Page 79 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

She needed to reopen the door, push the car into park, cut the engine, and snag her cell phone—all with the car moving and the snake lifting its head, poised to strike.

Gritting her teeth, she inched the door open.

Noiselessly, the pit viper watched.

Carefully she reached toward the center console and rammed the car into park.

The snake reared higher.

God help me. Whether the wound would be fatal or not, she didn’t want to get bit. Slowly, she let her hand slide down to the cup holder, her fingers wet with sweat, as she plucked the phone from its resting place.

Muscles in the copperhead’s coiled body seemed to flex.

Oh, sweet Mother Mary.

The keys were dangling so close to the snake . . .

Reptilian eyes held hers. Seeming to dare her.

For what? It wasn’t worth it. She backed out slowly and closed the car door. Her keys would have to stay put, as would the second set, her uncle’s, which were lying on the seat, and she hoped she wouldn’t have to explain them to anyone. She just didn’t have the nerve to risk the snake striking.

Heart thudding as the rain poured over her, she hit the speed-dial button for Reed’s cell phone. As the call connected, she searched the darkening forest for answers.

Who the hell was trying to scare her off the case?

And why?

CHAPTER 24

“I don’t know why you’re freaking out,” Nikki said as they headed back to her house in Reed’s boat of a Cadillac. Too old to be cool and too new to be “classic,” the car was a beast that Reed loved, and today, after her experience at the cabin, she was thankful he was at the wheel as they drove into the city.

“If whoever it was who planted the damned snake had wanted me dead, I would be. Anyone could have followed me out there and killed me, but they didn’t. They used a couple of snakes to scare me.”

Cold to the bone, she rode in the passenger seat of the Caddy. Reed’s jacket was slung over her shoulders as she sipped the coffee they’d picked up at a diner on the way into the city.

“Why would they go to all this trouble?”

“I don’t know, but I think someone’s trying to scare me off investigating what happened twenty years ago. It’s no secret that I’m digging around on the Blondell O’Henry case. Two articles have already come out in the paper, and another one is due the day after tomorrow. Maybe I’m making someone nervous, and they’re afraid I’ll uncover something they don’t want to see the light of day. A secret. A crime. I’m not sure, but it obviously has something to do with Blondell’s release and Amity’s death.”

“How did they know you were out here?”

“I don’t know.” God, she was tired of admitting that. “I didn’t tell anyone, not even you.”

“No one at the office?”

“No.” She frowned and looked out the window.

“So they must’ve followed you.”

She thought of her run-in with Metzger in the parking lot. Could he have watched her leave and what . . . followed her, parked somewhere nearby, grabbed a couple of snakes he just happened to have with him, and stick one in her car? She almost laughed at how ludicrous that was. Or how about Effie? Did she follow Nikki, and instead of surprising her at the coffee stand, just happen to show up at the cabin with, again, a couple of pit vipers?

“Someone planned this,” Nikki said, cradling her cup in her hands for warmth. The Cadillac’s heat was blasting, but she couldn’t seem to get rid of the chill that had seeped into her blood after being eye to eye with the copperhead.

Reed’s eyebrows were drawn together as he drove, the beams of headlights from cars and trucks moving in the opposite direction washing the interior of his car and illuminating his worried face. “How did whoever it was know you were going to be at the cabin?”

“Maybe they were already there, going to let the snakes loose or expecting someone else.”

“Who?” he asked.

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