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Why . . . oh, God why . . . who had she wronged so horribly? There were many, she realized as panic squeezed through her. Who would hate her enough to torture her this way? Who would have cause? She was fading, gasping. Her mind spun crazily to thoughts of the men in her life and to one in particular, one who probably didn’t remember her name, one she had wronged fiercely.
Pierce Reed. Detective with the Savannah Police Department.
No . . . Reed wouldn’t do this to her, didn’t really know how deeply their lives were entwined, didn’t care.
It was another man, some monster who had trapped her here.
She began to shiver and weep.
“Let me out! Let me out,” she screamed, sobbing, her throat raw, her skin crawling with the thought of the decomposing human that was her bed. “Please, please, let me out of here . . . I’ll do anything . . . anything, oh, please, don’t do this . . .” but she didn’t even know to whom she was begging and the shovels of dirt and pebbles kept raining on the grave.
She gasped, drawing in a ragged, burning breath of what was left of the air. Her lungs were on fire from lack of oxygen and she felt suddenly weak.
Helpless.
Doomed.
She made one last vain attempt to claw her way out of her prison, but it was no use. The blackness crashed over her, crushing the fight from her, squeezing the life from her and her hands fell to her sides. This, then, was her tomb. Forever.
Above the gruesome silence she thought she heard laughter. It sounded far away, but she knew it was meant for her to hear. He wanted her to know. To hear him before she drew her last breath.
Whoever had done this to her was enjoying it.
One
“That son of a bitch is taking me back to court!” Morrisette blazed into Reed’s office and slapped some legal papers on the corner of his desk. “Can you believe it? Bart wants to reduce my child support by thirty percent!” Bart Yelkis was Sylvie Morrisette’s fourth and latest ex-husband and father of her two kids. For as long as Reed had been with the Savannah Police Department, Sylvie and Bart had been at odds over how she raised Priscilla and Toby. Sylvie was tough as dried leather and rarely kept her razor-sharp tongue in check. She smoked, drank, drove as if she was in the time trials for the Indy 500, swore like a sailor and dressed as if she was pushing twenty rather than thirty-five, but she was first and foremost a mother. Nothing could bristle her neck hairs faster than criticism of her kids.
“I thought he was caught up in his payments.”
“He was, but it was short-lived, believe me. I should have known. It was just too effin’ good to be true. Damn it all, why can’t the guy be a dad, huh?” She dropped her over-sized purse onto the floor and shot Reed a glance that convinced him right now all of the men in Morrisette’s life were suddenly considered big-time losers. Including him. Morrisette had a reputation for being tough, a woman hell-bent to do a man’s job, a prickly female cop whose tongue was razor sharp, her opinions unpopular, her patience with “good ol’ boys” nil, and her language as bald as any detective’s on the force. She wore snakeskin boots that were far from department issue, spiked platinum hair that looked as if Billy Idol had been her hairdresser, and an attitude that would make any young tough think twice about taking her on. Reed had suffered many a sympathetic glance from other cops who pitied him for luck in the partner draw. Not that he cared. In the short time he’d been back in Savannah, Reed had learned to respect Sylvie Morrisette, even if he did have to walk on eggshells upon occasion. This morning she was flush in the face and looked as if she could spit nails. “Can he do that—reduce the payments?” Reed had been opening his mail but, for the moment, set his letter opener on a desk that was a jungle of papers.
“If he can find himself a wimp of a judge who’ll buy into his pathetic, poor, pitiful me act. So Bart lost his job, so what? He should get off his ass and get another one. Instead he thinks he’ll cut back on me and the kids.” She rolled her eyes and straightened her petite frame from the worn heels of her boots to the top of her spiked blond hair. Her west-Texas drawl was stronger than ever when she was on a tear and she was on a major one this morning. “Bastard. That’s what he is! A card-carrying, dyed-in-the wool, fucking bastard.” She stalked to the window and glowered outside to the gray Savannah winter. “Jesus, it’s not as if he pays us millions to begin with. And they’re his kids. His kids. The ones he always complains about not seeing enough!” She stomped a booted foot and swore under her breath. “I need a drink.”
“It’s nine in the morning.”
“Who cares?”
Reed wasn’t too concerned. Morrisette was known to go into overdrive in the theatrics department, especially when her kids or one of her four ex-husbands was involved. “Can’t you fight him?” Reed drained a cup of tepid coffee, then crushed the paper cup and tossed it into an overflowing wastebasket.
“Yeah, but it’ll cost. I’ll need a damned attorney.”
“The town’s lousy with them.”
“That’s the problem. Bart’s got a friend who owes him a favor—a lawyer friend. So he called in his marker and she filed a motion or whatever the hell it is. A woman. Can you believe it? Where’s the sisterhood, huh? That’s what I’d like to know. Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of woman-bond where ya don’t go trompin’ all over another woman’s child support?”
Reed didn’t touch that one with a ten-foot pole. As far as he knew Morrisette wasn’t part of any sisterhood. She ran roughshod over men and women with equal vigor. He picked up his letter opener again and began slitting a plain white envelope addressed to him in care of the Savannah Police Department written in plain block letters. The return address seemed familiar, but he couldn’t place it.
“So this is it,” Morrisette groused. “My kids’ future in the toilet because Bart built this woman a fence for her dogs a few years back and whamo—she goes after my paltry support check.” Morrisette’s eyes slitted. “There oughta be a law, ya know. Don’t people in the legal profession, and I use the term loosely, have better things to do than file stupid lawsuits to screw little kids out of a piece of their father’s paycheck?” She raked her fingers through her already unruly hair before storming back to the desk and scooping up her legal papers. Flopping into a side chair she added, “I guess I’ll be putting in for overtime and lots of it.”
“You’ll get through this.”
“Screw you,” she spat. “The last thing I expected from you, Reed, is platitudes, okay, so stuff ’em.”
He swallowed a smile and slit the envelope. “Whatever you say.”
“Yeah, right.” But she seemed to cool off a bit.
“Why don’t you sue Bart for more money? Turn the tables on him.”
