The Third Grave Read online

  Until today.

  She could feel it in her bones.

  Don’t get ahead of yourself. You don’t even know what’s going on.

  But she knew.

  Deep inside she knew.

  This might be the story that could jump-start her career and she could kiss the Sentinel goodbye forever. Or maybe buy the paper. That thought had always circulated in the back of her mind. She’d be the boss! Her fingers curled more tightly over the steering wheel.

  Just calm down. You’ve been here before.

  It was true. Each time her latest book had been released there had been some press, a little buzz, and then the book had slowly died and she’d been back to fighting her way for a more interesting job at the Savannah Sentinel. But breaking into that good ol’ boys club at the newspaper had proved tough. It was as if Norm Metzger had a lock on his job and his best bud, editor Tom Fink, just wouldn’t let him go. Because, Nikki suspected, Norm was a man and whether he admitted it or not in this day and age, Tom Fink thought a man should work the crime beat. Same with Metzger, who had barely hidden his looks of disapproval and jealousy at her for actually being a published author. She’d overheard some of Metzger’s remarks:

  “Don’t care if it’s ‘true’ crime. Any way you cut it, it’s pulp fiction . . . all it is . . .”

  “. . . thinks she can write like a man.”

  “. . . just because her father was a judge . . .”

  And the one that really stung?

  “. . . and she’s got the inside track. Right? Her husband’s a goddamned homicide detective. Hell, how do you compete with that?”

  “Ugh.” She rolled down her window and let the warm air inside. It was all so frustrating. She eased off the gas as she rounded a curve and came across a flatbed truck stacked high with bales of hay, bits of straw flying and swirling from the truck. Reed had suggested she quit to concentrate on her books, which would make sense considering the fact that she was pregnant, but she couldn’t let the reporting gig go. She loved being a reporter, always on the edge of the news, ready to charge into any situation. There was an electricity to it that made her feel alive.

  Still, she didn’t have to think too far back to the whole Blondell O’Henry case to remember how her investigation had almost cost Reed his job.

  Doubts assailed her. Of course they did. But damn it, she was going to do this. And he’d weather the storm. He always did.

  But she wouldn’t worry about that now and drove past sodden fields where cattle, sinking deep into mud, were trying to graze. Less than a mile later, the pastures gave way to Channing Vineyards. Acre upon acre of grapevines lined the road and wound upward on a small hill. Atop the knoll, a huge brick and white pillared home, a replica of Jefferson’s domed Monticello, stood. Nikki barely noticed the house because her eyes caught a glint of silver just as a sleek sports car shot through the open wrought iron gate and she had to slam on her brakes.

  Her Honda screeched, sliding a bit as the BMW convertible sped past, the driver in sunglasses, his blond hair flying, not a glance in her direction as he hit the gas and the engine roared.

  “Hey!” she yelled as he flew by, but of course he didn’t hear her. “Jerk-wad!”

  Jacob Channing.

  He was the owner of these vineyards, a man she’d met on more than one occasion and had even interviewed when his vineyard had hosted the mayor’s last fundraiser. He’d smiled at her, that thousand-watt grin, his eyes narrowing. “I remember you. You’re Andrew’s little sister, right? A shame about him,” he’d said, bringing up her older brother. “We went to school together, you know, before . . .”

  He hadn’t continued, but the remark had endeared him to her at the time.

  Now, though, the fact that he’d nearly killed her changed her opinion.

  Handsome, athletic and wealthy, and one of Savannah’s most eligible bachelors, Jacob was a man as comfortable in black tie as he was dressed in hunting camouflage.

  “Get a grip,” she told herself, trying to control her anger, while her heart thudded, her pulse in the stratosphere. She had to focus.

  Her heart still thudding, she tamped down her anger and kept driving, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t run into Reed.

  She sent up a quick prayer that she would be able to investigate before her husband found out, because, of course, he would.

  And then all hell would break out.

  Oh, well. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been through all this before. She and Reed, they’d manage.

  Right?

