Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19)

by Jenna Bennett

  Yes. That was my impression, too. Being part of the neo-Nazi group—if they were part of the neo-Nazi group, and we didn’t actually have any proof of that yet… but if they were, it probably made them feel big and bad. When what they were, were two bullies who were too afraid to bully anyone unless they were sure of winning.

  “But I agree about the other guy,” Rafe added. “He looked like he knew how to handle himself.”

  “You could take him,” I said loyally.

  He glanced at me, and a corner of his mouth turned up. “You never know. I got the feeling he was military, and those spec ops guys can kill you with a paperclip.”

  “You can kill somebody without a paperclip.”

  He chuckled. “True. But he still didn’t look like somebody I’d wanna mess with if I didn’t have to.”

  Perhaps not. “So the next step is figuring out who he is, and if he’s in charge of this group of homegrown terrorists.”

  Rafe nodded. “The car had Davidson County plates. If he’s registered with an address in Nashville, but he’s in Maury County now, that could be easier said than done.”

  “Obviously Kyle and Rodney know where to find him. Or at least how to get in touch with him.”

  “Yeah. But no judge is gonna give me a warrant for their cell phone records. You can’t just go get a search warrant because you think somebody might be involved in something. I need proof of something before I can go get more proof.”

  “Isn’t that why Clayton’s here?”

  Rafe nodded. “That’s exactly why Clayton’s here. And it looks like they’re moving pretty fast on getting him introduced to the rest of the group. Faster than I thought they would.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “That’s very good. Not sure there’s a whole lotta time to waste. If it was Rodney and Kyle who shot Pearl yesterday, we know they’ve got weapons. Semi-automatic weapons.”

  He flipped on the turn signal and slowed down, preparatory to pulling the Volvo into the driveway. When we were headed up the drive toward the mansion, he added, “And if it was Rodney and Kyle who left the ammonal on the doorstep on Fulton earlier, they’ve got the means to blow stuff up. Enough of it, maybe, that they can afford to use some just to mess with you. Or with us.”

  “Unless that’s all they have, and they decided to blow it on us.”

  He shook his head. “There are no restrictions on Tannerite. You can order it online. If they had enough to blow up Fulton, they can get their hands on enough to blow up something else.”

  “What do you think they’re going to blow up?”

  “No idea,” Rafe said, pulling the Volvo to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, “but now that we know they got it, we’re gonna have to figure that out.”

  He turned to me. “Any objection to keeping the car here overnight? It’s late. And you’re gonna have to drive me in to Columbia in the morning, so I can get the Chevy. Less’n you want me to call someone else for a ride.”

  Like Felicia Robinson?

  “I’d be happy to drive you,” I said.

  He grinned, like he knew what I was thinking. “Thanks, darlin’.” And then he glanced into the backseat, where Carrie was sleeping in her carrier, and added, “I’ll get the baby.”

  “I’ll get the door,” I said, and held out a hand for the keys. He dropped them in my hand, and opened his door. I used the few seconds the dome light was on to sift through the keys on the ring so I had the right key for the door. I’d left through the back earlier, and in such a hurry that I’d forgotten to turn on the porch light. If I had the right key, at least I didn’t have to worry about anything except getting it into the lock when I reached the top of the stairs.

  Rafe, meanwhile, swung his legs out of the car and stood up. And shut the door behind him.

  And almost in the same breath as that sound, came another one. Rafe’s body hit the side of the car and slid down, leaving a smear of blood on the window.

  I screamed, and behind me, Carrie startled awake and began crying. From inside the house, I could hear Pearl go crazy.

  I would like to make you believe that my subsequent actions were calm and rational. I’d like to, but the truth is, they weren’t. I was a gibbering mess, and it’s a minor miracle that I was able to function at all, let alone do anything useful.

  Nonetheless, the tiny part of my brain that was operating on a level more advanced than, “Ohmigod, my husband’s been shot!” did manage to string some elemental cautions together.

  If you get out of the car, you might get shot too.

