The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,137
with anything?
Why wasn’t Delacroix answering?
Why the hell had she lied to him about the locket, about visiting Austin Wells?
Because she’s not the cop she wants you to think she is. He mentally kicked himself for not calling and checking on her himself. He knew a detective in New Orleans—Reuben Montoya. They’d worked together long ago and he could’ve given Reed the goods on Delacroix. But he hadn’t. He’d trusted the department.
Dear God, why was his wife here?
He had a bad feeling about what was going down out here in the woods, a real bad feeling. As he approached the old lodge, he kept to the side of the lane using whatever brush he could find as cover, his eyes searching the surrounding darkness.
Hugging close to a row of live oaks, he rounded a wide bend to a weed-choked clearing where the Marianne Inn loomed on the shore of the river.
Windows on the lower floor of the huge, rambling structure glowed eerily, the upper story steeped in darkness. The inn, like its counterpart the Beaumont manor, was abandoned and falling into total disrepair, though tonight, it seemed, the Marianne was in slightly better shape, most of its windows intact, its chimney not yet crumbling, its wide porch still flanking the structure.
Was Nikki inside?
Dread pounded through him.
His jaw clenched so tight it ached.
He pulled his service weapon from his holster and focusing, trying to keep his emotions under control, hurried forward, surveying the grounds.
Two vehicles were parked near the front door: a dark pickup with smoked windows and a white SUV—a Bentley? With stickers of a family—man, woman, son, daughter, and dog—and a license plate holder announcing: LIFE IS BETTER AT THE BEACH scrawled across the top and TYBEE ISLAND written along the bottom.
The SUV had to belong to Ashley Jefferson.
So what was she doing here, and what did it have to do with Nikki?
His bad feeling was getting worse.
He had no idea who owned the pickup but was about to find out. As for Nikki’s Honda?
Nowhere in sight.
Was that a good sign?
Or an omen?
Her text replayed in his mind:
At the Marianne Inn. Settler’s Road. Get here fast. Be careful!
His stomach churned. He had assumed she’d written the text herself. But what if someone else had her phone? What if she’d been coerced into sending it? No—she was clever enough to have added something that would cue him that she wasn’t writing it of her own volition. But someone else could have her phone.
Dread propelled him forward as a hundred horrid scenarios of what may have happened to her screamed through his brain, but he couldn’t concentrate on them now, couldn’t give in to the fear. Not when there was a chance he could save her.
But if she was injured, if anyone had harmed her . . . He’d kill them.
Plain and simple.
You’re getting ahead of yourself. Just keep focused.
Jaw set, with deadly intent prodding him forward, Reed eased forward, startling a possum that hissed, showing teeth, round eyes catching the moonlight. Reed stopped and the creature shuffled into the underbrush, disappearing behind a fallen log. Reed kept going, edging along the overgrown lane, his gun in hand, his gaze focused on the lodge.
Lamplight glowed through the dirty windows, figures appearing and disappearing. Two, he thought. A man and a woman. He squinted as he neared, closing in on the wide porch. The woman came into view again.
Ashley Jefferson. Smoking a cigarette. Owen Duval’s alibi. What in God’s name was she doing here? Who was she meeting? And where the hell was Nikki?
Ashley approached the window and peered through the panes, her nose nearly to the glass. And behind her? Coming up to wrap his arms around her waist and nuzzle the back of her neck?
Tyson Beaumont.
Clutching a gun in the hand he buried between Ashley’s breasts. Was she captive? Reed started to step forward and then watched as she let her head fall back, her blond hair shimmering in the lamplight as she allowed him to kiss her exposed throat.
What the hell? They were a couple? From the looks of the way he was holding her, as if he owned her, Reed would guess so. And here they were together, so soon after Owen Duval’s supposed suicide.
It smelled rotten.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement, something shifting in the umbra. His eyes narrowed and his pulse jumped.