Tell Me Read Free Page A

course, but maybe he could, you know, let you get involved in some way with a current case?”
    “That’s not Reed’s style.”
    “Seems you managed to squeeze into an investigation or two before,” her agent reminded her, and she squirmed a little in her chair. There was a time when she would have done just about anything for a story, but that was before she’d agreed to become Mrs. Pierce Reed.
    “Forget it, Ina, okay? Look, even if I could get him to agree, and let me tell you that’s a gigantic if , it’s not like knife-wielding psychopaths run rampant through the streets of Savannah every day, you know.”
    “Every city, or area around a city, has bizarre crimes. You just have to turn over the right rock and poke around. It’s amazing what you might find. People are sick, Nikki.”
    “And I should be the one to capitalize on that.” Nikki didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
    “It’s what you do best. So dig a little,” Ina suggested. “Turn over those rocks. Squeeze Reed for some info on a new case, even an old one. There’s got to be something. What are the police working on now?”
    “Reed doesn’t confide in me. Or anyone. It’s just not his deal.”
    Ina wasn’t persuaded. “Not even pillow talk? You know, men really open up in bed.”
    “Let’s not even go there.”
    Ina sighed loudly. “Don’t play the blushing virgin card. I know you, Nikki. If you want something, you go after it and, hell or high water be damned, you get it.”
    “Come on, Ina. Think about it. If there were another serial killer running loose in Savannah, don’t you think I would know about it?”
    She could almost hear the gears turning in her agent’s mind. In her mid-forties and shrewd as hell, Ina was barely five feet tall and the only agent in New York who had wanted to take a chance on Nikki when she’d submitted her first manuscript. Ina had seen what others couldn’t, and now, damn her, she was trying to wring out of Nikki that same essence and perspective for a brand-new sales-worthy story. “So get creative,” she suggested, and Nikki heard bracelets jangling as she shifted her phone. “Maybe this time not a serial killer per se.”
    “Just a really sick monster with some kind of a blood fetish?”
    “Or foot, or hand or breast. Or whatever twisted obsession turns him on.” Ina gave a laugh that was deep and throaty from years of cigarettes. “Yeah, that would probably work.” Clearing her throat, she added more earnestly, “You know the book is due in six months. It has to be published next year if we don’t want to piss off the publisher and if we want to keep the Nikki Gillette brand out there.”
    Oh, Nikki knew all right. The date was circled in red on two calendars and highlighted in the virtual office on her computer as well. She wasn’t about to forget, and she really couldn’t. The struggling Sentinel was a slim remnant of its former self. Layoffs had been massive and painful. Nikki was working part-time for the paper and lucky to have a job. More and more, she relied on the advances and royalties from her books. Between the economy, the new technology, and her own ambition, she’d backed herself into a financial corner. She would be an idiot if she didn’t make this work. “Okay, okay. I’ll come up with something,” Nikki heard herself say. As she hung up, she wondered what the hell that something would be.
    She didn’t take the time to think about it now. Instead, she flew down the circular stairs to her bedroom below, peeled off her jeans and sweater, and stepped into her running gear; old jogging pants and bra, a stained T-shirt, and favorite, tattered sweatshirt with a hood. She’d never been one for glamour when she was working out. Her running shoes were ready, near the back door, and after lacing them up and tossing the chain with her house key dangling from it over her head, she took off down the interior stairs and out the back, then sprinted around to