[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  I’m not that small anymore, but I nodded. “Do you know my siblings?”

  “I used to teach high school, sweetie. At Columbia High.”

  “How come I don’t remember you?” I said. If I hadn’t been so rattled, I wouldn’t have. Admitting you don’t remember someone is very rude. Much nicer to pretend you do even when you don’t.

  “I imagine I left a year or two before you started. I just managed to see Dix through ninth grade science.” Millie Ruth lowered her voice another decibel. “What’s wrong?”

  “You saw the ambulance?”

  “And the sheriff. Who was that he left with?”

  I suppressed a sigh. “That was Rafe Collier. Also from Sweetwater.”

  Millie Ruth nodded. “I remember him.”

  You and everyone else in these parts, I thought.

  “Grew up to be a good-looking boy, didn’t he? Not that he wasn’t good-looking back then, too, of course. And a real charmer when he wanted to be. I used to see him around here sometimes when he was younger.”

  “He was friends with Yvonne. More than friends for a time.”

  “What’s he doing back here?”

  I explained that he’d come down from Nashville for Marquita Johnson’s funeral. Of course Millie Ruth remembered Marquita too, and we discussed what had happened for a minute before she returned to the reason she’d come across the grass from her house next door. “Is Yvonne OK? What happened?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” I said apologetically. “Someone shot her, I think. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s still alive. Hopefully they can keep her that way.”

  “Oh, dear.” Millie Ruth’s smooth, round face paled.

  “I don’t suppose you saw anyone hanging around late last night? Or anyone visiting?”

  Millie Ruth shook her head. “I saw a woman walking down the street in the evening. It was dark, though, so I didn’t see her real well. All I noticed was that she had long, fair hair. Like yours.”

  Big surprise. “That probably was me,” I admitted. “I was here about eight thirty. Yvonne was fine then.”

  “Oh.” Millie Ruth bit her lip. “I thought it was later than that, but OK. I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “No men? A tall guy with black hair, maybe wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt?”

  “The Collier-boy?” She glanced toward the street, where Rafe’s Harley had been parked.

  I shook my head. “Someone else. Someone who looks a little like him.” Although if she’d seen Rafe around Yvonne’s house last night, I’d like to know that too.

  “Can’t say I did, precious.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Guess I’d better get back inside. The kitties are waiting for breakfast.”

  “There’ll be a crime scene investigation unit from Nashville showing up within the next thirty minutes. Just so you know.” And sooner or later, someone from either the Metro Nashville PD or the Sweetwater sheriff’s office would stop by to ask Millie Ruth what, if anything, she’d seen last night. She’d mention having seen me, of course, and then someone would figure out the connection between me and Rafe and the connection between Rafe and Yvonne, and before I knew it, I’d be a person of interest in the case. Someone might think I’d been jealous enough to hurt Yvonne, just because she’d kissed Rafe yesterday. Just because I’d been jealous enough to drive all the way to Damascus last night, to make sure he wasn’t here.

  It wasn’t a comfortable thought. And I don’t mean the possible murder rap. Nobody in their right minds—and I included Tamara Grimaldi and Bob Satterfield among those—would think I would try to kill anyone. Especially over something like a kiss. No, it was the realization that I was jealous that was uncomfortable. I hadn’t put a name to it yesterday. Now I did. And scared myself half to death in the process.

  Millie Ruth said goodbye and wandered back toward her own house, her steps light in spite of her bulk. I sat on the stoop and watched her and tried to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly be jealous and faced the fact that yes, jealous was exactly what I was.

  And had been for quite a while, too.

  As far back as August, the first time I met Marquita, that day in the Bog, when she’d stepped between me and Rafe and essentially laid claim to him... she’d been loud and obnoxious and very disrespectful, but my dislike had been at least in part because I didn’t want her to be involved with him. And that slip of paper with Yvonne’s phone number, that I had conveniently left in my pocket in Sweetwater when I drove to Nashville... I couldn’t very well deny that I hadn’t wanted to hand it over. And that white-knuckled, fingernails-into-palms reaction yesterday in the cemetery, when he kissed her... I hadn’t called it jealousy then, even though I’d gone as far as to imagine storming up the hill and telling her to keep her hands off him because he was mine...

