Kickout Clause (Savannah Martin Mystery)

by Bennett, Jenna

  It was easier to do as he said than argue. I locked the door. And although I was tempted to make a joke about being carried across the threshold, I didn’t.

  Although maybe I should have. He didn’t put me down. Instead he walked through the living room, past the dining room table, and straight into the bedroom. He didn’t put me down until he could set me gently on the edge of the bed.

  And once he’d done that, he knelt on the floor in front of me and pulled my shoes off.

  “You don’t have to...” I began, and then lost my breath when he looked up at me.

  “Don’t tell me what I don’t have to do, darlin’. I almost lost you. If I wanna take care of you, then let me.”

  That wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I imagined him worshiping me when we got home—the worship I had imagined had had more of a carnal nature—but I wasn’t about to complain. Still, I couldn’t keep from telling him, “You didn’t lose me.”

  “I could have. You were supposed to wait for me.”

  “Only because I didn’t have a car,” I said. “When Spicer brought it back, there was no reason to wait.”

  “If you’d waited, I would have been here with you when you walked through the door.”

  “If you’d been with me when I walked through the door, Walker would have shot you.”

  At least I was pretty sure he would have. Rafe alive would have been too much of a threat. Walker obviously thought he could handle me by waving the gun in my face, but I don’t think he would have taken that risk with Rafe.

  No, if we’d walked in together, Rafe would have been dead sixty seconds after he crossed the threshold. And then I would have died in the woods, since he wouldn’t have been there to save me.

  “I didn’t save you,” he told me when I said as much. “You saved yourself.”

  “If you hadn’t been there, Hanson might have caught me again.”

  “The police were there by then. They got him.”

  I tilted my head. “You’re determined to feel guilty, aren’t you?”

  He wouldn’t meet my eyes. After a second, I was forced to reach out and cup his cheek. “Rafe? What’s wrong?”

  He looked up at me then, and the expression in his eyes took my breath away. His voice was hoarse. “I failed Manny. I don’t wanna fail you, too.”

  Oh, God.

  I forgot all about my sore feet and scratched legs as I slid off the bed and onto my knees next to him. “You didn’t fail Manny. You had no idea what would happen. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. And you didn’t fail me. You were there with me the whole time. I saw you behind me before we’d driven five minutes. I knew you were back there and you wouldn’t let him hurt me. Just like you didn’t let Perry hurt me. Or Hector. Or Desmond or Neil.”

  I reached for him, and his arms went around me with almost bruising strength. I don’t think he was crying—exactly—but I think if he’d allowed himself to, he might have been. “I was so afraid he’d hit you,” he said into my hair. “I heard the shots, but I wasn’t close enough to see what was going on. And then I heard you scream, and I heard Hanson yell, and more shots, and I was so afraid I’d get in there and find you dead.”

  I tightened my arms around him. “I’m not dead. I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

  “He hurt you.” He stroked my upper arm, where Garth Hanson’s fingers had bit in hard enough to leave bruises.

  “I hurt him more,” I said, and I could hear the pride in my voice. “I sprayed him with pepper spray.” And it had felt good, too.

  Rafe’s lips curved at that. “Good job.”

  “He was probably lucky it was me and not you.”

  He didn’t answer that, but he didn’t have to. If Rafe had reached Garth Hanson—or for that matter Walker—before I or the police did, they would have been lucky to walk away.

  “I love you,” he told me.

  I had to swallow the lump in my throat before I could speak. He didn’t say it that often, and usually not unless I’d said it first, so when he did, it was always an emotional moment. “I love you, too.”

  He kissed me, and that was it. The things that were said after that weren’t very coherent, and had nothing to do with Walker or Garth Hanson or anything else. I didn’t give a single thought to my sore feet or scratched legs.

  But all good things must come to an end, and about an hour later I returned to the real world. “I’m hungry.”

  “I can fix that.”

  “For food.”

  Rafe grinned. This was an exchange we had with regularity. “Want me to go get a pizza?”

  “I want to go out,” I said.

  “Where d’you wanna go?”

