Contract Pending

by Jenna Bennett

  She nodded. “For a week or two. Just until we can figure out who sent Jorge after him and put them behind bars.”

  “And you don’t think that’ll take more than two weeks?”

  “I doubt it. A month at the most.”

  “If he’s going away again,” I said, “I definitely need to see him before he goes. It doesn’t have to be at his motel. It doesn’t even have to be in private. I’ll take a phone call, if it’s all I can get. But I want to hear his voice and know he’s all right.”

  She arched her brows. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “I trust you. I just want to hear it for myself.” I hesitated for a second. “There’s something I have to tell him.”

  “Ah.” She didn’t argue with that. “All right. I’ll see what I can do. Where are you headed when you leave here?”

  I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was going on three o’clock. “I’m going back to my apartment. And I’m staying there. Unless you call and tell me to get my hooker-clothes on.”

  “You own hooker-clothes?” She got to her feet without waiting for my answer. And no, I don’t.

  Although I could put on my new red dress again, I supposed. It was more suited to an expensive call-girl than a hooker, but it was as close as I could get. And springing it on Rafe a second time might prove... interesting.

  “Pack up anything of Officer Slater’s that you come across and I’ll send her out to pick it up later. I’ll be in touch.”

  I walked out of there, got in my car, and went home.

  It was nice to be back. Nice not to have to worry about people breaking in or gunning for me. Nice to know that Rafe wasn’t dead after all.

  Damn Tamara Grimaldi and Wendell, though, for not calling and telling me right away what their plan was. And damn Rafe most of all. How could he not know that I’d freak out if I heard he’d died? He should have called me and told me himself, dammit. It was the least he could do.

  Unless he really had no idea that I cared. Maybe I’d somehow succeeded in convincing him that I ran to him just for sex the other night. Maybe he thought, when I showed up again yesterday—in another skimpy cocktail dress, straight from another date with Todd—that I wanted more of the same. Just more of the same. Not that I wanted to see him because I—so help me, God—was in love with him and being with him made me—so help me, God—happy.

  Was that a good thing, I wondered as I moved wet clothes from the washer to the dryer.

  Maybe it was. I couldn’t have a relationship with him. No matter how happy being with him made me. I couldn’t bring him into the family. It would be uncomfortable for him as well as for them, not to mention for me, stuck in the middle. And honestly, it was still a little uncomfortable to go anywhere with him. In public, I mean. Here in Nashville it wasn’t such a big deal; people here are used to seeing mixed couples. Nobody stared at us at Fidelio’s or that other place he’d taken me to once, the Short Stop Sports Bar. But at Beulah’s the other morning... it had been like walking a gauntlet. All those eyes, and whispers. All that avid interest in what really ought to be just between the two of us.

  How can you have a relationship with someone, if you’re too embarrassed—or too afraid—to be seen in public with him?

  You can’t. And shouldn’t. So maybe it was all for the best that he didn’t know. Maybe, if I was too embarrassed and afraid to be with him, openly, I didn’t deserve him anyway.

  By the end of the workday, Megan Slater had stopped by to pick up her bag of possessions; she did look rather a lot like me, if in much better shape physically. I’d never make it through the police academy. Also, Dix had emailed the picture from Elspeth’s night table to my cell phone, along with the news that he had no further information. He was confident he would discover the truth, though. Elspeth’s house was full of paperwork and old journals, and somewhere in the mess, there was sure to be something helpful. I emailed back to ask that he please let me know what it was when he found it and then I left it at that.

  Tamara Grimaldi called at seven. “Get your hooker-clothes on. He’s staying at the Congress Inn on Dickerson Pike. Room 116. And he won’t be there for long, so you’d better hurry.”

  She hung up, before I could express my thanks.

  Ten minutes later I was on my way, red satin dress, silver sandals, and all.

  The Congress Inn is a fifteen minute drive, roughly, from my apartment, but it’s in a part of East Nashville that’s nowhere near as nice or safe. In fact, it’s not too far from Apple Annie’s Motel, which rents rooms by the hour. It’s also not too far from the Stor-All facility that Rafe and I had burgled two months earlier, when I was trying to figure out who killed Brenda Puckett. And finally, it’s only a few blocks from Potsdam Street.

  In other words, it was the perfect location for Jorge.

  I had noticed the place before, driving past. It’s right at the intersection of Dickerson Pike and Hart Lane, and the main building must have been a beautiful house once upon a time. Long ago now, but the traces of old beauty are still there. It’s an Italianate Victorian, late 1800s, two stories tall, painted white.

  That’s not where the motel rooms are, of course. They surround the main house in long, low brick strips. Rafe’s—AKA Jorge Pena’s—room, 116, was close to the front.

  I took a deep breath before I opened the car door and got out onto the pavement, on legs that shook. And then it took me a second to adjust the red satin dress—up, not down—before I made my way toward room 116. Accompanied by shrill whistles from a couple of gentlemen on the other side of the parking lot, sitting outside their own rooms sharing a six-pack or two of beer. I’ll spare you the remarks they directed my way, but basically they ran to the suggestion that if I didn’t find what I was looking for on my side of the motel, I should try theirs.

