Page 26 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

Reed didn’t move. His breath stopped for a heartbeat.

“Could give you a motive.”

“Uh-huh,” he forced out, his pulse pounding in his brain. Bobbi? Pregnant? Three months pregnant? All the spit dried in his mouth. He remembered her in the hotel room on the island. Gauzy curtains fluttering on a breeze that smelled of the ocean. Her tousled dark hair, upturned nose, eyes smoldering with desire. “Was it good for you,” she’d cooed, her body still glistening with sweat. “Cuz, honey, if it wasn’t, we can try again.” She’d nibbled at his ear. Ever playful and blatantly sexual. She’d gotten to him. It had been early September…Labor Day weekend. He’d been able to look through the open window to the bay where sailboats skimmed the smooth water, their sails brilliant against an incredibly blue sky.

“We’ll x-ray the bodies and open ’em up while the lab work’s being done,” St. Claire was saying, cutting into the memory. “And we’ll try to get an ID on the other body.”

“Good.” Reed was barely listening. “Send me the report.”

“Will do.” St. Claire hung up and Reed dropped the receiver in its cradle. He swung his head around to look out the window where a street lamp glowed eerily and he noticed rain had begun to fall. The street glistened as a dark figure—little more than a shadow—darted across the street.

He ran a hand over his eyes and the shadow was gone. Maybe it had been his imagination. Or just someone outrunning the rain that was beginning to fall in fat drops. Damn it all, there was a good chance that Bobbi Marx’s unborn baby was his. Some sick son of a bitch had not only killed Bobbi, but the fetus as well.

Why?

Who?

Was she dead because of the pregnancy, or was that an accident?

Two in one, one and two.

Two in one—Holy Jesus, is that what the killer meant? He’d killed two in one? The baby and Bobbi. Had the bastard known she was pregnant? Reed’s jaw clamped so hard it ached.

He glanced at the digital display on his watch. Red numbers glowed on his wrist.

Tick tock, on goes the clock.

A clue. It had to be. They were racing against time…and the rest…

One, two, the first few. Hear them cry, listen to them die.

The sick bastard had to be indicating the victims. That these two were only the first…the few…how many more? Would he know them?

Sick inside, he realized that this was a taunt, probably written while Bobbi was alive. The murderer had been proud, cocky. Wanted to show off. Reed wondered if there had been time to rescue Bobbi from that hellish death if Reed had only been smarter.

There was no way…he’d received the letter and she’d already been buried alive. His fists clenched impotently. The letter had been addressed to him. Whatever was happening, it was personal. Between the killer and him.

Suddenly, Reed needed a drink. A stiff one.

Two in one, one and two.

What the hell did that mean?

Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

CHAPTER 5

Reed hadn’t answered her calls.

Nikki had left three voice mail messages in the span of four days at the police station. Detective Pierce Reed hadn’t seen fit to call her back. She’d gotten nothing. She’d even E-mailed, to no avail. The man was avoiding her, she decided as she finished her coffee and threw the dregs down her kitchen sink.

Things weren’t much better in Dahlonega. She’d driven back there, snooped around, talked to a sheriff who just plain stonewalled her and returned to Savannah with not much more than she’d started with. She’d figured that there was something important up by Blood Mountain, that Reed’s roots were the reason he’d been called up there to the killing ground…but so far, she’d been disappointed.

Her only consolation was that Norm Metzger, who had been rapid to be up in Lumpkin County, had come back pretty much empty-handed as well.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she’d confided to Jennings as she dressed. The cat was curled in the folds of her duvet while the seldom-used heater rumbled noisily, vainly attempting to warm the cold morning air that had seeped through the old windows of her apartment. Shivering, Nikki pulled on a black skirt and khaki sweater, then stepped into suede boots. She topped the outfit off with a suede jacket and decided she looked as good as she was going to. “If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain,” she said to the cat, “then the mountain will come…I guess I’m using every one of the old adages today. Booorrring, right?”

Jennings didn’t seem to notice or care. He leapt off the four-poster and trotted, tail high, to his food dish in the kitchen.

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