  “Anywhere but the Shortstop.”

  “Fidelio’s?”

  “Not there either. It reminds me of Todd.”

  Fidelio’s Italian Restaurant on Murphy Road in West Nashville was what Todd had deemed ‘our’ place. I have no idea why, because as I had told him once, Bradley used to take me there, and it didn’t bring back good memories. While the food was good, the place was much too fraught with memories.

  “We had some good times there, as I recall,” Rafe said mildly.

  We had, at that. Rafe had taken me to Fidelio’s once or twice himself, not to be outdone by Todd, I guess. Or maybe because he thought it was what I wanted. And yes, I had enjoyed myself. But that was more because of him than because of the place.

  “We did,” I agreed. “But it’s a snooty, uncomfortable place. I just want to go somewhere where nobody will look down their noses at us.”

  He looked at me for a second and then he smiled. “FinBar?”

  I smiled back, relieved. “That’s great.” Close by and casual, so I could put on a pair of jeans and not have to walk around with my scraped legs on display.

  He tossed the covers off. “Let’s go, then. The sooner we eat, the sooner we can go back to bed.”

  Indeed. I pushed my own half of the comforter off and followed suit.

  “So you know how I spent the afternoon,” I said when were sitting across from one another in a booth in the back of FinBar, “but what did you do?”

  FinBar is a local sports bar, just down the street from the real estate office. It serves burgers—less greasy and more gourmet than the ones at the Shortstop—and there are lots of green plants and flat screen TVs that show golf and tennis and swimming in addition to the ubiquitous basketball and NASCAR racing.

  It was March, so there was basketball on one screen and baseball on the other. Rafe was facing both of them, since he’d taken the seat with his back to the wall and the front door in view as usual. He didn’t seem to get caught up in the on-screen action, though. He just glanced at it once in a while, but the rest of the time he kept his attention on me and on the door.

  “Waiting for someone?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Just making sure everything’s copacetic. Don’t want nobody bursting in here with a gun or nothing.”

  “Why would anyone burst in here with a gun? Walker and Mr. Hanson are back in custody.”

  “Whoever shot Manny has a gun,” Rafe said, “and that wasn’t Walker or Hanson.”

  Not likely, no.

  “So you know how I spent the afternoon,” I said, “but what did you do?”

  “Went to talk to your ex-husband.” The waitress came by just then to deposit our drinks on the table—Diet Coke for me, beer for Rafe—and he gave her a smile. When she’d staggered off, overcome by lust, he continued, “He wasn’t there. I ended up talking to a Mr. Ferncliff.”

  “Nathan. One of the senior partners.”

  He nodded. “He said Bradley was working outta the office today.”

  “What did he say about the Vandervinders? Anything?”

  “Not much,” Rafe said. “I couldn’t really ask about it, without a good reason. I asked what Bradley’s been working on. He said that Bradley’s representing Mrs. Vandervinder in the divorce from her husband. When I asked him whether the
re was any reason to think Bradley might be more than professional with Mrs. Vandervinder, he got upset.”

  “I saw him outside Mrs. Vandervinder’s house that morning I was down there,” I said. “He was driving by. I thought he was checking up on Bradley, but maybe he was checking to see whether Mrs. Vandervinder was alone. Maybe he’s the one who’s been more than professional with Mrs. V.” Or less than professional, as the case may be.

  “Maybe so,” Rafe said. “I also asked him if Bradley woulda had any dealings with Mr. Vandervinder, and he puffed up like a rooster and showed me the door.”

  “He’s actually a pretty nice guy. At least he’s always been nice to me.” And I’d never gotten the impression that he took his ethics lightly. Although if he was bedding Ilona Vandervinder, I could be wrong about that. “He was probably just bothered by the suggestion.”

  Rafe shrugged and took a swig of beer.

  “Did you tell him who you are?” I added.

  “TBI. Looking into the shooting death of one of our agents. We’d identified Bradley as being present in the bar the same night as our man.”

  “No, I mean... did you tell him about us?”

