Bad Debt (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 14)

by Jenna Bennett

  “I’ll go take a look,” Rafe said, and turned to my mother. “You gonna be all right here?”

  She nodded. She was a bit pale, too, and was holding onto the sheriff’s hand. “Todd will give me a ride home later.”

  We all looked at Todd. He nodded.

  “We’ll take Pearl with us,” I said. She was in the car in the parking lot with the windows cracked, since we couldn’t bring her inside the hospital.

  Mother nodded. “Don’t wait up.”

  I had no intention of waiting up. And to be honest, I had a feeling she’d probably be home before us.

  “I’ll stop in tomorrow morning,” Rafe told the sheriff. “Try to get some sleep.”

  We turned toward the door. And stopped when it opened.

  A man a few years younger than the sheriff stuck his head through and looked around. When he saw Sheriff Satterfield, he pushed the door open and came in. “Sheriff.” He extended a hand for shaking.

  “Chief.” The sheriff moved to take it, and then thought better of it, since it was his right shoulder that was hit. “Sorry.” He inclined his head toward it.

  The other man—Columbia chief of police Carter, I assumed—stuffed both hands in the pockets of his very nicely cut suit. If Sheriff Satterfield was tall and a bit raw-boned, a Gary Cooper type, the chief was Cary Grant. Dapper and almost a bit too good-looking, in an over-fifty sort of way. He gave my mother an appreciative look that lasted a second too long, and while I don’t think she really noticed, both the sheriff and Todd did. Todd’s eyes narrowed. So did mine.

  Rafe took my arm. “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he told the sheriff again as he took a step—and I did, too, perforce—toward the door.

  “Wait a second.” Chief Carter turned away from the bed. “You must be Agent Collier. I’m Chief Carter.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Rafe let go of my arm to shake. “We appreciate the loan of your officer to help us deal with this. Especially now.”

  With the sheriff out of commission. He didn’t say it, but it was inferred.

  “My pleasure.” Chief Carter had a lot of teeth. They were impossibly white and straight, too. Almost blinding. He’d either had them straightened and bleached, or they were fake. “You know, I’m happy to pick up some of the slack until the sheriff is back on the horse. It’s a big case, and one that’s received a fair amount of notice in the media. We don’t want it to languish because of this. I’m sure you could use another pair of hands while the sheriff’s out of commission.”

  There was an almost imperceptible pause. I’m not sure anyone but me realized that Rafe was considering this suggestion very carefully. “We appreciate that,” he said after the moment had passed, “but I’m sure you’ve got your own crimes to deal with inside the city limits, Chief. I’ve got Officer Vasquez’s help, and the sheriff’s deputies, and if I run short, I can always call in a couple other agents from the TBI. I’ve got three rookies up in Nashville just itching to get down here to do some investigating.” He grinned, but there was an edge to it. I’m not sure anyone but me noticed that, either.

  Chief Carter looked put out, but he didn’t push the issue, just nodded. “Let me know if that changes. I’d be happy to lend a hand.”

  Rafe said he would, politely enough, and we left.

  “What was that about?” I asked when we were outside the hospital and on our way across the dark parking lot toward the Volvo. I had thought it better not to bring up the subject while we were still inside the hospital. You never know who’s listening.

  He glanced at me. “It’s under control. We don’t need any more help.”

  I nodded. That was most likely true. Just as everything else Rafe had said was true. He had Lupe Vasquez to help him, if he needed anything inside the Columbia city limits, and he had Sheriff Satterfield’s deputies for anything in the rest of the county. And if he wanted more professional help—or someone to do grunt work—he could always call in the three rookies he was training up in Nashville. They were young men in their early twenties, and would probably be beyond psyched about a field trip to the Devil’s Backbone. “You’re not usually possessive. At least not about work. You’ve always been happy to work with Grimaldi and the MNPD.”

  He shrugged. “He’s been trying to push his way into the investigation from the beginning. It’s bothering me.”

  It would probably bother me too, to be honest. “Well,” I said, “if you don’t need him, you don’t need him.”