  But now it’s not just the two of you. Remember? She smiled and cast a quick glance into the rearview mirror. Her green eyes sparkled at the thought of her pregnancy. After suffering two heartbreaking miscarriages, she was now ten weeks pregnant, the furthest she’d ever carried a child, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—do anything to hurt her chances of carrying this precious life to term.

  So she’d be super careful.

  But really, her kind of investigating didn’t have to be physical.

  But she caught a glimmer of indecision in her gaze and looked back to the road ahead. She was getting close to the lane leading to the old estate.

  It’s now or never.

  * * *

  Reed eyed the basement of the old Beaumont mansion from the bottom step. Now the place was crawling with cops. Photos were being snapped, measurements taken, the area swept for fingerprints and trace evidence, the bodies pulled from their resting place under the medical examiner’s watchful eye. He and Morrisette moved between the crates, boxes and piles of junk, careful not to touch anything.

  “Find anything else in there?” she asked one of the crime scene investigators as they made their way to the opening in the wall where the bodies had been discovered.

  “Who is that? Morrisette? You’re standing in my shot.”

  Morrisette and Reed backed up a step.

  “Great. Now, could you give us a second?” Tanisha Seville, the videographer, was peering through the lens of her camera, focusing on the entrance to the crypt. “Damn.” To an assistant standing near a huge lamp, “Any way you can get more light in here? All I’ve got are shadows. It’s like a damned dungeon in there.”

  Reed agreed.

  Morrisette said, “We’re just checking to see if you discovered anything else.”

  “Well, check after we’re done.” Tanisha was known for not mincing words. Just like Morrisette, though they couldn’t be more physically different. Whereas Morrisette was short and wiry, her skin lined from years growing up under a harsh Texas sun, Seville was tall and big-boned with smooth mocha-colored skin, springy black hair she didn’t bother taming and eyes that flashed when she was irritated. Like now. Ignoring the detective, she leaned into her camera and slowly panned the area.

  Carter caught Reed’s eye.

  “So far, only two bodies located.”

  “That’s more than enough,” Morrisette muttered.

  “Let’s hope it stays that way.” Reed didn’t want to see the body count going up, didn’t want to think that this once-grand estate had become a dumping ground for a serial killer. But what about that empty depression in the crypt? Had a third victim escaped? Would they find more skeletons when they began to dig? What the hell had happened here in this dingy, forgotten cellar filled with years of discards now illuminated by the eerie glow of temporary lights?

  They talked with a couple of the techs, found out nothing more and watched grimly as the skeletons were painstakingly withdrawn from their resting spaces.

  “This is something you just can’t unsee now, can ya?” Morrisette swept her gaze over the small bodies before they were bagged. “Gonna be with me for effin’ ever. As long as I live. C’mon. Let’s get outta here.” She was already heading for the stairs.

  Outside, the air was still heavy with the smell of the river, but they’d left the pervasive scent of rot in the basement, thank God. Reed noted it was late afternoon, not a breath of wind to stir the air, the h
eat oppressive. His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took the call from the department. “Reed.”

  “Yeah, it’s Delacroix,” a female voice stated, and he remembered the woman, a relatively new hire and junior detective. Auburn hair, medium build, serious beyond her years. “I’ve got a rundown on the phone number who called 911 about the bodies at the Beaumont estate. A guy by the name of Bruno Cravens.”

  Reed was familiar with the name. “Goes by Bronco,” he said, remembering the small-time hustler who had been busted time and again for burglary, robbery, passing bad checks, that sort of thing. Always at the wrong place at the wrong time and up to no good. “We’ll round him up and have a chat.”

  “You got his address?”

  “Cabin on Settler’s Road?”

  “That’s the one. Want me to check him out?” she offered, and Reed remembered she was a go-getter. Single, a little sassy and extremely gung ho.

