Unfinished Business (3 page)

I thanked her again, and hung up. And this
time I really did turn the key in the ignition and navigate the
Volvo down the graveled driveway to the street.

I was late, of course. To my own wedding ceremony. By the time I
walked into the waiting room at the courthouse, my siblings and my
mother, as well as Tamara Grimaldi, were already present.

Rafe was not. Nor was Wendell Craig.

Ginny had called me back while I was
driving, to tell me that while she had managed to get in touch with
one of her son’s camp counselors, David himself had been
unavailable, on a half-day hike. He wasn’t expected back until the
afternoon. At that point, the counselor would ascertain whether
David had heard from his biological father, but until then, there
was nothing they could do to help, since cell phone coverage was
non-existent out there in the middle of nowhere where the kids
were.

It sounded dangerous to me—a couple dozen
kids in the wilderness with no way to contact anyone in the event
something went wrong—but what do I know?

“I have to ask, Savannah,” Ginny had said.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to know.”

“Sure.” My hands were sweaty on the steering
wheel, in spite of the icy air pumping from the vents.

“Is there... I’m sure there isn’t, but is
there any chance he’ll go to the camp and take David?”

I blinked. Opened my mouth, and found I had
no words. Nor any voice to speak them. I closed my mouth and tried
again. “Take him?”

“You know,” Ginny said. “If he’s decided to
leave, maybe he wants to take David with him.”

I blinked again. And swallowed. “No,” I
managed eventually. “I don’t think you have to worry about
that.”

If he had decided to leave, it was because
he didn’t want to be tied down with a wife and a kid. He wouldn’t
bring his other kid along. Especially as he had to know he’d be
committing a crime if he did. He had no legal rights where David
were concerned. Ginny and Sam were David’s legal guardians. Rafe
was just the man who had donated the sperm.

Ginny sounded like she wasn’t sure whether
she could be relieved and whether she could believe me. “Are you
sure?”

“Positive,” I said. “He wouldn’t do
that.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ginny told me.
“Either way I’ve put the camp counselors on alert. If he shows up
there, they’ll call the police.”

My breath went again, and for a moment I
couldn’t speak. “That’s a little drastic, don’t you think?” Rafe
wasn’t a threat to anyone. Least of all David.

“He’s my child,” Ginny told me, in a voice
that was turning shrill. “If anyone tries to take him away from me,
it’ll be over my dead body.”

I forced myself to sound calm. “Rafe
wouldn’t take David away from you. Not like this. If he wanted
custody, he’d fight you in court.”

Ginny didn’t answer that, and I guess maybe,
in playing it back, it wasn’t very comforting.

“And he’s not going to do anything illegal.
He’s a TBI agent.” As well as a convicted felon. Which wouldn’t
look good if someone suspected he was trying to take David. “He
isn’t stupid.”

“I hope you’re right, Savannah,” Ginny told
me, “because if he comes anywhere near David, I’m having him
arrested.”

She didn’t wait for me to answer, just hung
up in my ear.

My hands were still shaking when I walked
into the waiting room of the courthouse and found my family and
Tamara Grimaldi there. The detective was talking to Dix, but looked
up when I came in. A second later she was on her way across the
floor toward me. I’m not sure she even excused herself.

“Savannah!”

“Detective,” I managed.

She took my arm. I guess I must look like I
was about to drop. I felt like I was about to drop.

“What is it? Have you heard something?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not from Rafe. I
just spoke to Ginny Flannery. David’s mother. Adoptive mother.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“David’s away at church camp. Somewhere on
the Cumberland Plateau. She said if Rafe goes anywhere near him,
she’ll have him arrested.”

“She can’t do that,” Grimaldi said.

“Are you sure?”

Grimaldi nodded. “Not without a restraining
order. And for that, she’d have to prove cause. Which she can’t.
Besides, it takes time.”

I shuddered. “I hope you’re right. Because
she sounded serious.”

Grimaldi rubbed her hand up and down my arm.
I was cold, in spite of the heat outside and having had to walk
through it to get inside. “Do you think he’ll go out there?”

“I have no idea what he’ll do,” I told her,
skirting hysteria, “because I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t
know if he’s dead in a ditch, or in a hospital bed somewhere with
amnesia, or halfway to Montana by now.”

