Page 94 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

CHAPTER 21

It was time to move. He could feel it. The restlessness. The need. The hunger, a craving he could satisfy only one way. He turned on the tape player, listened to the screams. Barbara Jean’s were desperate, panicked, shrieking and begging, while the old lady’s were reduced to mewling and prayers…. He’d blended the two together and as he sat at his table, running his fingers over the plastic coated pictures—graduation shots, business photographs, even a prom picture, he closed his eyes, imagining what it would sound like when all of the damned had been captured, buried and recorded. His eyes moved rapidly beneath his eyelids, his hands shook and yet he smiled as he imagined their fear, sensed their terror, wondered if they would ever understand why they were being punished, why the retribution.

Twelve years had passed…and now all twelve tormentors would pay…one or two at a time…they would live his hell, feel his pain, experience the torture that he had suffered. Some had died already, others had no idea that their days on earth were about to end. Some lived nearby. In this very

neighborhood, living their lives without concern, others had drifted to more distant vicinities, but he knew where they had landed and they could not hide. No, they were not safe.

The tape clicked to a stop and he closed his scrapbook.

It was time.

Leaving the televisions glowing, he slipped through his private entrance and up the vine covered brick stairs to the brisk air of the night. The storm was coming. Ice and sleet headed south from Tennessee and the Carolinas. Unusual for this climate. But perfect. He felt its breath, coveted the chill it would bring to his victims.

The drive to the river was uneventful. The night quiet. He hid his truck nearly a mile away from his boat’s hiding spot, parking in a lane overgrown with brambles. Then he jogged back to the sandy dunes where he’d tucked the rowboat with its specialized equipment. Quickly, he stripped off his street clothes and pulled on a wet suit that was as black as the night. It was now or never, he thought, knowing the risks, anticipating resistance from a security guard or dogs. As much as he hated guns, he was prepared, the Glock in a water-tight pouch. Shoving off, he glanced to the stars, high above thin clouds, and a slice of moon barely visible. With even strokes he paddled against the current, his eyes trained on the shoreline and the point that jutted into the river.

Stroke, stroke, stroke, the little boat knifed through the water as he sweat inside the tight suit. Around the bend in the river, closer to the shore, to the old Peltier Plantation. Once renowned for the rice it grew, the plantation was now home to a private cemetery and one very special plot. He guided his craft to the shoreline, donned night-vision goggles and saw the path that curved upward to the higher ground to the graveyard. Carefully, he removed his tools from the boat. Creeping silently, he made his way up the smooth dirt trail and walked unerringly through the graying headstones until he found the grave he was looking for.

Then he began to dig.

The woman was writhing beneath him, whispering his name, sweating and hot. White, slick skin, breasts with dark areolas, legs that wound around his as he made love to her. “Pierce,” she whispered against his ear, and his blood sizzled in his veins. God, she was hot. And slick. The scent of her perfume mingled with the heady, musty odor of sex.

Her back arched and he opened his eyes, staring down at her dark eyes. She licked her red lips, her tongue flicking outward. He pumped harder. Faster.

“Don’t leave me,” she whispered and he felt a niggle of doubt. As hard as he was, he sensed something wrong. “He’ll kill me.”

“What?”

Oh, God, he was gonna come. He held onto a breast, felt it shift and looked into her eyes again, but they were no longer a deep, warm brown, but green, her hair a red-blond, a dusting of freckles bridging her nose. “Nikki?”

She smiled up at him, a naughty provocative smile, her eyes nearly laughing. He felt a moment’s confusion, but she reached up and wound her arms around his neck, dragged his head down to hers, kissed him hard, her mouth opened to him, inviting more. Her tongue found his, twisted and mated. God, he wanted all of her. He lifted her legs to his shoulders and plunged deeper into her moist warmth.

“That’s it, Reed,” she whispered throatily, moving with him, her heart beating wildly, her breath as rapid as his own. “More…more…”

Dear God, he was lost inside her.

“Help me! Pierce, please…I’m cold…please…” She screamed beneath him, but not the wild, abandoned cry of passion. It was an ear-splitting, terror-riddled shriek that tore through his brain. She changed then, morphing from Nikki to Bobbi in his arms, and her eyes, so recently burning with desire, widened in terror and glazed over, her face becoming a death mask. He tried to move and realized that he couldn’t. That they weren’t making love in a bed, but a box…a coffin, and someone was bolting down the lid.

His heart seemed to stop. He tried to move, but couldn’t as the coffin’s lid was pushing downward, against his shoulders and back, pressing him into Bobbi, now dead, her flesh disintegrating beneath him, the stench overpowering…“No!” he yelled.

His eyes flew open at the sound of his own voice.

Heart thudding, he found himself in his dark apartment, only the ghoulish light from the television giving off any illumination whatsoever. “Damn it,” he muttered, running a shaking hand over his chin. Sweat dried on his body as his erection withered, thankfully, but his muscles were still tense. His half-drunk beer was on the side table where he’d left it as he’d clicked on the eleven o’clock news. Which was now long over. Instead, Jay Leno was interviewing Nicole Kidman. Reed clicked off the set, then snapped on a table lamp. Jesus, where had that dream come from? His skin crawled when he remembered the feeling of sheer panic at being locked in the coffin…and why had he pictured himself making love to Bobbi, then Nikki, then Bobbi as a corpse…as if they were all one woman?

He’d been working too hard, that was it. The case was consuming him. He rubbed the kinks from his neck and picked up the can of beer. It was now warm. He downed it anyway.

Though he wasn’t officially on the Grave Robber case, he spent all his time away from the office trying to piece the clues together. Morrisette was reticent to give him much information and Cliff Siebert was worse, clamming up whenever Reed was around, glaring at him as if he were somehow the enemy.

Why?

They were all on the same team.

Or were they?

Reed had done a little digging on the younger detective and discovered that over ten years ago, before he was on the force, Siebert had been friends with Andrew Gillette, Nikki’s older brother, who, from all outward appearances, had taken a leap off a deck at a frat party. Suicide? Accident? Who knew? All the reports Reed had sifted through had been inconclusive. But Siebert was connected to Nikki Gillette and, at least according to one of Siebert’s college roommates, had been “hot” for her.

Well, join the club, Cliff.

Reed would hate to examine his own feelings for the wild-haired reporter. Lately, they’d become blurred. Confused.

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