[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  He must have seen the realization on my face, because he smiled. Chillingly. By which I mean that the corners of his mouth stretched, but his eyes stayed the same. “Tell him to watch his back.”

  I nodded. Fervently. “I can do that. When I see him. Or talk to him. Whenever that will be.”

  He nodded. And turned on his heel and walked away. I watched him cross the street, and then I turned to Mrs. J. “Are you OK?”

  She turned and blinked at me. “Hi, baby. What’re you doing here?”

  “Letting the appraiser into this house.” I pointed to it.

  “You and my boy plannin’ to move in here when the baby comes?” She squinted through the windshield and her face fell. So did her voice. “Oh, baby, it’s gotta be real expensive. I don’t know...”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Your boy—” I knew she was talking about Tyrell, not Rafe, “won’t be living here.”

  She clutched at my hand, her wrinkled face worried. “You ain’t plannin’ on leavin’ him, are you, baby? He loves you!”

  “I know he does.”

  If Old Jim Collier hadn’t come along with his shotgun, LaDonna and Tyrell would probably have gotten married and maybe even lived happily ever after. LaDonna certainly was never the same again after Tyrell was killed. Then again, raising Rafe on her own would have been enough to drive any mother to drink.

  “And no, I’m not leaving him. This is for someone else.” I’d been through this conversation enough times by now, that I knew it didn’t do any good to try to explain. I just had to go with the flow, and sooner or later she’d come back on her own.

  “Oh.” Mrs. J looked relieved for a moment until her face puckered again. She lowered her voice, her hand tightening on mine. “That man... he’s gonna try to hurt my boy!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, patting her small, wrinkled claw. Mrs. Jenkins had actually seen Old Jim shoot Tyrell, outside the house on Potsdam Street one night when Tyrell was coming home from work, and whenever she got upset, she tended to relive it. “What did he tell you?”

  She shook her head. “Didn’t tell me nothin’, baby. Just asked me where Rafe was.” She looked confused for a moment, before reality realigned itself and she remembered that Tyrell had been dead for thirty years and Rafe was her grandson. And that I wasn’t LaDonna at all, but Savannah; not her son’s pregnant girlfriend, but her grandson’s... something or other.

  “Did he tell you his name? How he knows Rafe? What he wants him for?”

  But Mrs. Jenkins shook her head again. “Didn’t say nothin’, baby. Just asked me where Rafe was. I said I didn’t know, that I hadn’t heard from him since he left.”

  I nodded. Unfortunately, the man with the cold eyes probably wouldn’t be satisfied with that. “I think we need to call Detective Grimaldi.”

  “The cops?” Mrs. Jenkins made a face. She doesn’t trust the police. They used to return her to the Milton House every time she wandered away, which didn’t exactly endear them to her, although it started much longer ago than that, back when the police didn’t believe Mrs. J when she said her son had been killed by a middle-aged white man.

  “Remember Detective Grimaldi? You like her. And this may be the guy who broke into my apartment yesterday. I think he probably followed us from the house this morning...”

  Mrs. Jenkins blinked. Her face started to pucker, and I stopped talking before my words could throw her into another tailspin. Instead, I made my voice deliberately perky as I walked around the car and got into the passenger seat. “Let’s go do something fun. Would you like some ice cream?”

  Mrs. J’s face cleared. “Sure, baby.”

  “Great.” I put the Volvo in gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

  * * *

  We drove to Bobbie’s Dairy Dip across town, and while Mrs. Jenkins was spooning up her chocolate soft serve with chocolate sprinkles at one of the tables under the awning, I stepped aside to call Tamara Grimaldi and tell her about the latest development.

  “Ms. Martin.” She sounded tired again.

  “Long night?” I asked sympathetically.

  “No longer than usual. Is everything all right? Any word from Mr. Collier?”

  “I’m afraid not. Although you’re not the first person to ask me that today.” I told her about my conversation with the man outside the townhouse.

  “Interesting,” the detective said politely. Not quite the reception I’d been hoping for. When I said as much, she added, “You said he didn’t actually threaten you, right?”

