence as she searched through her handbag for her wallet. “I couldn’t help but overhear what you were talking about. Are there really some bodies buried on Blood Mountain?”

“I don’t know. I was watchin’ the news a little while ago”—he hitched his chin toward a small black and white TV tucked beneath the counter. The reception was bad, the image of a reality show grainy—“and there was some news about graves being found up there, but the report was, how do they say it, ‘unconfirmed by police sources.’” He offered her a country-boy smile and added, “But as my daddy always said, ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire.’”

“Isn’t that the truth?” she agreed as she found a five and he made quick change. “How far is that from here?”

“Hour, maybe an hour and a half,” the clerk said as he bagged her items.

And in that time Norm Metzger and half dozen local news teams would beat her to the punch. She climbed into her car and eased onto the highway before gunning it. So the police weren’t talking. That wasn’t a surprise. Maybe she could get lucky. If Cliff Siebert would only tell her why Pierce Reed had been sent to the scene, then she’d have a new angle, possibly one she could use with Reed. She tapped her fingers on the wheel and bit her lip as she drove. Somehow, she had to get an exclusive with the reticent detective. There had to be a way to get to him. There always was. She just had to figure out how.

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