Tell Me by Lisa Jackson Read Free Book Online

meant that someone else had been on the property. As for the gun residue on Blondell’s hands, it could be explained by the struggle for the stranger’s weapon.
    Their take was that Blondell’s own injuries were evidence enough that she wasn’t the killer. The man she’d wrestled with, whom she hadn’t really seen, his face always in darkness, had been in his twenties or early thirties, around six feet tall, with thick, bushy hair. She’d also thought he had a tattoo on the inside of his right wrist, the markings of which were unclear in the darkness; but in one of the gun’s blasts, Blondell had seen something that reminded her of a snake, or serpent, or the tail of some beast. Most of the inking was hidden by the long sleeves of his wet hoodie. She’d been allowed to search through book after book of photographs of known felons and to speak with police artists, but she’d identified no one on file, nor had she been clear enough in the details of the man’s features—partially because they were hidden by a mask—for the artist to come up with a clear picture.
    The defense had insisted that despite going through the motions, the detectives in charge of the case had targeted Blondell from the get-go and had never seriously searched for another suspect, the real killer.
    The prosecution’s case was circumstantial and rested on the tiny shoulders of Niall O’Henry, who, because he was old enough to know what was going on, was put on the stand. It was he who, at eight, had, in whispered horror, sent his mother to prison for what was supposed to be the rest of her life.
    Now that could change.
    According to the information Nikki had gathered, Niall O’Henry, along with his lawyer, was going to make a public statement, his own personal press conference, which was bizarre, but what wasn’t about the Blondell O’Henry case?
    Nikki had put in a call to the attorney’s office, left a message, and was working on finding a phone number or address for Niall O’Henry. “In time,” she told herself and kept digging. Since she’d arrived at the newsroom, the information had started streaming in, and yes, she’d broken down and texted Reed, but he hadn’t responded to her bold question: “Any news on Blondell O’Henry case?”
    No surprise there.
    As for Blondell, it appeared she was keeping her silence. No one had any idea yet what she thought about her son’s turnabout and recanting of his story. Nikki had already sent an e-mail to the warden at Fairfield Women’s Prison near Statesboro, requesting an interview, though she didn’t hold out much hope that it would be granted. Over the term of her incarceration, Blondell O’Henry had been moved from one women’s facility to another and, since her one escape years before, had been kept under maximum security at Metro State Prison in Atlanta until it had closed. Afterward she’d landed in Fairfield, which was a little more than an hour’s drive from Savannah. No matter what, Nikki determined, as she left the offices of the Sentinel, she was going to get a private interview with the state of Georgia’s most notorious femme fatale and murderess, if it killed her. And, oh, yeah, she was going to get it first .
    She was already out the door when her phone chirped, the sound of her preset reminder. She checked the screen after she settled behind the wheel. “Right,” she said when she saw the quick text that told her Mikado was ready to be picked up from the groomer’s.
    Fortunately, Ruby’s Ruff and Ready was on the way to City Hall, where Niall’s lawyer, after he’d filed the necessary papers at the courthouse, planned to hold an impromptu press conference. She wondered, as she backed out of the lot and eased into traffic, how the police department was handling all the unusual events in a case that had been decided nearly twenty years earlier.
    Traffic was snarled in the historic district, but she knew the back roads and side streets over by the parkway.