The Morning After

by Lisa Jackson

  Reed nodded, felt the icy rain run down his collar. “According to Joey. Along with his siblings. It was kind of a sadistic sexual free-for-all with Chevalier holding the whip.”

  “Deserved what he got,” Morrisette muttered, turning away from the open casket as Diane Moses’s team worked the area as they had at the previous crime scenes.

  Cliff Siebert hung up his phone. “I got through to the hospital. Charlene Gillette can’t tell us anything. She’s traumatized. An officer tried to speak with her but she won’t or can’t say a word. Nearly catatonic. Whatever she saw pushed her over the edge.”

  “Shit.” Morrisette glared up at the sky. Blinked against the rain.

  Reed felt as if Nikki’s life were in his hands and she was slowly, irrevocably, slipping away.

  “Wonder why the asshole was buried alone?” Morrisette asked, jabbing her chin at the coffin.

  “Again, not like the others,” Reed thought, panic surging through him as the seconds ticked by. Where the hell did he have Nikki? “Send a unit to every graveyard in the city,” he said, but his mind was turning wildly, remembering the trial twelve years ago. The bleak courtroom. Judge Ronald Gillette sitting imperiously above the proceedings. The jurors watching raptly as the prosecution laid out its case. There was a clue here…there had to be. The killer had tricked him, steered him off course, but he had to…Lightning forked the sky. Suddenly he knew. As surely as if Lucifer had whispered the answer in his ear.

  It was what this entire case was all about.

  “Where was Carol Legittel buried?”

  “Don’t know.” Morrisette shook her head.

  Siebert said, “I do. I saw it in the file. She and her children are in Adams Cemetery, a small plot east of town.”

  That was all Reed needed to hear. “Let’s go.” He was already running through the spitting rain to his El Dorado. “We don’t have much time.”

  Nikki was sweating, her heart pounding wildly. She had to find a way out. Pushing on the lid didn’t do anything. She needed a weapon. Something she could use to pry the thing open from the inside out, but what? She had nothing. She was naked.

  But her father was still wearing his clothes.

  Her heart nearly stopped. Unless the killer had discovered it, Big Ron kept a loaded pistol strapped to his ankle.

  Nikki’s hopes jumped at the feeble possibility. Getting to the gun, and fast, seemed impossible.

  But it was her only chance.

  And, by God, she was going to take it.

  The pounding started again. “Wake up, bitch!” His voice was raw. Anxious. Good.

  He could damn well rot in hell before she uttered a word. Her lungs could turn to dust before she gave him the satisfaction.

  It was so hard to breathe, nearly impossible to move and panic had her in a stranglehold, but the only chance out of this trap was to reach her father’s weapon. Please let it be there, she thought, but knew the chances were slim. Surely the Grave Robber had found the small gun.

  But there was a sliver of a chance that he’d overlooked it in his haste. She had to find out.

  Using all her strength, she pressed down against her father’s body, compressing his flesh, making herself smaller so that she had room to scoot down and bend her knees. The soft flab of her father’s stomach gave way and she shuddered, her heart hammering, a horrid taste crawling up her throat. She slid. Possibly an inch. Maybe less. But she could barely move and as she stretched her hand along his pant leg, gathering the fabric, she knew her chance of survival was small.

  Infinitesimal.

  You bastard, she thought. You goddamned animal.

  She felt the top of her father’s boot. That was a good sign, right? Maybe the killer thought the ankle strap was part of her father’s shoes.

  She strained. Hard. Every muscle aching, her fingertips brushing the top of the holster.

  She heard a chain rattling, a lock clicking, then the sound of a small motor. She had the sensation of the coffin being lifted off the cart or gurney that had brought her here.

  Bang!

  “Hey, Nikki. Can you hear me?” The killer’s voice was muted, but the words clear and her skin crawled. “How do you like sleeping with your father? It bites, doesn’t it. Kinda like it bites when you have to kill your own family because they sold you out!”

  She didn’t answer. Felt ill. She pictured the Grave Robber not as the grisly, obsessed ogre he’d become but as he was twelve years ago. Then, seated in the courtroom at that gawky awkward age, Joey Legittel was ashen-faced, obviously scared to death, abused, forced to do terrible acts at the whim of LeRoy Chevalier. And then the court had made him tell about it.

  Now, belatedly, she realized that he’d become a killer. He’d murdered his mother, sister and brother. He’d wounded himself, self-inflicted the wounds so cleverly that no one had guessed, then managed to hide the murder weapon and frame Chevalier with his own work boots. Now, he was crazed. Obsessed. No doubt because his tormentor had found freedom.

  “Hey! You awake? Damn it. You nearly blew it, you know, you stupid bitch. And your old man, why the fuck didn’t he sentence the bastard to die? Why?”

  Her lungs burning, she considered talking to him, trying to reason with him, but then remembered again all too vividly the tape with Simone’s hoarse, desperate voice as she pled, begged and bargained for her life. No matter what, Nikki wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Her shoulders straining, every muscle in her body cramped, she concentrated on easing the gun from its holster.

  “Hey! Hey!”

  More thudding. Wild. Crazy. As if he were losing it. The coffin jerked and spun.

  Nikki concentrated on the weapon.

  “Guess what I’ve got out here with me, Nikki,” he taunted, and Nikki froze. She couldn’t imagine. Didn’t want to. “Something of yours. And Simone’s.”

  Not Mikado. Not Jennings!

  She nearly screamed, wanted to scratch his eyes out.

  “Right here in my pocket. Your panties, Nikki. I took ’em out of your drawer. My, aren’t they naughty? And Simone’s…”

  Nikki thought she might be sick.

  “You hear me? I’ve got them all. Little treasures from all my victims. You know who’s in there with you, right? Daddy dearest? Know what I got of his?”

  She didn’t want to know.

  “And old jockstrap. Looks like it was made a billion years ago. What do you think of that?”

  Go blow, you stinkin’ pervert, she thought, anger surfacing beneath her terror.

  “I’ve been planning this for years…but I wasn’t gonna do it, not as long as LeRoy was behind bars. But he got out and so…too bad for all of you who failed me.”

  He wanted pity? Was he kidding?

  “Did you enjoy the tape of your friend?” he asked and Nikki’s skin turned to ice. “Did you hear her? How she begged.”

  Nikki wanted to scream at him, but held her tongue. That’s what he wanted.

  “They all did.” He waited. “You awake?” He pounded again, the sound echoing through the coffin and cutting into her brain. “Hey, Nikki!”

  Tune him out. Don’t let him get to you! She stretched until her muscles and tendons screamed. Her fingers touched something cold and hard. The tiny pistol! Tears filled her eyes. Now, if she could just get it into her hand!

  “Oh, fuck it.”

  The coffin began to move again.

  This time it was descending into a pit Nikki could only imagine in her worst nightmare.

  Reed pushed the El Dorado to the limit. Seventy miles an hour, eighty…ninety. His radio crackled and he figured he could be at the cemetery in less than fifteen minutes.

  Would it be enough time?

  God, he hoped so.

  The thought of Nikki trapped in a casket and buried alive sent a chill as cold as all death down his spine. He stepped on it and the night flew by, the beams of his headlights cutting through the curtain of rain and bouncing on the slick pavement.

  O
nly 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.