Kickout Clause (Savannah Martin Mystery)

by Bennett, Jenna

  “What are you doing here? I mean, I realize you’re probably upset that I had you arrested, but killing me is only going to make things worse.”

  “I’m not going to kill you,” Walker said; I breathed a sigh of relief, as quietly as I could, “if you cooperate.”

  “With what?”

  He looked at me as if I were stupid. “With me.”

  Obviously. “What is it you want me to do?”

  “I want you to call Tim,” Walker said, “and tell him not to drop the bag of money in the park. To drop something else instead.”

  “Like what?”

  “His briefcase. His gym bag. What do I care?”

  “I’m just concerned that he won’t have another bag in the car,” I said. “He’s not a woman. He doesn’t carry a purse.”

  Walker muttered something unkind. I’m not sure whether it was directed at Tim or me, or maybe both of us. “Call him. Tell him not to drop the money in the park.”

  I turned to my own purse, hanging from the hook. Walker stiffened.

  “I have to get my phone out,” I said, fumbling. My fingers brushed something that felt like a lipstick cylinder—maybe the one with the serrated blade in it, or maybe the one with the pepper spray, or perhaps just Mauve Heather #56.

  I thought about pulling it out. Last time we’d done this, I had managed to fool Walker into thinking my lipstick was a gun I was pressing into his back. That probably wouldn’t work a second time, but the pepper spray might.

  Or maybe I’d be better off keeping it in reserve for later. I didn’t seem in imminent danger of being shot, since he needed me to call Tim first. And if I brought out the lipstick and started waving it around, he probably wouldn’t give me the time to get it up and aimed.

  Regretfully, I left the lipstick where it was, and went for the phone instead. Once I had it in my hand, I looked back up at Walker. “What do you want me to tell him? Other than that he shouldn’t let go of the money? I assume you want to meet him somewhere and take it off his hands?”

  Walker’s eyes narrowed. They’re a gun-metal gray, cold and hard. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “But he won’t know where to go. Don’t you think he’ll ask?” And if he knew, perhaps he’d be able to get word to Grimaldi, somehow.

  “Tell him...” Walker hesitated, as if this was a wrinkle he hadn’t thought about. “Tell him to leave the park and go north on Riverside Drive.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until you call him back!” Walker snapped.

  Fine. It wasn’t what I’d hoped for—I’d wanted something specific—but it was better than nothing. I dialed.

  The phone rang a few times on the other end, and then Tim picked up. “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Savannah?”

  Yes. Now Grimaldi would know that I was calling, since he’d used my name. She would probably not be able to hear anything I said, so I’d have to try to get Tim to repeat as much of it as possible. Assuming the wristwatch microphone was still on, that Tim hadn’t turned it off.

  “What’s going on?”

  Entirely too much to explain. “Where are you?” I asked.

  “Driving down Shelby Avenue toward the park,” Tim answered.

  Good. I said it out loud.

  “Why is that good?” Tim asked.

  “There’s been a change of plans.”

  “What kind of change of plans?” He sounded worried, and if he’d been in front of me, I would have kissed him. If I could keep him repeating everything I said, hopefully Grimaldi could hear it and know what was going on.

  “Walker wants you to keep the bag of money instead of leaving it in the park.”

  There was a beat. “Why is Walker talking to you?” Tim asked suspiciously.

  Yes! “I can’t explain that,” I said. “But he’s here.”

  “He’s there? With you?”

  Yes! “He wants you to keep the money and leave something else in the park.”

  “What does he want me to leave?”

  “Another bag. If you have one. Something to throw the police off and make them think you’re leaving the money.”

  Next to me, Walker nodded approval.

  “I don’t have another bag!” Tim protested, a hint of panic in his voice.

  “Well, do you have anything else? A towel? A blanket? Or maybe you can take the money out of the bag and leave the bag but not the money?”

  There was a pause. “I can do that,” Tim said.

  Walker nodded.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Take the money out of the bag, leave the bag, and drive away.”

  “Drive where?”

  “North on Riverside Drive. Until you hear from us again.”

