Unfinished Business (2 page)

Dix didn’t say anything—I guess he couldn’t,
with Mother right there—and eventually I got my voice to cooperate
again. “Maybe you should stop somewhere for breakfast. Or lunch.”
No, too early for lunch. “Brunch,” I corrected. “Or coffee.”

“Why?”

I told him.

“What?” Dix said.

“You heard me. I don’t know where Rafe is.
That’s why I’m calling. I wanted to know whether you’d heard from
my boyfriend.”

“No,” Dix said, his voice tight, “not
today.”

“Anytime recently? Do you have any idea what
he’s doing this morning?”

“None,” Dix said.

No. “He’s probably just somewhere, doing
something. Working out, or buying champagne, or... or
something.”

“Sure,” Dix said. “Have you checked with
Tamara?”

I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see
me. “She’s next. I spoke to Wendell, Rafe’s boss at the TBI. He
hasn’t seen Rafe since last night.”

“Call Tamara,” Dix said. “Then call me
back.”

I said I would. I was just about to hang up
when he added, “Savannah?”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure everything’s
fine.”

“Sure,” I said, without believing it.
“Thanks, Dix. I’ll call Detective Grimaldi and get back to
you.”

“OK,” Dix said. “We’ll see you at the
courthouse at eleven.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “And I’m serious,
Dix. Stop for coffee or something. If you don’t, you’ll be there
too early.”

“Just call Tamara and get back to me.” He
hung up before I could say anything else.

I dialed again.

The first time I met Detective Tamara
Grimaldi was the day Brenda Puckett died. After Rafe and I found
the body, I’d asked Rafe to call 911—as any law-abiding citizen
would—and Grimaldi caught the case.

It wasn’t what you’d call an auspicious
beginning. She didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual. I found
her intimidating, and she found me annoying. She didn’t suspect me
of murder, though. That honor was reserved for Rafe. It wasn’t
until Grimaldi learned that he was deep undercover for the TBI,
that she stopped suspecting him of various things that
happened.

Over time, our relationship had developed
into a friendship. The detective still intimidated me, and I think
she probably still thought I was annoying, but we got along well
enough. She and Rafe had worked together on more than one occasion,
and since Sheila died and Grimaldi solved that case too—with a
little help from yours truly—Grimaldi and Dix had developed a
relationship of their own, one I wasn’t sure Mother knew about.

To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what
kind of relationship it was myself either. It was more than
friendship, but maybe not quite a romance yet. At any rate, I
didn’t think they were sleeping together. If they were, they were
keeping it very quiet. So quiet that I hadn’t seen any of the usual
signs.

The detective had the day off, too. Not
because of the wedding, but just because it worked out that way.
She was on call on weekends a lot of the time, and when she had a
case, she worked pretty much 24/7 until it was solved, but we’d
lucked out, and decided to get married on a day when someone else
was on call and Grimaldi had been available.

As a result, I called her cell phone, and
caught her at home. “Detective.”

“Ms.... Savannah.”

Neither of us has quite gotten the hang of
this new relationship. I’m still more comfortable addressing her by
her title, and she’s struggling to overcome her aversion to using
my first name.

“Have you heard from Rafe today?”

There’s no point in beating around the bush
with the detective. She doesn’t appreciate it, and anyway, it was a
waste of time.

“No,” Grimaldi said. “What happened?”

“I don’t know that anything did. But I woke
up this morning and he wasn’t there. His side of the bed looks like
it wasn’t slept in.”

Grimaldi didn’t answer.

“I spoke to Wendell Craig. He and Rafe and
the rookies were out drinking beer last night. Their version of a
bachelor party. Wendell said Rafe headed home around eleven.”

“Did he get there?” Grimaldi asked.

“I didn’t see him. You know— Well, maybe you
don’t, but I sleep all the time. Like the dead. Once I’m down for
the night, I’m not easy to wake. So he could have come home without
me realizing it. But if he did, he didn’t talk to me. And the
blankets were still smooth this morning.”

“Was he riding the bike?” Grimaldi
asked.

