“If you fall, I’d rather be there to catch you.”
“Just stay there. It’s just a couple more steps.” He reached the top and turned. “There.”
“I’m going to put Carrie in her bed,” I told him as I moved briskly up the staircase, “and go back for the rest of the stuff. If you need help, let me know.”
“I’ll be fine.” He turned into the bedroom while I carried Carrie past and into the nursery down the hall.
It still smelled smoky up here, and I probably should have expected that. The place had been aired out, of course, but we’d packed up and left the day after the fire, so nobody had changed the bed linens or taken down the curtains, and the smoke hung on in the fabrics. I wrinkled my nose against it, but decided that since it was now after midnight, we could suffer through for one night. I’d just plan to do laundry tomorrow.
Since it was close to the time when Carrie was likely to wake up anyway, I changed her diaper and then sat down in the rocking chair to nurse her. She went right back to sleep, and I lowered her gingerly into the crib and tiptoed out of the room and across the hall to my own bedroom.
Where I found my husband still vertical, standing at the window staring out. His hands were curled into fists and were resting on the sill.
“Something wrong?” I asked, crossing to him to peer out. I’d just been kidding about the guy with the knife, although it wouldn’t be the first time something like that had happened, so maybe someone was down there.
“What do you think?”
I looked at him, and felt my lips twitch. He had managed to shrug out of the leather jacket we’d put on him before we left Sweetwater. It was lying in the middle of the floor, where it had dropped. To make things easy for both of us earlier, I had buttoned him into a regular shirt rather than the usual T-shirt, so he wouldn’t have to lift his arms above his head over and over again. And he had managed to unbutton it. It was wadded up on the bottom of the bed.
Then he had unfastened his jeans and pushed them down, and that’s where the process had failed. They’d gotten caught on his boots, and were pooled around his ankles. And of course he hadn’t been able to bend to undo the laces, so that’s as far as he’d gotten. And now he was standing here, frustration simmering in his eyes, in a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else.
“Need help?” I asked innocently.
He gave me a scowl. “If you don’t mind.”
I smiled sweetly. “I don’t mind at all.”
A corner of his mouth turned up, and I leaned in to kiss it before I dropped to my knees and began undoing the laces of the black boots.
I’ll leave the next thirty minutes to your imagination. The boots came off, and the jeans and socks, too. And eventually the briefs. And all of my clothes. By then, I’d maneuvered him onto the bed, and made sure he didn’t hurt himself going down.
“What was that thing you said earlier?” I wanted to know, as I nibbled my way down the side of his neck and across his chest.
He tilted his head to the side to give me better access. “Not sure I know what you’re talking about, darlin’.”
“Careful. That’s it. You said we had to be careful. Do you think this is careful enough?”
“I think this is just fine,” Rafe said, bringing his hands up to stroke my back. “You doing all right?”
“I’m doing just fine. I just want to make sure I’m not hurting you.”
“No, darlin’.”
I moved down his stomach and lower, and his hands slid from my shoulders up into my hair. “You just keep doing that. It don’t hurt at all.”
Yeah, I didn’t think so. But I kept doing it, and one thing led to another, and a bit later we were curled up together, wrung out and relaxed. Or perhaps I should say that I was curled up, with my head on Rafe’s (good) shoulder and a hand on his stomach. He was flat on his back, taking care not to move so he wouldn’t jar his ribs or the bandage on his other arm.
“Hell of a day,” I told him, too drowsy to moderate the four-letter word. Mother wasn’t here to hear me, so what did it matter?
“M-hm.” He murmured agreement into my hair.
“Do you have any idea what’s going on?
“I have an idea.” He yawned. “How ’bout we talk about it in the morning?”
Worked for me. “We’re safe here, right?”
He nodded. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I’ve got you.”
And I had him. And for now, that was good enough.