  He quirked a brow. “You and me? Now, why’d I wanna do that, darlin’?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted. I guess it had nothing to do with anything, really. “I just thought maybe it came up.”

  He shook his head. “No. I didn’t mention you. Don’t want nobody thinking I’m fingering Bradley ‘cause I’m jealous.”

  “Nobody in their right mind would think that.” There was no comparison at all. Rafe was worth fifteen of Bradley.

  “Plenty of people’d think that. And I don’t want it becoming an issue.”

  I guess I couldn’t blame him for that. “So you didn’t see Bradley.”

  He shook his head. “I guess he musta gone home after his appointment.”

  Guess so. I wondered whether Shelby had told him about our conversation.

  But no, probably not. She wouldn’t want him to know that she’d asked me for help in figuring out what was going on with him.

  “And it wasn’t Nathan with Bradley the other night.”

  “No,” Rafe said. “Not unless he’s a better liar than I give him credit for. He didn’t look like he’d ever heard of the Shortstop.”

  I nodded. “I know the waitress said it wasn’t him, but I thought she might have been mistaken. But I guess not.”

  “I don’t think so, darlin’.” He looked up. “Food’s coming.”

  “Good. I’m starving.”

  He grinned at me across the table. “Better build your strength back up, darlin’. I’ve got plans for later.”

  No problem. I had plans for later, too.

  Chapter Twenty

  We left the FinBar just before eight, and headed home. It was nice to walk across the courtyard without worrying about anyone shooting at us. We held hands up the stairs, and when we reached the door, I was already thinking pleasant thoughts about peeling his T-shirt off with my teeth.

  No, not really, but I was thinking of taking it off him.

  Anyway, that all changed when we reached the door. Rafe pulled out his keys preparatory to unlocking the door, and froze. “Shit.”

  “What?” I peered around him.

  “Stay back.” He pushed me up against the wall with one hand and reached behind him for his gun with the other.

  “What—?” I protested, even as I stood where he put me.

  He didn’t answer, just pushed the door open and went through the opening with the gun leading the way. Which led me to the conclusion that the door had been unlocked.

  We’d locked it. I’d made sure of it. So had Rafe. There was no chance at all that one of us had forgotten.

  “This is getting monotonous,” I told him when he came back out into the hallway, looking grim.

  “Tell me about it.” He fished the phone out of his pocket and dialed. “We need a crime scene unit at Savannah’s place,” he said when it was answered.

  I recognized the shriek on the other end as belonging to Tamara Grimaldi—and she wouldn’t appreciate my calling her normally dulcet tones a shriek—but I couldn’t hear what she said. It didn’t matter; Rafe’s response made it obvious.

  “Between six o’clock and now. It wasn’t Lamont or Hanson.”

  No, it hadn’t been. They’d been in police custody since this afternoon.

  “How the hell do I know?” Rafe asked, aggrieved, as I slipped past him and into the apartment. “We just came back from dinner.”

  I left him to explain while I walked inside, looking left and right.

  It didn’t take long to see the damage. It started just inside the door, with all my jackets and coats on the floor. (Rafe basically just has one. Black leather. He’d been wearing it.)

  In the kitchen, the fridge had been opened and food was all over the floor, mixed with shards of glass and porcelain from the cabinets. Spatters of ketchup looked like fresh blood.

  In the living room, the TV had been upended and broken, and everything that had been on the dining room and living room tables had been tossed on the carpet. And the bedroom—I didn’t even want to go into the bedroom.

  Rafe found me hovering the doorway with my eyes closed. “I’m afraid to look,” I told him.

  “It ain’t that bad.” His hands landed on my shoulders, squeezed reassuringly. “They blew their wad in the kitchen, pretty much. The bedroom got off easy.”

  I slitted one eye and then opened them both wide. “You call this easy?”

  The bed was stripped and the sheets and comforter tossed on the floor. Both side table drawers were emptied onto the carpet, and the lamps that had stood on top of the tables were toppled. One bulb had broken. All the drawers in the bureau were hanging open, with the clothes strewn across the floor—Rafe’s boxers mixing with my slinky satin and frothy lace—and the closet doors were gaping, showing all my dresses and skirts on the floor. Here and there I saw a glint of metal or stone, from where my jewelry box had been emptied all over everything.