“When he went to work yesterday morning he
was. That’s the last time I saw him. We spoke later, but he went
out directly from work. I assume he still had the bike last night.
He wouldn’t have drunk enough that it was a problem for him to
drive.”

“No,” Grimaldi said, “I’m sure he
wouldn’t.”

There was a moment’s pause.

“I assume you’ve checked with the
hospitals?”

God
. “No.” My voice shook, and I
tried to firm it. “I haven’t. I’ll do that next.”

“Leave it to me,” Grimaldi said. “You have a
wedding to get ready for.”

“Without the groom?”

“He won’t leave you standing at the altar,”
Grimaldi said firmly. Just as I was starting to feel better, she
added, “Not if he can help it.”

“What if he can’t help it?”

“Then we’ll find him,” Grimaldi said, “and
figure it out.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. She continued,
“He loves you, Savannah. Maybe he’s just planning a surprise for
you. The best thing you can do is get dressed and ready and over to
the courthouse.”

Maybe. And because I really wanted to
believe she was right, I said, “You’ll be there, right?”

“Of course.”

“Dix is on his way. I just spoke to
him.”

Grimaldi didn’t answer. She usually doesn’t
when I bring up Dix’s name. I think she thinks I’m fishing.

“He’s bringing Catherine,” I added. “And
Mother.”

That got a response. “Your mother’s
coming?”

“So it seems. It shocked me, too. I mean,
you know how she feels about Rafe. Why would she want to watch me
marry him? Nothing would make her happier than if I changed my mind
and said ‘I don’t’ when the preacher asked if I take this man.”

“Maybe she’s hoping you will?”

“Maybe.” Or maybe she was hoping he wouldn’t
show up. If so, it looked like she might get her wish.

“Go get ready,” Grimaldi told me. “I’ll see
you at the courthouse at eleven.”

“I’ll be there. And if you hear anything
before then—”

“I’ll call you. Of course.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Don’t mention it,” Grimaldi answered.
“He’ll be there, Savannah.”

“I hope you’re right,” I told her, and went
to get ready to get married.

I had bought a new dress for the occasion.

It wasn’t a white gown. I’d had the white
gown once before, and wearing it a second time would be tacky.
Also, I was starting to become visibly pregnant, and showing up to
your own wedding in a white gown when you’re visibly pregnant is
also tacky. And since we were just going to the courthouse, a gown
would be out of place anyway.

So the dress was sort of off-white, an
oystery color, with an empire waist and an interesting neckline
that drew the eye away from my stomach. Or so the sales clerk at
the pregnancy store had assured me. There hadn’t been anything
wrong with my breasts before, but they’d gotten bigger in the past
few weeks. The dress made the most of them, albeit not in a tacky
way. Of course not. It was a very tasteful dress, one I could wear
for the rest of the pregnancy too, whenever I had to go to a
semi-formal occasion.

I put it on, and did my hair and makeup just
as if I weren’t afraid I’d get left at the altar. Rafe would be
there at the courthouse to meet me. I had no idea where he was or
what he was doing, and why he wasn’t here this morning, but he
would be there at eleven.

His suit, the one he had planned to wear,
was still in the closet.

Should I bring it with me? If...
when
he showed up, he could go into a bathroom and change.

Or would it be better to leave it here? In
case he came looking for it?

If he didn’t—if he showed up at the
courthouse in the jeans and T-shirt he’d left in yesterday
morning—I’d still marry him. I didn’t care about that. Mother
would, of course, but I didn’t.

I decided to leave the suit. And since it
was ten-thirty, I made my way downstairs and out the door to the
Volvo that was the only thing—in addition to some bad memories and
a nice monetary settlement—I had kept from my first marriage.

The Volvo was parked where I’d left it, in
the circular driveway in front of the house. There was no sign of
Rafe’s Harley-Davidson, which is usually parked nearby. We’d been
talking about putting up a garage, or maybe a carport, since both
of our vehicles would benefit from being under a roof in inclement
weather, but with the baby coming, we expected money to be tight,
and so we’d decided to defer the building until some other
time.

