by Lisa Jackson
She could almost hear the gears turning in her agent’s mind. In her midforties and shrewd as hell, Ina was barely five feet tall and the only agent in New York who had wanted to take a chance on Nikki when she’d submitted her first manuscript. Ina had seen what others couldn’t and now, damn her, she was trying to wring out of Nikki that same essence to the story. “So get creative,” she suggested and Nikki heard bracelets jangling as she moved the phone. “Maybe, this time, not a serial killer, per se.”
“Just a really sick monster with some kind of a blood fetish.”
“Or foot, or hand or breast. Or whatever twisted obsession turns him on.” Ina laughed, deep and throaty from years of cigarettes. “Yeah, that would probably work.” Clearing her throat, she added more earnestly, “You know the book is due in six months. It has to be published next year if we don’t want to piss off the publisher and keep the Nikki Gillette brand out there.”
Oh, Nikki knew all right. The date was circled in red on two calendars and highlighted in her virtual office as well. She wasn’t about to forget and she really couldn’t. The Sentinel was struggling, and was a slim remnant of its former self. Layoffs had been massive and painful. Nikki was working part-time for the paper and lucky to have a job. More and more, she relied on the advances and royalties from her books. Between the economy, new technology and her own ambition, she’d backed herself into a financial corner. She would be an idiot if she didn’t make this work. “Okay, okay. I’ll come up with something,” Nikki heard herself say and, as she hung up, wondered what the hell it would be.
She didn’t take the time to think about it now. Instead, she flew down the circular stairs to her bedroom below, peeled off her jeans and sweater and stepped into her running gear, old jogging pants and bra, a stained T-shirt and favorite, tattered sweatshirt with a hood. She’d never been one for glamor when she was working out. Her running shoes were ready, near the back door and after lacing them up, and tossing the chain with her house key dangling from it over her head, she took off, sprinting to the front of her home and ignoring the coming darkness. Her mind was a jumble, not just from the pressures of coming up with a blockbuster idea for a new book, but about the marriage to Reed. In her family, happily-ever-afters rarely occurred and now she was planning to marry a cop; a cop with a tarnished reputation in San Francisco who had left a string of broken hearts from the Golden Gate on the West Coast to Tybee Island here on the Eastern Seaboard.
“You’re an idiot,” she muttered under her breath as she jogged in place, waiting for a light so she could run through Forsythe Park. And deep inside a hopeless romantic. The light changed, just as one last car, a Honda exceeding the speed limit, scooted through on the red, and Nikki took off again.
Starting to get into her rhythm, her heartbeat and footsteps working together, she ran beneath the canopy of live oaks with their graceful branches dripping with Spanish moss. Usually the park had a calming effect on her, but not today. She was jazzed and irritated, Ina’s call only adding to her stress level.
Get over it; you can handle this. You know you can.
The air was heavy with the scent of rain, the clouds moving slowly overhead a deep, dusky gray, the weather warm, even for November. If she was lucky, she might be able to get home before the storm broke and before night completely descended on this city she’d called home for most of her life.
A few pedestrians were walking on the wide paths where street lamps were just beginning to come on. A woman pushing a stroller, and a couple walking a pug made her feel a little calmer, because the truth of the matter was that Nikki wasn’t as confident as she seemed, wasn’t the pushy cub reporter who’d been irrepressible and fearless in her youth. Truth to tell, she’d had more than her share of anxiety attacks since her up-close-and-personal meeting with the Grave Robber and to this day small, closed-in spaces, especially in the dark, freaked her out. So she ran. In the heat. In the rain. In the snow on the very rare times it fell in this part of the country. She didn’t need a shrink to tell her she was trying to run from her own demons or that her claustrophobia was because of her past. She was well aware that she was walking on the razor’s edge of some kind of minor madness. If there were such a thing as “minor” when applied to her kind of anxiety.
