Kickout Clause (Savannah Martin Mystery)

by Bennett, Jenna

  “So it seems. He didn’t come back last night. Nor did the guard who went with him. We’ve mounted a search. I just wanted you to know who to keep an eye out for.”

  “No problem.” I was looking around so diligently I neglected to keep an eye on traffic. A car horn at my rear made me jump and realize the light had turned. I inched across the intersection and took a left onto Main Street.

  “I’ll let you know what I hear,” Grimaldi said.

  “I’d appreciate that.” I kept glancing side to side, as if expecting to see Walker standing on the sidewalk, which of course I didn’t. “You don’t think he’ll come looking for me, do you? Last night was just a fluke, right? My picture was there, and it reminded him that it was my fault he’s in prison, and he got angry?”

  Grimaldi hesitated. “I don’t know,” she said eventually. “Just... be careful. Stay where there are other people. Make sure your boyfriend sticks around home tonight.”

  “He’s supposed to play cops and robbers.”

  “Cops and...?”

  “Surveillance and counter-surveillance. Training.”

  “Tell him to call it off,” Grimaldi said, “and to stay home with you. I don’t think Lamont will do anything stupid, but better safe than sorry.”

  Indeed.

  I promised her I’d put Rafe on alert, and then I drove the rest of the way to the office wishing I had eyes in the back of my head.

  Chapter Five

  I had to leave another message for Rafe, which was just as well, because I could imagine the kind of reception my news would get, and I was already rattled enough.

  Back at the office, things were pretty much back to normal. Brittany sat at the front desk with her bubble gum and her copy of Cosmo, and Tim was in the rear wringing his hands. Other people kept coming and going as if nothing was wrong.

  And nothing was, except in my office. It still looked like a whirlwind had blown through, scattering everything. By now, the gray fingerprint powder the crime tech had left added insult to injury. I knew he’d had to do it—I wanted him to do it—but it was still annoying to have to clean it up.

  It took me the next couple of hours to set everything to rights, and every minute I spent, I felt more violated, nervous and upset.

  When Rafe called, just the sound of his voice set me off. All he had to say was, “What the hell?” and the mixture of anger and worry in his voice had me sobbing into the phone.

  “Talk to me, darlin’.” I could hear the tightness underlying the words, and pulled myself together. When his voice goes tight like that, it’s never a good sign.

  “I’m fine. I just... I heard your voice and figured it was safe to break down.”

  He didn’t say anything to that.

  “I’m fine,” I said again, focusing on breathing evenly. “Nothing happened to me. Just to my office.” I couldn’t keep myself from adding, “He destroyed the picture of us from New Year’s Eve.”

  “Bastard.”

  “It was the only picture I had of us. Together.” And because I’d lost it, I started crying again. I didn’t want to, but the tears just came.

  “I’m gonna kill him,” Rafe said, conversationally.

  “The police will find him. I’m sure they will.”

  “Not if I find him first,” Rafe said, which was such a movie cliché thing to say that I giggled, in the middle of the tears. “What?” he added.

  “Nothing.” He’d meant it seriously, I knew. I sniffed, and got myself under control. I had to, for his sake as much as for my own. “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine. Really.”

  He took a breath. A long, very audible one. When he came back, his voice was calmer. “You sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure. I’m fine. Just a bit overwhelmed with cleaning up the mess, and it’s upsetting that it happened, you know? You feel violated. But it’s just stuff. And I can get another picture of us.” I hoped. Rafe wasn’t big on picture taking. He’d spent so much time keeping a low profile that being photographed worried him.

  But I had Rafe himself, after all, so losing the picture wasn’t really that big a deal. Or so I tried to tell myself.

  “I spoke to Tammy,” he said.

  “You called her?” Before he’d called me?

  “She called me. And told me to cancel anything I was planning to do tonight.” Something I had left out of the message I’d left for him. A fact he’d obviously noted.

