A Deadly Row (2 page)

“You know how hard it is for me to slow down and take it easy,” he said as he mopped his brow with a colorful bandana he always kept in his back pocket, even when he was wearing his nicest navy blue suit. “I get bored if I sit still too long. Why isn’t anything happening? Surely there’s some case somewhere that needs me.” Almost as an afterthought, he glanced down and pointed at my formula.

My eraser struck and removed one of the offending digits. “That’s why I said I wasn’t finished yet. Honestly, you need something else to keep you busy. Isn’t there anything besides police work that interests you? I thought you loved it here near the mountains as much as I do.”

“This place is nice.” He gestured around our cottage, tucked away in the western North Carolina Mountains. We had four acres, half of it wooded, and enough open land left to have a magnificent lawn and garden. It had always been our dream to own something like it some day, and I enjoyed it even more than I ever could have imagined. It would have been fine with me if we never left our serene enclave again, but my husband was a different story altogether.

“But . . .” I said, waiting for him to fill in the rest.

“It’s not the big city. Savannah, I can’t help it. I’m used to being in the middle of the action.”

I had a tough time understanding the pull that tugged at him constantly. “Zach, that’s why we came here, remember? I know your police consultant business isn’t getting you as much work as you’d hoped, and goodness knows our life here isn’t as stimulating as your old job used to be, but we’ve had our fill of that kind of excitement in our lives, haven’t we?”

He frowned at me, and it was all I could do not to laugh. My husband could be an imposing man—six foot three and two hundred ten pounds of lean muscle—but to me, there were times he looked like a little lost puppy. Sometimes it was all I could do not to rub him behind the ears.

“Don’t be so glum,” I said. “I’ll be finished with this puzzle in a jiff, and then I’ll help you with your shelf.”

He shrugged as he stared at my layout grid. “I don’t get it, Savannah. They’re just numbers. Why do they take so long to make?”

“I’m not solving the puzzle, Zach, I’m creating it. You know that takes a great deal more time and concentration.”

“You should give it up,” he said. “We don’t really need the money. We’re both supposed to be taking it easy now, not just me.”

I laughed. “Now why on earth would I do that? I’m in my puzzle-making prime.” I was good at what I did, just as good as he had been at his job, and I wasn’t about to stop.

Zach clearly didn’t know how to respond to that. After a look I’d seen a thousand times in our marriage that said he’d clearly lost interest in our topic of conversation, he said with a sigh, “Come up when you’re finished, then.” Zach tromped back to our cozy bedroom suite upstairs, which happened to be the hottest part of our cottage at the worst time of day. While I loved the warm sun that nurtured the rows of beans, corn, and tomatoes in our vegetable garden, I avoided the attic space devoutly in the summer afternoons; my husband’s internal thermostat was much more tolerant than mine. The mountain breezes we counted on to keep us cool had stalled somewhere else at the moment, and we were enduring a particularly miserable summer.

Before he left, I suggested, “Why don’t we get cleaned up and go into Asheville after I finish this? We can eat out, and maybe even catch a movie. What do you say?”

He grumbled something and continued up the stairs, and I knew enough not to pursue it. It was clear that the man was bored, but I wouldn’t have traded our new life for the old one in Charlotte for all of the money in the world. I’d help my husband with his shelf project just as I’d promised, but there was no way I was going to rush what I was doing. Stewing upstairs would give him time to cool off a little, as odd as that sounded in the heat of the day. I glanced at the puzzle with a sense of pride. I reveled in creating them too much to rush the process. I stared at the proposed puzzle formula, enjoying the elegant beauty of it. I knew that some of my peers created their puzzles by computer, but I liked to do them with a pencil in one hand and an eraser in the other. Building the logical progression into my creations was just part of the experience for me. I liked the test of balancing the results of the puzzles to challenge my readers. As I worked, I created my puzzles for one particular challenger, though she existed only in my imagination. As I finished each one, I could see her worry her way through the numbers, and I could almost hear her shout of joy as she finished.