  Oh, and how much did I charge?

  At first when I knocked on the door to room 116, there was no answer. I could hear rustling from inside, though, so I knocked again. And stood back when the curtain fluttered, so he could see me.

  Then the door opened, and I took another step back.

  He looked different, and it wasn’t just the gun he let me see for a second before stashing it out of sight behind his back. His eyes were hard and his jaw tight, and his hair was styled in a way I wasn’t used to, but that I’d seen on Jorge. He was unshaven, too, with the beginnings of Jorge’s little goatee. There was a small silver cross in his ear, that he hadn’t had yesterday, and I didn’t doubt that when he turned around, I’d find a copy of Jorge’s dragon tattoo on his back. Just above that gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  There was a piece of gauze taped to his shoulder; quite small considering that it was covering a gunshot wound. Yet it was considerably larger than the Band Aid Tamara Grimaldi had told me about.

  And he looked like he was ready for a visit from a hooker, with his shirt off and his jeans zipped only halfway up and the button at the waistband open. He was wearing no underwear that I could see.

  I swallowed.

  “Hey, man!” one of the inebriated gentlemen from across the parking lot hollered, “when you’re done with her, send her over here, huh?”

  Rafe’s response was pithy and crude and very graphic, even the parts of it I didn’t understand because he spoke Spanish. I blushed. He looked at me, with a grin that was hot enough to sizzle metal. “C’mon in, querida. I ain’t got much time, so you’re gonna have to work fast.”

  He even sounded a little like Jorge.

  I took a steadying breath before I stepped through the door. The room beyond was awful. Small and dark and smelly, with stained 1970s shag carpet on the floor, and a bare bulb under the ceiling. There was a single bed, unmade, and through an opening in the back wall, I could see a dingy bathroom with black mold around the tub.

  I shuddered. You couldn’t pay me enough to spend the night here.

  Unless he asked me to stay. Then I might be able to get over my squeamishness.

  “Y
ou shouldn’t be here, darlin’.”

  I turned to look at him. His eyes were sober now; that raunchy heat gone along with the flinty hardness, and he’d finished zipping and fastening his jeans. It was almost disappointing.

  I moved my attention back up to his face. “I had to see you before you left town again.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Aside from the fact that I think I’m in love with you? “They told me you were dead. I wanted to see for myself that you weren’t.”

  He looked surprised. “Who told you I was dead?”

  “My brother Dix. Todd Satterfield told him—” unable to contain his glee, no doubt, “and the sheriff told Todd.”

  He nodded. “And nobody told you.” He reached out to run a finger down my cheek. “Sorry, darlin’. Guess we all figured you’d know.”

  “It’s been a rough day,” I said, blinking to stave off the tears that threatened.

  “C’mere.” He reached out a hand. I stepped into his embrace and put my head against his shoulder. The uninjured one. He wrapped his arms around me, and we stood like that for a minute, while I enjoyed the warm softness of his skin against my cheek and the steady movement of his breath against my hair.

  When I lifted my head to look up at him, he kissed me. Softly. And then he smiled. “I’d ask you to stay awhile, so I can prove that all the parts still work, but I don’t have the time.”

  I nodded. “It’s becoming almost a habit, isn’t it?” Having to say goodbye before he hightailed it out of town again. “How long will you be gone this time?”

  “If I’m lucky, just a few weeks.”

  “And if not?”

  “Could be another month, maybe.”

  I nodded. “Before you go, I have something to show you.”

  His eyes crinkled. “I’ve already seen what you got, darlin’. And if you think showing it to me again is gonna make me change my mind and stay in Nashville—”

  “Lovely as that sounds, this is something different.” I pulled my cell phone from my purse and flicked it open.

  “That’s a shame,” Rafe said, “cause I was just about to let myself be talked into it.”

  I ignored him while I hunted through my pictures for the one Dix had sent earlier. And then I put the phone in Rafe’s hand and watched his expression.

  For a second, his face turned absolutely blank, and I don’t think he remembered to breathe. When he found his voice again, it was carefully neutral, but not without the slightest of tremors. “Looks like me.”

  I nodded. “He does.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. It’s a picture Elspeth Caulfield had on her nightstand.”

  I explained, quickly, about the will, and how Martin and McCall were the executors, and that Dix and I had gone to Elspeth’s house looking for information. “There’s no name on the back of the photo, and Dix hasn’t been able to find anything else yet, either. It could even be a coincidence.”

  “How d’you figure that?”

  “She was a little crazy, you know? Delusional, or whatnot. She might have seen this boy somewhere and taken a picture of him just because he does look so much like you. He might not be anybody.”

  Rafe shook his head. “Look at him. He’s mine. And probably hers. Fuck!”

  I didn’t answer. After a second he glanced at me, “Sorry.”

  “No problem.” I’d expected a few bad words. He was actually being pretty calm, everything considered.

  “But I have a kid! A kid that nobody bothered to tell me about. A kid who’s…” He calculated in his head, “eleven years and eight or nine months old. And he doesn’t know who I am!”

  “He probably has a family,” I said.

  He looked at me, his eyes a little wild. “You think?”

