Unfinished Business (28 page)

They weren’t downstairs. The parlors,
bathroom, and dining room were all empty. So was the kitchen,
although it showed evidence of recent occupation. There was a plate
with crumbs on it on the kitchen island, next to an empty glass
with milk residue on the bottom. I took a minute to load both into
the dishwasher, and to brush the crumbs off the counter into my
hand and from there into the sink, before I headed into the
butler’s pantry and up the servants’ stairs to the second
floor.

They’re a bit narrower than the front
stairs, and a lot more enclosed. And when I say ‘a bit,’ I mean
that it’s almost impossible to turn around. I know people were
smaller two hundred years ago, but I imagine it would have been a
tight squeeze for a normal human being even then. If you got in
with a tray full of cups and a teapot, you could forget about
changing your mind and going back for sugar. You’d just have to
keep going until you could go no farther, and then go back down for
what you’d forgotten.

The servant stairs let out at the very rear
of the second floor. I stopped in the hallway to catch my breath.
Climbing stairs has become a bit harder lately, what with the extra
weight I carry up front, and also because the stairwell is so
narrow and tunnel-like that it’s hard to breathe. I know that
sounds ridiculous, but you can take my word for it. Also, there’s
no AC vent. So while the stairwell is surrounded by thick plaster
walls, and stays halfway cool as a result, it’s still considerably
warmer and more stuffy than anywhere else in the house.

The upstairs was quiet. I took a couple of
breaths of the nice, cool air, and then made my way down the middle
of the hallway, stepping on the fluffy Oriental runner, to my
mother’s bedroom door.

I tapped lightly, and then, when there was
no sound from inside, a bit harder. There was no answer. I turned
the knob and pushed the door open.

The room was empty, with no sign that Mother
had even been up here since she left home yesterday morning. The
bed was neatly made, the tasteful coral and off-white comforter
pulled up and unwrinkled, with Mother’s armful of pillows artfully
arranged. There were no dirty clothes on the floor, no wet towel
hanging on the door knob, no steam coming out of the bathroom.

I wrinkled my brows and stepped across the
hall to what had been my brother Dix’s room growing up.

It still looked a bit boyish, although it
had been restored to most of its old glory in the years since Dix
left. But the bedspread and curtains were blue, and so was the rag
rug. I would have expected Mother to have put David to bed here, if
he was going to sleep somewhere, since my old room is all frilly
and girly and white. But the bed was empty and the blue bedspread
as pristine as in Mother’s room.

So maybe he was sleeping in my bed. Mother
may have thought it would make him feel more comfortable to be
told, “This is Savannah’s old room,” than “This is Savannah’s
brother’s old room.” I didn’t really think David would have cared
one way or the other, but Mother might have supposed he did.

I grew up in the room next to Dix, while
Catherine’s room was across the hall. I opened my door first. The
bed was empty. And then, with my heart thudding hard in my chest, I
pushed open Catherine’s door, praying that somehow, they’d both be
there.

Catherine’s bed was empty, as well.

“Mother?” I called, my voice panicked.
“David?”

There was no answer, just the echo of my own
voice coming back to me from the high ceiling.

Heart thudding, I raced back through the
house. I checked all the beds and all the bathrooms. I checked the
parlors, the dining room, the butler’s pantry, the kitchen again. I
checked the closets. I even steeled myself to go down into the
basement, a place I haven’t been in at least ten years.

It’s old. A dirt basement dating from almost
two hundred years ago, when the house was built. There’s nothing at
all down there anymore, except for spiders and maybe mice, but it
was part of the house, so I had to check.

The hinges screamed like a wounded animal
when I pulled the door open. A cobweb the size of Utah covered the
upper half of the opening. I brushed it away with a shudder, wiping
my hand on the side of my thigh afterwards.
Gross
.

I stuck my head through the opening,
breathing in the dank, musty smell. “Mother?”

My voice disappeared into the dark, and I
cleared my throat and tried again, louder. “Is anyone down here?
Mother? David?”

No one answered. No one even made a sound. I
decided to spare myself the trip down the rickety wooden steps, and
closed the door again.

