by Lisa Jackson
She assumed that was Ryan Jefferson’s vehicle and workspace. Nikki eased her Honda behind the van, parked and walked to the front door of the main house, where the salty air of the ocean was carried on the breeze. She peered inside through the windows flanking the door. The foyer was grand, a huge chandelier hanging from a ceiling two stories high. A sweeping staircase descended from the second balcony to a marble floor, where a circular table with a pot of vibrant flowers filled the space.
Nikki tried the bell, heard nothing and knocked on the wide glass doors. Seconds later she spied movement inside, a barefooted blonde in a sundress walking briskly from the back of the house.
Here we go.
She recognized Ashley McDonnell from pictures she’d seen browsing the Internet. Ashley was older now, blonder, her hair sun-streaked. Not quite as slim as she’d been in high school, she was still fit, her complexion flawless, a gold chain at her neck and irritation etched firmly across her face. After peering at Nikki through the sidelight, she opened the door just a crack.
Nikki spoke first. “Ashley McDonnell?”
“Jefferson,” she corrected, her eyes narrowing. “It’s Ashley Jefferson now. Has been for a long time.”
Nikki had known that, of course, had just wanted to see the reaction it evoked.
“Who’re you?”
“My mistake. Sorry. I’m Nikki Gillette. I’m with the Savannah Sentinel.”
“The Sentinel? You’re a reporter? For the love of God.” Her lips twisted into a deeper frown.
“Yes, and I’d just like to ask you a few questions and clear up any—”
Crash!
Both women jumped at the sound.
Ashley’s sour expression changed to one of distress. “Oh, God!” She looked over her shoulder. “Zeke!” And then she was running toward the back of the house, hurrying down a short hall, bare feet slapping on the tile as she disappeared through an archway.
Nikki stepped inside and followed as a child’s wail echoed through the house. “Oh, honey, are you okay?” Ashley said.
Rounding a corner, Nikki found herself in a huge living space with a wall of windows that opened to a pool area. Beyond the decking was a boardwalk that extended through a marsh to the beach, sunlight glinting off the ocean.
Ashley had landed in the kitchen, where she was picking up a shaggy-haired boy of about three who had toppled off a kitchen chair. “You’re all right,” she told the boy, while righting the chair with one hand and propping him onto her hip with the other. On the tile beneath the table, a ceramic bowl had cracked, a puddle of milk and soggy Cheerios spreading over the tile; a cocker spaniel hurriedly lapping up the mess.
“Cleo, stop that! Ick!”
Nikki bent down and retrieved the bowl before it splintered.
Ashley ranted, “I can’t believe this! And of course Valentina has the week off because of the damned storm. And my blog—I haven’t been able to even log on! Shit!” She stomped a bare foot in frustration, then took a deep breath and said to her son, “You didn’t hear that, honey. Mommy didn’t really say a naughty word.”
“Valentina?” Nikki asked.
“Yes, the maid and nursemaid, the woman who usually works for us and . . . oh, what does it matter?”
As Zeke reduced his wails to sniffling, Ashley snagged a handful of paper towels from a dispenser near the sink, then bent down and, still holding the child, swabbed up the mess as she shooed the dog out of the way.
Nikki set the bowl on the counter next to the sink, where a pile of dishes overflowed.
A little girl appeared in the archway. “What happened?” she asked, then smiled. “I get it. Zeke made a mess,” she said, obviously delighted, her eyes bright at the prospect of Zeke getting into trouble.
“It was an accident,” Ashley clipped out.
“Ack-ident,” the boy repeated, and gave his sister a churlish stare. She narrowed her eyes in a perfect imitation of her mother. “He has a lot of those.”
Ashley set the boy on the floor and tossed the wet paper towels in a garbage can under the sink. “Kelsey, take your brother to the playroom for a minute, would you?”
“Why?” Kelsey asked.
“Just do it,” Ashley ordered, and though Kelsey obviously wanted to argue, she threw her mother a just-remember-I’m-the-victim-here look instead before flouncing out.
“Always a battle,” Ashley said, and wiped the floor again, this time with a wet paper towel. “You have kids?”
Nikki shook her head despite the stab of pain in her heart. “Not yet.”
“Well, I suggest you think twice about it.” She let out a long breath. “It’s a lot of work and it just doesn’t get any easier.” Then, as if hearing herself, added quickly, “But, of course I wouldn’t change anything. I love them both beyond words.”
“Of course.”
“So, now I know you’re here about the Duval girls and what you think I know about their disappearance.”
“It’s more than that, it’s murder now.”
“I know. I heard that.” She glanced at the doorway where the kids had disappeared and lowered her voice. “It’s all disturbing. Really disturbing. And I don’t want to come off as a heartless bitch or anything, but I don’t know anything more than I’ve already said. I already talked to the police about it. On the phone and in person. I don’t have anything else to add. I just wish . . . I just wish this disaster would end!”
“I’m not with the police.”