So she ran. Mile after mile, and as she did, the nightmares that came with restless sleep and the fears of tight closed-in spaces seemed to shrivel away and recede, if only for a little while. The exercise seemed safer than a psychiatrist’s couch or a hypnotist’s chair or even confiding in the man she loved.
You’re a basket case. You know that, don’t you.
“Oh, shut up,” she said aloud.
By the time the first raindrops fell, she’d logged in three laps around the perimeter of the park and she was beginning to breathe a little harder. Her blood was definitely pumping and she slowed to walk off a calf cramp that threatened as she veered into the interior of the park again, only to stop at the tiered fountain. Sweat was running down her back and she felt the heat in her face, the drizzles of perspiration in her hair. Leaning over, hands on her knees, she took several deep breaths only to straighten and find herself alone in the park aside from a solitary dark figure.
Gone were the dog walkers and stroller pushers or other joggers. No, in this cloudburst, she and the man in black were alone.
Her heart clutched and a sense of panic bloomed for a second as the stranger, an Ichabod Crane figure dressed in black, stared at her from beneath the wide brim of his hat, his eyes hidden.
Every muscle in her body tensed.
It was so dark now, even with the streetlights casting off an eerie hue.
It’s nothing, she told herself, but, with one final glance at him over her shoulder, took off and sprinted home.
He’s just a guy in the park, Nikki. Sure, he’s alone. Big deal. So are you.
Nonetheless, she raced as if her life depended upon it and as the rain began in earnest, fat drops falling hard enough to splash and run on the pavement, she rounded the huge old mansion she now owned, and taking the key from the chain on her neck, unlocked the back door.
Once inside, she threw the dead bolt and leaned against the door, gasping for breath, trying to force the frantic images of confinement and darkness from her brain.
You’re okay. You’re okay. You ARE O—
Something brushed her leg.
She jumped, letting out a short scream before recognizing her cat attempting to mosey through a series of figure eights around her legs. “For the love of God, Jennings, you scared the crap out of me!”
When had she become such a wimp?
But she knew . . . trapped in a coffin, listening to dirt being tossed over her, feeling the horror of a dead body beneath her . . . in that moment her confidence and take-the-world-by-the-throat attitude had crumbled.
She’d been fighting hard to reclaim it ever since.
She was safe now, she told herself, as she checked the door to see that it was locked a second time, then a third and finished a perimeter check of the house before downing a glass of water at the kitchen sink, where her window looked out over a private garden. Rinsing her glass, she sneaked a glance at the gate. Still latched.
Good!
Kicking off her shoes, she gathered herself and walked through her bedroom to the bath and saw her wedding dress wrapped in its plastic bag, hanging from a hook on the closet door. Her heart tightened a bit and she ignored the thought that she was marrying Reed for security’s sake.
That wasn’t true, she knew, peeling off her sweatshirt. She loved Reed. Wildly. Madly. And yet . . .
“Oh, get over yourself.” In the shower she relaxed a bit and once the hot spray had cleaned her body and cleared her mind, she felt better. There was no dark sinister madman after her any longer. She loved Reed and they were going to get married. Her bank account was low, but she could sustain herself a few more months . . . so all she had to do was come up with a dynamite story for her publisher.
“Piece of cake,” she said as she twisted off the taps and wrapped her head in a towel. “Piece of damned cake.”
In twenty minutes she was back at her desk, a power bar half eaten, a Diet Coke at her side. She was scanning the newsfeed on her computer when she saw the breaking news report run beneath the screen. Blondell O’Henry to be released from prison.
“What?” she said aloud, disbelieving.
Blondell had already spent years behind bars, a woman who was charged and convicted of killing her own daughter, Amity, and, as it turned out, her unborn grandchild. Blondell’s two other children had been wounded in the vicious attack.
Nikki’s heart pounded as she remembered all too clearly the vicious, heinous crime. Her mouth turned to dust, because Amity O’Henry had been her best friend back then and Nikki knew, deep in her heart, that she, too, was responsible for the girl’s death.
