[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “Nothing,” I said. “I’m not staying.”

  “Suit yourself. You done, hon?” She turned to Rafe. He nodded. “Here you go.” She handed him his check and moved off.

  “They must really want the table,” I said. Rafe nodded.

  “You ready?”

  “I’ll wait outside.” I knew I should just get in my car and drive away, especially now that the old biddies and gents probably thought I’d come to Beulah’s specifically for a three minute conversation with him before the two of us left together. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, though.

  “Do you think something’s wrong?” I asked two minutes later, when he came through the door, putting on a pair of mirrored sunglasses.

  “With Yvonne?” He shrugged. “Why’d you think that?”

  “Because she was fine yesterday. And she doesn’t seem the type who’d just not show up for work without calling in. If she can.”

  “Maybe she had company last night,” Rafe suggested with a grin.

  It was my turn to raise my brows. Both of them, since I can’t lift one at a time the way he can. “If you’re suggesting that you stopped by her house yesterday and made her too tired to walk this morning, you can spare yourself the trouble. I’ve spent the night with you, and I could still get out of bed the next day.”

  I bit my tongue, a little too late. And looked around guiltily. Nobody was near enough to have heard me. Praise the Lord.

  Rafe chuckled. “You know, darlin’, one of these days you’re gonna end up being practically human.”

  “I’m practically human now.”

  “Yeah?” He switched subjects. “I’m parked round back. You can follow me over there if you want.”

  “To Yvonne’s house? I know where it is.”

  “Course you do.” He walked away. I made my way over to the Volvo and got in. By the time I had the engine started and the car running, he was leaving the parking lot.

  I got to Yvonne’s house about thirty seconds after he did. He was still sitting on the bike at the curb, and as I pulled to a stop behind him, I was reminded of the first time we’d met. The first time in twelve years, anyway. It had been the first week of August, outside Mrs. Jenkins’s house, and when I saw him, he’d been straddling this same motorcycle, wearing what looked like these same faded jeans and this same black T-shirt. As well as these same sunglasses. And back then, before I recognized him and realized who—and what—he was, I’d taken one look at him and been floored by that raw sex-appeal he exuded. Followed half a second later by apprehension: this was not someone a nice girl should be getting involved with. My instincts had been screaming at me to stay away from him, to stay in the car and get the hell out of there. If I’d listened...

  But that was water under the bridge. I opened the car door and got out. Rafe swung his leg over the bike and stood, as well. “Almost like old times, ain’t it?”

  Obviously I wasn’t the only one who remembered. “Let’s hope the outcome is a little better this time. I’d just as soon not stumble over another bloody corpse.”

  Rafe didn’t answer. Which told me more about his expectations than a response would have done.

  We went up to the front door and knocked.

  “There’s a back door, too,” I said after a minute, when there’d been no answer. “And the ground is higher. We can see in.”

  Rafe glanced at me, but refrained from comment. He pulled the bottom of his T-shirt out of the waistband of his jeans and used it to try the doorknob. When the door turned out to be locked, he agreed to check around back.

  We walked around the house, past the small, white car that was still parked under the carport. If I looked closely, I could see my footprints from last night; the way my spiky heels had sunk into the soft ground. Thank God I was wearing heels again today; maybe nobody had to know that I’d been here last night.

  The back door was locked, as well. “That’s the guest bedroom,” I said when Rafe walked toward the nearest window. He quirked a brow, and I blushed. “I... um... stopped by last night.”

  His voice was dry. “Since you’ve been here before and I haven’t, you care to tell me where Yvonne’s bedroom is?”

  “There.” I pointed.

  He met my eyes as he walked past, to the window and peered in. And breathed a curse. “You’d better call 911, darlin’.”

  “The police?” I had my phone out and was already dialing.

  “An ambulance.”

  “Oh, no.” I could feel my stomach turn. “What?”

  “No idea. Can’t see much. She’s in the living room, and there’s a lot of blood.” His voice was tight.

