The Morning After

by Lisa Jackson

  What was that all about? Edging closer, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the glass pot still warming on a hot plate nearby. As she stirred a little cream into her mug, she pretended to peruse the offerings and whispered, “What looks good?”

  “What? Oh. Uh, everything.”

  Lowering her voice further still, she swirled the stir stick and said, “I’m thinking about M&M peanuts, but they’re all out.”

  “No, they aren’t.” He tapped a thick finger against the glass. “See there? E-5. M&M peanuts.”

  Frowning, she took a sip of coffee and stared at the snack machine where his pudgy finger was putting an oily print on the glass. “You’re right.”

  “’Course I am. They’re right there.”

  “Mmm. So how can you hear me?”

  “What?”

  “Even though you’re supposedly plugged in to your music, you can hear what I say no matter how quiet I whisper. I find that a little peculiar. So, what’s with the earphones…Are they not working or are they just part of a disguise so that you can listen to everyone else’s conversations?”

  “Man, are you paranoid, or what?” A red flush stole up his neck, blooming through his patchy beard shadow. “Norm’s right about you.”

  “Is he?” She blew across her cup but kept her eyes trained on him.

  “Yeah. I—I was just taking a break from the music.”

  “Most people do that by taking off their headsets, Kevin.”

  “I’m not like most people.”

  “I’ll second that.”

  His flush deepened and a vein throbbed over one eye. His jaw tensed and for the first time she was aware that beneath his baggy shirts and jeans, he was a fit, able-bodied man. A young man. One who outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds. One who could possibly have a rage problem.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, defending himself.

  “Take it whatever way you want.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “I bet you know everything that’s going on here, don’t you? You pretend to be in your own little world all the time. But when you work on people’s computers, you’re eavesdropping on conversations and reading other people’s E-mail.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Save it for someone who believes it, okay?” She walked away then, making a beeline for her desk and sloshing some of the hot coffee over her wrist and onto the sleeve of her shirt. “Damn.” Celeste waved some messages frantically at her and she collected three scraps of paper indicating that Dr. Francis had called.

  “She wouldn’t leave a voice mail,” Celeste said, tossing her streaked locks over one shoulder.

  “Hey, where the hell have you been?” Trina rolled her desk chair away from her cubicle. “Wow, Nikki…you look like you haven’t slept in a week. Make that two weeks.”

  “That’s probably being kind.” She pulled a Kleenex from the box on her desk and dabbed at the spill. “I feel like it’s been forever.”

  “So, being a crime reporter is killing you.”

  “Something like that.” She tossed the tissue at her wastebasket and missed. From the corner of her eye she noticed that both Kevin and Norm had retreated to their own desks. “So, what’s been going on around here?”

  “I think you have a secret admirer.”

  “A what?” She took a sip of her coffee.

  “Look what came for you today.” Trina reached around her monitor and retrieved a glass vase filled with an explosion of red and white carnations.

  “You kept them?”

  “Who knew when you’d get here. No reason for them to go to waste.”

  “I suppose.” Shoving aside a ridiculous, fleeting thought of Pierce Reed, Nikki opened the small envelope and read the note.

  Congratulations on all your success. Dinner soon?

  Love,

  Sean

  Her stomach turned sour. “Man, he’s laying it on thick,” Nikki whispered, adjusting a few of the blooms and setting the vase on her desk.

  “Who?”

  “Sean.”

  “He’s back in the picture?”

  “No way, but he claims he wants to be.”

  Trina lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe he’s truly sorry for being such a jerk and now that he’s sown his wild oats and realized that not all women are as cool as you are, he’s making his play.”

  “Doesn’t sound like the Sean I know.”

  “Oh, give the guy a chance.”

  “So you don’t believe in the ‘once burned, twice shy,’ adage.”

  “Isn’t it ‘once bitten, twice shy’…oh, whatever, it doesn’t matter. As for me, I believe in love. I’m totally an incurable romantic.”

  “Who’s never married.”