“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered, wondering if the report were true. In her mind’s eye, she saw the image of Amity, who at seventeen was as smart, as beautiful and as enigmatic as her mother. Thick, auburn hair framing a perfect heart-shaped face, wide, intelligent eyes, lips that were sexy and innocent at the same time and legs that wouldn’t quit, Amity O’Henry had the same naughty streak as her mother.
And she’d died because of it.
Nikki tried to find a more in-depth article, to check the validity of the story.
She’d never really told the truth about the night Amity had been killed at the cabin in the woods. Never admitted everything she knew and she’d buried that guilt deep. But maybe now, she’d have her chance. Maybe now, she could make right a very deep and festering wrong.
Nervously biting the edge of her lip, she found an article about Blondell, written years before. The picture accompanying the article didn’t do the most hated woman in Savannah justice, but even so, dressed in a prim navy blue suit for her court date, her blouse buttoned to her throat, her makeup toned down to make her appear innocent and as if she were about to attend church in the 1960s, she was beautiful and still innately sensual. Her hair was pinned to the back of her head and even though her lawyer was hoping she appeared demure, it was impossible to hide her innate sexuality.
“Bingo,” Nikki said aloud.
Finally, she had the idea for her next book.
As for a personal connection?
Oh, Lord, did she have one.
Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of
Lisa Jackson’s
READY TO DIE,
coming in August 2013!
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He was losing time.
Losing daylight.
The sun, threatening to set early this time of year, was disappearing behind a mountain ridge, the last cold shafts of light a brilliant blaze filtering through the gathering clouds and skeletal branches of the surrounding trees.
He felt the seconds clicking past. Far too quickly.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
By rote, with the precision he’d learned years before in the military, he set up his shot, knew where the perfect spot would be, an open area that would allow a clean, neat shot.
Not that the bitch deserved the quick death he planned to mete out. He would prefer she suffer. But there was no time for waiting. His patience was stretched thin, his skin starting to itch in anticipation.
He knew her routine.
Sighting through his scope one last time, he waited, breath fogging in the air, muscles tense, a drip of sweat collecting under his ski mask despite the frigid temperatures.
Come on, come on, he thought and felt a moment of panic. What if today she changed her mind? What if, for some unknown reason—a phone call, or a visit, or a migraine—she abandoned her yearly ritual? What if, God forbid, this was all for naught, that he’d planned and plotted for a year and by some freak decision she wasn’t coming?
No! That’s impossible. Stay steady. Be patient. Trust your instincts. Don’t give into the doubts. You know what you have to do.
Slowly, he counted to ten, then to twenty, decelerating his heartbeat, calming his mind, clearing his focus. A bird flapped to his right, landing on a snow-covered branch, clumps of white powder falling to the ground. He barely glanced over his shoulder, so intent was he on the area he’d decided would be his killing ground, where the little-used cross-country ski trail veered away from the lake, angling inward through the wintery vegetation.
This would be the place she would die.
His finger tightened over the trigger, just a bit.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
And then he saw her. From the corner of his eye, a tall, slim figure gliding easily on her skis.
Good.
Reddish hair poked out from beneath her ski cap as she skied, ever faster. Recklessly. Dangerously. Tall, rangy and athletic, she wound her way closer. She’d been called “bull-headed” and “tenacious” as well as “determined.” Like a dog with a bone, she never gave up, was always ready to fight.
Well, no more. He licked his lips, barely noticing how dry they were. A hum filled his mind, the familiar sound he always heard before a kill.
Just a couple more seconds . . .
Every nerve ending taut, he waited until she broke from the trees. His shot was clear. She glanced in his direction, those glacial bluish eyes searching the forest, that strong chin set.
As if she sensed him, she slowed, squinting.
He pulled the trigger.
Craaaak!
With an ear-splitting report, the rifle kicked hard and familiar against his shoulder.