I transferred the completed puzzle to a pristine sheet of paper, then studied the finished puzzle one last time before I faxed it to Derrick—my syndicate editor—a man I was not particularly fond of, despite the checks he sent me for every completed puzzle.

After glancing at my computer email and stalling a half dozen other ways, I realized I couldn’t delay my trek upstairs any longer.

I was going to have to help with that blasted shelf after all. I knew it was going to be miserably hot up there, but there was no way to avoid it. I’d promised for better or for worse on our wedding day, and enduring scalding temperatures helping install a shelf I didn’t really need was just one more check in the worse column, though that side was happily sparse.

My foot was on the bottom step when the telephone rang, and in my ignorance, I nearly skipped as I raced to answer it. If I’d known who was calling—and more importantly why—I would have pulled the blasted thing out of the wall and chucked the telephone out the window instead of picking the receiver up.

“Hello,” I said, not suspecting a thing was amiss.

“Er, hello, Savannah. I need to speak with Zach.”

Before I could protest, he hastily added, “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

I didn’t need caller ID to tell me who was on the other end of the line. At least he’d had the decency to sound embarrassed by his request.

“Sorry, Davis. You can’t. He’s busy right now.” Zach would have killed me if he’d overheard my end of the conversation, but I was tired of him being bothered by his former employees. It wasn’t just because they were reluctant to pay for his services, though they felt free to tap into his knowledge any time it suited them. I didn’t care about the money—we were doing just fine on his retirement and my income—but I didn’t like anyone taking advantage of him.

I started to hang up when I heard a whining protest. “Savannah, please. This is something he needs to hear.”

I took a deep breath, and then said, “Davis Rawles, my husband is retired. He doesn’t work with you anymore. He’s a consultant now. If you’d like his fee schedule, I’d be glad to fax it over to you.”

“Send it. You know the number. There shouldn’t be any problem covering it this time.”

That caught me off guard. I’d never dreamed I’d hear him say he was actually willing to pay for Zach’s services. He must be in real trouble. “What’s going on, Davis?”

“Savannah, Zach is my very last option. We’ve got a killer case on our hands, and there’s no one but your husband who can solve it.”

Davis Rawles had been my husband’s immediate subordinate on the police force, and upon Zach’s retirement, Davis had stepped into his shoes. At least he’d tried to. But no one could get inside a criminal’s mind like my husband, and Davis had grown to rely on him too much in the past few months since my husband’s retirement.

I’d never heard that level of desperation in Davis’s voice before, and there was something about it that chilled my blood. This sounded too dangerous to me, and it wasn’t my husband’s battle anymore. “You know what? I’m sorry, but the answer’s still no. You’ll just have to muddle through this time by yourself,” I said, and then on an impulse, I hung up the phone.

Please, oh please, don’t let Zach have heard that ring.

To my dismay, his size 12 shoes clomped down the steps two at a time a second later. “Who was that on the phone?”

“Wrong number,” I mumbled, hoping he’d take me at my word.

There must have been something in my voice that told him I was lying, no matter how hard I’d tried to disguise it.

“Savannah,” he said softly. There was a steel edge as he said my name that made me bite my lower lip.

“It was Davis,” I admitted.
Never lie to your husband
, I told myself yet again, especially when he’s a retired police detective.

“What did he want?” Zach asked keenly. I could see his yearning for another murder or jewel theft. He was like a racehorse waiting for the gate to open, eager and chomping at the bit.

“He was asking about the weather here,” I said lamely. Even I wouldn’t believe that one. Without waiting for my husband to comment, I added, “He also wanted your opinion, but I told him you couldn’t help him this time, even when he agreed to pay your fee. You’re retired, remember?”

“I’m trying to get my consulting business going,” he said as he dialed the number by heart. “I can’t be too picky about the jobs I take on at this point.”

“He sounded scared, Zach. I don’t want you to get involved.”

My husband’s voice softened as he explained, “If it was easy, they wouldn’t need me.”

I tried one last thing. “The money’s not worth it, even if they really do pay you, which I still doubt.”