  If you get shot too, the baby will be alone, and no one might show up here until tomorrow.

  Call for help before you do anything else. That way, if something happens to you, at least someone will come and find Carrie.

  My nose was running and my eyes were leaking, but I knew the voice was right. And although every other cell in my body was screaming to go see how badly Rafe was hurt, somehow I managed to stay where I was and get the phone out of my purse. My fingers were shaking too much to hit the buttons for 911, so I had to ask Siri to dial the number for me.

  It rang once, twice, and then— “911,” the voice on the other end of the line said calmly, “what’s your emergency?”

  “I need an ambulance.” My breath was hitching enough that it was hard to get the words out. “Someone shot my husband.”

  I rattled off the address to the mansion. “He works for the Columbia PD. Notify Chief Grimaldi. And Sheriff Satterfield. And hurry.”

  I dropped the phone in the console, in the middle of the operator’s exhortation that I stay on the line with her. I wished I could, I wished I didn’t have to leave the safety of the car, but Rafe was hurt, and not getting up, and if he died out there, alone, while I sat inside the car waiting for the ambulance to show up, I’d never forgive myself.

  So I slid my door open—and I had the sense to reach up and turn off the dome light before I did it, so I wouldn’t be outlined like a silhouette in a shooting gallery. And then I slipped out on the gravel and dropped to my knees, and, ignoring the pain as the small stones dug into my skin, started crawling around the car to see what—if anything—I could do for Rafe.

  Twelve

  It took an eternity, or seemed to, before I’d cleared the corner of the car. No one shot at me, though, so I kept going, across the front of the car and around the next corner. I could see Rafe now, half-sitting, half-lying on the ground with his back against the side of the car, with one leg bent at the knee and the other straight out. His head was bent, and fear shot through me. Every foot I gained across the gravel hurt my knees, and fear had lodged like a cold lump of ice in my stomach.

  But still, no one shot at me. I kept expecting it, waiting for the sound of the shot a second before a bullet plunged into my skull, but it didn’t come.

  Pearl was still going crazy inside. It sounded like she was throwing herself at the front door so she could get out, and I hoped she wasn’t opening the wound back up. Nothing I could do about it right now, though.

  “Rafe!” I hissed his name a couple feet away. “Rafe!”

  He didn’t lift his head. I crept a little closer and reached out. And déjà vu flashed through my head, of coming out of a closet in the Colliers’ trailer in the Bog—don’t ask—after shots had been fired, and seeing him slumped over on the bedroll in his room with blood soaking his T-shirt from a bullet in his shoulder.

  It had worked out OK that time, in spite of my spending eight interminable hours thinking he’d died. I probably wouldn’t be that lucky again.

  My hand landed on his arm. The fabric of the windbreaker was wet and warm, and I drew in a breath that sounded more like a sob. “Rafe?”

  Somewhere in the back of my brain, I noted that there were sirens in the distance, coming closer. I could still hear Carrie squalling from inside the car, her cries more like hiccups now. Pearl continued to bark, but I didn’t hear her throwing herself at the door anymore. Hopefully she’d
realized the futility of it, and it wasn’t because she was too hurt to stand.

  “Rafe?” I put a hand against his cheek and tried to lift his head. “Can you hear me?”

  His skin was warm, so that was one thing to be grateful for, anyway. Whatever was wrong—wherever the bullet had hit him—he was still alive. If I could keep him that way until the ambulance arrived, maybe he’d be OK.

  He opened his eyes. They were blank for a second before he seemed to recognize me. When he did, he gave me a sort of quizzical look. The tip of his tongue came out to moisten his lips. “Savannah?”

  “Yeah. It’s me.” Tears were running down my cheeks now, and I dashed them away, probably leaving streaks of blood across my cheeks. “Just hold on. The ambulance is coming.”

  He shifted against the door of the car, and winced. “Hurts.”

  “I’m sure it does.” And that isn’t something he admits to often, so it had to be bad. “Can you tell where you were hit?”

  He twitched again, and made another face. “Chest? Ribs?”

