[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “What’s he done now?” Lila asked.

  I made a face. “Oh, he just told the whole office that I’m dating Rafael Collier. At the staff meeting on Monday morning. Just because he saw us having dinner together last week.”

  “Is this the guy you were telling me about, the one who was with you when you found Brenda Puckett’s body? So you are dating him!”

  I shook my head firmly. “It wasn’t a date. It was just dinner.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, of course I’m sure. I’m not interested in him that way.”

  “Right.” Lila didn’t even try to hide her amusement. “I don’t know, girlfriend. Have you even had a man since you got divorced? He asked you out, so he’s obviously interested, and if I remember the way you described him, he’s not repulsive. Are you sure you shouldn’t go for it?”

  “It’s not that easy,” I answered.

  Lila didn’t speak, just arched her brows questioningly. I added, “You don’t know my family.”

  “Aren’t you allowed to date anyone? Or is it just him?”

  “Mostly just him. Or anybody like him. Or maybe just anybody but Todd.”

  “Who’s Todd? Oh, wait. He’s that guy you dated in high school, right? The one your mother keeps throwing at you?”

  I nodded. “Rafe went to school with us too, but I never had anything to do with him. He was the boy my mother always warned me about. The boy all the mothers warned their daughters about.”

  “So what’s wrong with him?” Lila asked.

  I hesitated, before settling for the general, “He’s just very different from me.”

  “Different, how?” Lila said. She was relentless; it was one of her biggest strengths as a Realtor. Unlike me, who was brought up to be polite and courteous, Lila took every ‘no’ as a challenge, and wouldn’t back down from anything. Tenacious to a fault.

  “Different in every way. I grew up in a mansion. One of the antebellum ones south of Columbia, on the Antebellum Trail. He grew up in a mobile home, in a trailer park on the other side of town. I can trace my family tree back to the Civil War; he only learned who his father was two weeks ago. I went to finishing school after graduation; he went to jail. I drive a Volvo, for God’s sake, and he rides a Harley-Davidson!”

  Lila thought for a moment. “So he’s what people down here call white trash?”

  Lila’s from Detroit, where I guess they call it something else.

  “His mother’s family was.” I’d certainly heard the Colliers described that way often enough. Not by anyone in my family, of course. We don’t use words like those. Think them, perhaps, but don’t utter them out loud. “His father was black, so mostly what people called him was that colored boy.”

  Or more often, LaDonna Collier’s good-for-nothing colored boy, but I didn’t think I should say that to Lila.

  “Oh-ho!” Lila said.

  “I grew up in a very small, very segregated town. There were black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods, but very few that were mixed. Black people go to black churches and white people to white churches on Sunday morning, and there were no black children in my elementary school. They all went to the other elementary school, on the other side of town. It wasn’t until high school that we all ended up together.”

  “I don’t imagine your daddy would be best pleased if you brought home a black boyfriend, then.”

  Lila took a sip of her Diet Coke. Each long fingernail was painted as red as her dress and decorated with a tiny flower.

  “It’s not my daddy who’s the problem,” I said, inspecting my own ladylike French manicure. “He’s in heaven, where I’m pretty sure they’re beyond petty concerns like skin color. My mother, however, is still here.”

  “Is she a racist?”

  I bit my lip while I tried to form the words. I didn’t want to make Lila angry, or worse, hurt her feelings, and we hadn’t known each other long enough yet to get to the point where we could say just about anything to each other without giving offense. At the same time, I wanted her to understand what it was like being a Martin. “She has nothing against black people. She deals with them – you – every day, and she does it politely and courteously. It’s not like she puts on a white hood and rides out at night to burn crosses on people’s lawns. Or chases people off her land with a shotgun, the way Rafe’s grandfather did. It’s more a case of...”

  I hesitated, searching for the right way to explain things, “...them and us. Heck, my brother-in-law Jonathan was given a terrible time when he first started dating my sister Catherine, and he isn’t even black, just a Yankee. My mother is just very aware that not everyone is up to her standard.”

  “Hunh,” Lila said.

  I shrugged. “She can’t help the way she was brought up, any more than the rest of us can. She’s not a bad person, really.”

  Lila didn’t answer, though I don’t think she was convinced.

  “All right,” she said, “so I don’t suppose you can really get too involved with this guy, then. Not if you want to avoid trouble. But didn’t you tell me that your family lives an hour or more away? What’s to keep you from jumping in the sack with him? They’d never know.”

  “They’d find out. Somehow, my family always finds out. Besides, I don’t really want to jump in the sack with him. I wasn’t brought up to sleep around.”

  Lila arched her brows. “You’ve been divorced for how long, again? Almost two years, isn’t it? Girlfriend, I don’t think indulging yourself for once would count as sleeping around.”

  “Maybe not,” I admitted. “But I don’t really want to.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, of course I’m sure. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason. I was just thinking…”

  Her voice was too innocent, and I narrowed my eyes. “Thinking about what?”

  “Well… you know what they say about black men, don’t you?” She smirked.

  “I’m not sure I do,” I said.

  She told me.

