Only a maniac would drive like this on such a bleak night.
Sirens wailing, blue and red lights flashing, a cop car caught up with him and passed him on the fly.
Morrisette was at the wheel.
“Go get him, Sylvie,” Reed ground out. “I’m right behind you.”
Within minutes he saw the turnoff to Adams Cemetery and he braced himself. What were the chances that she was still alive?
The gun slipped away as the coffin swayed and swung, ever slowly making its descent into the grave.
No! Oh, no! Not buried alive!
Frantic, gasping for breath, her fingers scrabbling, searching, glancing off the butt of the gun, Nikki tried to think of another way to free herself.
There was none.
This was it.
If she could only reach the pistol before six feet of sodden earth covered her.
Come on, come on, Nikki, don’t give up. Grab it, grab it now!
Her middle finger felt cold steel, then her index finger. Straining, concentrating, she slowly eased the small caliber weapon from its sheath.
Now—if only it was loaded.
Dirt rained onto the top of the coffin.
Give me strength. Please, God…
She dragged in a breath that only made her head swim. Blackness closed in. Oh, no…she couldn’t lose it now. If she blacked out, she’d never awaken. She’d be doomed.
More pebbles and clods clattered above her.
Gritting her teeth, she forced her body lower, her knees scraping the top of the casket. It was there…If she could just force the handle into her palm.
The noise in the coffin was deafening as rocks and dirt hit the wooden sides.
Come on, Nikki, grab the damned gun.
But her thoughts were disjointed and slow.
Don’t lose it now, Nikki. You can’t. It’s now or never.
Sirens! Shit, he’d have to work fast. How had Reed figured it out so quickly? Shit, he’d spent too much time trying to get a response from Nikki! The Survivor looked into the darkness and concentrated. The sirens were screaming far away, still in the distance, but heading in this direction. He had to get his work done fast and disappear. He already had another car parked on the far side of the fence. All he had to do was scale the wrought iron, make his way down a path, across a small river and there was another vehicle waiting.
Even dogs wouldn’t find him.
But first he had to finish here. Only a few more scoops, but his microphone wasn’t picking up much, just a few scrapes and kicks, but that didn’t indicate Nikki was alive. Or conscious. Those sounds could be from the movement of the coffin.
He felt unsatisfied.
Empty.
He’d so wanted Nikki Gillette to know her fate.
She deserved to realize what was happening to her, that there was no way out, that she would suffer, that she wouldn’t survive. Not like he had.
But he didn’t have time to open the lid and check on her.
The police were getting closer. He heard their sirens, saw the lights strobing the night sky.
Too late, Reed,
he thought, throwing in one final shovel of dirt.
Dragging in a breath of stale air, she extended her fingers, nudged the tiny weapon into her hand and pointed the barrel at the roof of the coffin. There was a chance the bullet wouldn’t go through, that it would ricochet back at her or lodge in the earth above.
She had no other option.
And her thoughts were thick. Time and air were running out. She gasped. Coughed. Tried to think straight.
Reed.
If only she could see Reed one last time…
Hand slick with sweat, body cold as ice, she forced the muzzle of the gun upward, she wrapped her finger around the trigger, sucked in what was left of her air and squeezed. “Die, you son of a bitch!”
Pain.
Hot searing pain shot up his leg and the sound was deafening. What the hell had happened? The Survivor looked down at his leg and saw the blood oozing, felt the burning. Who’d shot him? He saw the lights now. The cops were closing in. He had to get away.
He started hobbling toward the back fence, but his damned leg buckled. Gritting his teeth, he turned, tripping, falling over himself. Shit.
Sirens screamed, tires crunched and headlights cut through the night.
“Shit!”
He was cornered.
But not beaten.
He dropped back into the pit and waited.
A gunshot had echoed through the graveyard.
Reed, weapon drawn, sprang from his car.
Nikki,
he thought,
oh, please be alive.
He saw the truck and the fresh grave, mist swirling up from the wet dirt, the rain having abated to a fine drizzle.
“Police!” he yelled. “Legittel, drop your weapon!”
