Lily asked, “Sure you don’t want to join?”
“When you offer it up like that? Hard to resist, but no, I think I’ll take a hard pass.”
“Fine, but you owe me.”
“A dozen times over,” Nikki admitted as the woman with the cat entered the vet clinic. “How is Chloe?”
“Bubbly as ever. Babbling about seeing ‘Gam-Gam.’ But do you think she’ll ever say, ‘Auntie Lily?’ Nope. Not a prayer. She’s as stubborn as her mother.”
“Well, good luck,” Nikki said, still smiling. “I’ll catch you this afternoon.”
She ended the call, then climbed into the warm interior of her Subaru and drove to the offices of theSavannah Sentinel. Even though she was no longer on staff, she had full use of the paper’s resources. Tom Fink, who was the editor, allowed her access, though grudgingly, and usually there was a price to pay. He’d never really forgiven her for branching out and writing full-length crime books; she suspected that he harbored more than a little jealousy at her success.
But he hadn’t cut her off from access to the paper’s computers because he needed her. Nikki’s articles were often picked up by national news sources, and it didn’t hurt theSentinel’s reputation that she was a crime author of note, her books hitting most of the bestseller lists.
Fink’s favorite line was, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” The quid pro quo that always got under her skin because the way he said it almost sounded dirty.
She parked on the street, a block down from the brick warehouse where theSavannah Sentinelwas now housed. After using a code to gain access to the building, she made her way to the stairs, as the elevators were iffy at best.
On the third floor, she noted that Celeste, the receptionist and Fink’s on-again, off-again mistress, wasn’t at her desk. Maybe things were off-again.
Nikki slipped past cubicles where a smattering of reporters were at their desks, eyeing monitors, fingers diligently clicking on keyboards. Along one wall dedicated to online content, two employees were seated on stools, checking the news feeds and updating theSentinel’s website and social-media platforms. Conversation hummed over the rumble of the air conditioning and the ever-present sounds of footsteps, keyboard clicks, and ringtones. There was an energy here that, deep down, she missed.
With a glance to the corner, Nikki noted that the door to Fink’s glassed-in office was closed, the blinds drawn, a sign he wasn’t in.
Good.
She didn’t want to deal with him if it could be avoided, as he was always pressuring her for more information than she had. Fink seemed to think that, because she was married to a homicide detective, she had access to privileged information about ongoing cases and therefore should share it with theSentineland its readership. No matter how many times she’d explained that she wasn’t privy to the case files, nor would she share information if she were, Fink never let up.
So she was better off not working here full-time.
“I figured you’d show up,” Kendra Phillips said, looking up from the computer screen on her desk. Kendra was relatively new to the paper and a bit of a gossip, friendly enough, but always pumping Nikki for information. Slender and pushing thirty, Kendra wore her brown hair straight, didn’t cover her splash of freckles with makeup, and wore a single diamond stud in one nostril. “So, let me guess. You’re already on the Huber murder, right?”
“Just doing a little research.”
“When Fink’s not in. Clever.” Kendra sipped from a straw planted deep into the oversize cup she kept filled with Diet Pepsi. “What’re you ‘researching’?” She didn’t use air quotes, but the tone of her voice suggested Nikki was being evasive.
Which she was.
“Just backup information.” Nikki kept walking.
“On Billy Huber?” she asked. “You know I heard he killed his wife.”
Nikki stopped in her tracks. “Killed her?”
“Walked away from a single-car accident when he was driving. The wife didn’t make it. He did.”
So it seemed someone else was doing her own research. No surprise there. Kendra was nothing if not ambitious, and with Nikki working freelance, that left only Norm Metzger on the crime beat. And he was half out the door already.
“Ignore her,” Roy Lutz whispered as he swept by, papers in his hand. “But be on alert. She’s a barracuda, not a guppy.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, I do. You know it.” Roy’s eyebrows raised over the tops of his fashionable glasses. Self-confident and whip-smart, Roy worked on the arts and leisure section of the paper. Everything about him was casual haute couture, from his Dior polo shirts to his Gucci sneakers. “She wants to be you,” he confided to Nikki.
“What’s he saying?” Kendra wanted to know, but Nikki took Roy’s advice and didn’t respond, at least for the moment.
Roy said lightly, “Nothing.”