At that point there wasn’t much more I could
do. The house was empty, and my mother and David were gone.
Vanished into thin air, basically. Now I had to decide whether it
was time to panic yet.

Could they be somewhere else on the
property? David was twelve and curious. Maybe he’d asked to see the
slave cabin or the old cemetery. Maybe Mother had walked him out
there and they hadn’t heard me drive up...?

I scrambled out of the house and across the
lawn to the cabin. It was empty. The bed where Dix used to tuck
away his dirty magazines was empty too, and didn’t look like it had
been slept in. And no wonder. It was as stuffy and uncomfortable in
here as in the servants’ staircase in the house, with the added
aroma of sweaty logs. It was also somewhere around a hundred and
ten degrees. No wonder David had opted to go to sleep on the front
porch swing instead. It was almost as hot, but a lot more airy.

The smoke house was empty, if equally hot,
and so was the garage AKA the old carriage house. Mother’s car was
there, though. So if they’d gone anywhere, it had been on foot.

I followed the path through the trees to the
old cemetery, feeling my blouse become stickier with each step.
Summer in the South is awful, and made worse by the fact that I was
pregnant and had hormones pinging through my body. I have no idea
how they did it in the old days, with their layers of petticoats
and voluminous skirts.

I’d gotten married in a hoop skirt. It had
been so wide that I’d practically knocked the flower decorations
off the edges of the pews as I walked down the aisle. It had been
June then, too. Five years ago. Two years of marriage—almost—before
Bradley told me he wanted a divorce so he could marry his mistress,
and then three more of being divorced. And now I was looking at
getting married again.

But without the hoop skirt and the rosy
outlook this time. I knew that marriage to Rafe wouldn’t be easy.
There were too many creeps from his past ready to come crawling out
of the woodwork at any moment. I loved him too much not to want to
try, though. It may not be easy, but it would be worth it.

The cemetery was empty. Of anyone living,
anyway. I stood for a second looking at the lopsided gravestones
behind their knee-high iron fence before the thought
penetrated.

The cemetery was empty. Mother and David
weren’t here.

So where were they?

I turned in a circle. It was a touch cooler
here, under the green canopy of the trees. A slight breeze rustled
the leaves over my head. I raised my voice. “David? Mother? Are you
out here?”

There was no answer. A few birds took
flight, but that was the only sign of life.

I turned around and headed back through the
woods. The lawn was still empty. Mother’s car was still in the
garage. There was no answer when I pushed open the door into the
mansion and called their names.

I was reaching for my phone to call Dix when
it started ringing. I dug it out of my purse and looked at it. And
felt my heart skip when I saw Rafe’s number. Just the person I
wanted to talk to! Not because there was anything he could do from
an hour away, but because he always manages to say the right
thing.

This time I didn’t have to focus to put a
smile on my face. It was just there. “Rafe! Thank God you called.
There’s something really weird going on down here. I can’t find
Mother or David anywhere—”

And that’s how long it took me to remember
that Rafe didn’t have his phone.

That Rafe hadn’t had his phone since Friday
night.

That if someone was calling me on Rafe’s
phone, it wasn’t Rafe.

The person on the other end chuckled. It was
an evil chuckle, or maybe that was just because I knew what I knew
about Eugenio Hernandez. “Hello, Savannah,” he said.

That sounded evil, too. Not threatening, but
oily and overly familiar. Creepily chummy. I almost asked him how
he knew my name, but it was obvious once I thought about it. Rafe’s
speed-dial.

And to be honest, my heart was beating too
hard for me to talk, anyway.

Into the silence, Eugenio Hernandez added,
“You have a lovely home.”

I forced my vocal chords to respond. “Thank
you.” To my relief, my voice wasn’t shaking too badly. I certainly
didn’t want this creep to know that just talking to him on the
phone had the tiny hairs on the back of my neck standing up. “Rafe
will be pleased to hear you say that. He worked hard on that
house.”

He chuckled again, and the back of my neck
prickled. “It’s a shame you’ll never get the chance to tell him,”
he said.