  “OK,” Tim said.

  “And be careful. He has a gun.”

  Walker scowled at me.

  “A gun?!”

  “He’s pointing it at me.” What was the worst that could happen, after all? Walker could shoot me, but he probably wouldn’t. Not while I was talking to Tim.

  Who was breathing heavily on the other end of the line. “I don’t like guns.”

  “I know.” I added, to Walker, “He got shot a few weeks ago. He’s a little jumpy.”

  “I’m not jumpy!” Tim said.

  “It’s OK,” I told him, soothingly, “nobody blames you for being jumpy. It’s natural to be jumpy when someone points a gun at you.”

  “Tell him not to point the gun at me. I have his money. He doesn’t have to shoot me.”

  “I’m sure he knows that,” I said. Walker was making ‘hurry-up’ movements with the gun and scowling, so I added, “You know what to do?”

  “Drive to the park,” Tim recited, “leave the bag but not the money, drive north on Riverside Drive until I hear from you again.”

  Thank you. “That’s it. Good luck.”

  I disconnected the call before turning to Walker and the gun. “Now what?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Now we leave,” Walker said, which was a load off my mind. I’d been afraid he’d simply shoot me and leave me for Rafe to find whenever my boyfriend made it home.

  And much as I was loath to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I couldn’t keep from asking, “Why?” Not that I wanted him to shoot me—obviously I didn’t—but it made more sense than taking me with him did.

  “You have to drive,” Walker said.

  “Don’t you have a car?”

  His brows drew down. Obviously he didn’t care for the questioning. “Garth dropped me off on his way to the park. I’ve been here a while.”

  Ah. That was a bit creepy—I wondered how much exploring he’d done, and whether he’d gone through my underwear, or more likely, Rafe’s underwear—but there was nothing at all I could do about it, so I put it out of my head. Not like I didn’t have other things to worry about, after all.

  “I could just give you my keys and my phone. That way you could do this on your own.”

  “If I have to leave you here,” Walker said, “you’ll be dead.”

  Ah. Yes, that put a different complexion on things. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll drive you. Let’s go.”

  I reached for my jacket. Walker watched me like a hawk as I shrugged into it. Then I reached for my bag and the gun in his hand twitched.

  “You won’t need that.”

  “I’m not leaving without my bag. If we get pulled over on the way, I’ll get a ticket.”

  If we got pulled over on the way, I’d probably get something much worse than a ticket, and I could see that knowledge in his eyes, but I didn’t back down. “You can check the bag if you want. There’s nothing here but the usual girl-stuff.”

  On impulse, I upended the bag on the floor in front of him. Lipstick cylinders bounced and pencils rolled, while business cards fluttered and a nail file hit the floor like a projectile. Walker jumped back.

  It would have been a great time to jump him, but I didn’t have it in me. He didn’t lo
se his grip on the gun, and after you’ve been shot once—which I have been—there’s this part of you that will do almost anything to avoid being shot again. Or at least that’s the way it is for most of us. The normal people. Rafe has no such problem. He’s been shot more than once, but he still throws himself into the fray each and every time.

  Not me. I thought about it, but I didn’t. Too risky. But if I could get my hands on the pepper spray...

  “You stupid bitch!” Walked growled, lunging for my arm. That’s when I realized this might have been a bad idea. When the bag was together, I could just sling it over my shoulder. But now I had strewn the contents all over the floor, and the chances of him allowing me to pick everything up and shove it back into the bag, were slim indeed.

  I evaded the attempt to grab me and dropped to my knees, frantically gathering lipstick cylinders and stuffing them in my pockets, along with everything else I could get my hands on. My fingers had just closed around my wallet when Walker yanked me to my feet. “C’mon.”

  “My keys!” I dove for them. “If you want me to drive, I need my keys. And my phone. We’ll need the phone to call Tim back.”

  I shoved it all into the pockets of my jacket as he herded me toward the door. On our way past the mirror, I glanced at myself. My pockets bulged, totally ruining the line of the outfit. But the knowledge that I had all three lipstick cylinders on my person—one Mauve Heather #56, one knife and one pepper spray—made me feel better about looking lumpy.