  “She didn’t have to do that,” I said. “I was going to ask you.”

  “Sure.” He made no attempt to sound like he believed me.

  “I just didn’t want to leave Shelby in the lurch. She’s worried about Bradley. I wanted someone to follow him to see where he went.”

  “And someone will,” Rafe said. “It just won’t be me.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll give it to Manny as an assignment. Follow the SUV from work to home, make note of any stops the driver makes along the way, and stay there long enough to make sure he’s settled for the night, then report in. He won’t know Bradley is anyone you know. I’ll make out it’s just a random choice.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Manny needs to train,” Rafe said. “He might as well train on Bradley.”

  True.

  And this would actually work out better, as far as I was concerned. Bradley and Rafe had met once, briefly, on the sidewalk outside the condo when Bradley was bringing me back from dinner in December. I wasn’t sure whether Bradley had gotten a good look at Rafe, and whether he would recall him or not. Given the circumstances, he might. And if he recognized Rafe today, after recognizing me yesterday, he might suspect that something was up. But Bradley would never recognize Manny, since it was unlikely they’d ever crossed paths.

  “Did Tammy... Grimaldi say anything else?” I asked. Between the two of them, they had a habit of trying to protect me from some of life’s more unpleasant facts.

  “The idiots let him go,” Rafe said, his voice disgusted. “His mother’s been dead for years, and nobody bothered to notice.”

  “They sent a guard with him, though. What happened to the guard?”

  “Ain’t been answering his phone. Dead in a ditch somewhere, most likely.” Rafe’s tone indicated that he thought it was no more than the unfortunate guard deserved for being stupid enough to go anywhere with Walker Lamont.

  “You think Walker killed him?”

  “Don’t you?”

  Considering that he’d killed several other people, and tried to kill me and Mrs. Jenkins to cover it up, let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Call me when you’re ready to come home,” Rafe said. “And don’t park in the garage. Find a spot on the street. I’ll meet you.”

  “Are you sure that’s necessary? I mean, if he killed the guard and got away, and found whatever he came here for—which probably wasn’t to trash my office—don’t you think he has more important things to worry about than me? Won’t he be trying to get as far from Nashville as he can before anyone starts looking for him?”

  “Prob’ly,” Rafe admitted. “But it don’t make sense to take stupid chances.”

  It didn’t. “I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks, darlin’.” There was no mistaking the relief in his voice. He must be more worried than he wanted me to realize. “Gotta go. Duty calls.”

  I listened to the click as he hung up, and then the silence, before shaking myself off and getting back to work.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the office. My coffee mug slash pencil holder was a total loss, so I had to dump all the pens and pencils into the desk drawer until I could bring another from home, but other than that, everything else could be returned to normal. I pinned all my reminders and comics back up on the cork board and sorted the paperwork into piles. It gave me an excuse, or incentive, to organize my files too, so I spent some time doing that. And then I wiped off all the fingerprint powder, wondering whether that was what had given Grimaldi her hunch to call
the Department of Corrections to check on Walker. If his fingerprints had been here, seven months after he went to prison, that’d be something of a dead giveaway.

  When the phone rang a little after four, it startled me. My heart jumped, but when I looked at the display, I realized it was just the call I’d been waiting for, the one I’d forgotten all about in the tumult.

  “This is Savannah.”

  “It’s me,” the agent for the buyers said. “They can’t take the contingency off.” He sounded a bit angry, although I wasn’t sure whether it was with me, with them, or with the situation in general.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, since I was a little unhappy about the situation in general myself. I had really hoped the first couple who wanted Mrs. J’s house would be able to buy it, condo notwithstanding. You’re not supposed to play favorites, of course, but I had shown them the house, only learning once I got there that they had a realtor in mind that they wanted to work with, and I had really hoped things would work out.

  “Sure.”