“I know, I know. But I can’t tell you anything else. I don’t know anything else.” And then something clicked in her brain, her expression changed and her eyes thinned. “Wait a sec. I know you.” She pointed at Nikki. “You’re that reporter who nearly drowned the other day out there where they found the bodies. You write those crime books. Is that what this is all about? A book?” Her lips twisted downward in contempt.
“I’m just trying to find out what happened.”
“For a book?”
“For an article.” What did it matter?
“And you’re married to that cop who was here.” Her expression turned dark. “What is this?”
“You said you were with Owen Duval that night.”
“Yes! God, how many times do I have to say it?” She rolled her eyes as her daughter appeared in the doorway.
“Zeke’s hitting!” Kelsey announced, obviously affronted.
“I’ll be right there.”
“It hurts! He’s being mean.”
“He’s just acting out.”
“He’s not supposed to hit!”
“I know.” In a louder voice, Ashley reprimanded, “Zeke, you be nice!” Then back to her daughter, “I said I’ll be there in a second!” before adding in a lower voice, “Geez! I could use a drink.” She glanced up at Nikki. “A double margarita, ASAP!”
The girl whined, cast Nikki a dark look, then stomped back into the hallway.
“This isn’t a good time,” Ashley admitted, having lost some of her irritation. “But, really, there isn’t a good time. What you’re talking about happened a long, long time ago. I’m sorry, really sorry that those girls were found . . . you know,” she whispered sadly, “dead. How awful! But there’s nothing, not one single thing I can do about it. I’ve told the police what I know and I’ve suffered through Margaret Duval’s . . . persecution.”
“Persecution?”
“I know what she’s said about me and it really doesn’t make any sense as I gave her son his alibi, right? Why should she be mad at me? As if I could have stopped what happened.” She opened up a little. “I wish I could have, but . . . sometimes things happen. It’s all been a nightmare. A horrible, unending nightmare.” She gazed out the bank of windows to the deck with its bright umbrella over a shaded table and a chaise lounge angled toward the ocean, visible in the distance, darkening as the sun lowered behind the house. A cigarette had been left burning in the ashtray on a small glass-topped table, a pair of strappy gold sandals tucked beneath the chais
e. Ashley had been occupying that spot, near the pool, when Nikki had arrived. Now, she seemed lost in thought, miles or more probably years away.
Nikki brought her back to the here and now. “So, to be clear, you were with Owen Duval from the second he dropped off the girls until he went back to the theater and found them missing.”
“Yes! I told the police, over and over again, about the time when he showed up and when he left. That hasn’t changed in twenty years.” She fingered the small gold cross that hung from a gold chain around her neck. “I’m sorry for the Duval girls and their family, really, but I can’t let what happened to them define me, now can I?”
“You were dating Owen Duval?”
“What? No, he was just a friend.”
“He said you were his girlfriend.”
“Well, he was wrong.” She rubbed her temples as if she were developing a headache. “We were friends, sorta, I guess, but we didn’t have a thing going, not even a secret one. Sorry to disappoint. He was kind of an outcast and I liked that about him. He was different. Smart. And he had a dark, almost sick sense of humor. That was it, I guess, he wasn’t Goth, but he was . . . deep? Really into Edgar Allan Poe and watched, like, old black and white movies. Like Psycho. The original one.” She paused, biting her lip. “He was just too out there, you know. One time he asked me if I ever listened to the voices in my head. I thought he was joking, but maybe he wasn’t.”
“What did you say?”
“ ‘What voices?’ And he kind of laughed, but he was serious, I think. Anyway, he didn’t have a lot of friends, so I was nice to him. I guess he thought because of it we were an item.” She shook her head. “We weren’t.”
“Who did you date?”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked crossly. “A lot of guys, I guess? No one special.”
“Beaumont?”
“What? Yeah.” Her lips tightened. “It wasn’t a big deal. Tyson dated . . . so many. I was just one in the crowd.”
And obviously she didn’t like it.
“What about Jacob Channing?”
She stopped cold. Just stared at Nikki. “Old news,” she said. “Who cares who I dated in high school?”
“But you and he were involved?”
“Not involved.” She looked away, then squared her shoulders. “It was nothing. Not a big deal at all. Okay? Again, he dated a lot of girls and I dated a lot of boys. It was high school. That’s what you do!”
Nikki pressed on. “He’s still around, right?”
“I guess . . . I don’t really keep up with him. Or with any of them. No one from high school.”
“But Jacob Channing inherited Channing Vineyards.”
“Yeah, sure. I guess. Look, I don’t really know. I heard that he and his sister inherited the business, and that he bought her out. Lowballed her, the rumor goes. I guess she needed the money. It sounds like Jacob, but really, it’s all just gossip and I don’t really pay attention. Like I said, ancient history. Who cares?”
Nikki wasn’t going to be derailed. “So no one thought you and Owen Duval were a couple?”
“Other than Owen? Of course not. And if they did, they were wrong.” She shook her head.
“So what about Owen’s friends? Guys who hung out with him. You said he didn’t have a lot. But there had to be some.”
