“But I am reporting that the killer contacted me,” Nikki cut in. She looked as tired as Morrisette felt. Dark smudges showed up beneath her eyes, her lipstick had faded and her hair was a tangled mess. But she was still feisty as hell. That probably came with being Big Ron Gillette’s daughter.
“I’d like to see the article before it hits the stands.”
“Too late.” Gillette trapped Morrisette in a sharp, green-eyed glare. “I left one draft at the paper with orders to print it if I didn’t get back with additional facts.”
Morrisette’s frayed temper snapped. “You’re impeding the investigation.”
“No, Detective, I’m helping it.” Nikki Gillette opened her voluminous bag, pulled out the notes, encased in plastic sacks, and tossed them onto the table. “These are copies. Reed has the originals.”
“Jesus,” Cliff muttered and wiped a hand over his mouth like some kind of pansy. He was an odd one, she decided, though Morrisette didn’t have time to analyze what was going through her new, scowling partner’s brain. All the same, she found herself longing to be hooked up with Reed again. Him, she understood. Or did she? From the corner of her eye she saw him fold his arms over his chest and lean one shoulder against the door frame. It bothered her that he’d linked up with Nikki Gillette. In Morrisette’s estimation, Reed was fraternizing with the enemy. Hadn’t he said a hundred times how he hated the press?
And now he was in bed with them…or one…or soon to be, if she read the signals right. What the hell was he thinking?
She read the message:
WILL THERE BE MORE?
UNTIL THE TWELFTH,
NO ONE CAN BE SURE.
“It is like the one you got,” she said to Reed.
“More than that. It’s a continuation.”
“What do you mean?” Nikki asked, but Sylvie Morrisette was on Reed’s wavelength.
“I get it. One line repeated…to link ’em…‘Now, we have number four. One third done, will there be more? Will there be more? Until the twelfth, no one can be sure.’”
“Singsong like a child’s rhyme,” Nikki said.
Siebert looked at the reporter and there was something in his eyes, a familiarity that he quickly disguised. “So what does the twelfth mean?”
“The twelfth of December?” Nikki said. “That’s so soon.”
“What about number of victims?” Reed ventured and Siebert sent him a look guaranteed to kill.
“Twelve? There will be twelve?” Gillette, to her credit, seemed horrified.
Morrisette ended the speculation. “Let’s not throw theories around. And remember, everything you heard here is off the record.”
“For now,” she said. “Once the investigation is over—”
“Let’s just solve it first,” Siebert cut in.
Amen, Sylvie thought. It was the first time she’d agreed with her new partner. She figured it might just be the last.
Twelve.
That was the key. Nikki’s brain was too tired to think what it could possibly mean, but there was something important in the number, something she’d have to research she thought as she drove to her parents’ house. She’d called her father from the station, explained only that she needed a place to crash, and knew she’d get the third degree upon her arrival. Which was fine. Better her parents hear what was happening from her lips rather than through the gossip mill that churned out fact and fiction twenty-four hours a day in Savannah.
Twelve, twelve, twelve. Half of twenty-four. Half a day? Twelve numbers on a clock face? Twelve doughnuts in a dozen, twelve members of a jury, twelve days of Christmas…The song popped into her brain as it was the season.
“On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…twelve…oh, drummers drumming…” she sang off-key, then glanced in her rearview mirror. The street was deserted aside from the twin headlights behind her.
Detective Pierce Reed.
On the job.