Unfinished Business (23 page)

That was very few people, in the scheme of
things. Me. His grandmother. David. Whom I still hadn’t contacted
to tell him that Rafe was back.

“I need to get off the phone and call Ginny
Flannery,” I told Wendell. “Rafe has only known about David since
last fall, long after Hernandez went to prison. Hopefully Hernandez
doesn’t even know that David exists. But it depends on how long he
was following Rafe around before he grabbed him. Rafe and David
went to a ballgame together week before last. If Hernandez was
following them then, he would have seen David. And while he might
not have realized Rafe is David’s father—he might think they’re
brothers, or something—he’d have been able to tell that they’re
related.”

“Go,” Wendell said. “Call. I’ll keep an eye
on your boyfriend. And I’ll call the nursing home and put them on
alert, too, in case he tries for Miz Jenkins.”

“Thank you.” The idea of Hernandez getting
hold of Mrs. Jenkins was abhorrent. The idea of him getting hold of
anyone was abhorrent, but she was a sweet, confused, old lady. She
wouldn’t understand what was happening, and how dangerous he was,
until it was much too late.

David probably wouldn’t stand much of a
chance either, against a full-grown man, but he was a smart kid,
and good at taking care of himself. He’d sense the danger and might
be able to get away.

“Let me know what else you find out,”
Wendell said.

I told him I would, and hung up. And this
time I really did dial Ginny Flannery’s number

By now, we were halfway through the day on
Sunday. I figured that was enough time for Ginny and Sam, devout
church-goers, to do their Sunday morning thing, including brunch.
At the very least, I wouldn’t be interrupting the sermon.

I figured Ginny would answer the phone. She
didn’t. It went straight to voicemail. And under any other
circumstances, I don’t think I would have thought twice about that.
The circumstances being what they were, I admit it worried me, even
if I told myself, and mostly managed to convince myself, that
Eugenio Hernandez had no way of even knowing who Sam and Ginny
Flannery were, let alone where to find them.

The longer this was going on, the more
people I realized were in danger.

“Hi, Ginny,” I told the phone, taking care
not to sound too tense, but unable to sound entirely breezy,
either, “this is Savannah. I just wanted to give you an update.
Rafe’s back. A bit worse for wear, but he’ll be OK. The hospital
patched him up and sent him home.”

No sense in mentioning that he had sent
himself home, most likely against doctor’s orders.

“So you can tell David not to worry. And...
um... there’s something going on, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to
keep everyone at the camp on alert. It isn’t Rafe they have to
worry about, and I honestly don’t know that this guy even knows who
David is... anyway, it won’t hurt to tell everyone to be extra
careful.”

Hard to know how much to tell her over the
phone. Hard to decide how much was too much, and whether telling
her more rather than less would make her more or less likely to
worry.

“Call me if you have any questions,” I
finished, turning to the door as the handle turned. “Hope you’re
OK. Talk to you soon.”

I hung up, just as Grimaldi poked her head
through. “We’re done.”

“I’m just getting started,” I said. “But
I’ve tracked down the name of the owner of the cabin in Wilson
County, which happens to be the same as the owner of the house in
Woodbine.”

“That’s quite a coincidence.”

“Or no coincidence at all. I called Wendell
and told him. And I called Ginny Flannery and left a message
telling her that Rafe’s back, but that she should continue to keep
a close eye on David.”

Grimaldi nodded. “I’m going to run Naomi
down to the bus station and put her on the bus. There’s a departure
for Milwaukee in forty minutes. Once I know she’s safely onboard
where Hernandez can’t get to her, I’ll be back.”

“You want me to stay here?” By myself?

“You may as well,” Grimaldi said. “No chance
he’ll get at you here.”

I guess not. “Are you afraid he’s after
Naomi?”

“She can identify him,” Grimaldi said. “She
did
identify him. And she’s just his type. I wouldn’t be
surprised if he came back for her. And we have no idea where he is.
He could have been watching the house all morning. He could have
followed us to the truck stop and watched us pick her up. He could
follow us to the bus station.”

He could. “I’ll stay here,” I said. Grimaldi
would have her hands full protecting Naomi. No sense in giving
her—or Hernandez—another target she had to keep an eye on.