  That didn’t sound good. Although it also didn’t sound like something I’d want to mess with, even if I’d had some idea how.

  “Just sit still,” I told him, my heart knocking hard against my own ribs. “The ambulance will be here in a minute. Maybe less.”

  He closed his eyes again, and I added, only half-joking, “You aren’t going to die on me, are you?”

  His lips curved ever so slightly, even though his eyes didn’t open again. “Nah.”

  “Just hold on.” I grabbed his hand and did just that, while I listened to the sirens coming closer. After another few seconds, I could see the lights flashing between the trees down the road, and shortly after that, the ambulance screeched into the driveway. Two paramedics jumped out. One of them ran toward me, while the other scurried to the back of the ambulance to wrestle a gurney out of the back.

  “What happened?”

  The male paramedic—I recognized him from last month, when he’d come to my rescue in the Allens’ house—squatted next to Rafe.

  “He was shot,” I said, my voice shaking. “From over there somewhere.” I waved in the direction of the field. “Probably a semi-automatic. Someone shot our dog with one last night.”

  The paramedic nodded.

  “He thinks he got hit in the chest or ribs.”

  “We’ll take a look,” he told me. “Sir? You awake?”

  He reached for the zipper to Rafe’s windbreaker.

  “Careful,” my husband muttered, without lifting his head.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The second paramedic came rattling across the driveway, pushing the gurney ahead of her, as the first pulled the zipper down and spread the edges of Rafe’s jacket apart.

  I gasped.

  He nodded. “There we go.”

  Yes, indeed. The butt end of a bullet was sticking out of the mesh of the Kevlar right below—unless I missed my guess—Rafe’s left nipple.

  “There’s no blood,” I pointed out.

  The paramedic shook his head. “No, ma’am. The bullet didn’t penetrate the vest. He might have a cracked rib or two, but the vest stopped the bullet from penetrating.”

  “Then where did the blood come from?”

  I gestured up at it, in a messy streak down the side of the car, where Rafe had fallen against the door and had smeared blood across it, going down.

  The paramedic stared for a second, before his mouth formed a four-letter word that didn’t make it past his lips.

  “Arm,” Rafe said, as another car took the turn into the driveway on two wheels and powered up the incline toward the mansion. It came from the south, the direction of Sweetwater, so I wasn’t surprised to see Bob Satterfield swing his long legs out of the driver’s seat.

  I was, I admit, more surprised to see the passenger door open and my mother hop down on the gravel. “Savannah!”

  She looked around.

  “Over here.” I waved at her. “Better brace yourself,” I added to Rafe. “This is the first time Mother’s seen you hurt since last summer.”

  He winced. It might have been the reminder of last summer, when he’d been in—it seemed—worse shape than this. Or maybe it was the knowledge that Mother was bearing down on him.

  There wasn’t anything he could do about it, though. Just sit where he was while the paramedic used a pair of scissors to cut the sleeve of the jacket straight up from the wrist.

  “Dear me,” Mother said, and swayed. Bob ignored her, to squat next to me, and Mother had to pull out of her vapors without assistance.

  “He’s OK,” I told her. “It looks bad, but it isn’t actually that big a deal.”

  “There’s blood,” Mother pointed out. “Rafael…!”

  He managed an almost passable smile, although the wink suffered a little. “Just a scratch.”

  I snorted, although he was right. It wasn’t much more than a scratch. The bullet that had hit him in the chest could have killed him if it hadn’t been for the vest. The one that had hit his arm had just taken some skin and flesh with it, leaving a bloody furrow before imbedding itself in the side of my car.

  “Any other damage?” the paramedic asked, while Bob and Mother hovered over us. Down at the street, another car took the turn into the driveway with a squeal of brakes. I glanced that way and saw Grimaldi’s SUV come up the drive.

  “Would you get Carrie out of the car?” I asked Mother. “Take her inside and see if you can calm Pearl down?”

  “Of course, dear.” She gave Rafe one last look before heading around the car to open the back door and pull Carrie out. “Hush, baby. Grandma’s got you.”