  “I don’t.” He unlocked the car doors and opened mine. In the backseat, Pearl came to and scrambled to her feet.

  “Hello, darling,” I cooed as I slid across the seat.

  Rafe closed the door behind me, and came around the car, and continued the conversation as if there hadn’t been a pause. “It’s not that difficult of a case. It’s not like we’re dealing with a serial killer. Just someone—or two someones—who wanted the Skinners gone. It’s the same motive for all of’em. We’re not dealing with somebody who’s obsessed. I don’t have to worry about when the next shoe’s gonna drop. I don’t think this guy—or these guys—are gonna do it again.”

  I nodded. He’d mentioned the possibility of a spree killer the first day, but since nothing had happened and no one else had been shot—except for the sheriff—I guess the investigation had moved away from that as a solution.

  “How about what happened this evening?” I asked. “Any chance it was just random—some stupid kid with a gun—and not related at all?”

  By now we were on our way down the road toward Sweetwater again.

  “It don’t have to be related,” Rafe said. “You’re right, coulda been a kid taking a potshot at the sheriff. Could be something to do with another case. Like the Beulah thing.”

  That thought had crossed my own mind, too. The coincidence of the cemetery being the scene of the shooting, after the exhumation this afternoon, was a bit hard to swallow. Even if I had rationalized it for myself earlier.

  “I hope you’re right. That would mean nobody’s likely to take a potshot at you.”

  “Let’s hope,” Rafe said.

  We drove in silence a few minutes, and I don’t think I was the only one waiting for the gunshot.

  When we passed the mansion, I said, “I guess we’re headed to the cemetery? To look around?”

  He nodded. “Dunno what we’re gonna find in the dark. We’ll have to get a forensic team out in the morning, to take a closer look in daylight. But I wanna see if I can at least pinpoint where the shooter was. That way they don’t have to walk all over everything tomorrow.”

  “We’ll come with you,” I said. “Maybe Pearl can smell something.”

  I saw the corners of his mouth lift. “I don’t think she’s been trained for that, darlin’. But sure, you can come along. Unless you want me to take you home first. You and the dog.”

  “I want to be where you are,” I said, firmly. There was just the chance—like this morning—that whoever had shot Sheriff Satterfield was still lying in wait behind a handy gravestone, and when he saw Rafe come up the hill, he’d plug him too. And since Rafe would be straight on, and a lot closer than the sheriff had been in his car down on the road, chances were the shooter would get him in the chest or right between the eyes. And I wasn’t about to let that happen, if there was anything at all I could do to stop it.

  * * *

  We parked in the same place I had parked earlier, for the exhumation, and made our way up the hill. I was holding Pearl’s leash, and Rafe had a flashlight. A big one, that he could use to knock someone unconscious if he had to, but that he was using for its intended purpose at the moment. The circle of light seemed very small in the vast darkness. And let’s be honest, graveyards can be a bit creepy at night. Not to mention the fact that they provide excellent cover—and lots of it—for anyone with a gun waiting to take out a special agent.

  My heart beat overtime as we made our way between the gravestones, with Pearl sniffing eagerly at the ground. Once we got to t
he top of the hill—and it wasn’t much of a hill, just a gentle rise, since you can’t really bury people on a sharp vertical—Rafe started looking around.

  “This is the most likely angle,” he told me as he flashed his beam of light around.

  I peered down the hill at the road, where the sheriff would have gone by. “No chance he could have made a head shot, then.” We were high enough above the road that the sheriff’s head wouldn’t have been visible.

  Rafe nodded. “I don’t think our guy tried to take him out. Just outta commission.”

  “Do you know who?”

  He glanced at me in the dark. “I have an idea. It’s sorta crazy. I’m not gonna tell you about it.”

  Fine. “Be that way,” I said, watching him prowl between the gravestones. Pearl sniffed a cross stuck in the ground at an angle.

  “Looks like some depressions over here. The ground’s still a little wet from yesterday.”

