The Third Grave (Savannah #4) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,71
want to lose this lead, didn’t want to give Brit a chance to back out. “Where?”
“I was thinking the Buzz, that coffee shop that’s not far from Forsyth Park? You know where it is?”
“Yes. Perfect!” She frequented the Buzz often enough as it was only across the park, a few blocks from where she lived. “I’ll be there.” She stood quickly and heard a series of pops as her spine lengthened.
Finally! After two days of spinning her wheels. She’d spent most of the past forty-eight hours at home, working on her laptop, checking the Internet, arranging her own timeline of when events in the Duval murders had taken place, and making calls for interviews where she’d left messages one after another. Texts, e-mails and voice mails had been left unanswered.
Until now.
Of course Reed had been as tight-lipped about the case as ever, and rather than risking another rift with him, she hadn’t badgered him about the investigation and had barely mentioned it. He was absorbed in it, though he did ask about what she’d done each day and if there had been anything the least bit suspicious here at the house.
There hadn’t been.
No bogeyman lurking in the shadows.
No dark figure leaping at her as she rounded a corner.
And though she still had the uncanny sensation that she was being watched or followed, she’d chalked it all up to some lingering paranoia that she dismissed because one thing she was not was a wimp!
There had been a couple of times when the cat had looked out the window, his tail twitching, and Nikki had followed his gaze to land on a bird at the fountain or a squirrel scampering brazenly along the top of the back fence, but that had been it.
Nothing the least bit evil or scary or threatening.
No one had been hurt.
Nothing had been stolen.
Everything was quiet again.
Now, she hurried downstairs and felt a twinge in her arm, reminding her she wasn’t quite healed, though she’d been wearing her sling less and less and she wasn’t going to bother with it now. She put her iPad, phone and keys into her bag and caught sight of Mikado at the door, looking up at her hopefully. “Next time,” she promised. “You’re in charge.” His tail swept the floor. “That’s right, because we can’t trust him, now, can we?” She pointed to the cat, who was creeping along the windowsill, staring into the back garden.
And then she was off.
Nikki half jogged crossing the park where the live oaks spread their branches across the wide walkways. She passed a man in a fedora and overcoat despite the heat, a teenager walking four dogs of different shapes and sizes, and two women power walking for their morning exercise.
She was starting to sweat a bit when she caught up with Brit at the Buzz, where she had already ordered a tall coffee drink and was seated at a tall café table in the front courtyard while scrolling on her phone.
“Hi! So glad to finally connect,” Nikki said, taking the stool across from her.
“Yeah.” She looked up from the screen. In her late thirties, Brit was petite and trim, wearing running clothes that suggested she kept fit by logging in miles jogging. Her thick black hair was pulled into a ponytail, a few silver hairs catching in the morning light. “Don’t you want to grab something to drink?”
“I’m fine,” Nikki assured her as she pulled out her phone and iPad. She didn’t want Brit to have a chance to second-guess herself. “As I said, I just wanted to ask you some questions about the Duval family.”
“You and a million others,” she said, taking a sip from her cup.
“Other reporters?” That worried her and she considered Norm Metzger—God, he was a pain in her side.
“Oh, yeah. Like tons. But not the cops. Well, at least not yet. Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to help since I was a friend of Holly’s, you know. Maxie said you were cool, so”—she shrugged—“ask away.” She licked off a remaining bit of foam from the rim of her drink.
Nikki decided to get right to the heart of it, what had been nagging at her. “Tell me about Ashley McDonnell and Owen Duval, how close they were.”
“They weren’t.” Brit leaned forward, the tall table wobbling slightly on the cobblestones. “That—the two of them—was definitely not a thing. At least not that kind of thing.”
“But she’s his alibi. She swore she was with him that night.”