Page 65 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“Okay,I’.m outta here,”Morrisette said as she stopped at Reed’s office.

It was after eight. They’d spent the day going over files and evidence and, of course, interviewing Blondell O’Henry and her daughter, Blythe, at her apartment and had tried to determine if talking to anyone else in the case was worthwhile. Tomorrow Reed would go over the testimony he hadn’t yet perused, and hopefully the lab would come back with updated reports on the evidence that was being retested. The DNA information would take several weeks, even though they’d asked for a rush job. They also wanted blood-spatter analysis and anything else with trace evidence that could be tested with new equipment and new eyes.

“It could be that she’ll be released,” Kathy Okano had told them earlier in the day at a short meeting in her office after lunch. “The state could decide that twenty years is enough, one way or the other.”

“But not if you have anything to do with it?” Reed had guessed from the side chair near her desk. For once, Morrisette had been seated as well.

“That’s right.” Okano’s jaw was set, her eyes thinning a bit behind the lenses of her glasses as she’d thought. Situated on her desk, her cell phone had started playing some tune and she’d quickly snapped it off, not missing a beat. “I told you, from reading the evidence, I think Blondell is guilty, but”—she’d held up one long finger and looked from him to Morrisette—“on the off chance she is innocent, then, of course, she should be freed immediately and somehow compensated.” Okano’s lips had pursed thoughtfully. “If that’s the case, and she really did not pull the trigger, then we need to find out who did.”

“The stranger with the serpent tattoo,” Morrisette had said. “Talk about a needle in a haystack!”

“I don’t care if it’s twenty haystacks. If we have to enlist the help of the public, through the press, then that’s what we need to do. Whatever it takes. We have to find the guy and put him away. Once we find him, we’ve got to have an air-tight case against him, get a conviction, lock him up, and throw away the key.”

“If the killer isn’t Blondell O’Henry,” Reed said.

Okano nodded, her blond bob bouncing. “Goes without saying.”

Morrisette outwardly agreed, and only later, as they were out of the ADA’s earshot, did she add, “Sure, why not?” She’d been walking quickly down the hall, her boot heels clicking on the hard floor. “And in our free time, we’ll find the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, and Amelia Earhart,” she’d added to Reed as they’d reached his office. “Isn’t it just great that some people think we can work miracles? It’s not just Okano. At least not for me. My kids are the worst. The absolute worst. They seem to think I can solve all the problems in the world, or at least in their world. I tell them life’s not fair, then work my ass off to try to make things right for them.” As Reed opened his mouth, she held up a hand. “I know I’ve done it to myself. Guilty as charged, but my point is, there are only so many damned miracles I can work in any given day. Like it or not, the assistant DA might just have to stand in line.”

She’d taken off again, her footsteps fading down the hallway, and Reed had decided to call it a night himself. He was tired and hungry and probably needed to work off some steam and frustration with a case that seemed to get more complicated rather than less as he tried to put together the pieces of a crime that was committed two decades earlier.

Mentally, he attempted to close up shop as he drove to Nikki’s house near Forsyth Park. The rain had stopped, the streets were drying, and the streetlights cast their blue glow over the city. At least traffic was light, though it wasn’t usually a problem as Nikki lived close enough to the station that often, if he’d spent the night, he walked to work the following morning.

Tonight he expected Nikki to pounce on him the minute he walked through the door. However, as he let himself into the apartment he was bombarded by a happily yipping Mikado; Nikki didn’t appear.

“Nik?” he shouted as he shrugged out of his coat.

“Up here! Down in a minute.”

He snagged a couple of bottles of beer from the fridge, opened them, then walked up the curved stairs to her working loft, where he found her at her desk, her fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Deadline?” he asked, then dropped one of the long-necked bottles onto the corner of her desk.

“Ummm. Yeah. Seems like there’s this big story, a woman convicted of killing her children twenty years ago is about to be released from prison? You heard about it?” She glanced up, her smile impish as her gaze met his, but her fingers kept moving, the keyboard clicking.

“I might have heard a rumor or two around the station.”

“Give me a sec.” She turned her attention to the computer monitor again. “I’m just about finished.”

“Take your time.” He unbuttoned his collar, then sat on the padded cushion of her window seat. It was dark now, but the backyard was visible because of landscaping lights placed strategically in the shrubbery.

She barely looked up, her attention riveted to her computer screen. As she concentrated, her smile fell away and her eyebrows drew together. He figured she might still be pissed at him for not taking her to the women’s prison today, but she seemed over that argument, at least for the moment.

As he took his first swallow of beer, he thought about their plans to live together after the wedding. They’d agreed that he’d give up his apartment and move in. It was the sensible solution. He’d put what he’d saved for his own house into their combined finances, and they’d refinance the house together. It sounded good on paper, but there was a part of him that worried, as this was really her house, great as it was. He’d use the second bedroom as his home office and study, and ditch everything but his flat-screen, recliner, and desk. Still, he knew it would be better if they found a place together. He’d s

aid as much, and she’d shrugged, saying there was plenty of room in this house, that they could, as their family grew, expand to the lower levels and give up the tenants.

He hadn’t fought the idea.

And it was an incredible house, close enough that he could walk to the station house.

For now, they could make it work.

“There!” She looked up from the computer and gave him a satisfied smile. “Done and submitted. Take that, Norm Metzger.” Snagging the beer from the corner of her desk, she joined him on the bench seat, sitting close enough to drape one leg over his. “So are you going to tell me about your day? How’d it go with Blondell?” She took a long swallow from her bottle, and he noticed her throat as she swallowed.

“As well as could be expected.”

“She’s still claiming her innocence?” she asked, shifting, her leg sliding against his.

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