  “When you say depressions, I guess you mean footprints?”

  “Something like that,” Rafe said, looking at the road. “This looks good. If I were gonna take a shot at somebody in a car, this is where I’d be.”

  “I didn’t know you had sniper training.”

  He grinned at me over his shoulder. “I don’t. You don’t need to be a sniper to take someone out at this distance.”

  “But it would take more than a pistol, wouldn’t it?”

  He nodded.

  “So we’re back to the shotguns used against the Skinners. How much do you want to bet one of the bullets is going to match?”

  “Nothing,” Rafe said. “I don’t bet against the house.” He gestured me—gestured us, me and Pearl—back toward the road and the car with the flashlight.

  Driving from the cemetery to the house was like deja vu all over again. It was just a few hours since I’d done it, after the exhumation, with the dog panting in the backseat.

  We pulled into the driveway, and Rafe looked up at the bulk of the house. “Don’t look like your mama’s back yet.”

  I shook my head. There was a light on in the parlor, but I was pretty sure we’d forgotten to turn that off when we left in such a hurry earlier. And no one had thought to turn on the outside porch lights before we took off, so they were dark. If Mother had come back, and had realized we weren’t here, she would have turned them on to make it easier for us when we arrived.

  Rafe pulled to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. “OK if I just keep the car here till tomorrow?”

  I nodded. “Sure. That way Mother can tell right away that we’re back.” Which she couldn’t if we put the car in the garage.

  “Stay there.” He opened his car door. I stayed where I was. I’m not sure exactly why, other than that he asked. I mean, it’s not like I’m not capable of opening my own door. And while it’s nice that he wants to do it for me, he doesn’t have to do it every time we go somewhere. Especially not when it’s dark, and late, and I can’t wait to get inside.

  But I sat and waited. In the backseat, Pearl panted eagerly. She was probably ready to get out of the car and inside, too.

  Rafe shut the driver’s side door and headed around the hood to get me. He’d gotten about halfway there, when there was a loud bang. Rafe dropped to the ground at the same time as the windshield shattered. I shrieked. In the backseat, Pearl started barking. Deep, reverberating barks I barely heard through the cotton in my ears.

  “Rafe!”

  I pushed my door open, as Pearl’s barking reached a hysterical pitch.

  “Stay down!”

  I could barely hear Rafe, either. But the fact that he was talking penetrated. He was alive. For a second or two, I hadn’t been sure.

  Because he’d asked, or ordered, I crouched down low in my seat instead of bursting outside to see whether he was OK. Time stood still as I waited for the next shot.

  It didn’t come. Instead, it was Rafe who came, around the car at a crouch until he was tucked behind my open door. “You OK?”

  “Fine,” I said shakily. “Someone shot at us.”

  He nodded grimly.

  “Did he hit you?”

  He shook his head. “Can you walk? Let’s get you outta here and into the house.”

  “What about you?” My teeth were shattering. Delayed reaction, I guess. In the backseat, Pearl kept barking frantically. I tried to shush her, but she wouldn’t listen.

  Rafe leaned back on his heels and reached to open her door. Pearl launched herself through the opening, skidded on the gravel, and then pointed herself in the direction from whence the shot had come. She took off for the woods still barking.

  “C’mon.” Rafe took my arm and practically hauled me out of the car like a cork from a bottle. “Let’s get you inside while he’s distracted.”

  The barking was fading into the distance.

  “You don’t think he’ll shoot her, do you?” I clung to his arm as he propelled me up the stairs to the porch, covering me with his own body. Putting himself between me and whoever was out there.

  “Better her than you.” He fumbled the key into the lock. “He was prob’ly already running by the time she got out of the car, and once he saw her, he’d run faster. I’ll have to see whether she could catch up.”

  The lock clicked. He pushed the door open and me inside. “Stay there until I come back. Lock the door but don’t turn on any lights.”

  He didn’t wait for me to obey, just took off down the stairs after the dog, already yanking his gun out of the holster.

  I stumbled across the threshold, locked the door, and sat down, right there on the floor, in the foyer.