“Montana?”

“It’s where people hide, isn’t it?” All
those woods and wide open spaces.

“Oh,” Grimaldi said dryly, “I think your
boyfriend would have more sense than to try to blend in somewhere
like Montana.”

Maybe so. Come to think of it, those woods
and wide open spaces hide a lot of militia and white supremacists,
and those kinds of people likely wouldn’t appreciate my mixed-race
boyfriend. Even if he could handle weapons with the best of
them.

“Alabama, then. Or Texas. Just as long as
he’s not dead.”

“He isn’t in the morgue,” Grimaldi said.
“And he isn’t in the hospital.”

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t be dead in a ditch
and nobody’s found him yet.”

“He was carousing at Gabe’s Bar last night,”
Grimaldi said. “I checked with Mr. Craig. There aren’t any ditches
between there and where you live. Or at least none where a dead
body could lie for hours without someone taking notice.”

Comforting. Not.

I had my mouth open to ask whether she’d
checked if he was in jail... but by now Mother had made her way
over to us. “Darling.” She gave me a tight smile.

“Mother.” I forced one of my own, and leaned
in to give her an air kiss in the neighborhood of her cheek. “Thank
you for coming.”
But you shouldn’t have
.

“Of course, darling.” She looked around. “I
don’t see Rafael.”

“That’s because he isn’t here,” I said, with
a glare at Dix, who obviously hadn’t told her that my husband-to-be
was nowhere to be found this morning.

Coward
, I mouthed. Dix shrugged and
spread his hands, as if to say that I would have done the same
thing. And since he was most likely right—I wouldn’t have said
anything, either—there wasn’t much more I could do.

“What’s going on?” Mother asked, a delicate
wrinkle between her brows. She’s in her late fifties, but looks ten
years younger, and she’d obviously gone out of her way to make
herself presentable this morning. Under other circumstances I would
have been grateful, but at the moment I just wished her far, far
away.

“We don’t know yet. He didn’t come home last
night.”

“Oh, dear,” Mother said, pressing her lips
together. I’m not sure whether she was suppressing a smile or she
actually was sympathetic.

I narrowed my eyes. “Did you have something
to do with this?”

“Me?” She sounded sincerely shocked, and a
bit offended that I’d ask. “Darling, why would you suggest such a
thing?”

“Because you hate Rafe,” I said, “and I’m
sure nothing would make you happier than if I didn’t marry
him.”

Mother squirmed like a five-year-old on an
anthill, but didn’t deny it. Not the marriage part. Instead she
said, “That’s silly, darling. Of course I don’t hate him.”

“Your nostrils twitch every time you get
close to him. Like he smells bad.” And he doesn’t.

Mother had no answer for that. “How would I
be able to ensure that Rafael didn’t come home last night?” she
asked instead, reasonably. “Surely you’re not suggesting that I
drove to Nashville last night and spiked his drink?”

Hah!
I put my hands on my hips. “How
did you know he was drinking last night?”

“I assumed,” Mother said coldly. “He seems
the type.”

“It was the night before his wedding! The
guys were throwing him a bachelor party.” Sort of.

Mother sniffed. “So where is he?”

I felt some of the air go out of me. “I
don’t know. And I wasn’t suggesting that you’d driven to Nashville
and spiked his drink. I thought you might have hired someone to
take him out.”

“Darling,” Mother said, shaking her
head.

“Well, it isn’t like it hasn’t happened
before! You don’t have to act like it’s unheard of.”

“I would never consider doing such a thing,”
my mother said.

No, she wouldn’t. And if I’d been thinking
clearly, I wouldn’t have suggested it. She wouldn’t have done
anything illegal. If my mother wanted to get rid of my unsuitable
suitor, she was much more likely to do it the old-fashioned way.
“You didn’t offer him money to disappear,” I asked suspiciously,
“did you?”

“No,” Mother said. “Really, Savannah. If you
want to throw your life away on a man who isn’t worthy of you,
that’s your business. I drove up here to support you, but now I’m
thinking that perhaps I shouldn’t have bothered.”