She nodded. “I’ll be back within the hour.
Try to get me something good.”

She withdrew before I could respond. “Yes,
ma’am,” I grumbled, but the door had already closed. I turned my
attention to the computer and the database of missing teenagers and
young women.

Thirty minutes later, I had a list of blond and Hispanic runaways
and missing persons as long as my arm. Several of the Hispanic
girls were named Maria, and one of the blondes was, too. I printed
out the Hispanic Marias, and since the blonde fit Rafe’s
description, I printed her out, as well, along with a handful of
other blondes I thought might have been the girl he’d seen. Plus a
few Hispanic girls who weren’t named Maria, but who had long hair
and the right height and weight. Then I got to work looking at Jane
Does, from now back to four years ago. There were fewer of those,
but still too many. By the time Grimaldi walked back through the
door, I was up to my elbows—metaphorically speaking—in dead
girls.

When I first heard them, the footsteps in
the hallway startled me. So far, it had been quiet out there, and
I’d been deep into reading about young women and all the bad things
that can happen to them. One Jane Doe was bludgeoned to death, her
face unrecognizable, even after the forensic anthropologist from
the Body Farm at UT Knoxville had had a go at piecing the skull
together. There were just too many tiny fragments to recreate her
face accurately. Another had had gasoline poured over her and most
of her face had burned away, while a third had suffered a shotgun
blast to the face that had rendered her impossible to ID. And then
there were the two who were too badly decomposed—one reduced to
just bones—by the time anyone found them.

I was jittery. And then I heard footsteps
outside. Slow footsteps. Footsteps that stopped outside the door. A
second passed, and the doorknob started to turn. By the time the
door opened, I was staring at it like a rabbit does a snake;
wide-eyed and ready to bolt.

Grimaldi’s hand went immediately to her gun,
and she looked around the room. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I took a breath. And then
another. “Just jumpy. This is unpleasant reading.”

Grimaldi holstered the gun again and hiked a
hip up on the edge of the desk. “Have you found anything?”

“Too many things.” I blew out a breath and
turned back to the task at hand now that my heart had settled back
into rhythm. “There’s a stack of pictures on the printer of
runaways and missing persons who fit the descriptions of the girls
Rafe saw. Three of them are named Maria. Two Hispanics and one
blonde.”

“The girl the prostitute told us about was
Hispanic,” Grimaldi said, taking her hip off the desk to walk over
to the printer.

“But we don’t know that the girl the hooker
saw and the girl Rafe saw were the same.”

“True.” She started flipping through sheets
of paper.

I leaned back on my chair. “Naomi get off
OK?”

Grimaldi nodded. “She’s on the bus bound for
Milwaukee. Whether she gets there or not is up to her. I can’t stop
her from getting off somewhere between here and there. But she’s as
safe as I could make her. There was no sign of Hernandez.”

“Do you think she’ll get off the bus between
here and Milwaukee?”

“Depends,” Grimaldi said, her attention
still on the print-outs. “If she told the truth and there’s no
reason why she can’t go home, she’ll probably just go home. If she
lied, then she might not get there.”

“Do you think she lied?”

Grimaldi shrugged. “She sounded truthful.
But kids who have grown up with abuse get very good at lying. She
had a reason for leaving. She might just have been going with her
friend Kelly when Kelly’s mother kicked her out of the house, but
there might be more to it.”

“Maybe Naomi’s the one whose mother kicked
her out of the house, and Kelly went with her.”

Grimaldi nodded. “Maybe. When I spoke to the
mother, I didn’t get the feeling that anything was going on at
home, but abused wives get good at lying, too. I’m going to put in
a call to Milwaukee PD, just in case.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. “In
addition to the runaways and missing persons you’re looking at,
I’ve been checking out unidentified dead women.”

Grimaldi lowered the papers and came to look
over my shoulders. “Anything?”

“Not much. Two in the past four years. One
in Cheatham County, one in Wilson.”

“Wilson,” Grimaldi said.