  Really, how much more obvious could it be?

  Jealous.

  Of Rafe Collier.

  Lord have mercy.

  I was still sitting in the same spot when the crime scene van from the Metro Nashville PD pulled up to the curb. The passenger side door opened and Tamara Grimaldi’s boots hit the pavement. She stood and looked around for a second, taking in the sleepy street and the general air of nothing at all happening that all small towns share, before turning toward the house.

  And seeing me.

  I must look about as rattled as I felt, because she hurried up the walk toward me, her aquiline face concerned. “Savannah? What are you still doing here?”

  I managed a smile. “I realized that the back door can’t be locked. Rafe kicked it in. I didn’t want to leave the place open. Plus, I have something to tell you.”

  Her eyes came back to mine. “What?”

  “I was here last night. At about eight thirty. I parked on the corner and walked down to the house. And then I walked around the house and looked through the windows.” My cheeks burned and I had a hard time meeting her eyes.

  Tamara Grimaldi tilted her head to the side. “Why’d you do that?” Behind her, a crew of three began unloading the crime scene van.

  “I wanted to see if Rafe was here,” I admitted.

  She furrowed her brows. “What made you think he would be?”

  “He and Yvonne were involved in high school. Yesterday, at the funeral, she told him to stop by if he was planning to spend the night in Sweetwater.”

  “And you thought he would?” Her tone supplied the question, why?

  I squirmed. “He told me he might.”

  “He was lying,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “OK. So you were here at eight thirty. Sneaking around looking through the windows. What did you see?”

  “Nothing at all. The problem is that someone saw me.”

  “Ah.” She smiled. “Who?”

  I made a face. “The lady next door. Her name is Millie Ruth Durbin. She came over to ask what was going on, and I asked her if she’d seen anyone around the place last night. I was hoping maybe she’d seen Jorge Pena, but she hadn’t. She said she’d seen a woman with fair hair walking down the street last night, though.”

  “And you’re a woman with fair hair.”

  I nodded.

  “Although there are other women with fair hair too, you know.”

  “I know that. But I was really here. And I was afraid that if I didn’t tell you myself, it’d look like I’d come here to try to kill Yvonne.”

  “Because of Rafe Collier?” Tamara grinned. “However jealous you were, Savannah, I don’t think you would have tried to kill anyone. Especially if he wasn’t even here. And he wouldn’t have been.”

  “Glad to hear it. I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I just looked through the windows, saw that Yvonne was alone—she was sitting on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn watching TV—and then I walked back to the car and drove to the Bog.”

  “But Mr. Collier wasn’t there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Guess I’ll have to ask him about that. Are you headed back to Sweetwater now, by any chance? Can
you drop me at the sheriff’s office?”

  “Sure. But don’t you want to stay and work on the crime scene?”

  She shook her head. “They’ll take care of that,” indicating the crew of three making their way toward us from the street. “I want to talk to Sheriff Satterfield and the doctors. See what they can tell me about what happened.”

  “In that case, I’ll be happy to drive you.” And maybe pick up a few tidbits of information along the way.

  We exchanged few words on the way back to Sweetwater. Tamara spent most of the time on the phone talking to other people while I focused on driving the car. And on listening.

  The first call was to Nashville to report the team arriving in one piece; I guess that one was to her boss. The second was to Sheriff Satterfield to tell him she was on her way to see him.

  “Savannah Martin is driving me,” she added, with a sideways glance at me, “but I’ll probably need a ride back to the crime scene later.”

  Sheriff Satterfield allowed how that would be no problem. It would be no problem for me to drive her back either, for that matter.