  He shrugged. “Don’t look like they destroyed nothing.”

  Actually, it didn’t. A broken lightbulb seemed to be the extent of it. That and the sense of violation. I’d had my bedroom invaded once before, and it had left me with mixed feelings of anger and fear, with a sense of incredulous outrage thrown in for good measure. But back then, Rafe’s old admirer—whose violation it was—had slashed my nightgown and written on the wall in what looked like blood. It had turned out to be lipstick—L’Oreal Endless Kissable 16 hour No Fade, No Smudge Ruby-Ruby lipstick—but the shock of seeing it had been considerable.

  Rafe was right. This wasn’t so bad. Someone had just taken their anger out on my—or our—belongings. But there wasn’t that edge of insanity permeating the place. This was someone throwing the adult equivalent of a child’s temper tantrum, basically.

  “Who...?”

  “No idea,” Rafe said. He pulled me back against him and wrapped his arms around my waist. The heat of his body along my back felt comforting. “Tammy’s got a crime scene unit on the way. They’ll look for fingerprints.”

  Sure, but... I looked around helplessly. “It’s going to take all night, cleaning up.”

  His arms tightened. “I’ll do it.”

  “You don’t have to do it by yourself. It’s mostly my stuff.” He’d been traveling light over the past ten years, so he hadn’t accumulated as much junk as I had. Besides, he doesn’t like clothes as much as I do. His wardrobe consists mostly of jeans and Tshirts. A half dozen pairs of jeans, a dozen Tshirts, a couple of dress shirts, one suit...

  In the closet, his clothes used four or five hangers, while mine used the rest. Forty five, or so.

  “We can argue about it tomorrow. Tonight, we ain’t doing nothing.”

  “We have to. We can’t go to bed with it like this.”

  “We’ll spend the night at the house,” Rafe said. “Wait for Tammy’s people t
o show up and then leave. It’s still our house.”

  It was still our house. Or his house, more accurately. Or most accurately, Mrs. Jenkins’s house. But since she was suffering from dementia and couldn’t be trusted to make good decisions—she’d agreed to sell her house to Brenda Puckett for a song last August—Rafe had legal power of attorney to handle the estate. So for all intents and purposes it was our house.

  “That’s fine.” I didn’t want to stay in my apartment. Not until it was all cleaned up and back to normal. Just looking around at the mess made me feel unsettled, my stomach clenching, and I doubted I’d be able to get to sleep in the middle of it.

  “Pack a bag,” Rafe said. “Throw in my toothbrush and a change of clothes for me, too.”

  He nudged my hair aside to kiss the back of my neck and then let go. I stood for a second to let the goosebumps dissipate before I picked my careful way across the floor to gather what I needed for the night and tomorrow morning.

  The CSI crew made good time. It was less than thirty minutes later when they showed up, with Grimaldi bringing up the rear.

  I looked up, surprised, when she walked into the living room. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you interrogating Walker and Garth Hanson?”

  She looked surprised, as well. “What’s to interrogate them about? We know what they did.”

  I guess they did, at that. It just hadn’t crossed my mind. When someone gets arrested, they get interrogated, or so I’ve always assumed.

  “I was on my way out when your call came,” she added, nodding to Rafe. “I’d finished writing up the report about this afternoon, and I thought maybe I’d get a full night’s sleep for once.”

  “Sorry.”

  It was me who said it, not Rafe. He just smiled.

  “I won’t stay long,” Grimaldi said. “I just wanted to see the place for myself.” She looked around.

  “It’s a mess,” I said, as if she wasn’t capable of seeing that for herself, “but I don’t think anything’s missing. The TV’s broken, of course. And the computer.” It looked like someone had taken a hammer to it. They hadn’t, though. I imagined the monitor had been broken with the polished stone owl—technically a bookend—that was lying on the floor beside the dining room table.