I nodded. “The woman from Rutherford County
isn’t someone we’re looking for. She was black, thirty to
thirty-five. That doesn’t mean Hernandez couldn’t have killed her,
but she was also killed during the time he was in prison. Body
discovered eight months ago, killed within three days of being
found.”

“What about the Wilson County woman?”

“Found three years and two months ago.
Skeletonized.” So killed long enough ago that her body had
decomposed completely. “No clothes found with her, so she was naked
when she was killed.”

“Or when she was dumped,” Grimaldi said.

I nodded. “She was found in a wooded area
not too far from Highway 70, by a man walking a dog.”

And the less I thought about the details of
that, the better it would be.

“That could be her,” Grimaldi said. “Do we
know cause of death?”

I shook my head. “If it was Hernandez, and
he used a knife, he didn’t nick any of her bones.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“The Body Farm at UT Knoxville did a facial
reconstruction. This is what they think she looked like.” I pulled
the reconstruction up on the screen. A pretty face with blue eyes
and high cheekbones looked back at me. “They gave her blue eyes
because they say her hair was blond, but they don’t know that she
actually had blue eyes. Apparently there wasn’t enough left for
that.”

And again, eewww.

“But we could have Rafe look at it, to see
if he recognizes her.”

“Can’t hurt,” Grimaldi said. “Let’s see if
we can narrow it down first, though. Go ahead and print her
out.”

I did.

“We’ll take all of them back to the truck
stop and see if we can get an identification on Maria, at least.
And the thing is that just because your boyfriend only saw
Hernandez with two—plus Ginger—doesn’t mean there weren’t
more.”

“I didn’t think about that,” I said.

“Think about it now.” Grimaldi headed for
the printer and then the door. “Let’s go.”

I scrambled to my feet and followed.

Five minutes later we were in the car. Ten minutes later, just as
we were making the turn onto Trinity Lane and could see the truck
stop ahead, my phone rang.

“Savannah.” Ginny Flannery’s voice was
tense.

I smiled at the phone, since it’s supposed
to convey. “Hi, Ginny. Everything OK?”

“No,” Ginny said. “David’s gone.”

That wiped the smile right off my face, of
course. “What do you mean, he’s gone?”

Grimaldi glanced at me, but kept
driving.

“He’s gone,” Ginny said, her voice creeping
toward hysterical. “He went to bed last night, and when the others
woke up this morning, he was gone.”

I glanced at the clock on Grimaldi’s
dashboard. “It’s almost two. Why are you just telling me this
now?”

“I’ve been busy,” Ginny said, with a heavy
dose of ‘duh’ in her voice. “I didn’t think about it.”

“You didn’t think Rafe might like to know
that his son’s missing?”

Grimaldi shot me another look, this one with
arched brows.

There was a pause on the other end of the
line. Then— “
My
son,” Ginny said.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course he’s your son.
Nobody’s disputing that. That’s why you’re out there and we’re only
hearing about this now. But Rafe’s his biological father. You might
have considered letting him know.”

“Until you called,” Ginny said, “I had no
idea he was back.”

She had a point. “Sorry,” I said. “I should
have called you earlier. He came back in the middle of the night,
and then we had to go to the hospital, and when we got home—”

There’d been the dead body in my bed.
Although now wasn’t the time to bring that up. Ginny had enough on
her mind. “Where is he?” I asked instead. “David?”

“If we knew that,” Ginny told me, “he
wouldn’t be gone, would he?”

I took a breath while I pinched the bridge
of my nose. And then I took another.
She’s a mother whose child
is missing. Be patient
. “Have you called in the local
police?”

Ginny said they had. “The local firemen are
combing the woods for him. In case he walked in his sleep and left
the cabin and got lost. He used to do that sometimes when he was
little.” Her voice cracked. “Once, he fell down the stairs.”

As long as he hadn’t walked into the lake
and drowned. Although the cool water would have woken him up if
he’d tried, wouldn’t it?

More likely, if he’d been sleep-walking,
that he’d wandered away and had either gotten lost, or had fallen
into a ravine or something and hurt himself, so he couldn’t make it
back.

And then there was the third option, which
was that Hernandez had him. But that was also something Ginny
didn’t need to hear right now.