  There was a distinct edge of ‘yeah, right,’ in the single syllable. It put my back up, even though I knew what had happened wasn’t my fault. I mean, we could have taken their offer without the sale of home contingency and kickout clause, I guess, and just taken the risk that the condo would sell in a timely manner... but experience and common sense dictated otherwise. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about that.

  My no doubt loud silence must have spurred Brian into speaking again. He sounded a mite more conciliatory this time. “Will you let me know if something changes?”

  “Of course,” I said graciously. “The other buyers still have their inspection and financial contingencies to get through, so there are no guarantees that things will work out. I’ll keep your number and let you know the minute something happens. If it does.”

  “Thank you.” He hung up without saying goodbye and without giving me the chance to.

  I blew out a breath, feeling like a tiny gray raincloud had settled right over my head, and dialed Rafe. “I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”

  “Gimme fifteen to get in place.”

  No problem. “We heard from the agent for the buyers. They’re withdrawing their offer.”

  “Damn,” Rafe said.

  “We still have the backup offer.”

  “I know. But I liked them.”

  I had, too. “I have to call the other agent now, and let him know that his clients just moved up into first position. Hopefully they haven’t changed their minds.”

  “If they have, it’s too late,” Rafe said.

  “I know. But there are ways they can get out if they’re not serious. They have an inspection contingency and a financial contingency. If they want out, they can get out.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “I’ll be outside the condo in fifteen minutes,” I told him. “I’ll park on the street.”

  “If you don’t see me, stay in the car till you do.”

  I promised I would, and then I hung up and called the other agent to tell him his clients had just become the primary offerers for Mrs. Jenkins’s house. That done, I said good night to Brittany and headed out into the parking lot.

  I did look around a little extra carefully on my way to the Volvo, but nobody was in the parking lot. And while I kept an eye in the rearview mirror on the half dozen blocks down to Fifth and East Main, I didn’t pick up a tail, either.

  Of course, Walker wouldn’t have to follow me to know where I was going. He’d had access to the employee roster last night, and could have looked up my address. It was in the same drawer as the petty cash.

  I imagined getting out of the car in front of the condo complex and being picked off by a long-range hunting rifle. Walker had told me once that his father used to take him hunting, until the unfortunate accident that killed him. An accident that killed the father, I mean. Walker hadn’t said it in so many words, but I’d gotten the distinct impression that he was behind the sad occurrence.

  Yes, I knew it was ridiculous to imagine being gunned down on the street in front of my building in what was almost broad daylight, but I couldn’t shake the idea. And then I thought of Rafe standing there waiting, to make sure nothing bad happened to me, and of Walker picking him off first. I thought about arriving home to find him on the ground, his blood running across the pavement, and I stepped on the gas.

  That was an equally ridiculous notion, of course, but fear is a funny thing. I didn’t start breathing again until I got close enough to see him standing—upright and whole—on the sidewalk beside an empty parking space. I pulled in behind the Harley Davidson and cut the engine. Before I could open the door, he was already there, shielding me with his own body.

  “C’mon.” He kept a hand on my back and himself between me and the openness of the street on the way across the courtyard. I felt my neck prickle—he probably did, too—but nothing happened.

  “This is ridiculous,” I informed him when we were inside the stairwell and on our way up to the second floor. “Walker has better things to do than spend time and effort getting back at me.”

  Rafe didn’t answer, just kept an eye out, forward and back, as we emerged on the second floor and halted in front of our own door.

  “We got along well,” I continued as I fitted the key in the lock. “Even after I put him in prison. He understood that he got caught fair and square. He didn’t blame me. And he undid all the damage from Brenda’s net listing and gave the house back to your grandmother.”

  “That don’t mean I’m gonna let him hurt you,” Rafe said and moved into the hallway behind me. He closed and locked the door, then stuck his head into the kitchen and opened the door to the half bath to make sure it was empty. “Stay,” he told me over his shoulder as he moved farther into the apartment.

  “I’m not a dog,” I threw after him, but he’d already passed into the living room, gun in hand.