  On the other end of the telephone, the 911 operator answered, and I had to pull myself together to tell her who I was and what had happened. Of course it took me a few seconds to remember where I was, but eventually I managed to get the right address out. “She’s inside the house. We can see her through the window. The door is locked, though. Do we kick it in, just in case she’s still alive and there’s something we can do for her? Or wait for the ambulance?”

  “We?” the 911 operator said.

  “I mean, if she’s dead, I don’t want to mess up the crime scene. Bad enough that I’ve been walking all over the yard. But if she’s alive, I don’t want her to die while I’m standing out here talking to you.”

  “The ambulance will be there in less than five minutes.”

  I relayed this to Rafe, who shook his head. “Never mind,” I told the 911 operator as I watched him put his foot to the door, right next to the lock. “Looks like we’re going in.”

  The door exploded with a splintering noise, and Rafe tumbled through. I ran up the steps and followed, explaining to the 911 operator what I was doing as I did it.

  “I’m in the kitchen. There’s nothing here. I’m walking into the dining room. Nothing here either. The living room... oh, dear God...”

  Rafe hadn’t wasted any time, but had gone directly to where he knew Yvonne was, on the floor in front of the sofa. He was kneeling next to her, the knees of his jeans in what would have been a pool of blood had the floor been hardwood. Yvonne had wall to wall carpet everywhere, and he was on his knees in soggy carpet fibers.

  Unlike Marquita, whom Detective Grimaldi had told me was shot in the head, Yvonne had been stabbed or shot in the chest. And she had bled a lot. The white T-shirt—the same one she’d worn when I caught a glimpse of her through the window last night—was soaked through, and there was blood all the way down to her thighs. Some on her knees and the palms of her hands too. Maybe she’d tried to crawl, or to drag herself to the phone for help.

  “What do you see?” the operator prompted. I began to recite facts as I watched Rafe reach out and put two fingers against the side of Yvonne’s throat.

  After a few seconds he moved them, reaching for her wrist instead. His face was grim.

  “I think she’s dead,” I told the operator. And stopped when Rafe shook his head. “No?”

  “There’s a pulse. Very weak.” He glanced up, his eyes flat black. “How long before the ambulance gets here?”

  “You should hear them any second now,” the operator said when I asked. I went to unlock and open the front door and stepped out on the stoop, straining my ears. “Is this a crime, ma’am? Do you need the police?”

  “Please.” It was unlikely that her chest had exploded on its own, so yes, I was pretty sure someone had committed a crime. I breathed deeply of the fresh air outside. There was that coppery scent of blood in the air inside the house, that took me back to 101 Potsdam Street and Brenda Puckett’s body. The world got a little woozy.

  “You OK?” Rafe said. He’d gotten to his feet, as well, and come out on the stoop with me. There was blood on his knees, and on his hands, otherwise he might have steadied me. When we found Brenda’s body, and again after he killed Perry Fortunato, he’d had to carry me out of the room.

  I nodded, my teeth chattering.

  “Sit. Put your head down.�
� He nodded to the front step, but didn’t move to touch me. I sat. And closed my eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths. In the distance, I could hear the ambulance approaching.

  It was the usual drill after that. Except for one very important thing. Yvonne was still alive, so instead of worrying about the crime scene, the paramedics hooked her up to fluids and put her on a gurney, before hurrying her out of there. While they were doing that, a police car arrived, and Bob Satterfield took one look at Yvonne going past before he turned to us.

  He greeted me first, although I could tell that he was a whole lot more interested in Rafe. “Savannah.”

  “Sheriff.” I was still sitting on the top step, woozy all over again from watching Yvonne go by.

  The sheriff turned to Rafe. Didn’t say anything, just watched him for a few moments. A few long moments. Just as I was about to break the silence, he finally spoke. “Been a while.”

  “Not that long.” Rafe’s face was composed. “Just a couple months since you and your son and Cletus Johnson came knocking on my door in the Bog. To talk.”

  This was the occasion when Cletus and Rafe had exchanged black eyes.

  Bob Satterfield looked past him into the house. “What happened here?”

