Page 72 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“I decided to stay. My family’s here,” she clipped out.

“Well, so is mine, but it looks like I’m gonna have to move.”

“What?”

“For the love of God, don’t look so shocked! You know how it is with the newspaper business. Everything’s gone digital and online, papers are closing all over the country, and the Sentinel is hanging on by a thread. We’ve lost advertisers, and the paper’s half the size it was ten years ago.”

“Yes, but—”

“I’ve been put on part-time, Gillette. Kind of like you. Only I don’t have a big book deal in the wings to fall back on. And I haven’t been assigned to the O’Henry case, just the biggest crime story to hit this town in years.”

“But there are other news stories,” she protested.

“An assault on the waterfront? A break-in out on Victory? Maybe a domestic violence call somewhere in the suburbs? Sure. Those stories are out there, but come on, the story to rock this town, the one that will sell papers? It’s yours.”

“I won’t lie,” she admitted. “I want this one.”

“So you can write a damned book about it. You know what that means? I’ll tell you! It means Della and I are probably packing up the kids and moving to Atlanta or Jacksonville. Luckily, I’ve got a couple of leads on jobs there. It would be reporting on their Web sites, not the actual paper, though, but I can’t even do that here. Effie Savoy’s already tied up that job.”

“I’m sorry about your position,” she said. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well. ‘Them’s the breaks,’ eh? I’ve even enrolled in a couple of computer classes to get me up to speed so that I can compete with twenty-two-year-old kids who have been using computers since they were teething.” His eyes narrowed as the first drops of rain began to fall. “How do you think that’ll go? And I’m looking the big five-oh in the eye. But you, with your whole damned life ahead of you, planning a big wedding and writing books and picking the plum stories for the Sentinel—for you, life isn’t quite so tough.” He shook his head in disgust. “Why the hell do I bother?” he muttered, then stormed back to his SUV, threw himself behind the wheel and drove off, his tires squealing as he punched the gas.

Nikki stood for a minute, rain now peppering down as she watched him leave. He wasn’t wrong. Everything he’d said, including the ugly part about her ambitions trumping his need to make a living, was true. As she walked to her car she couldn’t help but feel bad. The guy was older than she was, fifty pounds overweight, and a smoker, all of which didn’t mean diddly, but he was raising five kids and was caught, like so many people, in the economic changes affecting their industry. Should she hand him over the story?

No. The O’Henry story was one symptom of a larger problem: that Norm had let himself become a dinosaur. His downward spiral didn’t have anything to do with her personally. He would have to fight back any other ambitious reporter who wanted to take over the crime beat, as would she. Norm had been part of the “good ole boy” network for years, and now she was making him work a little harder. That’s the way it was in this cutthroat business.

Still, her already sour stomach ached a little more as she drove out of town by rote, turning on the wipers, stopping for red lights and pedestrians, making the proper turns without really thinking about it.

Metzger was on her mind, true, as was all the other information she’d gathered in the past few days on the O’Henry case. She thought about her uncle’s files, wishing she knew where the rest of the information was. Typed up on hard copy or stored somewhere else, she believed.

Her mind wandered to Amity O’Henry, and she made a sudden decision: she would go to the cabin herself and take a look around. If she couldn’t find any hard facts, she would at least get a feel, a mood for her book.

Acting on her new plan, Nikki drove past the city’s storefronts and subdivisions into lush countryside and rolling fields. Storm clouds rolled across the thick grass where horses and cattle grazed. A frisson slid down her spine, and she glanced in her rearview mirror. Cars were following her, of course, but at a distance, and she doubted any of the drivers were tracking her. She was just being spooked by thoughts of the cabin.

With an effort, she turned back to her thoughts. She hadn’t had any luck connecting with Roland Camp, and when she’d tried for another, more personal interview with Calvin O’Henry, June had said flatly, “Leave us alone.”

She hadn’t added a threat. No “or else” tagged to the end of the edict, but Nikki had gotten the feeling that it was implied. She’d done some research on Calvin’s second family and found that all the children from their previous marriages had abandoned the couple. Just

lately, Niall seemed to be reunited with his father, but Blythe was estranged from June and Calvin, and as for June’s children, Leah Hatchett was married and living in Augusta, more than two hours away, and seemed to keep her distance. Cain Hatchett remained closer and resided in a small town to the east. A logger who drove monster trucks, he too had his own life, separate from June’s. As for Emma-Kate, the child Calvin and June had brought into this world, she was living on her own, downtown, but Nikki hadn’t bothered with her yet as she hadn’t even been born when her oldest half-sister was killed.

Her phone rang, and she attached the headset for her Bluetooth device into her ear. “Hello?”

“Is this a good time to talk?” Ina’s raspy voice came in clear as a bell.

“Good as any.”

“I spoke with Remmie. She read your synopsis and flipped over the idea. She’s taking it to the editorial meeting, and I’m sure they’ll accept it, but here’s the deal: Knox is going to want a fast delivery on this, and they want it unique, you know, like the first two books. The more insight into the Amity character, the better.”

“She was my friend. Not a character in a novel.”

“I know, but you get what I mean, right? Let’s tell the story through her eyes, if possible, and then after she’s killed, it can be a little more clinical, less personal, except—and here’s the kicker—Remmie would like the telling of the murder to come from Blondell’s viewpoint. In the end, since this is true crime and not fiction, you can go more into the police work, and anything from your fiancé’s perspective would be great.”

“I’m not sure I can deliver on all that,” Nikki said, a little uncomfortable.

“Well, just keep on it, and push that personal connection. I’ll keep you posted on what Remmie says.”

She hung up, and Nikki was left feeling as if she were treading on Amity O’Henry’s grave, trying to sensationalize and make a buck out of a tragedy, rather than present a true account of her friend’s life and death.

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