Her head snapped backward. She spun, skis cutting the air like out-of-kilter chopper blades
She dropped dead in her tracks.
“Bingo,” he whispered, thrilled that he’d brought her down, one of the most newsworthy women in all of Grizzly County. “And then there were five.”
Just as the first flew flakes of snow began to fall, he shoved hard on his own ski poles, driving them deep into the snow, pushing himself forward. In easy, long strides, he took off through the trees, a phantom slicing a private path into the undergrowth deep within the Bitterroot Mountains. He’d lived here most of his life and knew this back hill country as well as his own name. Down a steep hollow, along a creek and over a small footbridge he skied. The air was crisp, snow falling more steadily, covering his tracks. He startled a rabbit a good two miles from the kill site and it hopped away through icy brambles, disappearing into the wintry woods.
Darkness was thick by the time he reached the wide spot in the road where he’d parked his van. All in all, he’d traveled five miles and was slightly out of breath. But his blood was on fire, adrenaline rushing through his veins, the thought of what he’d accomplished warming him from the inside out.
How long he’d waited to see her fall!
Stepping out of his skis, he carefully placed them inside the back of his van with his rifle, then tore off his white outer clothing. Ski mask, ski jacket and winter camouflage pants, insulated against the stinging cold, were replaced quickly with thermal underwear, jeans, flannel shirt, padded jacket and a Stetson; his usual wear.
After locking the back of the van, he slid into the vehicle’s freezing interior and fired up the engine. The old Ford started smoothly and soon he was driving toward the main road, where, he knew, because of the holidays and impending storm, traffic would be lighter than usual. Only a few hearty souls would be spending Christmas in this remote part of the wilderness where electricity and running water were luxuries. Most of the cabins in this neck of the woods were bare-bones essentials for hunters, some without the basics of electricity or running water, so few people spent the holidays here.
Which was perfect.
At the county road he turned uphill, heading to his own cabin, snow churning under the van’s tires, spying only one set of headlights before he turned off again and into the lane where the snow was piling in the ruts he’d made earlier. Yes, he should be safe here. He’d ditch this van for
his Jeep, but not until he’d celebrated a little.
Half a mile in, he rounded an outcropping of boulders and saw the cabin, a dilapidated A-frame most people in the family had long forgotten. It was dark of course; he’d left it two hours earlier while there was still daylight. After pulling into a rustic garage he killed the engine, then let out his breath.
He’d made it.
No one had seen.
No one would know . . . yet. Until the time was right. Carrying all of his equipment into the house, he then closed the garage door, listening as the wind moaned through the trees and echoed in this particular canyon.
In the light from his lantern, he hung his ski clothing on pegs near the door, cleaned his rifle, then again, as the cabin warmed, undressed. Once he was naked, he started his workout, stretching his muscles, silently counting, breaking into a sweat to a routine he’d learned years ago in the army. This austerity was in counterbalance to the good life he led, the one far from this tiny cabin. His routine worked; it kept him in shape and he never let a day go by without the satisfaction of exercising as well as he had the day before.
Only then did he clean himself with water cold enough to make him suck his breath in through his teeth. This, too, was part of the ritual, to remind him not to get too soft, to always excel, always push himself. He demanded perfection for himself and expected it of others.
As his body air-dried, he poured himself a tall glass of whiskey and walked to the hand-hewn desk attached to the wall near his bunk. The pictures were strewn across the desktop, all head shots, faces looking directly at the camera . . . his camera, he thought with more than a grain of pleasure.
He found the photograph of the woman he’d just sent to St. Peter, and in the picture she was beautiful. Without a trace of her usual cynicism, or caustic wit, she had been a gorgeous woman.
No more. Tossing his hunting knife in the air and catching it deftly, he smiled as he plunged its sharp tip into the space between his victim’s eyes. So much for beauty, he thought as he sliced the photograph; and, staring at its marred surface, rattled the ice in his drink and took a long swallow.