She glanced around for Dix, as if thinking
she’d just have him turn around and drive the hour-and-a-bit-more
back to Sweetwater again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, since she’d gotten
dressed up and had made the drive up here to attend my wedding,
even to a man she wished I wouldn’t marry. “I shouldn’t have said
those things.”

“No, darling,” Mother said, “you
shouldn’t.”

I said I was sorry!
trembled on my
tongue, but I bit it back. “I’m sorry,” I said instead, humbly.
“I’m just worried.”

“Of course, darling.” She patted my hand.
“I’m sure he’ll turn up in his own time.”

I wished I could believe that, but I
honestly wasn’t sure. Part of me was certain he’d run away, that
the prospect of tying himself to one woman and a baby for the rest
of his life had finally caught up to him, on the night before the
wedding. The other part skirted very delicately around the other
possibilities, since they were even worse. I loved him. I wanted to
spend my life with him, raising our child. But between that and
knowing he was dead in a ditch somewhere, I’d rather have him alive
and well and somewhere else. If he didn’t want to marry me, he
didn’t have to. I wanted that, but I wasn’t going to force him.

Did he feel like I was forcing him?

I’d tried very hard not to, but maybe I
hadn’t succeeded?

“There’s Mr. Craig,” Tamara Grimaldi’s voice
said, and woke me from my reverie. The interruption wasn’t
unwelcome, and not just because I hoped that Wendell would have
some news. My own thoughts weren’t very good company just then.

However, if he had news, it wasn’t good
news. His face was grim as he strode across the floor to us. By
now, Dix and Catherine had joined us too, and we were all standing
in a huddle. I had my brother and Tamara Grimaldi on one side of
me, and mother and Catherine on the other. A bit hysterically, I
reasoned that if I fainted, I’d have to drop right, since Mother
and Catherine couldn’t be counted on to catch me, while Grimaldi
and Dix could.

Grimaldi, at least, had good reflexes.

“I’m sorry,” were the first words out of
Wendell’s mouth, and I felt my head go light. “I don’t have
anything new to tell you.”

So no news. And now I realized what that old
chestnut ‘No news is good news,’ meant. Right then, no news was
so
much better than bad news.

“I contacted the boys and asked them if any
of them had heard from him since last night,” Wendell continued,
“and no one had. Two of them were at the bureau this morning,
sparring. They knew Rafe wasn’t gonna be there, so they’d arranged
to work out with each other instead. Number three was sleeping
in.”

So he hadn’t shown up for work. I wondered
whether that was significant, or just a result of his boss—Rafe—not
being on the clock today. Likely it was just the latter, and
nothing suspicious at all. Although I kept it in reserve in case
Rafe hadn’t left of his own free will, and one of the rookies had
something to do with it.

“I asked around,” Wendell added, “and nobody
knows nothing. Nobody expected him this morning, since he had the
day off.”

“Did... um...” I cleared my throat and tried
again, “did anyone mention whether he’d said anything about cold
feet?”

Wendell blinked. He’s an older, grizzled,
black man with a military haircut, who’s been working in law
enforcement for a very long time. He was Rafe’s handler during the
ten years Rafe spent undercover, trying to infiltrate the biggest
SATG—South American Theft Gang—in the Southeast, and I imagine he’s
seen a lot in his years. Whenever I’ve had dealings with him, he’s
always been supremely poker-faced. This was the first time he’d
shown any kind of unexpected emotion, and although it was nice to
know that he could, I wasn’t entirely happy about it.

“No,” he said eventually. “And I didn’t ask.
Didn’t think to.”

“He hasn’t mentioned anything to you?”

“About cold feet?” Wendell shook his head.
“No.”

Good to know.

And on the other hand, not so good to know,
because if he hadn’t suddenly developed cold feet and run away,
something was wrong.

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to think about
it.

Wendell nodded and checked his watch. “It’s
eleven-thirty.”

Yes, thank you for pointing that out
.
“It doesn’t look like he’s coming,” I said, and tried to keep my
voice steady.

Mother murmured something. I didn’t hear it,
and elected not to ask what it was.

“We can wait a bit longer,” Catherine said,
with a glance at her own watch.

I shook my head. “There’s really no point.
If he was going to come, he’d have been here by now.” He would have
been in bed this morning, too.