“I don’t know!” she snapped, then seemed to collect herself. “I-I can’t come up with anybody. He’s still around, right? I heard he came back to Savannah, though God knows why. Maybe you should ask him.”
“Mom!” Kelsey’s voice echoed through the house, and Ashley closed her eyes for a second, as if she were fighting a headache as little footsteps pounded down the hallway. “Zeke’s sticking his tongue out at me.”
“Just a sec!” Ashley yelled back. “See what I have to deal with?”
“But he’s also spitting!” Kelsey burst into the room, Zeke a step behind.
“School can’t come fast enough,” Ashley admitted. Then said to Nikki, “We’re done here,” and ushered her out the front door, as if glad for any excuse to get rid of the reporter and her prying questions.
Something wasn’t right there.
Didn’t make sense.
She paused at the second building and thought about checking with Ashley’s husband, but the van was no longer parked where it had been and when Nikki rapped on the entrance to the building, she got no response. Instead she saw Ashley stepping out onto the back patio.
“Do I have to call the police?” she yelled. “That would be a little awkward, don’t you think, you being married to a cop and all?” She’d lit a fresh cigarette and dropped a pair of reflective sunglasses over the bridge of her nose.
No reason to push it, Nikki thought.
At least not yet.
But she definitely wanted to talk to Owen Duval, now more than ever.
She climbed into her Honda and checked the messages on her phone. One from Reed saying he’d be late and a second from Millie, which said only: Call me!
Nikki did, through the hands-free device in her car. “Hey, it’s Nikki,” she said, driving away from the house, the smell of the sea still lingering.
“Have you heard?” Millie asked in a rush. “They found another body.”
“What? Another body?” Her mind raced but before she could ask a question, Millie went on.
“Just this afternoon. A small one, a kid, up at Black Bear Lake. A fisherman came across it.”
“Is it Rose Duval?” Nikki asked, her mind racing. Was it possible the third Duval girl had been found? She drove past the construction site, this time flagged through without having to stop.
“No one knows yet. I just heard this through my source at the department. I thought Reed might have told you.”
“I told you, he’s tight-lipped,” she said, irritated that he couldn’t confide in her. A dozen questions came to mind.
“Where on Black Bear Lake? Who found it? They were fishing up there? Was the body in the water?”
“Whoa. Slow down. I don’t know much. My source just gave me the quick info and I thought you’d want to know. Metzger’s already on it.”
“That’s a surprise,” she said sarcastically as she turned toward the bridge.
“I know. I think he feels you breathing down his neck.”
He should, Nikki thought, but kept it to herself. “What else?”
“That’s it. Until I hear more.”
“Keep me posted.”
“Will do.”
Nikki clicked off, her mind swirling with ideas and questions. If the body was that of little Rose, why wasn’t she in the crypt with her sisters? Had she escaped? Was she murdered, or had it been an accident? Why at the lake? How far was that from the Beaumont mansion? Why was she up there?
“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” But she couldn’t tamp down the sense of excitement she felt, a mixture of fear that Rose Duval was truly dead and a feeling that finally the case might be going somewhere.
Pushing the speed limit, driving by rote, she barely noticed the herons and egrets skimming the water. Instead she let her thoughts spin ahead. Someway, somehow, she had to find a way to get more into the story, to get the green light from her editor so that not only would Fink have her back, but she would have the legitimacy to keep investigating for her job, something Reed couldn’t very well argue against. So, Metzger or no Metzger, she had to get Fink’s approval.
She dictated a quick text to Reed again through her hands-free device. She asked him for confirmation even though she knew he’d be pissed that she was working. Well, too bad. This was her job, damn it.
So into her own thoughts she didn’t notice the gray pickup with the darkened windows that was lying back, ever on her tail, keeping at least two cars between them for cover as she drove into the city.
CHAPTER 19
“Fuck!”
Turning onto the street where he rented a studio apartment in an older home, Owen saw the news vans�
��two of them, both white but emblazoned with competing call signs, their satellites angled toward the hazy sky. One reporter was already on the front porch, speaking through the screen door to someone on the other side. His landlady, no doubt, probably glibly chatting about her quiet tenant with the horrible reputation. Helen Davis, a devout Christian, would talk to the devil himself if it meant a chance to share a little gossip. He’d figured that out only after he’d signed a year-long lease and moved into one of the only places he could afford in the area.
No way was he going to deal with the press.
He did a quick turn into a neighbor’s driveway, surprising a woman walking to her mailbox, then backed up and, throwing the truck into drive again, headed back the way he’d come. At the end of the street, he turned onto the main drag and drove three miles to the parking lot of a convenience store and, with the engine idling, pulled his Atlanta Falcons cap down low and slipped on a pair of sunglasses to cover his eyes. Then he called Austin Wells’s private cell phone.
His attorney answered on the third ring. “Owen?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s me. Can’t you do something? The goddamned press is hounding me, the police are following me—I’m sure of it—and I get calls at work! This is harassment.”
“Refuse to take the phone calls.”
“I do, but there are reporters at my place right now. Two fuckin’ news vans. One reporter is talking to my landlady right now!”