Due to the late night, Carrie made it all the way past six before she woke up hungry and squalling. I left Rafe asleep—deducing as I did it that he must be in pain, because he normally needs less sleep than I do—and shrugged on a robe before I padded down the hallway and into Carrie’s nursery. After changing her diaper, I sat down in the rocking chair and started feeding her.
I was still sitting there fifteen minutes later, when there was a key in the lock downstairs and then footsteps on the floor of the foyer. “Hello?”
The voice wasn’t familiar. “Hi,” I called back, feeling a little… let’s call it exposed. “What’s going on?”
“That was gonna be my question.” I heard steps coming toward the stairs.
“Stay down there,” I told him, and my voice might have been a little shrill. At any rate, it was enough to wake Rafe, because I heard rustling from the bedroom down the hall, and then a curse when he obviously came up against his own inability to get out of bed.
“Victor?” his voice called out. “That you?”
“Yeah, man,” the guy downstairs answered. “Rafe?”
“Yeah. Hang on a minute. I broke a couple ribs yesterday. It’s gonna take me a minute to get down there.”
“No problem,” the man called Victor said. “I’ll just get the coffee going.”
OK, then. He was clearly familiar with the place, and Rafe was familiar with him, so I didn’t have to worry about being attacked. And since he was staying downstairs, I didn’t have to worry about him walking in on me nursing my baby, either.
None of this had distracted Carrie, of course, so I stayed where I was and finished what I was doing while I listened to the sounds from downstairs and from down the hall.
On the first floor, Victor’s footsteps faded as he headed down the hallway toward the kitchen. Closer to hand, there was more rustling from the bedsheets and squeaking from the mattress, and some grunts and muttered curses as Rafe figured out how to get upright and dressed, not necessarily in that order. After a minute or two, I heard his footsteps come down the hall toward me.
He stopped in the doorway, still barefoot and with jeans hanging low on his hips. “You OK?”
“Fine,” I said. “I just didn’t expect anyone to show up at six-thirty in the morning.”
“That’s Victor. He’s in charge of the renovations.”
Good to know. My eyes zeroed in on his side. “That’s a nasty bruise you’ve got there.”
It was the size of a salad plate and the color of eggplant, blooming across his ribcage on the left side. He put a hand to it and winced. “Yeah.”
“Are you sure some bandages wouldn’t help?”
“It’ll be fine, darlin’.” He sauntered into the room, bent just far enough to be able to drop a kiss on my lips—he tasted minty fresh, unlike me, who hadn’t taken the time to brush my teeth before taking care of the baby; I kept my lips closed—and pushed himself upright again with a grunt. “I’ll go downstairs and see what Victor wants.”
“I’ll finish up here and get cleaned up and dressed,” I told him. “Then we can discuss what we’re planning to do today.”
Not laundry, obviously. Not if there was going to be a crew of workers downstairs.
“See you down there.”
“Are you OK by yourself on the stairs?” I called after him.
He raised a hand, but without turning around. “I’ll be fine.”
Sure thing. If you call ‘fine’ muttering a curse on every step of the staircase because stepping down jarred h
is rib case each and every time.
There wouldn’t have been anything I could have done about it, though, so I just listened until he was on level ground again, and then I went back to focusing on Carrie while he padded down the hallway to the kitchen and the coffee I could smell brewing.
By the time I made it downstairs, Victor was gone again, and Rafe was leaning against the counter with a mug in his hand. “He was just coming in to check how much his guys got done yesterday,” he told me. “They’ll be here in another thirty minutes, so unless you wanna spend the day listening to sawing and hammering, we should prob’ly get outta here.”
That sounded like a good idea. I had no idea where we’d go and what we’d do until late afternoon, when presumably they’d finish. But hammering and sawing wasn’t likely to make Carrie happy, so we might as well find somewhere else to be.
“How about I bring down your boots and clothes, so you don’t have to navigate the stairs again?”
He nodded. “Thanks, darlin’.”
“No problem,” I said. “Are you OK with the pair of pants you’re wearing, or do you want something else?”