  Rafe shrugged. “Don’t know. Someone shot her, looks like. Sometime overnight. No idea who or why.”

  Sheriff Satterfield turned to me. “Savannah?”

  “I went to have breakfast at Beulah’s,” I said. “Yvonne works there. I wanted to ask her something. But she wasn’t there. The other waitress said she didn’t come to work this morning. I thought something might be wrong, so I left there and came here.”

  “Alone?” Bob Satterfield’s gaze skimmed over Rafe.

  “We came together. Sort of. Separately, but together.” I could tell the explanation made things worse, so I started over. “Rafe was at Beulah’s when I got there. When I said I wanted to come here to check on Yvonne, he came along. On the bike. While I drove the Volvo.”

  Like I said. Separately, but together.

  The sheriff turned back to Rafe. “How d’you know Yvonne McCoy?”

  “We all went to school together,” I said, “remember? Todd and Dix, me and Charlotte, Yvonne McCoy, Rafe... All in different years, but together.”

  The sheriff nodded, but continued to interrogate Rafe. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  I could see a muscle jump in Rafe’s jaw, but he answered calmly enough. “Yesterday. At the funeral.”

  “You were there?”

  “Marquita Johnson worked for me,” Rafe said, his voice tight. “I’d known her for fifteen years. Yeah, I was there.”

  “I saw him,” I contributed. “So did Dix. And Yvonne.”

  The sheriff kept his eyes on him. “The two of you talked?”

  “For a minute.”

  “What about?”

  That muscle jumped in Rafe’s jaw again. “She came over to say hello. I hadn’t seen her for twelve years. She told me to stop by sometime, if I was planning to stay in town.”

  “And did you? Stop by?”

  Rafe shook his head.

  “Where were you last night?”

  Rafe said he’d spent the night in the Bog.

  “In the trailer? I don’t suppose anyone can verify that?”

  “Don’t suppose anyone can,” Rafe agreed. “I didn’t see nobody, so I don’t imagine anybody saw me.”

  I certainly hadn’t, when I knocked on the door.

  “I think you’d better come down to the sheriff’s office with me, son.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “You’re arresting him? For what?”

  The sheriff turned to me. “I ain’t arresting him, darlin’. I just have some more questions I need to ask. And I think we’d all be a lot happier away from here. Especially when the crime scene unit comes in.”

  “The Sweetwater sheriff’s office has a crime scene unit now?”

  “They’re comin’ from Nashville. Soon’s I heard you were involved,” he looked at both of us, but I think he directed it more to Rafe than to me, “I called’em in. Figured maybe there’s a connection to Marquita’s murder.”

  Oh, God. My mind hadn’t quite put the pieces together yet, but I saw what he was getting at. Except he was getting at something totally different than I was getting at. As usual, the Sweetwater sheriff was perfectly happy to believe Rafe guilty of anything that happened anywhere in or around Sweetwater.

  I was more concerned that Jorge Pena had struck again. What if he’d been at the cemetery after all yesterday? Just because I hadn’t seen him, didn’t mean he couldn’t have been there. What if he’d seen Rafe and Yvonne kiss? Maybe that was his little white car I’d seen Yvonne lean into when Dix and I drove out of the lot. Maybe he’d come knocking on her door later in the evening, hoping that Rafe would be there and he could finally finish the job I assumed he was getting paid to do. Yvonne would have opened the door to him. Jorge was male and fairly good-looking, and Yvonne wasn’t known for her good sense. And then maybe he’d told her what he had planned, or maybe she figured it out on her own, and when she tried to take the gun away from him, he’d shot her. And then he’d left, thinking she was dead.

  “Come along, son,” Bob Satterfield said, not unkindly. “Let’s go.”

  He gestured for Rafe to precede him down the stairs.

  “What about me?” I asked, as Rafe brushed by, holding my eyes for a second on the way past.

  “You can go on home, darlin’. Tell your mother I’ll call her later.”