  I had to admit that he hadn’t. “Not per se. It was more his demeanor than the words he used.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t arrest someone for demeanor, Ms. Martin.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to arrest him anyway. He’s gone.”

  “Right.” Tamara Grimaldi hesitated. “But if he didn’t actually threaten you...”

  “He didn’t. Not in so many words. It was just the way he looked at me. And the way he said what he said. The look in his eyes.”

  “You don’t think you could have imagined it?”

  I shook my head, then—because she couldn’t see me—added an emphatic, “No. I’ve come face to face with two coldblooded killers in the past couple of months; I think I can recognize what one looks like.”

  Detective Grimaldi sighed. “What do you want me to do about it?”

  “I don’t know what I want you to do,” I said. “But I wanted you to know. There’s a good chance this was the guy who broke into my apartment, and that makes me nervous. And what if he got hold of Marquita Johnson and had a ‘talk’ with her, and that’s why she’s not coming home? What if she’s lying in a ditch somewhere with her throat cut?”

  “We have no evidence to support that,” Grimaldi said. “No reason at all to suppose that Mrs. Johnson didn’t go off voluntarily, and is staying gone for reasons of her own.”

  “What sort of reasons?”

  “Well...” She hesitated. “Perhaps Mr. Collier contacted her? And asked her to meet him somewhere? She’d go, wouldn’t she?”

  “Of course she would.” Marquita worships Rafe. Has ever since they were in high school together. If he crooked his little finger in her direction, she’d set a world record to get to him, knocking down anyone who stood in her way. “Why isn’t she coming back, though? Surely you’re not suggesting that he did something to her?”

  Grimaldi didn’t answer, but her silence was eloquent. The lightbulb went off over my head. I shook it. “Oh, no. Absolutely not. He’s told me more than once that there’s nothing between them. They’re not shacked up in some motel somewhere going at it like rabbits. Absolutely not.”

  “Fine,” Detective Grimaldi said. “So they’re not together. That doesn’t mean she isn’t alive and well somewhere.”

  “Have you heard from Sweetwater?”

  She had. Bob Satterfield had called with an update just a few minutes ago. “Still no sign of her down there. Her family and friends haven’t seen her.”

  “Do you know if they’ve checked the Bog? The trailer park? That’s where she grew up.” And Rafe, too. “It’s empty these days; someone bought the land and kicked everyone out a couple of months ago. I don’t think anyone’s lived there since July or August, at least.”

  “What would she be doing there?” Tamara Grimaldi wanted to know.

  “I have no idea. But it’s where she’s from. It seems worth checking.”

  “I’ll call Sheriff Satterfield back. If they haven’t already been there, I’ll ask him to have someone swing by.”

  “And let me know if they find anything?”

  Grimaldi promised, a little reluctantly, that she would. “And if you see the man you saw earlier again, let me know. And this time, try to get a name. Or a license plate number. Or something I can use.”

  “Would you like me to come look at mug shots?”

  I could practically hear her eyes roll. “You can if you want. But let me warn you, it’ll take you the rest of the
day, if not longer. Nashville is full of men with black hair and brown eyes. Plenty of them are close to six feet tall. And that’s assuming he has a record. And is from Nashville.”

  “Right.” Probably not worth the trouble, then. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Jenkins, I might have been tempted—now that Gary Lee and Charlene’s appraisal was done, I didn’t have anything else to do for the rest of the day, and I’d rather be doing something than nothing—but I was damned if I was going to make Mrs. J sit in a room in Police Plaza watching mug shots scroll by on the computer for eight hours. “We’ll just keep an eye out.”

  “You do that,” Detective Grimaldi said, and hung up.