  “Nah, we’re about done here anyway. Thanks.” He hung up and was about to explain when Morrisette said, “I heard. Bronco Cravens again.” She shook her head. “No surprise there. Just can’t keep his nose clean.” Her eyes narrowed and she followed the path of a bee flitting through the tangle of weeds. “Wonder what he was doing here?” She scrabbled in the pocket of her blouse, her fingers coming up empty. “Man, I could use a smoke,” Morrisette admitted, scowling. “But if I did, man, oh, man, you can bet Priscilla would smell it on me and I’d never hear the end of it. Got a nose like a goddamned bloodhound and she’s death on smoking. At least for now. And as far as cigarettes go.” Morrisette’s eyes slid away. “Can’t say about anything else. Kids these days are into weed a lot younger than when I was in school. She’s a good kid, but you just never know.”

  Priscilla was a handful, Reed thought. Morrisette’s son, Toby, was a few years younger than his sister and to hear Morrisette tell it, already thinking he was an adult and “the man of the family.” His mother disagreed. “In his dreams,” she’d confided not long ago.

  “Come on, let’s get to it,” she added. “You go south, I’ll head north. Let’s just get a feel for this place and hope we don’t find any more bodies.” Reed eyed the woods, tall and gloomy, and wondered if the whole damned estate was a dumping ground for corpses and if there was a serial killer on the loose. The victims discovered in the basement had been there for years, possibly decades, but what if there were more? Fresh ones?

  Reed didn’t like the turn of his thoughts. And there was Bronco. Why was he on the property? What was the connection?

  As to the victims—yes, girls, he decided, his stomach churning at the thought. They’d been hidden in that hole in the wall a long time.

  Who the hell were they?

  CHAPTER 4

  Nikki eased off the gas as she reached the gates of the Beaumont estate, then sped past. Before she was spotted. Of course the entrance was closed off, police vehicles blocking access except for the authorized vehicles from the department or the medical examiner or forensic team. And, she noted, Reed’s Jeep was wedged between two sheriff’s department SUVs. Deputies had been posted to prevent the public and the press from getting too close to the crime scene and keeping neighbors, the general public and lookie-loos from catching a glimpse of what was going on. Well, too bad. Fortunately, she knew this area like the back of her hand and so she rolled on past the main entrance. Around two curves she found a turnout where the road was wider, a spot that fishermen used to park their cars before they hiked to the river.

  She pulled in and parked, locked the car and started jogging along a familiar path through the forest. She came to a fork near a blackened stump and turned without hesitation to the right, doubling back toward the Beaumont estate. She’d come here as a kid along with her brothers and sister. Andrew, the oldest, leading the way, Kyle dogging at his heels, Lily and Nikki lagging behind as they’d followed the old deer trails through the sun-dappled forest. It had been long ago—so long—and now . . . she closed her mind to the past, didn’t want to think of her shattered family. Andrew had died so long ago and his death had sent the family into a tailspin, Kyle rebelling and becoming distant, Lily set upon her own introspective path of bad decisions, and Nikki’s own innocence destroyed. Her parents, never loving to begin with, had never been the same.

  But she wouldn’t go there. Not now. Not when she had to concentrate.

  She kept running.

  Twilight was fast approaching, the gloom settling under the canopy of branches overhead, the smell of the river thick in her nostrils. Roots and rocks made the ground uneven, and spider webs and limbs brushed her bare arms as she caught glimpses of the river through the trees. She was breathing hard as she spied the wire fence, the mesh disintegrating, a faded NO TRESPASSING sign hanging by a single strand as it warned that violators would be prosecuted.

  “Too bad,” she muttered, and slipped through a large gap in the mesh.

  Speaking of prosecution and the law—what happens when Reed finds out you’ve been here? Not just trespassing, but nosing around his crime scene? Huh? What then?

  Ignoring that nasty little voice in her head, she hesitated at the edge of the woods leading to the clearing beyond, where the tall grass met the river’s edge and nestled in a copse of live oaks. The proud old house stood, crumbling now, on a small rise. As a child, Nikki and her family had attended parties here. Even then the old house had been starting to show its age, but now, nearly thirty years later, it had fallen into near ruin. As she peeked between the leaves of an overgrown crepe myrtle, she eyed the house and grounds now crawling with cops. So different from how it had been. In her mind’s eye she remembered the parties Beulah Beaumont had hosted, here on these very grounds. Nikki had been little more than a toddler who, like the other children of guests, had been allowed to play and run down the terraced lawn and in the surrounding trees while the acrid smell of smoke from the barbecue mixed with sweet aromas of hummingbird cake and pecan pies wafting from the kitchen.