Zach’s finger hovered over the last digit before he pressed it. “They will this time, or I won’t do a thing to help them. Savannah, I know you feel like they’ve been taking advantage of me, but we could use the extra money, and you know it.”

Great, I’d brought up a point I didn’t really believe in without meaning to, and my sweet but literal husband had taken it at face value. It was time to switch positions, an art I’d mastered over the years. “Nonsense. We’re doing fine. We have everything we need.”

“True, but we don’t have everything we want, do we?” he asked with a grin. “It won’t hurt to hear what the man has to say,” Zach said as he pushed the last number.

During the one-sided conversation, I had no idea what they were talking about, but my husband’s face turned darker and darker in the silence. After a few minutes of mostly brief comments, Zach hung up the telephone.

“Pack your bags, Savannah. We’re going back to Charlotte.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. In all our years of marriage, my husband had never given me a direct order before. “Are you kidding me? Don’t I even get a say in this? Business is business, but at least you’ve run it past me before you’ve taken a job.”

Zach nodded contritely. “I’m sorry, you’re right. I should have asked you first. But we have to go. This is important. Grady Winslow has been getting some pretty nasty threats that Davis is sure are tied to someone who’s already committed two murders, and there’s a dark tone to them that’s too serious to ignore.” Grady was the mayor of our former fair city, a powerful man and a dear friend who had introduced us to each other a long time ago. My husband knew there was no way I could turn down that particular summons.

After a moment’s hesitation, he offered me a slight grin. “You’re welcome to stay here and enjoy the summer heat, but they’re putting me up at the Belmont
,
and they’ve agreed to pay me a nice fee to go along with it, though to be honest with you, this is one time I’d do it for free. Think of it, Savannah. There will be full maid service, shopping in Dilworth, eating out at Morton’s Steakhouse
.
And don’t forget. We’d have air conditioning.”

“I’ve got things to do here,” I said stubbornly.

He wouldn’t let me pout though. The big bear wrapped me up in his arms and said, “You can work on your puzzles just as easily there as you can here. They have pencils and erasers in Charlotte, too, you know. Come on. It’ll be like a second honeymoon, only this time it will be on someone else’s dime.”

“Some honeymoon. You’ll be at police headquarters all day and half the night, if I know you.”

“They need me, Savannah,” he said somberly. “More importantly, Grady could be in some real trouble. This guy isn’t messing around.”

I studied him a moment before I trusted myself to speak. “And don’t forget the other highlight here; you get to be a cop again, don’t you?”

“Nobody’s going to shoot at me. Don’t forget, I’m just a consultant,” he said. “I won’t be anywhere near the line of fire.” He touched his chest lightly as he said it, gently rubbing the scar where the bullet had entered.

I knew there was no point in arguing with him. I looked wistfully around the cottage and realized that he was right. There was no way he could refuse to help our best friend. Besides, a getaway might be nice. It was just too bad that my husband, despite his protests to the contrary, would probably be putting his life on the line, and that was something I never thought I’d have to deal with again.

There was no use worrying about it now, though.

I smiled as brightly as I could manage and said, “Let me pack a few things, then I’ll be ready to go.”

He looked at me skeptically. “It’s really going to be that easy? I don’t have to twist your arm to get you to go?”

I reached my arms up around his neck and kissed him. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

He smiled down at me. “That’s why I love you so much.”

“One of the many, many reasons, I’m sure,” I said, matching his smile with one of my own.

 

“ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO HATE THIS, SAVANNAH? I CAN
turn around and we can go back to the cottage, if you’re that dead-set against it. You’re more important to me than anyone else in the world, even Grady. You know that, don’t you?”

We’d been driving nearly two hours and we were fast approaching Charlotte. Normally the trip felt like it took forever, but it seemed like ten minutes to me this time. I was dreading every mile of it as the markers sped past, and my husband knew it.

“It will be fine, Zach. Grady Winslow is our friend. I just hate to see you putting yourself back in danger.”