  Chapter Six

  Mrs. J and I spent the rest of the day running around. We went to the office, where I responded to a couple of emails and endured Tim’s snarky attempts at humor. We went to the mall, where I replaced my kiss-proof lipstick and my copy of Barbara Botticelli’s “Desire Under the Desert Moon.” We went to the movies, and watched an animated Disney film about woolly mammoths and dinosaurs that was a big hit with all the kids in the audience and with Mrs. J. We went to dinner at Burger King, since that was what Mrs. Jenkins wanted. She walked away with a plastic woolly mammoth that came in her chicken nugget kid’s meal, and she was delighted. Though I usually avoid fast food places, I didn’t object, since the meal only set me back ten bucks, versus the twenty I would have spent elsewhere, and since it so obviously made her happy.

  We drove across town in every direction at least twice, coming and going, and I kept an eye peeled for black SUVs with tinted windows. It did me no good. There are just too many. I hadn’t really noticed what kind of black SUV we had seen this morning, and as it turns out, there are lots of varieties. Jeeps and Hummers, Nissans, Hondas, Lexus, Mercedes... And frankly, I didn’t even know that the black SUV from this morning had anything to do with anything. Or that the white Toyota I’d seen a few times over the past couple of days did. If that had been the same white Toyota every time, and not several. If it had been a Toyota at all, and not a Honda. Or a Nissan. There are plenty of all of them out there. We didn’t see the Hispanic man again, anyway, or anyone else I recognized either.

  We got back home—back to the house on Potsdam Street—after dark, and I must admit my heart was beating faster when I unlocked the front door and reached around the jamb to flip the light switch. Once upon a time, just after Brenda Puckett’s murder, I’d had a bad experience here, doing that same thing: walking up to what I thought would be an empty house, only to find someone inside. It had only been Mrs. Jenkins, escaped from the Milton House yet again, but at the time, it had scared me out of my mind. I had left the door wide open and had turned on my heel and hightailed it out of there with a spurt of gravel. If I could have done the same thing now, I would have.

  I couldn’t, though. I had to go inside and make sure we were safe. And I’ll frankly admit that my heart was pounding as I checked the place from top to bottom once I’d locked and bolted the door behind us.

  No one was there. No one seemed to have been there, either. Everything was in its place, nothing was out of order, there was no sign that anyone had been inside the house during the time we’d been gone.

  It was not even eight o’clock, but poor Mrs. Jenkins was worn out from the busy day we’d had; much busier than the poor dear was used to. She went to bed. After checking and rechecking that the front and back doors were locked and that all the windows were securely fastened, I went upstairs, too. Changed into my lacy nightie and crawled into Rafe’s bed, where I tried to get lost in the adventures of beautiful, blonde Serena and handsome, swarthy Sheik Hasan.

  No sooner had I found my place in the book, than the phone rang. My cell phone, plugged in and charging on the floor next to the bed.

  Rafe didn’t have a bedside table. I had stopped myself before I tried to figure out where he kept his condoms, although I can’t deny that the thought had crossed my mind. For a tenth of a second or so before I banished it. Maybe he just didn’t entertain here, I’d told myself. The idea that he might have been with someone, in the same bed I was sleeping in, was more disturbing than I wanted to admit, even to myself.

  Anyway, I rolled over onto my stomach and flipped the phone open, squinting at the display down there on the floor. And I thank God I did, because if I had answered without checking first, all hell would have broken loose.

  “Oh, no.”

  It was Todd.

  And suddenly I remembered what I’d forgotten in the whirlwind of the last two days: that I was supposed to have had dinner with him tonight. A date I hadn’t remembered to call and cancel. Todd must have driven up to Nashville from Sweetwater, to pick me up. Only to find a decoy, maybe an undercover police officer, in my apartment.

  “Oh, no!”

  Did the undercover cop know where I was, I wondered? Had she told him? Was Todd even now on his way over here? I tried not to imagine the look on his face when he saw me in a lacy nightgown snuggled up in Rafe’s bed. Even without Rafe around. Maybe I should get dressed again, just in case Todd knocked on the door.

  But no, surely my lookalike didn’t know where I was; surely Tamara Grimaldi would have kept that information to herself. Wouldn’t she...?