Behind him, he heard footsteps, then Morrisette’s voice barking instructions. “Siebert, call for backup,” she yelled. “Reed, don’t do anything stupid.”
Reed didn’t listen. Eyes fixed on the open grave, he ran forward.
“Reed!” Morrisette screamed. “Don’t! Stop! Oh, crap!”
He knew he was taking a chance, but didn’t care. Nikki’s life was being smothered from her and he had to do whatever he could.
“Police,” he yelled again, advancing on the pit. It was so dark. He should wait for backup, should wait for a flashlight, shouldn’t sacrifice himself nor put himself into a potential hostage situation, but he didn’t have time to think of anything but Nikki.
He flung himself into the pit and saw the Grave Robber huddled in one corner. At the instant Reed jumped in, Joey sprang and Reed saw it then, the glint of a knife.
Pain jarred up his shoulder.
He fired, careful to aim level and not downward, not toward Nikki.
“You bastard,” he growled as Joey hacked wildly.
“Kill me,” he taunted, breathing heavily, teeth flashing, blood visible. Reed cuffed him with the gun. Joey gave up a yelp, but fought back, surprisingly strong, muscles honed, dark eyes flashing with rage.
“You promised,” he squealed as Reed placed the gun to his head and pulled one hand behind his back. “You lying bastard, you promised to come back and you didn’t.”
“Get up, Joey. It’s over.”
“Shoot me.”
“No way, you piece of shit. Put your hands on your head and—”
Joey flung himself away, his wet clothes slipping through Reed’s fingers. Whirling on his good leg, he slashed wildly with his knife.
A gun barked. Joey’s body jerked and the knife clattered away.
“I’ll live with it,” Morrisette said. “Now, let’s get that piece of shit out of here.”
Reed was already on his knees. Digging frantically with his hands. “Nikki!” he yelled. In a scene of déjà vu he pulled at the dirt with his bare hands and heard something…scratching? Coughing?…from inside the buried coffin.
“Nikki? Oh, God, Nikki, hang on.” He was digging furiously, flinging mud over his shoulders. “I need help here!” His fingers touched solid wood, then splintered wood and a small hole in the casket from the bullet that had incapacitated Joey Legittel. Another officer jumped into the pit with him. Together they scraped off the mud, found the microphone and tore it out, allowing air into the coffin.
“Get me out of here!” she cried, gasping and coughing from inside. He thought it was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard. “For the love of God, Reed, get me the hell out of here!”
Within minutes he’d scraped the mud away, pried the coffin open and Nikki, frantic, eyes wide, body shaking, flung her naked body into his arms. She was gasping and crying and choking and screaming.
Reed looked into the casket and cringed.
The other body was that of her father, the Honorable Ronald Gillette.
Christ, what a mess.
Throwing his wet coat over her shoulders, he carried Nikki through the mire to his waiting El Dorado. How close he’d come to losing her. How damned close.
EPILOGUE
Nikki sipped coffee and stared out at the gray light of dawn. The sky was cloudless, the coming morning in sharp contrast with the dark events of two weeks earlier and that harrowing night where she’d nearly died. If she thought too closely about it, she would feel the fear again. The darkness. But she wouldn’t allow herself to go there. At least not yet.
She’d healed physically and mentally she was improving daily, enough to gain some perspective about the rest of her life.
Christmas was only a few days away and Nikki hadn’t yet put up a single strand of lights, nor had she found a little tree to dress up her apartment. It would be a difficult season this year, without her father, with her mother still recovering.
It was Saturday and she felt lazy, finishing her first cup of the day. Jennings was curled on his perch upon the bookcase, Mikado at Nikki’s feet and the monitor of her computer screen said nothing but Page One.
The beginning of her novel.
About the Grave Robber, a tortured soul who had named himself The Survivor, according to the police. Joey Legittel, a boy who had suffered at the hands of Chevalier before snapping and killing his family and framing the man who had tormented him. From there it had been foster homes and an adulthood that had been filled with no relationships and piecemeal jobs usually at video stores where he had purchased the movies of vengeance.
It was all so horrid. He’d even realized that his last name was an acronym for Gillette and had scribbled her name and his all over his scarred table where he’d kept a scrapbook of the trial.