  “She tells me you took Rafael Collier in for questioning,” she said next. “Has he admitted anything?”

  I sent her a look. She sent me one back and half turned toward the window. “Well, don’t let him leave. I’ll want a word with him when I get there.”

  The sheriff’s voice quacked, and Tamara rolled her eyes. Her voice stayed polite, though. “No, I don’t really think he did it. I just want to talk to him.”

  The sheriff said something else, and Tamara responded. “Yes, sheriff, I’ve seen his record. In this case, though, I don’t see how he can be involved. The caliber of the bullet they dug out of Ms. McCoy matches the one that killed Marquita Johnson, as well as the one that was fired at Mr. Collier earlier this week. He had a witness at the time, who testifies to the incident. He did not shoot at himself. A ballistics test will confirm that the bullet that was used on Ms. McCoy came from the same gun as the others, but for now, we’re going on the assumption that the same person fired all the shots. And it wasn’t Mr. Collier.”

  This was news to me, and apparently it was news to the sheriff as well, because he quacked again, sounding a little frantic. I turned my attention to driving and waited for the conversation to end.

  “You didn’t tell me that,” I said when Tamara Grimaldi had disconnected the call, and before she could dial again. “That you’ve matched the bullets.”

  She glanced at me, distracted. “Sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “No problem. So the bullet that killed Marquita and the bullet that came at me and Rafe were from the same gun? Probably the same gun that someone used to shoot Yvonne?”

  Tamara nodded. “No fingerprints on any of the bullets, of course. Although we have confirmed that the knife you found in your desk drawer is the same knife that was used to cut up your nightgown. The fiber thread caught in the handle matches.”

  “Good to know.” Or not. “Why do you think he left it there? Or she? Was it Jorge Pena, do you think? Or someone else?”

  “No idea,” Tamara admitted. “It was meant as some sort of warning, probably, but why Jorge would target you, and why he’d want you to know that he did—if he did... I can’t explain it.”

  “Rafe said that Jorge either wanted me to convey the message to Rafe that he was coming, or it was because he got off on the look on my face. I’m sure it was entertaining.”

  Tamara suppressed a smile. “Scared you, did he?”

  “He would have scared you too, if he was there to kill someone you...” I stopped.

  She glanced at me, but didn’t ask me to complete the sentence. I’m not sure I could have. “Did Mr. Collier have a suggestion for why the knife was in your office?”

  “I haven’t mentioned it to him.” We had reached Sweetwater, and were on our way down Oak Street toward the sheriff’s office. “Feel free to ask him when you see him.”

  “You don’t want to wait?”

  “I’m having lunch with my mother and my Aunt Regina,” I said steadily. “We’re talking about the Sweetwater Christmas Tour of Homes. You have my phone number if you need me. If you need a ride anywhere else.”

  I pulled the car up to the steps outside the sheriff’s office. Tamara reached for the handle.

  I snagged the sleeve of her jacket. “You’ll call me, right? If anything happens?”

  “Sure.” She twitched free of my grasp and swung her legs out. “As soon as I know something. And in the meantime, your boyfriend’s safe inside.” She got to her feet.

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, but I don’t think she heard me. If she did, she didn’t respond, just shut the car door. I watched her lope up the stairs on long legs, and let herself in through the door, and then I drove away, white-knuckling the steering wheel the whole way.

  * * *

  “You’re late, darling,” Mother chided when I walked into the café in the middle of lunch. Then she took a closer look at me, and her expression changed. “What happened, Savannah?”

  “My friend Yvonne, the one who works at Beulah’s?” I pulled out a chair and sat down. “She didn’t come to work this morning. Hi, Aunt Regina. Nice to see you. So I drove over to her house to make sure she was all right, and found her on the floor. Someone had shot her.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mother waved for the waitress. “A sherry, please.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t...”

  “White wine.” I managed a gracious smile. “Thank you.”

  She scurried off while I composed myself.