  I spent the time shrugging out of my lightweight spring coat and kicking off my shoes, while I listened for sounds. None came. Rafe can move soundlessly when he wants to, and he obviously did.

  It took about a minute, and then he called out. “C’mere.”

  Another command, short and to the point. I was grumbling as I skirted the dining room table and padded across the living room carpet to the bedroom door. “You know, I don’t appreciate being talked to like I walk on four legs and pant—”

  And then I stopped in the doorway, struck mute by the sight of Rafe, flat on his back on the bed, arms tucked behind his head. Stark naked. And grinning.

  The apartment must be secure.

  Part of me wanted to ask how he’d managed to strip down so quickly, but to be honest, I couldn’t get my vocal chords to cooperate. Never mind panting: my tongue was practically hanging out and I was a second away from drooling. We’d been together every day (and every night) for two and a half months now, so I should be used to looking at him, even in the nude. But the truth was, he never fails to take my breath away. Part of me hopes he never will.

  But of course I didn’t want him to see that—as if there was any chance at all he didn’t already know the effect he has on me—so I put my hands on my hips and surveyed him. arching my brows. “What? You’re going to throw me a bone?”

  The grin turned into a full-blown laugh, and my own lips curved in appreciation. It’s been happening more often recently, but I still celebrate every time I coax a spontaneous, unguarded moment out of him.

  “C’mere, darlin’.” He patted the bed next to him. I walked over and sat down. Demurely, with my hands folded in my lap.

  And then I thought, to hell with it, and reached out to smooth my hand over his skin. He tumbled me down on top of him, and the rest, as they say, is history.

  The phone rang just after seven.

  “Must be Manny,” Rafe said, reaching for it. We were still in bed, and I watched with appreciation as muscles moved smoothly under his skin as he sat up against the pillows and put the phone
to his ear. “Yeah?”

  The phone started quacking.

  “Is it him?” I mouthed. He nodded. “I want to hear.”

  “Hang on a sec, Manny. I’m gonna put you on speaker.” He put a finger to his lips to indicate that I needed to be quiet. I nodded. I just wanted to hear what Manny had to say, I had no need to let him know he hadn’t been involved in a TBI training exercise.

  “Sure, Rafe,” Manny said. He had a light, smooth voice with a hint of a Spanish accent, and he sounded young. “So like I was saying, I followed the dude from the office through downtown and onto Church Street. He stopped at the post office.”

  “Mailbox?”

  “Post box. He got something out of it, or put something in, I’m not sure. I couldn’t follow him inside, or he’d make me.”

  “That’s fine,” Rafe said. “Don’t worry about it. Then what?”

  “He got back in the car. Started driving west on Church, toward the park. But he only went a couple blocks, and then he turned left and left again on West End. Back the way he came.”

  “Maybe he forgot something at the office.”

  “He didn’t go to the office,” Manny said. “He took a right on Fourth and drove down to a bar off Nolensville Road in Tusculum.”

  Tusculum? That was half a world away from Bradley’s townhouse in Green Hills, both financially and socially.

  “Place have a name?”

  “Shortstop,” Manny said.

  I grimaced, and Rafe shot me a warning look. I nodded, rolling my eyes. I wasn’t going to say anything. But I remembered the Shortstop. He’d taken me there once, when we’d been on that side of town and after I’d asked for a place where no one would recognize me.

  “D’you go in?” Rafe asked.

  “Yeah. I figured it’d be safe. No way I’d stick out in a place like that.”

  Indeed not. Rafe hadn’t stuck out when we’d been there. No more than he does anywhere else, by being above average height and nice-looking.

  No, I’d been the anomaly at the Shortstop. Other than me, it had been all men and a couple of waitresses, both of whom had been common as dirt, as my mother would say. Rafe had known several of the men, and they’d all been petty criminals. And Tusculum was located on the south side of town, in an area that had seen a lot of immigration from Mexico in the last few years. If Manny looked like a Manuel, he’d fit right in.