  “I said I like ‘romance,’ not drudgery.” Trina’s cell phone jangled with a Latin tune.

  “I don’t even believe in the romance part,” Nikki said, though a part of her suspected that she was stretching the truth a bit. She didn’t like to think of herself as one of those clingy, lovelorn single women looking for a possible husband in every man she met. And she wasn’t. But if the right man happened to cross her path, she might just sing a different tune. She just couldn’t cop to it. At least not now, not before she proved herself.

  Trina rolled into her cubicle and whispered into her cell phone while Nikki sorted through her mail and E-mail, finding nothing out of the ordinary, no other notes from the Grave Robber. Her voice mail was filled with congratulations from some friends for her latest story on the Grave Robber and she had a few calls from reporters at rival papers and local news stations, all of whom hoped to cozy up to her and get an interview.

  “Nikki, this is Stacey Baxter, remember, we went to school together. I’m with WRAW in Louisville and I’d love to talk to you about what’s going on with the Grave Robber. Give me a call back at…”

  “Nikki Gillette? Max O’Dell, WKAM. Heard about the break-in. Call me at…”

  “Ms. Gillette. Steve Mendleson with The Spirit. My number is…”

  So, now she knew how it felt to be hounded by the press, she thought, eyeing the flowers and plucking off a few petals that had already started to turn brown. No doubt the flowers had been on sale, a bargain basement bouquet. It was just the way Sean had always operated she thought as the voice mail messages streamed into her ear.

  “Nikki, it’s Lily. Okay, I was out of line last night. Way out of line. Sorry. I’m gonna be out today, so I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “Nicole? This is Dr. Francis. I saw your article and it was fine, but I think it should be part of a series about the school district. Call me.”

  “Wow, look who’s on the front page all the time!” Simone’s voice was a breath of fresh air. “Pretty soon you’ll be getting a swelled head and you’ll forget the little people like me. Let’s celebrate. We could go out right after class tonight…”

  Damn, Nikki thought, tired to the bone. The last thing she wanted to do was anything more strenuous than lying in front of the television with a bag of chips.

  “…I can safely assume you’ll make it tonight, right? Maybe, with your newfound celebrity you’ll be able to convince Jake to join us? I’ll buy. Again.” She laughed. “Hey, it looks like I might move to Charlotte, after all! Well, unless I can make something work with Jake. Call me and I’ll fill you in on all the details.”

  Nikki didn’t want to think about Simone moving away. It was too damned depressing. Nor did she want to have to admit to Simone that she was considering blowing off kickboxing. It would be better to call her tomorrow, once the class was over. Nikki was a firm believer in asking forgiveness rather than permission. Tonight, Simone would be disappointed, maybe even angry about Nikki skipping out, but tomorrow, especially if things went well with Jake, Simone would have forgotten all about the fact that Nikki had stood her up again. She only felt a little niggle of guilt as the next message began to play. “Hi, Nik. It’s me. I’d really like to see you again.” Sean’s voice. She dropped her hand, l
etting a few petals fall on her desk. There was something about the timbre and expression in Sean’s voice she found unnerving. Though she didn’t care for him any longer, just the fact that he’d dumped her seemed to make her overreact to him. “I heard about what happened, the break-in and all,” he’d recorded. “Pretty scary stuff, Nik. Hope you’re okay. Why don’t you give me a buzz?” It would be a cold day in hell before that happened. “My cell number is…”

  She didn’t bother to write it down, nor did she intend to call him or anyone else for that matter. Not even Simone. Not today. She didn’t have time. She had another story to write about the Grave Robber, one with more information…

  The recorder beeped, indicating there was another voice mail message. She listened, but no one left a message. Whoever had called must’ve thought better of it because there was a pause with some low-level background noise, then the distinct sound of a phone clicking as it was hung up.

  Whoever it was would call back she figured as she turned her attention to her computer to recheck her E-mail before digging into her next story. She found more of the same kind of well wishes and requests that had been on the phone. But there was no new message from the Grave Robber. No dancing coffins or twirling, disintegrating corpses.