  Truth be told, I wasn’t as upset as I let on, since I’d had a little time to process what had happened and since so far at least, Yvonne was holding on to life, if only by her fingernails. She had been upgraded from critical to stable, and the doctors—along with Tamara Grimaldi—were cautiously optimistic. I, however, was late, and I was brought up to believe that keeping someone waiting is a sin. I knew I needed an excuse, and as it happened, I had one readymade.

  “By the way,” I added, “Bob Satterfield said to tell you he’d call later.”

  Mother flushed. “I hope you didn’t subject him to the kind of third degree you gave me last night, darling.”

  “I had a few other things on my mind.” I accepted the glass of white wine from the waitress and took a healthy swallow. For once, Mother didn’t tell me it was unladylike to guzzle.

  “What happened to your friend, Savannah?” Aunt Regina asked in her soft Southern voice. “A robbery?”

  I turned to her. She looks like an older version of my sister Catherine, who takes after our father, Aunt Regina’s sister. They’re both short and dark, with grayish eyes, although Aunt Regina’s hair would be gray now too if she didn’t color it. Dix and I, on the other hand, take after the Georgia Calverts, Mother’s family, with our fair hair and blue eyes.

  “I don’t think so. The place wasn’t messed up, and I didn’t notice anything missing. The TV and computer were still there. She was just lying on the floor in a pool of blood.”

  Mother shuddered delicately. “I don’t suppose you feel up to eating, darling, but perhaps you should put something in your stomach with the wine.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I reached for the basket of bread and snagged a roll. She was right, I didn’t have much appetite. But I hadn’t managed to eat anything for breakfast, and the wine on an empty stomach would probably not help the situation.

  “Who did it?” Aunt Regina wanted to know. “The same man who killed Marquita Johnson?”

  I turned to her, but since I’d just taken a bite of roll, and since Mother definitely wouldn’t approve of me talking with my mouth full, I couldn’t answer. Mother got in first.

  “Bob told me his deputies have been canvassing for a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties.”

  Aunt Regina tsked. “That Collier-boy again, I suppose.”

  I swallowed, just as Mother opened her mouth to agree. This time
I got in first. “Not this time.”

  They both looked at me. “Pardon?”

  “Not this time. This is a guy named Jorge Pena. He’s a couple of inches shorter than Rafe, and not as good-looking. Also very scary.”

  Mother and Aunt Regina exchanged a look.

  “Good-looking?” Mother said.

  “How do you know this, Savannah?” Aunt Regina wanted to know.

  I ignored Mother to focus on Aunt Regina. “I met him once. In Nashville. He’s a contract killer.”

  “And you met him?” Mother forgot all about my slip of the tongue in her shock that I’d met a hired assassin. She paled. “Darling, are you sure you shouldn’t move back to Sweetwater, where it’s safe?”

  “Two women my age have been shot here in the past week. I’m not sure how safe that is.”

  There was nothing she could say to that, of course, but she looked unhappy. “What is a hired killer doing, going around shooting young women in Sweetwater? And what did he want with you?”

  I explained that Jorge had been hired to kill Rafe. “I guess he thought I might know where Rafe was.”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed. “And did you?”

  At the time? “Absolutely not,” I said.

  Mother smiled, relieved.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tamara Grimaldi called just before five, to give me an update on everything.

  “I’d love an update.” I smiled sweetly at Mother across the parlor; we were having a pre-dinner drink while we waited for Sheriff Satterfield to pick her up for dinner. “Please tell me you’ve found Jorge Pena and locked him up, so we can all sleep safely in our beds tonight.”

  “No such luck. And I’m not sure he’s who we’re looking for, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?” I heard my voice turning shrill and focused on getting it back down to the low, sweet register that befits a Southern Belle. Breathe, Savannah. “How can he not be who you’re looking for?”

  “Remember those fingerprints we found on the romance novel in your apartment after the break-in?”