He glanced down. “These are good.”
They were. My eyes snagged for a second on the faded spots, like the zipper, where the fabric was faded to almost white and practically worn through, and then I met his eyes again. They’d turned darker, and I grinned. “No time for that, if Victor’s crew will be here in thirty minutes.”
“I could make something happen in thirty minutes.” He eyed the kitchen table behind me.
“Maybe not in your condition,” I suggested gently, and he made a face.
“Maybe we’ll just wait a couple days for anything gymnastic.”
“I think that’s probably a good idea.” But I took the time to give him a kiss before I headed upstairs to gather up clothes and boots for him, and the diaper bag for Carrie, so we could get out of here and let the renovation crew get to work.
Fourteen
The TBI headquarters building squats at the top of Gass Boulevard like a brown brick toad, bristling with antennae. When we pulled into the parking lot, I realized that the last time I’d been there had been the morning after the fire and the day we’d packed up and moved operations to Sweetwater. A lot had happened in just a few months.
“Do you miss it?” I asked Rafe as we headed for the entrance.
He looked at me. “I was here on Sunday.”
“But you don’t really work here anymore. Not the way you used to.”
“I spent ten years working for the TBI and never seeing this place, darlin’.”
Well, yes. Now that he mentioned it. “Never mind,” I said.
He shot me a grin. “I’m good at undercover work. That’s still what I’m doing. Sort of.”
Sort of. “Are you making any progress on sniffing out bad cops in the Columbia PD?”
“We got rid of Enoch,” Rafe said. “And cleared Jarvis. That’s something.”
“Any reason to think Tucker is dirty?” I probably shouldn’t admit it, but I was secretly hoping he would be. And that Rafe would get a chance to take him down.
He smirked. “None I’ve found so far. I’m still looking.”
“At Tucker specifically?”
He shook his head. “At everybody.”
That probably involved Felicia Robinson, too. Someone else I’d love to think guilty of something, but she was probably just a stupid young woman who didn’t have the sense to stay away from another woman’s husband. “Any reason to think anyone at the PD is involved in the current mess?”
“No,” Rafe said as he punched his access code into the keypad next to the door, and then reached for the handle. “Nothing I’ve seen so far.”
“These types of organizations are happy to have military and former military, you said.”
He nodded. “Folks who know how to handle weapons and explosives. For that race war they think is coming.”
“They’d probably be happy to have cops, too, then.”
He let the door shut behind us. “Sure they are. I just haven’t seen anything to indicate that any of Tammy’s cops are involved. Bob would know if it was going on in his department. Tammy might not, being new. But I’m looking.”
“And I guess the other sheriffs are responsible for their own people.”
He nodded. “They gotta be. I don’t know’em or the folks they work with. And I have enough to do with Tammy’s crew and with Clay.”
And with getting shot.
I stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked around. “What are we doing here?”
“I gotta update Wendell and Jamal on what happened last night,” Rafe said, nodding a greeting to the security guard as he scribbled his name and mine—and maybe Carrie’s—on the visitor sheet. “Morning, Vince.”
The guard nodded back. “Morning, Rafe. Good to see you. This the wife and kid?”
We spent a minute with Vince—grizzled and in his sixties—admiring Carrie as she cooed in her car seat, and then we headed for the elevators and Wendell’s office.
It was barely after seven-thirty, but when we got to the door, it was open and Wendell was there, sitting behind the desk.
He’s grizzled, too, and black where Vince was white. He’s also the closest thing Rafe’s ever had to a father. Tyrell Jenkins died before Rafe was born, and all old Jim Collier ever did for him, was teach him to survive. But Wendell’s been taking care of Rafe—to the degree that Rafe lets anyone take care of him—since Rafe was twenty. They’ve been through a lot together. And while neither would come right out and say it, they’re as close as if they were family.
He looked up when we stopped in the doorway, and while he gave me and Carrie a look, his attention was pretty much all for Rafe. “You all right?”