  She remembered Beulah Beaumont, the matriarch, as a proud woman with flaming red hair piled high, blue eyes that narrowed suspiciously and thin lips that were forever drawn into a saccharine smile. Miss Beulah had smelled of some odious perfume meant to cover the scents of alcohol and cigarettes, though those acrid scents had always lingered. As Nikki’s mother, Charlene, had once said, “Who does she think she’s fooling? And that wig! Dear Lord!”

  At the events, Beulah had never left the shade of the veranda but had sat in her wheelchair as if it were a throne, sipping from her tall glass of her own special Chatham Artillery punch. The boozy recipe included more than a little sugar and lemons, along with a concoction of whiskeys, rum and champagne “kissed with lemons and oranges,” as Beulah herself had often drawled.

  Even as a five-year-old, Nikki had made it a point of avoiding Beulah’s watchful eyes; there was just something fraudulent in her seemingly gracious smile when she greeted the Gillette family and offered sweet tea or “something a little stronger.”

  But that was long ago. Before Beulah had passed and her stepson, Baxter, had inherited the house and surrounding acres.

  Now, still hidden in the foliage surrounding the overgrown lawn, Nikki watched as a couple of deputies talked by the ME’s van parked near the rear of the old house. Other cops came and went through a back side door, but she didn’t spy Reed.

  Good.

  But was he still inside, or had he left in the time it had taken her to park her SUV and jog back through the forest? She slid her cell phone from her pocket, hit the camera app and zoomed in on the porch. Reed would really have a fit if he found out she was taking photos, but he was going to have one anyway.

  She wanted to talk to some of the officers involved but couldn’t chance it just yet. Not when Reed was probably still nearby. A mosquito buzzed near her ear and she slapped at it as she eyed the area and thought that if she skirted the house along the river, then cut into the old rose garden, she might be able to overhear a conversation or even get a
peek inside the house.

  The house sat on a point where the river turned nearly back on itself, the grassy bank overhanging a narrow rocky beach. Not great cover, but it would have to do.

  She slid her phone back into her rear pocket, then eased from the cover of the undergrowth to crouch beneath the rim of grassland. Noiselessly she started circumventing the grounds and past the point and the remains of what had once been a dock and was now reduced to a few weathered boards and dark pilings nearly obscured in the swollen river. Debris moved swiftly downstream—branches, limbs, a bucket and a volleyball swirling by.

  Nikki edged carefully beneath the overhang, her boots slipping on wet rocks. She had to slip through the reeds, but all the while she watched the house and wondered what had happened.

  She couldn’t fight the rush of adrenaline as she imagined finding out the facts to whatever story was evolving on this old plantation. Who had been killed? When? Why? She just didn’t have enough information. Who had phoned in the crime to the police—who was that anonymous caller? She needed to get to the bottom of this story, or at least be the first to report it. Carefully she eased along the bank and hoped she didn’t step into an alligator nest or come across any snakes or . . . Stop it. A tomboy in her youth and a daredevil in her teens, she didn’t let too many things frighten her, so she wouldn’t worry too much about the creatures she’d grown up with, and she moved as quickly as possible as darkness was encroaching, shadows fingering through the marshy bank.

  She was starting to perspire and nearly crawling along the bank, the smell of earth and the river heavy in her nostrils, a slight breeze playing with the tendrils of her hair. She had always been athletic and agile, but she was making slow progress past the old dock, around the bend, relying on the scant overhang and impending darkness as cover. Here the river was deeper, the narrow bank and cattails giving way to dark depths, where, as youths, her brothers had dived and swum and boats could maneuver close to the shore.