  In any case, I really ought to answer the phone, to set Todd’s mind at ease. Even if he didn’t know that I was here, specifically, he’d be worried that I wasn’t at home. Chances were that the undercover cop had told him what had happened, even if she hadn’t been able to tell him where to find me. I mean, Todd Satterfield wasn’t just anybody: he was the assistant district attorney in Columbia, and he wouldn’t have scrupled to put pressure on if he had to. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone, though. If I talked to Todd, he’d ask me where I was staying, and then I’d either have to tell him the truth, which would send the manure winging its way toward the fan, or I’d have to lie. Something I do very poorly. So instead of answering, I watched the display until the call went to voicemail, and then I started breathing again.

  He didn’t call back. After a minute, the phone sounded the new voicemail ding, and I steeled myself to listen to Todd’s message.

  It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. “Savannah? This is Todd. I’m standing outside your apartment, but you’re not here. Someone else is. Her name is Megan, and she says she’ll be staying for a few days, while you’re away. You didn’t tell me you were going away, Savannah. You didn’t call to cancel our date, either. I’m worried about you. Where are you? Please call me.”

  And that was it. I gnawed on my bottom lip for a second while I debated what to do. If I didn’t do something, he’d be talking to Mother and Dix in no time flat. It didn’t seem as if Megan the undercover cop had told him what had happened—it sounded like she had pretended to be a friend house sitting for me while I was elsewhere—but still, that was enough to make Todd, Dix, and Mother worried. Just the fact that they didn’t know where I was.

  I didn’t want to call Todd, and I couldn’t call my mother, who’d have an aneurism if she discovered where I was. But maybe I could call Dix. I’ve had him run interference for me before, and he knows a little more about my practically non-existent relationship with Rafe than the rest of the family. Of everyone, Dix is least likely to judge me. Or if he judges me, at least he’s fairly nice about it.

  “Where are you?” were the first words out of his mouth when he picked up the phone.

  I sighed. “Obviously you’ve already heard from Todd.”

  “He called two minutes ago, to say you weren’t at home when he came to pick you up for dinner. Where are you?”

  “Staying with a friend. My apartment was broken into yesterday.”

  “Damn,” Dix said after taking a second to process the news. “Todd didn’t mention that.”

  “He probably didn’t know. Megan wouldn’t have told him.”

  “Who’s Megan?”

  “She’s a police officer who’s staying in my apartment for a few days. Supposedly sh
e looks like me.”

  “Todd didn’t mention that, either,” Dix said. “How did you swing an undercover officer after a simple break-in?”

  “Detective Grimaldi thought that with everything that’s been going on in my life this fall, it was better to be safe. Just in case this has something to do with Walker Lamont or Perry Fortunato.”

  “Right.” Dix hesitated. “Are you all right, sis?”

  “I’m fine. I wasn’t home when it happened.”

  “So where are you now?”

  “I told you. I’m staying at a friend’s house. And I’d appreciate it if you’d call Todd back and tell him that I’m sorry for standing him up. Cancelling slipped my mind in all the excitement.”

  “Why can’t you call him yourself?” Dix wanted to know.

  “Because then I’ll have to tell him what happened and where...” I bit my tongue, but not soon enough.

  “Let me guess,” my brother said, his voice resigned, “you’re staying with Collier.”

  “I’m staying with Mrs. Jenkins. Rafe is still in Memphis. Or wherever he went. So no, I’m not staying with him. If he was here, I wouldn’t have to be. I’d come home to Sweetwater until things blow over. But since Marquita’s missing, Mrs. Jenkins needs someone to stay with her. And since she can’t stay with me, I’m here.”

  “Marquita Johnson’s missing?”

  “Apparently so. She left on Saturday afternoon for a half day off and never came back. Sheriff Satterfield is looking for her.”

  “Huh,” Dix said.

  “Right. Anyway, can you please talk to Todd for me? And tell him I’m fine and I’m sorry, but without telling him exactly where I am? You know he’ll have a fit if he finds out, and then he’ll tell Mother, and she’ll have a heart attack.”

  “So I should do it to protect our mother’s health?”