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Once downstairs in the kitchen again, he opened the French doors. Mikado bounded inside, his tail still whipping back and forth at warp speed while Reed found the animals’ bowls and food. Although he was practically tripping over Mikado, the cat was taking his sweet time about returning. “Come on, Jennings,” Reed yelled through the open door. “Dinnertime.” He opened a can of wet food, mixing it with dry and feeding a ravenous Mikado just as the tabby deigned to stroll inside and sniff before daintily eating.
Reed turned on the TV and checked his phone, rereading Nikki’s last communication once more:
Am out doing errands and research. Mikado and Jennings need to be fed. Back home soon. Love you!
And then the heart emoji. That was odd. She wasn’t one for gushy notes or hearts and flowers and oftentimes just responded with a checkmark or a thumbs-up emoji.
Don’t overthink it. She sent you a text. Heart emoji or no, it’s not a big deal.
But he did. He couldn’t rein in his thoughts now that they were careening down that dangerous path. He knew his wife too well; had been in too many situations where she and her damned curiosity, her need to write the next crime article in the Sentinel had gotten her into trouble. Serious, life-threatening trouble.
“Damn it, Nik,” he said as if she were in the room with him. In an instant he realized she wasn’t doing errands and research. Not the kind she wanted him to think about. He looked through the windows to the night beyond, where the ambient light of the city permeated the backyard and cast a sheen up into a night where a full moon was rising.
Where the hell could she be?
Had she been going to let him know earlier when she’d said she wanted to tell him something? He tried her number again, but, of course, she didn’t pick up.
And then he noticed the voice mail. One that had somehow slipped through, maybe while he was texting. From a number he associated with the department. He hit speaker, set the phone on the counter and listened:
“Hey, this is Rivera in Evidence,” the woman said. He knew her: petite, in her fifties with laugh lines near her dark eyes and a quick smile. “I’m lockin’ up the case files on Duval and I can’t get hold of Detective Delacroix. Been tryin’ for a couple of hours. Since you all are her partner, would you pass it along that we need that locket back? I’d like to seal this up with all of the evidence intact, if ya know what I mean. Sheesh. I don’t have to tell you this is highly irregular. Tell her to get in touch.” With that she hung up.
Reed stared at the phone.
Delacroix had Holly Duval’s locket?
That was news to him. Earlier in the investigation, he remembered that she’d gone down to see about the evidence in the Duval case, specifically about the locket. Right? And when she’d come back? He remembered her saying that the locket had been empty. Part of the conversation came back to him because she’d made a bit of a joke:
“ . . it wasn’t like some kind of Nancy Drew moment when the final and dangerous clue to the mystery is revealed within the clasp of a small piece of jewelry. So I just put it back with everything else.”
She’d lied.
Intentionally.
His eyes narrowed. Why? Why would his partner lie to him?
Because she has something to hide? What the hell do you know about her? Only what you’ve been told. Only what she’s told you.
A knot of fear began to tighten in his stomach. She was a recent hire, he did know that much, and the department vetted all of their employees, of course. She’d transferred from New Orleans. That’s where she’d learned about blood spatter.
Or so she claimed.
And now both Nikki and Delacroix were missing?
“What the hell?”
Fear galvanized him. He swept his phone from the counter and snagged the keys to the department’s SUV from the table. He reached for the door, but second-guessed himself and hurried back upstairs, retrieving his service weapon and holster. “Not this time,” he told the dog, who looked eagerly up at him. “Walk, later.” Reed had one foot out the door when his phone jangled. He looked at the screen. Not Nikki. Not Delacroix. A number with an out-of-state area code. He answered as he shot out the door. “Pierce Reed.”
“Uh. Yeah.” A male voice he didn’t recognize asked, “You’re the detective, right?”
Reed slowed. “Yes.”
“Yeah. Good. I, um, I saw you on TV. You’re in charge of that missing girl case, aren’t you? The one where they found the girls.”
Reed froze on the back walk, his toe hitting something that had wedged between the bricks and the root of an azalea bush. He bent down, still listening, and picked up the object, expecting it to be a dog toy. “That’s right. Who’re you?”
“Dennis. Dennis Kaminiski. And . . . and uh . . . y’know twenty years ago, um, I was visiting my aunt in Savannah. I did that every other summer or so.”
“Yeah?” Reed said, his interest piquing.