Now, the exterior steps squeaked and Mikado began to bark and run to the door. “I think it’s someone you know,” Nikki said just as a sharp rap on the door caused the dog to go into conniptions.
Her pulse quickened as she scraped back her chair. The cat stretched as if bored and Mikado twirled crazily.
After rescuing her from the coffin, Reed had held her close and insisted she go to the hospital. For most of the night he’d been with her, at her bedside, only taking time off to fill out reports or converse with the other cops. His own wound had been virtually ignored.
The Grave Robber was no more.
He’d died that night. Morrisette had put him away before he’d had the chance to kill Reed with the very knife that he’d used to butcher his family twelve years before, a knife he’d somehow hidden, then retrieved and held in a drawer in the lair the police had found, a small dugout room with recording equipment, televisions, movies, and a bloodstained bureau wherein underwear from his victims had been stashed. The lair was in the home of an elderly woman who’d paid him to house-sit. He had barely used the rest of the huge manor deep in the heart of Savannah. But now he was dead. After having taken so many lives. Including Simone’s.
Casting off the brutal memories, Nikki reached the door and pulled it open.
Clean shaven, in jeans and a sweater, Reed stood on her porch. He was juggling two cups of coffee and a bag of pastries and his eyes lighted as he spied her. “Mornin’,” he drawled.
Mikado launched himself at Reed’s legs and Jennings shot outside, escaping.
“Back at ya, Reed.” Standing on her tiptoes, she brushed her lips across his beard-roughened cheek. “Come on in. What brings you up here?” she teased.
“Just doin’ my duty, ma’am,” he drawled.
“My ass.”
“And a fine one it is.” Lifting a dark eyebrow he took an exaggerated look at her bottom though she was completely covered in a thick bathrobe.
“Always nice to know.” She took the sack and cups of coffee from him so that he could pet the dog for a few minutes as she cut up the pastries—a cinnamon roll and honey drizzled croissant.
“So, how are you, really?” He was suddenly serious. “I know it’s been a couple of weeks, but you haven’t really said.”
Which was true. Since the murders they’d kept conversation between them light. Teasing. Getting to know each other.
“Traumatized, of course, but I think I’ll survive.” Hearing her words, she cringed inwardly. Joey Legittel had also survived—once. Only to end up a serial killer who’d terrorized her and this town.
“And your mom?”
“She went home two days ago, but a nurse stops in daily and I visit every day. So do Lily and Kyle.” Nikki sighed and leaned a hip against the counter. “I don’t know if Mom will ever be right. She saw such horror and she was frail to begin with. Lily and Phee, my niece, plan to move into the house for a while, and Sandra’s there to help out with the cooking and cleaning, so we’ll see how it goes. It’ll take time.”
She wiped the knife clean with her fingers. “So, your theory is that Joey Legittel not only killed Chevalier, but his mother, sister and brother as well because they didn’t protect him.”
“Yep. He was the youngest and thought everyone had sold him out. He was beaten and forced to do unthinkable acts as well as have them performed on him. With members of his family. The only way to free himself from Chevalier was to set him up. So he killed all his family, and tromped through the blood in Chevalier’s boots, even managed to slice his own arms, legs and shoulder without hitting anything vital and somehow hid the weapon, then claimed Chevalier was to blame.”
“But to kill your own mother, and your siblings.” Nikki felt a chill as cold as death.
“They were the enemy. They didn’t protect him. He contacted me, sent me up to Dahlonega to get my attention and throw us off. I was the junior detective who had collared Chevalier, but I didn’t have enough evidence to send him to Death Row. Neither did your dad or the other jurors.”
“And he accused me of nearly causing a mistrial.”
“Right.
“So, does this mean you and Morrisette get big promotions for exposing him?” She placed the plates on her small table and shoved her laptop to one side.
“No, but I might get to keep my badge. And even Cliff Siebert might get to keep his. He fessed up, you know. That he was the leak.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. No one twisted his arm.”
“Yeah, I kinda did.”
“He’s a big boy. So, what about you? What are you going to do with your life?”