Page 107 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“We’re free, man,” Donny Ray insisted. He’d been Roland’s alibi for the night those kids were shot up, and it had worked out just fine for him as well, as he’d been cheating on his wife at the time. Sayin’ he’d been with Roland, rather than admitting to banging Wanda Colbert, had saved his marriage. For a little while anyway. Eventually Sharon had found out and served him with papers—the bitch!—but for that night, he’d been safe. Not that he’d ever felt good about it. After all, a girl had died, a pregnant girl. But Donny Ray had been true to his word, and luckily for everyone involved, Blondell hadn’t named Roland as being in the room with her; she’d come up with the stranger story instead.

Weird, that.

It was something he didn’t really get. Hell, he didn’t want to think about any of it, but here Roland was so nervous he was just twitching around, almost tweaking, though Donny Ray had never seen Roland touch meth or anything stronger than an occasional joint.

“Just be cool,” Donny Ray advised. “Everything will work out.”

“Not if that bitch gets out, man. No way. And not if that stupid Nikki Gillette keeps at it.”

“You gonna try and stop her?” Donny waved Roland off and caught the end of a three-point play. Beautiful shot. Nothing but net!

“I’ll have to. I’m gonna be counting on you again, man.”

“For an alibi?” Donny Ray didn’t like the sound of that. He’d stuck his neck out for Roland more times than he wanted to count and kept his mouth shut about the big one because it had served his purpose as well.

“What’re you plannin’?” Donny Ray asked cautiously.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m here, remember. If anyone calls, you just say I’m in the bathroom and I’ll call them back, then you phone my cell, tell me who called and what the score of the game is. Who made the last big play, so pay attention.”

“Jesus, Ro, what’s in it for me?” he asked, half-joking, then saw the glimmer of rage in his stepbrother’s eyes. He knew what that meant and backpedaled fast. “Just kiddin’, man—you know it. I’ve got your back. If anybody comes askin’, you and me, we were watchin’ this here game.” He pointed at the TV. “That’s it, tossin’ back a few cold ones and rooting on the Jaguars.”

“That would be good, bro,” Roland said as he opened the door of Donny’s mobile home. “That would be real good.”

As he left, Donny Ray didn’t know if his stepbrother’s final words were an observation or a warning.

Nikki stared at the images on Effie’s computer, and as she did, her shock gave way to anger, a sharp, pulse-pounding rage.

The picture of her on the porch of the cabin was just the first of dozens of photographs of Nikki and her family. Snapshots at the lake when she was a child, photos from school albums, Hollis riding her horse or in the dance studio, Elton in his football uniform or behind the wheel of his car, Aunty-Pen as a girl riding dressage or in college.

“What is this?” she said aloud.

There were newer shots as well. The house where she lived currently was featured, along with the one where she’d grown up. There was a photo of Uncle Alex’s home and the farm by the lake. Some of the pictures were older, some more recent. The cabin was featured prominently. Older shots, some with members of Nikki’s family, but newer ones as well.

What the hell was this and where the hell was Effie? Nikki had been sitting at the computer for more than half an hour and half-expected Effie to walk into her apartment and discover her, which, Nikki decided, would be just fine. She was itching for a fight, and she sure as hell needed to know what was going on.

She sorted through Effie’s pictures and realized she was in a folder marked “Family.” Yes, it was Nikki’s family, but . . . holy crap. Not Nikki’s family. But Effie’s. Somehow Effie had adopted Nikki’s family . . . adopted. Her mind began spinning with all the innuendos and quiet whisperings she’d heard, the skeletons that had kept rattling in the family closets, one of which was about her aunt. Hadn’t Nikki’s own mother intimated that Aunty-Pen wasn’t as lily-white as she’d pretended to be? And Hollis had made a few similar remarks.

All of a sudden the reason Effie reminded her of someone became increasingly clear. She was large for a woman, like Aunty-Pen, her eyes as blue as Penelope’s and Hollis’s.

No longer worried about breaching Effie’s privacy, Nikki kept searching the documents in her computer, looking for clues to the woman. She had little trouble as Effie kept her password taped to the desk on which the computer rested, allowing Nikki access to evermore-personal files: a copy of Effie’s birth certificate, with Aunt Penelope’s name listed as the mother, the father blank; adoption papers signed within two months of Effie’s birth; and finally the obituaries and death certificates of Nelson and Vivian Savoy, who, according to the obits, had no living relatives other than their daughter. Newspaper articles about the automobile accident that had taken their lives were in the file.

“Dear God,” Nikki said under her breath, as if the very walls could hear her. She found that Effie had joined a couple of Web sites dedicated to connecting adoptive children with their birth parents.

All of it was starting to make some kind of sense until she opened an album marked “Blondell O’Henry.” Just as there had been pictures of Nikki’s family, there were photos of Blondell and her children, her ex-husband, even some of June Hatchett, Leah, and Cain, a virtual family album of people connected to Blondell O’Henry. What now? Nikki wondered. Pictures and links to footage from the trial were included, and Nikki saw her own father in his judicial robes, as well as Alexander McBaine on the courthouse steps, smoking a cigarette, and Garland Brownell standing at a microphone.

It didn’t stop there, either. Not only did Effie have pictures of the players at the trial and shots of the crime scene, but there were photos of Blondell’s home before she was incarcerated and ones of the exterior of the prison. “What the hell are you doing, Effie?” Nikki said. Then she saw why Effie had been seen hanging around her station at work: she’d obviously lifted some of these pictures from Nikki’s database.

“Tit for tat,” she whispered, angry all over again, and when she opened Effie’s Word document file, she saw, big as life, the start of a long document with the working title “Mother or Monster: The True Story of Blondell O’Henry,” by Effie Savoy.

“You bitch,” Nikki whispered in wonder, realizing that Effie planned her own true-crime book about Blondell O’Henry’s case.

She went back to the photo library again and found an album marked “Research with RC.”

With a click of the mouse, Nikki was exposed to Effie Savoy’s private sex diary, photographs primarily shot in the bedroom of this apartment. The man who was tending to Effie’s sexual needs was obviously tall and muscular, with a few tattoos emblazoned across his broad back, but his face was generally turned away from the camera’s eye.

Only one photograph showed his features clearly.

Nikki’s heart nearly stopped.

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