  “This isn’t fair,” I said, watching as the two of them walked through the yard. Rafe got on his bike, over the sheriff’s objections, and then headed down the street while the sheriff scrambled into the police car. By the time Rafe turned the corner where I had parked last night, the sheriff had caught up. They went off together.

  Chapter Eighteen

  For a second I just stood there, dithering. The door was locked—the sheriff had locked it behind him—although the back door was still open, since Rafe had kicked it in. The sheriff might not realize that, as none of us had told him. I had no desire to go back into the house. If there were any clues to be found, Tamara Grimaldi’s team of crime scene investigators would find them when they got here.

  After a moment, I sat back down on the stoop and dialed her number. “Detective? Savannah Martin.”

  I could hear from the background, the low buzz, that I’d caught her in the car. Her voice sounded far away. “Where are you?”

  “Sitting outside Yvonne McCoy’s house in Damascus.”

  “We’re on our way. ETA thirty minutes. Tell the sheriff.”

  “He’s gone,” I said. “He took Rafe with him down to the sheriff’s office. To ask him more questions.”

  I thought I was calm, but my voice wobbled on that last sentence. Tamara Grimaldi was silent for a second. “Sheriff Satterfield thinks Mr. Collier had something to do with this attempt on Ms. McCoy’s life?”

  “Sheriff Satterfield is perfectly happy to lay anything criminal that happens anywhere in Maury County at Rafe’s door. It’s a habit.” From the days when Rafe lived here and was in trouble more often than he was out of it.

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” Tamara Grimaldi said. “I’ve seen his record. Juvenile and adult.”

  “I didn’t know he had a juvenile record.”

  “It’s small stuff. Some joyriding and drunk and disorderly conduct. Misdemeanors, mostly. Nothing serious enough to land him inside.”

  Under different circumstances I might have tried to find out more. At the moment, I couldn’t care less about Rafe’s juvenile record. “What do I do now?”

  “Sheriff Satterfield didn’t want you?”

  “He’s got Rafe,” I said, “so no. Of course not.”

  She sighed. “What do you want me to do, Savannah?”

  “I’m not sure. I just feel like someone should do something. Should I call my brother? He’s a lawyer. So is my sis
ter. And my brother-in-law.”

  “Do you think Mr. Collier needs representation?”

  “I have no idea. But I know he didn’t do this.”

  “Maybe he can prove that,” Detective Grimaldi said. “Maybe he has an alibi for last night.”

  “He doesn’t. He spent the night in the Bog. The trailer park where he grew up. It’s deserted now. The houses are all condemned. Nobody is supposed to be there. And when I stopped by at nine o’clock last night, he wasn’t, either.”

  “Wonderful,” the detective said grimly. “All right. I’ll contact Wendell Craig and tell him what’s going on. Between the TBI thing and this new development with Jorge Pena, there may be good reasons why Mr. Collier is safer behind bars.”

  An icy fist wrapped around my stomach and closed. “What new development?”

  “Nothing you don’t already know. That we’ve identified Mr. Pena and that he’s a contract killer. Mr. Craig has put out some feelers and confirmed the contract, by the way. Jorge Pena is in Middle Tennessee to kill Mr. Collier.”

  The news didn’t come as a shock. Even so, my voice was a little shaken when I asked, “Who wants him dead?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far yet. Let me get off the phone so I can call Mr. Craig, OK?”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just act normally,” Detective Grimaldi said. “When I know anything, I’ll call you.” She hung up.

  I did the same, groaning. Act normally. Great.

  When a voice spoke out of the blue, I jumped. I’d been so involved in my phone call I hadn’t noticed one of the neighbors sneaking across the grass toward me.

  All right, so maybe I shouldn’t say that she snuck. She was a big woman, with a friendly round face and a low, pleasant voice. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “That’s OK.” I tried to convince my heart rate to return to normal.

  “I’m Millie Ruth Durbin.” She held out a plump hand.

  “Nice to meet you. I’m Savannah Martin.” We shook.

  Millie Ruth tucked her soft paws into the pockets of her capacious house coat. “From Sweetwater? Catherine and Dixon’s little sister?”