“I don’t think so.” Pausing, she lowered her voice and cast her gaze around to be certain she wasn’t overheard, her single braid flipping over her shoulder, a horsefly buzzing around her head. “Archie said not to talk to you. Or … or to anyone.”
“You didn’t confirm that you were his alibi.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She tossed her head. The horsefly flew off, and Annabelle’s snake-like braid settled back into place, down the middle of her back.
“On the night Mavis was killed.”
“He already told you. We were together.”
“Except for the time when he went to his house. To get some things, I think he said.”
“But he didn’t do anything! He just found her there. Look, I’ve got to go. I have another lesson in, like, ten minutes.”
“And he never mentioned anyone who would want to do her harm?” Nikki asked, one eye on her daughter, who was pushing loose straw through the wire fencing to the goat.
“No,” she asserted, more than a little defensively. “But no one liked her. Not even her own family.”
“And not Archer?”
“What’re you suggesting? Oh, crap! He didn’t do it!” She rolled her expressive eyes. “God, haven’t you been listening?”
“Did he ever mention Billy Huber?”
“Who?” she asked, seeming bewildered for a second. “Oh. That guy who got killed out on his farm? No. He told you that.”
Another instructor was leading a tall, dappled gelding with a girlof about ten or eleven balanced in the saddle. Red hair poked from beneath her helmet, and as she passed, Nikki thought she recognized her. A classmate of Ophelia’s possibly?
“Look, I really have to go,” Annabelle said, as the big horse and rider passed. She took a couple of steps toward the door to the office. “Archie said to tell you to leave me alone or we’ll … we’ll call an attorney!” She gave a quick, sharp nod. Gone was the effusive, talkative girl in the hot tub. Now the friendly “I-mostly-go-by Annie” had been replaced by scared Annabelle.
Archer had obviously laid down the law.
“Just leave me … leaveusalone!” She turned quickly and dashed up the five steps to the office, her boot heels ringing, a bell over the door tinkling as she dashed inside and yanked the door shut behind her.
Through the large viewing windows, Nikki could see her talking excitedly with a severe, fiftyish woman whose keen eyes looked over half glasses. Her hair was the color of steel and pulled back into a tight, small knot at the base of her skull, and her colorless lips were drawn into a hard, disapproving line. Nikki guessed she was a manager or supervisor or possibly the owner of the riding academy, and right now, she was staring straight at Nikki, her expression nothing less than hostile.
Great.
If it hadn’t been before, her impromptu interview with Annabelle was definitely over. Too bad. Though Nikki had been more than happy to spend the afternoon with Chloe and take Ophelia to her riding lesson after school, she’d had an ulterior motive, planning to “bump into” Annabelle and press her about Archer’s alibi on the night of Mavis’s murder. She hoped to glean more information because so far she’d only come up with dead ends, which, she had to admit, probably included all of Mavis’s exes as well as Archer.
Not really surprising, she thought, picking Chloe up again and walking out of the building toward the parking area where she’d left her Subaru.
But she was quickly running out of leads.
As were the police, as far as she knew.
Pierce had been working late, pressured by the powers-that-be in the department to locate the killer. Nothing seemed to be workingfor him as well. What she’d learned from the little conversation they shared was that no link could be found between the victims. No alibis had cracked, except for Archer Greenlee’s, as he’d been protecting Annabelle. Also, there was some kind of glitch getting information from the lab about the blood on the stones left at the homicide scenes. So far, there had been nothing suspicious caught on CCTV foot age, nor on any of the neighborhood cameras that, unfortunately, didn’t include the Greenlees’ secluded estate.
It was almost as if the killer was a phantom.
Which, despite the tales of haunted houses, ghost stories, and voodoo lore woven into Savannah’s history, Nikki didn’t buy. She didn’t believe any of it for a second. She was, and always had been, a realist.
The killer existed.
He would be found.
Nikki just had to figure it all out.
Someway.