  And then we were outside in the hallway. The door snicked shut behind us, and Walker pushed me ahead of him toward the stairs, the muzzle of the gun poking me in the back.

  We didn’t meet anyone on the way down. In the downstairs lobby, one of my neighbors was standing in front of the bank of mailboxes, and he looked over his shoulder at us when we came out of the stairwell. Walker nudged me in the back with the gun—I’m sure as a reminder that he had the power to shoot me if he wanted to—and I pasted a smile on my face. “Good afternoon, Mr. Sullivan.”

  He nodded. “Savannah.”

  Mr. Sullivan is older and I’m younger, so I call him by his last name and he calls me by my first. I was brought up to be polite to my elders.

  He isn’t ancient, though. Early fifties, maybe. Still healthy and seemingly strong. If I could get his attention, maybe he’d help me.

  Or maybe not. Maybe I’d just succeed in getting him killed if I tried to open his eyes to what was happening.

  The gun twitched again, an inducement to keep moving, and I crossed the lobby. “See you later, Mr. Sullivan.” Or so I sincerely hoped.

  And then we were outside in the courtyard. Walker slipped the gun into his pocket, not without a warning look at me.

  “I know, I know. You can still shoot me.” I headed for the car with him trailing behind.

  When I headed for the drivers’ side, he looked like he might be thinking about speaking up. “You wanted me to drive,” I reminded him. “If you’ve changed your mind, I’ll give you the keys and you can leave while I stay here.”

  I waited to see what he’d say. It would be nice if he’d take me up on the offer. There was no real reason for me to go with him, really. If he had a getaway car and my phone and his gun, he didn’t need me. The fact that he seemed to want me along was cause for concern.

  On the other hand, there was the possibility that he’d shoot me right here. When he didn’t, just told me to get in, I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or the opposite. I lived to fight another day—or another fifteen minutes—but who knew if they’d be my last?

  Walker slid into the seat next to me, and took the gun out of his pocket. He kept it in his lap, pointed my way, while I turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb. “You know,” I told him, “you don’t really need that. I know you have it. But I’d drive better if you didn’t point it at me.”

  He didn’t answer. The gun stayed where it was.

  We headed toward the office. When I signaled to turn right on South 10th, he told me not to. We continued straight on Main Street instead, past the East Library and the high and junior high schools.

  When we were abreast of the Sherwin Williams store, he told me, “Call Tim.”

  “I can’t call him,” I said. “I’m driving. And it’s rush hour. There’s a lot of traffic. Besides, it’s illegal to call and drive at the same time.”

  The look he sent me was vile. I ignored it, to dig in my pocket for the phone. “Here.” I shoved it at him. “You call him. You’re not doing anything else.”

  He had to take the phone, and for a second he fumbled both it and the gun. Then he got a better grip on both. I kept driving, sedately, as I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He opened the phone one handed, the other hand busy holding the gun steady. His eyes were on the phone, and I slipped my free hand into my other pocket and fumbled for a lipstick cylinder. It was hard to take it apart in the confines of the pocket, but I managed. Only to find that I had taken the top off my Mauve Heather #56, which would now probably create an unholy mess of the fabric inside my pocket.

  But at least now there was a fifty-fifty chance I’d find the pepper spray next. I shot Walker another glance. He was busy manipulating the screen, dialing Tim’s number. I turned my attention to the road—didn’t want to accidentally have an accident while I was trying to save my neck—and thumbed the cover off another lipstick cylinder.

  The tip of the tiny serrated blade pricked my finger. I managed to bite back an exclamation—it would have been a dead giveaway, and would have brought Walker’s attention back to me. Instead, I ignored the drops of blood that were probably mixing with the mauve wax in my pocket, and fumbled for the last cylinder, which I now knew had to be the pepper spray.