His voice came to me in weird stereo, and
when I swung around, I saw why. He was standing at the top of the
stairs looking down at me.

I took a couple of running steps toward the
front door. It was pure instinct.
Danger! Flee!
And I only
made it those couple of steps before a bullet buried itself in the
hardwood floors in front of me and brought me to a quivering stop.
Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Hernandez say calmly, “I
wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I swung back around, breathing hard, as he
moved to the top of one of the staircases and started down. “I can
probably make it to the car before you can kill me.”

This time my voice did shake, and I could
tell from his expression—that excited light in his eyes—that he
liked it.

He nodded cordially. “Maybe so. But then
what would happen to your mother and the brat?”

He had Mother and David?

But of course he did. Why else would he be
here? He hadn’t followed me. Or if he had, I hadn’t noticed.

“You followed them this morning, didn’t
you?” I hadn’t thought it through until now, but suddenly the words
came spilling out as if I’d known all along. “One of the neighbors
saw you, sitting in a driveway up the street just before seven. You
waited for us to come home, and then you followed Mother and Dix
when they left.”

He smiled, pleased, as if I were a grade
school student getting a tricky answer right. “It was easy.”

No doubt. Dix wouldn’t have thought to look
for a tail. His only concern would have been to get home to his
daughters as quickly as possible. And in doing so, he’d done
exactly what I’d been afraid of doing: leading Hernandez to
Sweetwater.

Where I’d made the mistake, was thinking he
wanted me, and as long as I stayed in Nashville, everyone in
Sweetwater would be safe. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that he
might have followed Dix and Mother.

She and David must be upstairs. God only
knew where he’d kept them while I ransacked the house earlier.

“You’d kill them,” I said, trying to sound
calm, as I walked backwards to the other staircase. He had made it
about halfway down the one on his side of the foyer, and as he
started down the second half, I started up mine. “The same way you
killed Kelly. And Maria. And the other girl. The blonde, four years
ago. And Judd Lincoln.”

“You figured all that out?”

I thought about telling him it hadn’t been
hard, that he’d left a trail of breadcrumbs the size of Pluto, at
least recently. But I thought that might make him angry. So instead
I said, “Rafe did. That’s why he had you arrested back then. So you
wouldn’t kill Ginger.”

His face darkened at the reminder, so maybe
that hadn’t been the best thing to say, either.

But even so, I decided to goad him a little
farther. Angry people sometimes make mistakes. And the longer I
kept him talking, the more likely I—or someone else, like David or
Mother—would think of something to do to end the standoff. I didn’t
know where they were, but they weren’t in the foyer with us. The
more time I could give them by themselves, the better the chances
were that they’d be able to escape.

So I told him, “You must have been angry
when you got back to the cabin and discovered he’d left. You
probably didn’t think he’d be able to do that.”

He snarled something. It was in Spanish—or
at least it wasn’t in English—and I didn’t know what it meant. I
didn’t ask him to translate, however, since I was sure it was the
kind of word a lady wasn’t supposed to acknowledge anyway.

Instead I smirked. “You didn’t really think
he was going to sit quietly in your cabin and wait for you to come
back, did you?”

He didn’t answer immediately—it looked like
he was chewing on his tongue—so I decided to give the metaphorical
knife another twist. “I mean, you know he took down Hector
Gonzales’s entire network. Someone you met in prison told you that,
right? That while you were sitting in a cell for soliciting an
under-aged prostitute, Rafe blew Hector Gonzales’s whole
organization sky high. Did you really think you could just pin him
to the table like a beetle —” My stomach revolted at the thought,
and I had to swallow hard, “—and walk away, and he’d still be there
when you got back?”

I managed a condescending chuckle. “He’s a
lot better at what he does than you give him credit for. He stopped
you last time. He’ll stop you this time, too.”

“Not before I gut you like a fish,”
Hernandez told me, as he stepped onto the floor of the foyer.

It was an unlovely simile, and I had to
swallow again. “Maybe not. But you only got four years last time
because they couldn’t prove you had killed anyone. Rafe knew you
had, but he had to maintain his cover. He couldn’t go out and find
the girls you murdered. So you only got four years.”