Chapter 32
Promising to tell her any information the second it came in, Pierce dropped Nikki off at her rental car.
As she climbed into the Nissan, she noted that more camera crews had arrived at the station. More reporters talking into microphones. More trucks with satellites. More general chaos.
Before she pulled onto the street, she checked with Lily, found out that Chloe had actually gone to bed without much of a fuss, then drove to the newspaper office, again, near the river.
She parked the Nissan under a streetlamp that was in clear view of the building, then made her way upstairs, only to find Celeste cleaning out her desk.
Though there had been temporary receptionists who had filled in over the years, the reception area had been primarily Celeste’s domain.
Red-faced, almost shivering with anger, she was stuffing personal things into two boxes. As Nikki stepped through the door, she glanced up and glared. “Satisfied?” she asked.
“What?”
“Are you satisfied?” Celeste clarified, sniffing loudly.
Her face was red, her usually neat hair uncombed, and she’d given up her pencil skirts, boots, and wide belts for leggings and an oversize Texas A&M sweatshirt, though she was still wearing the gold chain necklace with its teardrop-shaped diamond, the one she’d been wearing since last Christmas. “I’m leaving,” she announced.
“Why would I be satisfied?”
“Oh, just shut up, Gillette! He fired me, all right? That son of a bitch fired me!”
“Fink?” Nikki asked.
“Yeah, Fink! Who the hell else? After I gave him the best goddamned years of my life!” She slammed a small pink stuffed dinosaur into a box next to a potted Christmas cactus.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?” Celeste challenged, digging into a drawer and tossing pens and pencils into the box. “Give me a break! You’ve hated me from the first day I was hired.”
“Wait. What? That’s not true.”
“I know. Okay? You never liked me. Never thought I was doing a good job. Never even tried to get to know me.”
“Whoa, I never—”
“Don’t!” Celeste snapped, straightening, the fire in her eyes directed right at Nikki.
“Don’t even try to explain. There you are, the daughter of a goddamned judge, a big whoop-de-do author with a silver spoon rammed down her throat.
And you look down your nose at me and everyone else!
You think I’m a fool. Isn’t that right?” she demanded, tilting up her chin and setting her jaw.
“And you know what? I figured it was you who told him that I keyed his car.”
“What?” This was crazy. “You keyed his car?” Hadn’t Roy guessed as much? “Seriously, Celeste, I didn’t know. And even if I had, I wouldn’t have ratted you out.”
“Sure.” Celeste spat out the word as if it tasted bad as she threw a couple of books into the second box and looked around the reception area, searching, it seemed, for any forgotten personal items. “Go ahead and deny it, but I know!” She jabbed her finger at her own chest. “I know, damn it. And kudos to you. It worked, damn it. It worked! I’m done here. ”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Nikki said, started to get angry. “Why would I want you to leave? I didn’t—”
“Oh, save it, Gillette!” She found her keys in her oversize purse and slung the strap over her shoulder.
“Did you key my car, too?” Nikki demanded.
“No!” Celeste stared at Nikki as if she’d lost her mind. She let out a disgusted huff. “Why would I do that?”
“Out of spite.”
“Oh, for the love of God. Of course not. Are you kidding me? Hell, no I didn’t do anything to your damned car!”
“But Fink’s Corvette?”
Celeste snorted. As if she thought Nikki were an idiot. “You didn’t lie to me and tell me that you were getting a divorce so you could marry me, so no, I repeat, I didn’t key your car.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, he lied to me. Over and over again. Every time we broke up and got back together. That lying motherfu—He promised me he would get a divorce, and I believed him. I believed that fucker!” She was nearly hyperventilating. “So I guess you’re right. I am a fool! But no more. I’m outta here.”
Though, deep down, Nikki thought the newspaper office would be better off without all the drama Celeste brought, she couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.
She also believed Celeste would be far better off without being romantically involved with a slimy two-timer like Fink. “Look, I’m sorry about all this.”
“Save it! I don’t want your sympathy. Or your pity. Or your platitudes.”
Fine. Nikki had tried. “Okay. But my car was keyed, too.”
“Well, I didn’t do it.” Celeste placed one box on the other, and as she did, a tension ball popped out and rolled onto the floor.
“I can’t imagine anyone keying your car.
It’s not like you pissed off anyone.” She picked up both boxes.
“Why don’t you start with the police department?
You know the one. The place where your husband works?
