Page 21 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

Now she’d served nearly twenty years of her life sentence in prison, which was nothing to dismiss, but there certainly wasn’t enough other circumstantial evidence to back up that conviction, and, of course, she couldn’t be tried twice for the same crime, should she be released. Was she guilty of the terrible, blood-chilling crime, or was she, as she had always maintained, truly innocent?

His job was to prove her guilt and allow the DA to pursue whatever path needed to be taken to see that Savannah’s most notorious female criminal remained behind bars.

Surprisingly, his fiancée, Amity O’Henry’s best friend, might hold the answers.

Rotating his head, he stretched the muscles in his neck. Nikki had been pushing him for information about the case. Now their roles were reversed, and he sensed she might be able to help him. If nothing else, he’d learn a lot more about the psychology of the victim.

Yes, he thought, kicking his chair away from the desk. The tables were about to be turned.

CHAPTER 7

Unfortunately, Aunty-Pen was right. Alexander McBaine wasn’t the man Nikki remembered.

Nikki had driven the five miles out of town to the Pleasant Acres Assisted Living Center, a long, low building set on the marshy banks of a creek. From the windows of their units, the residents could watch waterfowl in the reeds, but the alligators were kept away from the rolling expanse of lawn by a sturdy wire fence that encircled the yard.

Inside the facility, she and Aunty-Pen had made their way along a carpeted hallway with handrails and evenly spaced pictures to a wing housing the patients with dementia, her uncle’s new place of residence. Aunty-Pen had admitted that she did take him home on some weekends, just because it “broke her heart” to see him in the small apartment. She hoped being in his own surroundings would jog his memory, make him recall himself more clearly. So far that was a no-go.

Today, seated in a wheelchair in his studio apartment, Alexander McBaine was wearing a cardigan sweater over a white dress shirt that obviously had once fit and now was two sizes too large. Slacks that needed to be cleaned and slippers on the wrong feet completed his attire as he stared out a single window at a courtyard where feeders were attracting winter birds. Nikki’s throat tightened as she thought of the strapping attorney he’d once been, a man who had commanded attention, whose sharp mind had been pitted against those of the prosecution. He’d had flair, brilliance, and a winning smile that had hovered somewhere between sexy and hard.

Now, though, his grin was that of a simpler man.

For a second, she thought he recognized her, but soon she realized she’d been sadly mistaken.

“Hollis!” he cried happily, and tears filled his eyes as he beamed up at her from his chair and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Standing next to her, Aunty-Pen stiffened and looked away. “But I thought . . . oh, thank God! Silly me! I must have had a nightmare. Yes, Pen?” He glanced at his wife, whom he obviously still recognized, then turned his attent

ion to Nikki again. “I was afraid it was true, that you really had . . . died in an awful accident. But . . .” His voice drifted off with his confusion as reality and fantasy blended. Obviously, he’d thought Nikki was his long-dead daughter, her cousin Hollis, gone now, along with her brother, Elton. “Oh . . . dear . . . please . . . never mind. It’s just good to see you.” He blinked back tears, and Nikki, catching a look from her aunt, didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d been mistaken, that she was really his niece and not his precious Hollis. Instead, she hugged him close. He smelled of the same cologne she remembered from her childhood, but now it was no longer tinged with cigarette smoke as he’d obviously been forced to give up the habit here at Pleasant Acres.

“How are you?” she asked, and he offered up a little smile.

“All right, I guess.” He frowned a little then, his once-dark eyebrows knitting, his hazel eyes cloudy behind thick glasses that Aunty-Pen slid from his face.

“Look at these! How can you see anything?” she clucked, striding into the adjoining bathroom. Seconds later the sound of rushing water could be heard.

He chuckled. “Nothing’s ever clean enough for your mother.”

“She’s my aunt,” Nikki said. “I’m Nicole. Nikki. Ron and Charlene’s daughter.”

His expression went blank for a second, then worried lines etched across his brow. “Ronnie’s girl?”

“Yes. Nikki,” she repeated, smiling at him, and some of the clouds seemed to disappear for a second. “I’m a reporter with the Sentinel. The newspaper. You remember.” Please remember. When he didn’t respond, she added quickly, “I’m doing a story on Blondell O’Henry. You know. She was your client twenty years ago.”

“Blondell,” he repeated.

“Yes, she was accused of a horrible crime, of shooting her children.”

He shook his head.

“She swore she didn’t do it, and you represented her. She claimed a stranger burst into the cabin where they were staying and shot them all.”

“All?” he repeated.

“Blondell was injured too. Shot at close range in the arm. Gunshot residue was found on her blouse and skin, and the prosecution claimed she did it to herself.”

“Yes . . . Blondell.” Was there just the hint of a caress in his voice as he said her name? Then his eyes clouded.

“You remember her?”

He nodded slowly. “Oh, of course I do. Beautiful woman. Interesting.” His fingers moved a little, one hand straightening the cuff of his sweater with the other. “Not what she seemed.”

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