  “Look at him. He looks happy, healthy, well-fed, clean…” All the things Rafe hadn’t been at that age. “If the car in the background is theirs, they’re reasonably well-off, and the shirt he’s wearing looks like part of a uniform. See the logo? He probably goes to private school.”

  “Yeah.” Rafe looked down at the screen again. The boy smiled back, his dark eyes shining and his smile brilliant.

  “I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, especially with everything else you have to worry about right now. But if you’re not coming back for weeks, or even a month, I didn’t want you to leave Nashville without knowing. Dix is trying to track him down. I’ll let you know what he finds out.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you have a phone number or an email address I can use to reach you?”

  “Call Tammy. She’ll call Wendell and he’ll get a message to me.”

  “Do you want a copy of the picture? To take with you?”

  I could see he was tempted, but he shook his head. “Better not.” He handed the phone back, after one more look. I tucked it into my bag.

  We stood in silence for a second.

  “You should go,” Rafe said.

  I nodded. I didn’t want to, but I should. The sooner I left, the sooner he could leave, and the sooner he’d be back. “Do you think enough time has passed for the guys across the parking lot to believe that we’ve... um... finished our business?”

  “We can take a couple minutes to make it look convincing. C’mere, darlin’.”

  He reached for me. Drove his fingers into my hair and mussed it. Yanked my skirt up a couple of inches. Kissed me, hard. Made sure I looked breathless and roughly used before he opened the door and pushed me through the opening. “Thanks, querida. I’ll call you next time I’m in town.”

  The door slammed shut behind me. The guys across the lot laughed uproariously. I stood there for a second, straightening my dress and smoothing down my hair, before I walked to the Volvo with as much dignity I could muster. And then I drove away, without looking back.

  # # #

  Turn the page for an excerpt of Cutthroat Business mystery #4

  CLOSE TO HOME

  Excerpt

  Close to Home

  Savannah Martin Mystery #4

  Chapter 1.

  When Rafe Collier came back from the dead, I was late.

  Not the kind of late that mother always drummed into me is rude and inconsiderate, because it makes other people feel I don’t value their time or consider them as important as myself. In mother’s book of Southern etiquette, making someone wait is a sin of equal magnitude with eating dessert on a date or wearing white shoes after Labor Day.

  I wasn’t that kind of late. In fact, if mother had realized what kind of late I was, she might well have disowned me.

  Rafe wasn’t that kind of dead, either. I knew that. (Except for eight pretty bad hours when I’d thought he’d really died, before I realized it was all part of a big, elaborate hoax the Nashville PD and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had cooked up.) See, earlier this fall, someone had sent a contract killer named Jorge Pena after Rafe. Jorge was very good at his job—this was per Rafe, whose opinion I tended to trust on things like that—and when word came down from the Sweetwater sheriff that Rafe was dead, I’d believed it. It wasn’t until eight hours later—eight horrible, interminable hours—that I learned the truth: Rafe wasn’t dead, Jorge was. The powers that be (and they didn’t include Sheriff Satterfield in Sweetwater) had decided that Rafe should take Jorge’s place, to try to figure out who was paying Jorge to kill him. The fact that there was a slight resemblance between them—both tall, dark, and dangerous—only helped with the illusion. Rafe had left Nashville for parts unknown—probably Memphis—six weeks ago, and while he was away, I’d realized I was late.

  As in, I should have gotten my period, and didn’t.

  Yes, I was that kind of late. The kind that results in morning sickness and the pitter-patter of little feet.

  “I have a problem,” I told Dix.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” my brother answered, his voice as clear in my ear as if he were sitting right next to me instead of a couple of c
ounties over. “What’s your problem?”

  The emphasis told me I wasn’t the only one with problems. Maybe our sister Catherine had called him to moan and groan. Or maybe Todd had. Dix’s best friend, assistant D.A. Todd Satterfield, had probably called to whine about me, and about the fact that I hadn’t yet accepted his proposal of marriage. Or maybe something was going on with Dix himself. Although what kind of problem could Dix possibly have, with his perfect wife, his perfect children, and his perfect career?

  Still, I’ve been trained well. I asked. Making sure my voice was sympathetic. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing you can help me with right now. Except maybe by giving me a distraction. What sort of problem, sis?”

  “I’m...” I cleared my throat, “...pregnant.”

  Dix was quiet for a second. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I could have sworn I heard you say you’re pregnant.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You did say you’re pregnant.”

  He waited. When I still didn’t speak, he added, “Well, that did it. I’m distracted. Are you sure?”

  Of course I was sure. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d toss around if I weren’t. I’d bought six different over-the-counter pregnancy tests, all different brands, two of each so as to safeguard myself against any mistakes, and all six had come out positive, one after the other. I was definitely pregnant.

  “Well, are congratulations in order?” Dix asked. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t sound happy.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel. Other than scared out of my mind.”

  “Because of the...” he lowered his voice, “miscarriage?”

  I’d had a miscarriage some three years ago, while I’d been married to Bradley Ferguson. I had told Catherine about it, and she had told mom, and at some point I guess someone had told Dix. It wasn’t me. It’s not the sort of thing you discuss with your brother.