  Walker, meanwhile, had managed to dial Tim’s number and put the phone to his ear. He was watching the street outside the windshield, too. I flipped the top off the last lipstick cylinder and felt the tiny nozzle. The tip of my thumb hurt. Hopefully I wasn’t bleeding enough that my finger would slip off if I got the chance to use the spray.

  “No,” Walker said, into the phone, “it’s me.”

  The phone quacked, a bit frantically it seemed to me, and Walker sighed. “No, she’s still alive.”

  The phone quacked again. I couldn’t make out what Tim was saying, just the tenor of his voice. He sounded upset.

  “If you do as I say,” Walker told him, “nothing will happen to you.”

  After a second—and more quacking—he glanced at me. His voice was annoyed. “Not to her, either.”

  Hah. Even under the circumstances, I couldn’t keep back a smile. Sounded like Tim had asked Walker not to shoot me. That was nice of him.

  “What happened in the park?” Walker asked, and Tim talked for a bit. I kept driving, while I wondered whether anyone was following Tim’s car, or whether they’d all just stayed behind because they’d assumed he was dropping off the money and was out of it after that.

  I also wondered whether they’d caught Garth Hanson, or whether he was on the loose somewhere, as well.

  “Turn here,” Walker said abruptly. It took me a second to realize that he was talking to me, and I ended up taking the turn onto Eastland Avenue with a screech. The car behind me honked angrily, and I cast a guilty look in the rearview mirror.

  “Next time—!”

  And then I froze when, a few cars behind, I caught sight of a motorcycle.

  More accurately, I guess what I caught sight of was a head. I couldn’t see the bike or the rider, just the top of a helmet above the blue roof of a car. Between me and the bike, there was a Lexus, a red compact, what looked like the rounded top of a Beetle, another compact, this one white, and then the blue car.

  The Lexus was the one that had honked. It blew past me with a growl of the engine, leaving me in its dust as it sped away up Gallatin Road. The red compact made the turn behind me. The Beetle didn’t. The white compact turned, but the blue car—a Honda Civic—went straight. I
kept my eyes glued to the mirror and saw that the bike turned, as well. It stayed back, so it was hard to be sure, but I thought it might be Rafe. The bike seemed to be black, and the man was wearing a dark jacket.

  “Next time, what?” Walker said.

  I glanced at him, startled. For a second or two I’d almost forgotten he was there. I certainly hadn’t noticed that he’d finished his conversation with Tim.

  It took a second of thinking back before I understood what he was asking. “Next time, give me some notice when you want me to turn.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror. “What’s back there?”

  “Nothing.” It came out a little too fast.

  He looked disbelieving, and I added, “The car behind me honked when I made the turn. I was just keeping an eye in the mirror.”

  Walker checked the mirror again, while I held my breath. Meanwhile, we approached the stop sign on the corner of North 14th Street. I slowed. “Which way?”

  “Straight,” Walker said.

  I took my foot off the brake and went straight. “Have you decided where we’re going?”

  He glanced at me again, and I added, “I wasn’t listening to you. I was busy driving.”

  I guess it must have made sense to him, because he didn’t question it. “The Greenway.”

  “Back to Shelby Park?” Surely he didn’t want me to take him back there. Did he?

  “The other end,” Walker said.

  The Shelby Bottoms Greenway is a band of wetlands that runs along the Cumberland River from Shelby Park up to the area across from the Opryland Hotel. It has more than ten miles of trails for walking, biking, and rollerblading. Most people enter in the park, where the parking lot is and the biggest concentration of trails are. To be honest, I’d forgotten about the second entrance in the Riverwood neighborhood. There’s nothing there. Not even a proper parking lot. But there is access to the Greenway.

  “Why are we going to the Greenway?”

  “To pick up Garth,” Walker said.

  I blinked. I had assumed the police would have done that.

  Walker allowed himself a smirk. “He’s making his way up the trail.”

  “How did that happen?” I made the sweeping left turn onto Porter Road. Behind me, the red car peeled away, down Eastland Avenue toward Fortland Park. The white car stayed behind me, and so did the bike, a few yards behind. Far enough that I could only faintly make out the sound of the engine.