  Twenty-Two

  It was an eternity before he came back. Or at least five minutes. I kept my ears peeled for the sound of shots, but I couldn’t hear any. Pearl’s barking faded into the distance, or maybe it stopped. I sat there, on the floor, with my arms curled protectively around my stomach and tears running down my cheeks. Partly it was just reaction, but partly it was fear, too. Fear of what was going on outside. Fear that, after everything we’d been through, Rafe was going to get shot and killed by some nutcase with a gun right back here in Sweetwater, in my own backyard. I’d come so close to losing him so many times before. And that bullet had come awfully close. If he’d been moving just a little bit slower, he wouldn’t be alive now.

  A sound on the porch outside brought my head up. A scuff of a boot on the floor, and the outline of a man against the glass in the door. He’d told me to keep the lights off, so I had, but there was no mistaking that physique.

  I scrambled to my feet and yanked the door open. And threw myself in his arms, sobbing.

  “Sorry, darlin’. Sorry.” He gave the dog time to strut through the opening before he kicked the door shut. “I didn’t wanna leave you. But I had to see if I could catch him. Or at least see who he was.”

  I nodded, my wet cheek against the soft cotton of that gray hoodie he’d been wearing for the past several days. Somehow he still managed to smell good, like clean laundry and spice.

  “You all right?” His hands were running up and down my arms, checking for damage.

  I nodded and sniffed. “I wasn’t hit. And car windows don’t shatter the way other windows do. There was no glass.”

  He stopped touching to check for damage, and just held me for a moment, his breath warm in my hair. “That was a helluva thing.”

  It had been. “The same guy who shot the sheriff?”

  “I’d guess so. I didn’t see him. I followed the dog through the woods, but by the time I got out on the other side, all I could see were taillights.”

  “That’s too bad.” I burrowed a little deeper into his arms. “But at least you’re all right.”

  “Mostly,” Rafe said.

  I straightened. “What do you mean, mostly?”

  “The bullet grazed me before it hit the windshield.”

  Holy shit. Pardon my French.

  “You mean you’ve been running around the woods bleeding? Let me see. Is
it safe to turn on the light?”

  “The guy’s gone,” Rafe said, “so yeah. But maybe it’d be better to go into the kitchen.” And away from the big, open, double doors.

  I pulled him after me down the hallway. “Sit.” I pushed him toward the island while I fumbled for the light switch inside the door. When light flooded the room, I turned to him. “How bad is it?”

  “I’ve had worse.” But he was still gritting his teeth as he pulled the gray hoodie down his arm and off.

  “Oh, my God.” I took one look at the bloody furrow crossing his arm, and felt my head go light.

  “It’s not that bad,” Rafe said, poking at the edges of the wound as I braced myself on the counter so I wouldn’t crumple to the floor. “I’ve had worse.”

  I knew he had. But the sight still turned my stomach. “We have to go back to the hospital. You need stitches.”

  He squinted at me. “I’ve got this, darlin’. It’s not deep. Just see if you can find me some bandages.”

  I wasn’t in any condition to argue. And as he’d said, he’d had worse. He probably knew what he could get away with and what he couldn’t. I got down on the floor to dig out the first aid kit from under the counter, and I can’t even begin to describe how nice it was to have the hard surface of the floor under me. I don’t think I’d been in danger of fainting, but I was certainly not as steady on my feet as I wanted to be.

  I lifted the box with the first aid supplies up onto the island, but stayed on the floor myself. “I’m sorry. I want to help, but every time I look at your arm I want to throw up. If you need me, I’ll do my best. But if you don’t, I’m just going to stay down here for another minute.”

  “It’s fine, darlin’.” His voice was steady, and I couldn’t hear a lot of pain in it. “I’ve done this before.”

  Of course he had. I leaned back against the island and closed my eyes as he opened the box. The lock snicked, and then I heard his fingers rummage through the contents. Pearl nosed me, seemingly worried, and I roused enough to ruffle her ears so she knew I was OK.