  I blushed.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until the waiter had arrived with our salads and we were both busy shoveling lettuce into our mouths that she glanced over at me. “Aren’t you going to ask me about what happened this weekend?”

  “I don’t want to pry…” I began.

  Lila snorted. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook all week, and I’ve talked myself hoarse. So don’t be shy. You want to hear about it?”

  “If you don’t mind telling me,” I said.

  She grinned. “Not at all. It was... interesting.”

  “Don’t you mean scary?”

  “Not as much as you’d think. You’ve probably read the stories, right?”

  I nodded.

  “There were four of them, I think, and they tied me to a chair in the kitchen, before they stripped the house and left.”

  “That’s what I heard,” I said. “What was the interesting part?”

  Lila smiled. “The interesting part was the guy who did the tying-up.”

  “What about him?”

  “Oh, girlfriend!” She rolled her eyes expressively. “This guy was hot!”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “How do you know? I thought they wore masks. That’s what the newspapers said.”

  “They did. But I could see the way he moved. And his eyes. They were this really deep, dark brown – almost black – and with the most amazing eyelashes. And he had this really sexy voice. Listen to this: before they left, he came into the kitchen and sat on the table in front of me, and then he brushed the hair out of my face and told me to be good…”

  I dropped my fork. It clattered on the edge of the plate, but for once I wasn’t aware of the horrible breach of manners. “Oh, my God! He touched you? Weren’t you scared?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Lila said. “Though you might have been scared. I suggested that maybe he’d like to tie me to the bed instead.”

  She smiled. I stared at her, and I’m sorry to have to report
that my mouth was hanging open. At least it wasn’t full. “Are you insane?”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t know this guy from Adam! He might hurt you!”

  “He didn’t seem like the type,” Lila said.

  I rolled my eyes. “That’s probably what they said about Ted Bundy.”

  “I doubt it.” She kept forking up lettuce, unrepentantly.

  I closed my mouth and made an attempt to sound more worldly when I opened it again. “What did he say? When you asked him to tie you to the bed?”

  “He declined. Very nicely. Some other time, darlin’.” She lowered her voice to a husky baritone, then grinned at my stupefied expression. I smiled back, automatically, and lowered my eyes to the Caesar. Silence reigned, broken only by the clinking of silverware and muted chewing. Not from me; any appetite I’d had was gone and I was pushing the croutons around on my plate, too busy thinking to be able to process chewing and swallowing right now.

  After a minute or two I ventured, “You’d probably recognize his voice, right?”

  “If I heard it again? Sure. He picked up one of my business cards and put it in his pocket, and then he winked. I keep hoping he’ll call!” She sighed.

  “Oh, surely not!” I said, and then caught myself. “I mean, really, Lila. Don’t be stupid. I appreciate the fact that you thought he was attractive, but if he calls, put him off and then call the police. Please. Don’t take any chances with someone you don’t know.”

  “Don’t worry about me, girlfriend. I can take care of myself.”

  After a second, she added, “Although he’ll probably never call.”

  “Probably not,” I admitted. At least I hoped he wouldn’t.

  Lila grinned. “And meanwhile, if you don’t want this Collier-guy for yourself, you can always send him my way.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said, although I knew that it would be a cold day in hell before I put Lila Vaughn and Rafe Collier together.

  * * *

  We parted company after another fifteen minutes or so, with more air kisses and promises to get together again soon. I let my forced and cheerful smile slide off my lips as I walked to my car.

  Exactly one week prior to my lunch with Lila, almost to the minute, I had made myself a vow. That was when I had visited 101 Potsdam Street to give Rafe the last of the paperwork pertaining to his grandmother’s house – the house where Walker Lamont had killed Brenda Puckett – and it had also been when, to show his gratitude, he had kissed me. Rafe, I mean, not Walker. Walker bats for the other team.

  Because of a distressing tendency to pass out every time Rafe comes into my personal space, I can’t give you any of the details, but I know I promised myself that if I survived with my virtue and sanity intact, I would stay away from him in the future. It was with the utmost trepidation that I dialed the only telephone number I had for him, and waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the line.

  “Storage,” a gruff voice grunted. I hesitated. The first time I’d called the number, it had belonged to a car lot; the second time, a pawn shop.

  “This is... um... Savannah Martin?” I phrased the statement as a question, expecting some sort of acknowledgement. None came. But at least the phone wasn’t hung up, so I decided to push on as if everything was normal. “I’m trying to get in touch with Rafe Collier.”

  “Nobody here by that name,” the voice said. It was familiar. (No, it didn’t belong to Rafe. This guy’s name was Wendell. I’d met him once. Briefly.)

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I need to reach him rather urgently. Maybe you’d be so kind as to pass on the message if you happen to see him?”

  Wendell didn’t say a word, although he didn’t hang up, either.

  “Thanks,” I said, and severed the connection myself, wondering – not for the first time – about the people Rafe was involved with.

  * * *

  Seven o’clock saw me back at Fidelio’s again, greeting the same gray-haired maitre d’ as had been here for the lunch shift. “Welcome back, signorina,” he said politely, bowing, “good evening, signor.”