  She tapped her pencil on the desk.

  For the moment, the killer seemed to be silent.

  Which was good. Right?

  Or just the calm before the storm?

  “Nikki? I can’t hear you. You’re cutting out.” Dashing out of her apartment, trying to put up her umbrella while hauling her athletic bag and cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear, Simone was having a helluva time hearing her friend. Nikki’s voice was breaking up and garbled, impossible to understand over the whistle of the wind and splatter of thick raindrops.

  “Simone…meet at…”

  “Meet where? You’re coming to the class tonight, aren’t you?” Simone stepped around a puddle and caught the edge of her umbrella on the hedge that surrounded the parking lot. Raindrops slid icily through her hair. “Damn it.” The trouble with her best friend was that Nikki was a flake. Pure and simple. But Simone loved her and not just because Nikki was Andrew’s sister and the only member of the Gillette family who would speak to her, though that, in and of itself, was something. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to weasel out of exercise.”

  “No!” Nikki’s voice sounded weird. Stressed. She seemed to be whispering. “Meet me…Galleria…parking lot, third floor…Important…about…Andrew.”

  “What? What about Andrew?” Simone asked and the wind and rain was instantly forgotten. “Nikki.” Oh, geez, she’d lost her. Then she heard a spurt over the rush of the wind. “Let’s…a drink…Cassan…”

  “A drink before class at Cassandra’s?” Simone said, feeling the rain run down her neck. “I’ll be there. Around seven. In the restaurant. Not in the damned parking lot. Are you nuts? There’s a killer on the loose, remember?” She managed to unlock her door. “If you get to Cassandra’s before I do, order me a martini. Vodka. Two olives.”

  Her umbrella turned inside out.

  “Shit. Nikki? Are you still there?”

  But the connection had faded. She tossed the phone into her car, did a miserable job of folding the umbrella and left it to drip on the backseat near her sodden athletic bag.

  Leave it to Nikki to be overly dramatic, Simone thought as she slid behind the wheel. Checking her reflection in the rearview mirror she decided the damage was minimal. She reapplied lip gloss so that the sheen was perfect, then pulled at a strand of her damp, now windblown hair to make it look even less “done” and more carefree, which was probably better. She had the impression that Jake liked athletic, strong women who weren’t “high maintenance.” Self-confident women attracted him, she was certain. “Gay, my ass,” she said, starting the BMW and pulling out of her parking spot.

  Rain pelted the car as the storm swept through the city streets, and from the corner of her eye she saw motion.

  Goose bumps raised on her skin.

  For a second she had the sensation that someone was watching her. Hiding just out of her line of vision. Instantly, she remembered the creep in the restaurant the last time she and Nikki had gotten together. But that had been days before. Biting her lip, she stared hard at the corner where she’d seen the movement. A bedraggled dog, head and tail down, loped across the street and fled between two tall buildings. Simone’s heart rate slowed and she berated herself for being such a silly goose. Nonetheless, she glanced around the alleys and buildings. She saw no one through the BMW’s rain-spattered windows, nor in any of her mirrors—no unholy monster, no dark figure, no hulking boogey man ready to pounce on her. In fact, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few cars, and a couple of skateboarders hurrying along the sidewalk trying to outrun the storm. All was as it should be.

  Her case of nerves was just because of Nikki’s incessant talk about a serial killer, the Grave Robber, for God’s sake. It was nothing. Still, Simone’s hands felt clammy around the steering wheel as she drove first to the bank before it closed and then to the dry cleaners. She even managed to stop and pick up a prescription and a few groceries before it was time to meet Nikki and placed a call to Nikki’s cell phone. Of course, Nikki didn’t answer, so Simone called her friend’s apartment and left a message on her recorder.