I hear they hate you over there! I mean, you’re so goddamned careless and egotistical, you put your own husband’s partner at risk, and she ended up dead, now didn’t she? ”
“Low blow,” Nikki whispered, still heartsick at the thought.
“The truth hurts, doesn’t it? So, suck it, Gillette! Just … suck it! Now, get out of my way!” She came around the desk and started for the door, but to avoid Nikki, she shifted too fast and tripped over the stress ball.
The boxes flew out of her hands.
And Celeste went down.
Hard.
Face first.
Onto the tile floor.
The boxes landed upside down, spilling their contents.
Nikki was on her knees in an instant. “Celeste!”
“Goddamn it!” Celeste cried.
“Are you okay?”
Celeste rolled over and glared at her. Blood was dripping from her nose.
“No! No, I’m not!” she said, fighting tears and reaching for a tissue from the Kleenex box that had tumbled onto the floor.
“And I probably won’t be for the rest of my life.
” She broke down then, sobbing uncontrollably and dabbing at her face with the tissue.
“Let me help. If you need a ride or to see a doctor, I can drive you.” Nikki reached out, but Celeste slapped her hand away.
“No!” she said angrily. “No one can help me. I’ll be …” She swallowed hard. “I’ll be fine. Just leave me alone!” She swiped the tears from her eyes, stuffed the tissue into her bleeding nostril and began crawling over the reception area and throwing her items into the boxes.
“I’m sorry,” Nikki said.
“For what? For me fucking up my life?” she said, scooping up the stuffed animal and stuffing it into a box. “Well, don’t be!”
Nikki managed to gather the books and put them into the box with the pink T-rex, and Celeste finally didn’t argue.
Instead, she gave out a little groan as she spied the spilled dirt and cracked pot of the Christmas cactus.
“Perfect,” she muttered, her voice muffled due to the tissue.
“Just … fucking … awesome.” Without Nikki’s help, she struggled to her feet.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she yanked the chain on her necklace, breaking it, and let it drop onto the floor, its small diamond winking under the overhead lights.
Celeste gave it an angry kick, and it scraped its way under her desk.
“Good riddance!” To Nikki, she added, “You can tell Fink where that is, and if he wants to, he can give it to his wife.” Clearing her throat, she twisted on her heel, and with the white tissue hanging from her nose and her spine ramrod stiff, she walked out the door to the elevator.
“Wow,” Nikki said under her breath. It was true, she’d never been close to Celeste and had found her cold at times and thought she was foolish to be so entangled with a married jerk like Fink, but never would she have expected the vitriol that the receptionist directed at her.
It really was time for Nikki herself to move on and away from the Sentinel, she thought, peering out the window to the lot, where she spied Celeste loading the boxes into her hatchback.
Then, without even looking up at the third story of the old building where she’d spent so many years, Celeste drove off and maybe, this time, away from Tom Fink for good.
Nikki wasn’t betting on it, though.
Old habits died way too hard, she thought while scanning the parking lot and noting that her rented Nissan was still safely parked in the glow of the solitary security lamp. With that reassurance, she walked into the warren of empty cubicles.
The only person inside was Effie, stationed in front of her computer, sipping from a massive drink cup as she stared at the screen. As Nikki passed, she didn’t even look up, but said, “Still making friends and influencing people, I see.”
Why did Nikki even come here?
Yes, the newspaper’s resources were far better than her own, but did she really need the grief?
“No,” she said aloud, but sat down in her favorite chair and looked up anything she could find on Naomi Kittle, Knox Quinlan, Stanley “Stoney” Tripp, and Westin Stark.
The one connection she found was that Westin Stark had been the minister for the corrections facility where Knox Quinlan had spent six months of a reduced sentence for stealing livestock—actually, what was once called cattle rustling.
Upon further research, it seemed there was a dispute between Knox and Duke Wheelan when Quinlan’s prize bull had broken through the fence and impregnated two of Wheelan’s cows, and Quinlan had wanted payment.
When he didn’t get it, he stole one of the calves.
Duke Wheelan again, she thought.
Wheelan wasn’t one of the men who met at the Stag and Boar. But that made sense, as the neighbors were far from neighborly.
But Wheelan was an elder of the church, as were some of the regulars of the Friday-night group.
Nikki sat back and thought about that, then brought up the map of the area again, noting that Knox Quinlan’s property abutted Wheelan’s ranch on the opposite side from Otis Childers. And the parcels were all close to Jeanne LaRoux’s small acreage, all close to the swamp.