The house we lived in used to belong to
Rafe’s grandmother, Tondalia Jenkins. I guess it still did, but she
wasn’t able to live here anymore. She went in and out of reality,
never sure whether Rafe was himself or his father Tyrell. As for
me, I was either myself, or I was Rafe’s mother LaDonna. The
pregnancy had made the poor old lady even more confused, since
LaDonna had been pregnant too, with Rafe, when her father, Old Jim
Collier, had gunned Tyrell down.

It’s a long story, and the bottom line is
that Mrs. J is living in a home where there are people who know how
to take care of her. She wandered off and got lost a lot when she
was living at home, so we needed a safe place for her. And she
seems to like it there. It’s nice and clean, the staff cooks for
her and makes sure she has clean clothes to wear and that her hair
is washed, and she’s made friends she can talk to. We go to visit
her regularly, and Rafe has brought David by to see her, as well,
although that tends to make her even more certain that Rafe is
Tyrell, because she can’t wrap her brain around the fact that Rafe
is her grandson and David her great-grand.

David
.

If Rafe had decided to leave town—to leave
me—because he didn’t want to get married, he might have called his
son to explain and to say goodbye. They hadn’t known of the other’s
existence for very long, but in the time since the discovery,
they’ve gotten to know one another. If he was leaving, I had to
believe Rafe would let David know. Even if he couldn’t face me,
he’d tell his son what was going on.

I got into the car, but instead of cranking
the key over in the ignition, I pulled out the phone and dialed. It
rang twice, and then was answered. “Hello?”

“Ginny?” I said. “This is Savannah
Martin.”

“Savannah!” David’s adoptive mother sounded
delighted to hear from me. “How are you? This is the big day, isn’t
it?”

“It was,” I said, “until Rafe turned up
missing.”

“Missing?” I could hear the need to protect
her son loud and clear in her voice.

David had been born when Rafe was eighteen
and in prison. His mother had been a seventeen-year-old high school
girl in Columbia, Tennessee, who had been made to give the baby up
for adoption by her weirdly fundamentalist father. Virginia and Sam
Flannery were David’s adoptive parents. Like Rafe and Elspeth, they
were a mixed race couple—not that Rafe and Elspeth had ever been a
couple—and they’d been delighted to find a mixed race baby they
could call their own. When Rafe turned up in their lives last year,
they’d been terrified that he was going to take David away from
them. Since then, things had mellowed out considerably. Rafe had
made no move whatsoever to claim custody of David, and by now,
Ginny was probably just worried about David’s feelings when he
learned his biological father was in the wind.

“Maybe not missing,” I said. “I don’t know
that he’s missing. He’s just not here. He went out with a couple of
guys from work last night, and they said he went home at eleven.
But I’m not sure he ever got here.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Ginny said.

No, it didn’t. “I thought maybe—if he’d
decided to leave—he would have contacted David to tell him.”

“If he has, David hasn’t mentioned it,”
Ginny said. “But he’s not home this week. He’s at church camp.”

“Where?” Was there a chance Rafe had gone
there?

“The Cumberland Plateau,” Ginny said. “An
hour and a little more from here. Cabins, an archery range,
zip-lines, the lake...”

“What’s the name of it?”

She told me, and I scribbled the name on the
back of a business card I found in the console. “Thanks. Would you
mind giving David a call and asking him whether he’s seen or heard
from his... from Rafe?”

“I can’t,” Ginny said. “The kids call home
at night. The rest of the time it’s a no-technology zone. But I’ll
see if I can get hold of one of the counselors.”

“Thank you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’m sure he’s fine, Savannah,” Ginny said.
“You know he can take care of himself.”

I did know that. He survived two years in
prison and ten years undercover, not to mention everything his
grandfather dished out while he was a kid—and there was no love
lost between Old Jim Collier and the good for nothing, colored boy
his daughter had spawned. But that didn’t mean something couldn’t
have happened to him now. He was adept at self-preservation, but no
one can be vigilant every moment of every day. And Rafe is just as
mortal as the rest of us, if a bit harder to kill.

“I should go,” I said. “To the courthouse.
My brother and sister,” and mother, for my sins, “are on their way
there.”

“Let me know how it goes,” Ginny told me.
“I’ll call you after I speak to the counselor. Or after I speak to
David.”