  Fortunately the storm passed quickly, leaving in its wake a thickening mist. Wet streets glimmered under the street lamps, and leaves and debris clogged the sewer drains in the roads. Rush hour was over, traffic was thankfully thin, and only a few people had ventured onto the sidewalks. Here and there, Christmas lights winked merrily through the fog, a reminder of the season. She passed a church with a nativity scene posed beneath the spreading branches of a live oak. Instantly, she experienced that same old pang of longing for Andrew, the pain that didn’t lessen with each passing Christmas season.

  “Get over it,” she muttered and decided she really did have to move. There was a possibility of a job in Charlotte and she should just take the plunge and move. Cut all ties to this place with its bad memories.

  Simone pulled into the parking lot of the Galleria and had no trouble finding a space on the first floor. Forget the third. Why walk any farther than she had to?

  The lot was fairly deserted, only a few vehicles parked in the spaces. Though this was normal and she and Nikki parked here on a regular basis, she was still a little edgy. Making certain no one was lurking near the stairwell or elevator shaft, Simone grabbed her purse and locked the car behind her, then jogged to the restaurant. No murderer leapt from the shadows. No one was hiding near the exit. Simone walked the half a block to the restaurant without anyone accosting her.

  Inside, Nikki wasn’t waiting for her. No surprise. Nikki’s M.O. was to always run late. Or bag out completely.

  Surely, not tonight.

  Simone slid into a booth near the front door and ordered two drinks—a martini for herself and a lemon drop for Nikki—from a sunny waitress with a thick drawl and braces. The girl looked barely seventeen, surely not old enough to serve liquor, though she cheerily reappeared with the chilled, stemmed glasses within minutes.

  Cassandra’s wasn’t doing a banner business tonight. Only a few other patrons sat at the tables and booths that filled the small space with its black and white floor tiles and matching tabletops.

  Simone studied the bar menu while sipping her drink and listening to Christmas carols from the jukebox. Elvis’s rendition of “Blue Christmas” seemed to be the favorite as the minutes passed and a breathless Nikki Gillette didn’t sweep into the restaurant. Simone plucked the olives from her martini with her teeth and looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. She finished her drink. Twenty minutes. Wonderful. Late again. “Come on, Nikki,” Simone muttered under her breath.

  The ebullient waitress stopped by and flashed her perennial schoolgirl grin. “Can I get you anything else?”

  “A new best friend.”r />
  “What? Oh.” The plastered-on smile chipped away. “So…do you want another drink or…something from the bar menu?”

  Simone hesitated, but decided she had nothing to lose. “Sure. Why not? Another drink, I think.” She tapped a fingernail on the rim of her empty martini glass. “Another one.”

  “And…?” The girl glanced at Nikki’s untouched glass. The rim of sugar was unbroken, the clear liquid unmoving around a curl of lemon rind.

  “Just leave it. She may still show up. This is kind of a constant problem with her.” Simone glanced at her watch and sighed. Nikki was nearly half an hour late. Not good news. Simone could almost hear the excuses already. She imagined Nikki flying into the kickboxing class after it had already started. She would be breathless as she explained about a “rewrite” that she wasn’t satisfied with, a “deadline” that couldn’t be ignored, or “research” that had to be done “ASAP.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Simone finished her second drink. The lemon drop was still sweating across the table from her. “Great,” she muttered and thought about downing Nikki’s favorite drink herself, but decided against it. She did still have to walk to the gym and then be able to perform the exercise routines. One more drink and she wouldn’t be able to do anything more than fall on her butt when she tried to strike a target with her foot.

  She signaled for the bill, left the waitress with a ten dollar tip and, carrying her bag, started jogging toward the gym. The mist had turned into a thicker, shifting fog in the time that she’d been inside, the streets seeming darker.

  Damn Nikki. She was always leaving Simone in the lurch.

  It wasn’t that Nicole Gillette wasn’t responsible, just not reliable. But she was good-hearted. Nikki’s downfall was that she was totally obsessed when it came to her job or what she perceived as her job. She was so hell-bent on becoming an ace crime reporter that she lost sight of everything, and everyone else. Even now, Simone guessed, Nikki was probably ferreting out clues as to the identity of the Grave Robber.