  Todd nodded, frowning. I could tell he was curious, but he contained himself until we were seated at a table in the romantic, dusky section of the restaurant, where big, ferny plants provided plenty of cover and tinkling fountains drowned out private conversations. “What did he mean, welcome back? Have you been here recently?”

  “Lunch,” I said succinctly.

  Todd looked at me, suspiciously. “It wasn’t with Collier, was it? I thought you said you wouldn’t be seeing him again, now that he’s got his grandmother’s house back.”

  “I haven’t seen Rafe for more than a week,” I said calmly. It was a week and approximately six and a half hours, but who was counting? “If it’ll make you feel better, you can ask the maitre d’. I had lunch with a girlfriend. Her name is Lila Vaughn.”

  And may I state for the record that under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be eating at Fidelio’s twice in one day. I live on crackers and canned tuna the rest of the time; it’s only when someone else is footing the bill that I get to go to places like this. I had scraped the bottom of my checking account to pay for my half of the lunch today, and I wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay for dinner.

  One thing about Todd, he’s easily distracted. “Wasn’t she the one who was assaulted this weekend? At that open house?”

  I nodded. “Although assaulted wasn’t really...”

  “I read about it in the paper,” Todd interrupted. “You’re being careful, aren’t you, Savannah?”

  I told him I was. “But apparently it wasn’t as big a deal as the news made it sound. The robbers didn’t touch her, and she wasn’t shaken up much at all. She was more disappointed that the man who tied her to the chair didn’t choose to take advantage of her.”

  “Oh.” Todd wrinkled his aristocratic noise. “One of those.”

  I shrugged. There’s something about a remark like that, that makes it almost irresistible to say something even worse, just for shock value. And Lila was my friend; I didn’t want him to think poorly of her. However, anything I said to Todd had a way of getting back to my mother and brother in Sweetwater, so I resisted the temptation.

  “I have to host an open house this weekend,” I said instead, “so I wanted to find out as much as I could about what had happened, just to be prepared. Plus, Lila and I are friends. I thought she might need a shoulder to cry on.”

  “Not everyone is as sensitive as you, Savannah,” Todd said. I simpered. Until he changed the subject. He was like a dog worrying a bone. “So you haven’t seen Collier at all?”

  “Not since last Thursday. I already told you that.” And between you and me, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him again. Not after that kiss. I mean, what would I say the next time we met? Should I make reference to it, or pretend it never happened? And what if he tried to kiss me again?!

  “Are you all right, Savannah?” Todd inquired solicitously. I looked at him, blankly, and he added, “You’re flushed. Here’s the waiter. Would you like some ice water?”

  “I think I’m OK, thanks. I was just... um... thinking.” I smiled graciously at the hovering waiter. “White wine, please.”

  “And signor?”

  Todd ordered a glass of Merlot, and the waiter withdrew. Todd added, “I’m sorry if my talking about it is upsetting you, Savannah. It’s just that I know Collier, and he’s not someone a nice girl like you should get involved with. I’m concerned about you.”

  “And I appreciate your concern,” I said, just like I had done all the other times he had told me the same thing, “but you don’t have to be. I’m not involved with Rafe, and I don’t see any way that I ever will be. You seem to be forgetting that I went to school with him too, and heard all the same stories you did.”

  Todd didn’t look mollified. “You’re a lady, Savannah. There are stories nobody would have told you.”

  Before I could ask, the waiter show
ed up with our drinks and hovered, obsequiously. Todd ordered veal piccata, I asked for chicken marsala. The waiter withdrew.

  “So tell me what’s going on in Sweetwater this week,” I said brightly, before Todd could return to the previous subject. It wasn’t that I minded his concern, exactly; it was more that his harping seemed a little misplaced. We hadn’t been dating exclusively since high school, and although I still liked and cared for Todd, and hoped he felt the same way about me, I didn’t think that our current relationship was such that he had any right to question how I spent my time. I certainly wouldn’t presume to question how he spent his. Obviously Todd disagreed.

  We talked about home and people we both knew until the food arrived, and then Todd began regaling me with stories from his work. Like everyone else in my family, and like my unlamented ex-husband Bradley, Todd is a lawyer. But where my brother Dix and my brother-in-law Jonathan specialize in family and inheritance law, and where Bradley is a divorce attorney, Todd has gone into criminal law. He worked in the district attorney’s office in Columbia, while he lived with his daddy in a big four-square in the heart of Sweetwater.

  The waiter brought our food in the middle of one of his amusing anecdotes about life at the courthouse, and Todd kept talking between bites. I smiled, nodded, and nibbled while I listened. It wasn’t necessary for me to say anything; he kept the conversation going all by himself, with just the occasional encouraging murmur from me.

  We were just getting to the end of dinner when my cell phone rang. My heart sank, along with my stomach. Of all the times for Rafe to return my call...!

  “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Todd asked, looking at me. I avoided his eyes by flipping the phone open to look at the display. I didn’t recognize the number, but that didn’t mean anything. “It could be important.”

  “I doubt it,” I answered, putting the phone down next to my plate, where it kept sounding the Alleluia-chorus. “I think I know who it is, and I don’t really want to talk to him right now.”