Page 44 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“There’s always his sister, Blythe.”

“Five years old at the time, twenty years later. Not credible.”

“But she’s in a wheelchair. A real victim. The judge will connect with her.”

“Not solid enough,” Reed said.

They both knew Morrisette was grasping at straws, that they’d lost the only credible witness at the scene. Other than Blondell, that is, but she was sticking to her story of the masked intruder. Reed had learned that from her new attorney, Jada Hill. Nonetheless, he still wanted to interview Blondell face-to-face, get a little insight on what made her tick. Though he was as disappointed as everyone else in the department about Niall’s change of testimony, he figured if Blondell was really guilty, as she probably was, then they’d figure out a way to keep her behind bars.

“You know there are already protests,” Morrisette said. “I saw it on television. People with placards at the governor’s office, demanding Blondell O’Henry stay in prison.”

“Caught it on the noon news. But there are still some people who believe she’s innocent. They’re out there as well.”

“A sucker born every minute,” she muttered. “If that’s true, what the hell happened to the masked stranger who came in, guns blazing? And why would she never name the father of the child she lost? Why act so distant and cold in the ER after a drive that took way too long, long enough for Amity to die? Blondell’s guilty. That’s all there is to it.” When she saw he was about to argue and play devil’s advocate, she waved him off. “If Flint Beauregard bribed the kid and somehow coerced him to testify against his mother, that’s a problem. But it doesn’t change the fact that she tried to kill all her kids in cold blood. All for the attention of a jerk-wad of a boyfriend.”

“Who hasn’t been located.”

“Do you blame him?” she asked. “Roland Camp is no damned prize, sure, but he thought his nightmare was over.”

“Guess he was wrong,” Reed said.

She reached into her pocket, found a pack of antismoking gum, and popped in a fat, little stick. “So where are we?”

“The lab is working overtime on the blood samples and cigarette butt, anything they can find that might be able to help. They’ve got Blondell’s clothes, which, presumably, still have GSR.”

“Gunshot residue she claimed came in the struggle for the gun,” Morrisette reminded. “Means nothing.”

“We’ve still got the remains of the snake.”

“I sure as hell hope Blondell O’Henry’s incarceration doesn’t hinge on what’s left of a twenty-year-old copperhead.”

“I’ve got Lyons searching for the new addresses of all the players from back then.” A junior detective, Denisha Lyons was the latest addition to the unit, smart as a whip, twenty-six, and eager to make her mark. “I’ve also got a call in to Acencio in Phoenix. He was out of town, but I spoke with the secretary for the Phoenix Detective Unit, and she said he should be back tomorrow.”

“Hopefully he can shed some light, since Beauregard’s no longer with us,” she said, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m thinkin’ we’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

“I know, Mom. I’m late, I get it. I’m on my way! You and Ariella can figure out the problem with the chairs!” Nikki clicked off and tossed her cell into the passenger seat, then swore a blue streak, hitting the gas.

“Calm down,” she told herself, easing off the accelerator a quarter mile later. There was no reason to drive like a madwoman through the city and hit a bicyclist or pedestrian like that ass who’d nearly hit her earlier—all because the color ivory wouldn’t go with white.

She shook her head in frustration. She really didn’t care about all the silly details that her mother found so important. All she wanted to do was get married in a simple ceremony, which she should have arranged to have done at the local courthouse. If she’d wanted something more romantic, she would have eloped to Fiji, Barbados, or Timbuktu. She could have gotten married anywhere other than her mother’s church, and she certainly didn’t have to have a reception at her father’s stuffy old country club.

She’d pointed all that out for the last time in late August when she’d dropped by to talk about the wedding with her mother and found her sister and niece already at the house, Charlene in the kitchen squeezing the last of the tea out of bags she’d had steeping in the sun. Pressing hard against the bags with a wooden spoon, Charlene watched the dark tea swirl into the already-amber water inside a glass Pyrex pitcher as Nikki had breezed in, armed with all kinds of excuses as to why the wedding needed to be scaled back.

“Hi, Mom,” Nikki had said, tossing her purse onto a bench in the entry hall and pressing a kiss into her mother’s pale cheek, seeing Lily and Phee already at the table.

“Were your ears burning? We were just talking about you,” Charlene said.

“That we were,” Lily agreed, grinning that secretive smile Nikki found so irritating.

“Aunt Nikki!” Phee ran toward her aunt to be swung off her feet. Her dark hair was untamed by pink barrettes that were barely visible in her mop of wild curls. Ophelia was six years old, full of questions and irrepressible energy, and Nikki adored her. If she’d ever thought she might not have children of her own, Phee had changed her mind completely. The little girl was definitely the apple of her eye.

Lily had never named Phee’s father, preferring to raise her daughter on her own. She loved being anti-establishment, loved butting up against her oh-so-traditional parents. Her hair was nearly long enough that she could sit on it, though she braided it and pinned it in an unruly coil on the nape of her neck.

Lily always looked so perfectly rumpled that Nikki bet she took pains to achieve that slightly unkempt style. In Nikki’s biased opinion, it was as time-consuming and self-involved as primping for the prom.

Nikki had played with Phee for a little while, chasing her through the house while her mother poured the tea over sugar and ice in the large glass pitcher her own mother had once used.

“Okay, sweetheart, I’ve got to talk to Grandma for a while,” she said to her niece.

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