Rafe shrugged the good shoulder. “Likely be sore for a couple days.”
More than a couple of days, I figured, but I didn’t argue. He was trying to reassure Wendell that he wasn’t badly hurt, and how he chose to do it, was up to him.
“The bullet missed?”
“Mostly.”
Wendell nodded. That seemed to be all he needed. “What brings you here?”
“Gotta stay low for a couple days,” Rafe said, and pulled one of the chairs in front of the desk an inch in my direction. I sat on it. He took the other one and started to lean back, before he was reminded that his ribs hurt. He sat up straight, scowling, instead. “Got somebody I need to track down.”
He explained about the car with the Nashville plates and the altercation outside Beulah’s Meat’n Three.
“Clay all right?” Wendell wanted to know.
“If not, it ain’t because of me.”
“It all looked beautiful,” I added. “I don’t think anybody would have guessed that it was all for show.”
Wendell studied me for a second before he turned his attention back to Rafe, who told him, “Clark and Scoggins bought it. I’d stake my life on that.” And probably had. “I dunno about the third guy. He’s older. Looks like he’s been out there longer and knows more. That’s why I wanna track him down.”
That and the fact that he was who Rodney and Kyle had brought in to meet Clayton, I assumed. Which made it seem like he was higher up the food chain than they were. Maybe the guy in charge of their little group of white supremacists, or at least someone who might know the guy in charge.
“Give it to me,” Wendell said, opening his computer. Rafe recited the license plate from memory, and then silence reigned while Wendell tapped keys and waited for results. “Looks like the car is registered to a woman named Jennifer Vonderaa.” He rattled off an address. The zip code put it on the western edge of Davidson County. Bellevue, specifically. A sort of sleeper community west of downtown by ten or fifteen miles. I thought, at some point, I might have shown some property not too far away.
“It wasn’t Jennifer driving it last night,” Rafe said.
I shook my head. The guy had been male, and looke
d like he’d been born that way. And he’d been alone. No Jennifer in the car with him.
“Guess you’ll have to ask her who was driving her car yesterday,” Wendell said.
Rafe nodded. “We’ll go check it out. Look for the car. See if she’s living alone. He might be the husband or boyfriend.”
Wendell scribbled the address on a piece of paper and handed it over. “Need backup?”
“Not for this. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”
Wendell nodded. “I’ll keep Jamal on standby.”
“How is he doing?” I asked. “I saw him and Alexandra in Columbia yesterday. They did a great job of making Clayton look like a bastard.”
Wendell’s lips quirked, and so did Rafe’s. “Clark and Scoggins wasted no time taking him to their leader,” he said. “You can let Jamal know whatever he did worked.”
“Oh, it was beautiful.” I described the scene, both coming and going, all while I marveled at the fact that it had all happened less then twenty-four hours ago. “They both did a great job looking like they hated each other on sight. And Rafe did a great job pushing Clayton around last night, and Clayton did a great job being pushed around. Rodney and Kyle swallowed it all, whole.”
“Good to know,” Wendell said. “Anything else you need before you go?”
I looked at Rafe. He shook his head. “We’ll just track down Jennifer Vonderaa. If we need anything after that, we’ll let you know.”
“I’ll give you a hand up,” I told him, and he shook his head.
“Thanks, darlin’, but I’m fine.” He put a hand on each arm of the chair and levered himself upright.
I watched as his nostrils flared, and shook my head. “That stubbornness is going to kill you one day.”
“Just get the baby,” Rafe said, breathing a little faster than usual.
“Did you take a painkiller this morning?”
He gave me a look.
“Why not, for God’s sake?”
Wendell was watching the two of us batting the conversational ball back and forth, an amused look on his face. It went away with the next thing Rafe said.
“Don’t want my reflexes slowed down. Somebody tried to kill me yesterday. If they try again, I don’t wanna die ’cause I’m a second too slow.”
Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19) Page 15