  “Thank you,” I called after her, and she gave me a wave as she headed up the stairs to the front door. Pearl’s barks took on a frantic, whiny quality. She adores Mother.

  Grimaldi, meanwhile, parked her SUV behind Bob’s vehicle, and came jogging toward us while the paramedic finished patting Rafe down. Grimaldi got there in time to hear his verdict. “Looks like the two bullets are it. It could have been a lot worse.”

  It sure could.

  “Thank God for SWAT practice,” I said, since if it hadn’t been for that, and the crazy explosion that meant that Rafe hadn’t taken the time to change his clothes, that bullet might have—would certainly have—caught him in the heart.

  Everyone nodded. Grimaldi, who was sort of Catholic, looked like she was thinking about doing the sign of the cross.

  “Let’s get him on the gurney,” one paramedic told the other, and Rafe shook his head.

  “Ain’t nothing the matter with me.”

  “There’s plenty the matter with you,” I told him.

  He gave me a look. “Nothing that going to the hospital is gonna fix, darlin’. I can just slap a Band-Aid over the arm, and there’s nothing nobody can do for broken ribs. Just tape’em and wait for’em to heal.”

  “Then they can bandage your arm and tape your ribs,” I said. “I want somebody to look at you. You might need stitches.”

  He glanced down at the arm, where blood was still seeping out, but more sluggishly now. “I don’t need stitches.”

  “You might. And it’s something a doctor should decide.”

  “I don’t wanna leave you and Carrie alone.”

  And OK, it was a compelling excuse. “We can go with you,” I said.

  “Your mama’s just putting the baby to bed. I don’t wanna wake her up again.”

  I didn’t particularly want to wake her up, either, so I conceded the point. “Maybe Mother and Bob can stay with her while I go with you.”

  Bob shook his head. “This happened in my jurisdiction. I can’t babysit.”

  I turned to Grimaldi. She shook her head. “He works for me. I need to hear the report, too.”

  “Just put a bandage over it,” Rafe told the EMT. “I’ll wrap my own ribs. I’ve had worse.”

  While that was certainly true, I gave the paramedic a look. He shrugged, looking apologetic. “T
here’s nothing we can do, ma’am. If the patient refuses medical care, we can’t force him. He’s lucid and in his right mind—”

  I snorted, and Rafe’s lips curved. The paramedic continued, doggedly, as if he hadn’t noticed the byplay. “And he has the right to refuse treatment.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “Just patch him up, then, and we’ll take him inside. Y’all—” I looked at Grimaldi and Bob, “can get your report there.”

  They both nodded.

  So the paramedics cleaned the wound and bandaged Rafe’s arm and told him to have it checked by his regular doctor tomorrow, and to keep an eye out for infection. Then they told him to take it easy for a few days, and it would take the ribs six weeks to heal. No wrapping or taping necessary, as it would make it harder for him to breathe. “Take over-the-counter pain meds if you need them,” the male paramedic said, wrapping up his gauze and scissors. “No working out, no straining, no fights.”

  No SWAT. And I’m sure crime-fighting was part of the things he wasn’t supposed to do, too.

  “C’mon.” Grimaldi put a hand out. “Time to get up.”

  Rafe scowled at her, but took it. And promptly turned pale when she tried to haul him to his feet. Bob and the male paramedic moved in, and between them, they managed to get him upright. Not without some effort, though—he’s a big guy, and muscle weighs a lot. And also not without hurting him considerably in the process. When he was at long last standing, he was breathing through gritted teeth, and his skin color was practically gray.

  “You sure about that trip to the hospital?” I asked, and got a scowl for my trouble.

  “It ain’t gonna make me feel any better, darlin’. There’s nothing anybody can do for broken ribs. They just gotta heal.”

  Fine. “If you wouldn’t mind helping him inside,” I said, “we’ll just leave the Volvo here for the night. I assume one of you is going to want to dig out that bullet?”

  Grimaldi and Bob both nodded, and exchanged a glance.