Contract Pending

by Jenna Bennett

  “Would you like me to come look at mug shots?”

  I could practically hear her eyes roll. “You can if you want. But let me warn you, it’ll take you the rest of the day, if not longer. Nashville is full of men with black hair and brown eyes. Plenty of them are close to six feet tall. And that’s assuming he has a record. And is from Nashville.”

  “Right.” Probably not worth the trouble, then. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Jenkins, I might have been tempted—now that Gary Lee and Charlene’s appraisal was done, I didn’t have anything else to do for the rest of the day, and I’d rather be doing something than nothing—but I was damned if I was going to make Mrs. J sit in a room in Police Plaza watching mug shots scroll by on the computer for eight hours. “We’ll just keep an eye out.”

  “You do that,” Detective Grimaldi said, and hung up.

  Chapter 6

  Mrs. J and I spent the rest of the day running around. We went to the office, where I responded to a couple of emails and endured Tim’s snarky attempts at humor. We went to the mall, where I replaced my kiss-proof lipstick and my copy of Barbara Botticelli’s “Desire Under the Desert Moon.” We went to the movies, and watched an animated Disney film about woolly mammoths and dinosaurs that was a big hit with all the kids in the audience and with Mrs. J. We went to dinner at Burger King, since that was what Mrs. Jenkins wanted. She walked away with a plastic woolly mammoth that came in her chicken nugget kid’s meal, and she was delighted. Though I usually avoid fast food places, I didn’t object, since the meal only set me back ten bucks, versus the twenty I would have spent elsewhere, and since it so obviously made her happy.

  We drove across town in every direction at least twice, coming and going, and I kept an eye peeled for black SUVs with tinted windows. It did me no good. There are just too many. I hadn’t really noticed what kind of black SUV we had seen this morning, and as it turns out, there are lots of varieties. Jeeps and Hummers, Nissans, Hondas, Lexus, Mercedes... And frankly, I didn’t even know that the black SUV from this morning had anything to do with anything. Or that the white Toyota I’d seen a few times over the past couple of days did. If that had been the same white Toyota every time, and not several. If it had been a Toyota at all, and not a Honda. Or a Nissan. There are plenty of all of them out there. We didn’t see the Hispanic man again, anyway, or anyone else I recognized either.

  We got back home—back to the house on Potsdam Street—after dark, and I must admit my heart was beating faster when I unlocked the front door and reached around the jamb to flip the light switch. Once upon a time, just after Brenda Puckett’s murder, I’d had a bad experience here, doing that same thing: walking up to what I thought would be an empty house, only to find someone inside. It had only been Mrs. Jenkins, escaped from the Milton House yet again, but at the time, it had scared me out of my mind. I had left the door wide open and had turned on my heel and hightailed it out of there with a spurt of gravel. If I could have done the same thing now, I would have.

  I couldn’t, though. I had to go inside and make sure we were safe. And I’ll frankly admit that my heart was pounding as I checked the place from top to bottom once I’d locked and bolted the door behind us.

  No one was there. No one seemed to have been there, either. Everything was in its place, nothing was out of order, there was no sign that anyone had been inside the house during the time we’d been gone.

  It was not even eight o’clock, but poor Mrs. Jenkins was worn out from the busy day we’d had; much busier than the poor dear was used to. She went to bed. After checking and rechecking that the front and back doors were locked and that all the windows were securely fastened, I went upstairs, too. Changed into my lacy nightie and crawled into Rafe’s bed, where I tried to get lost in the adventures of beautiful, blonde Serena and handsome, swarthy Sheik Hasan.

  No sooner had I found my place in the book, than the phone rang. My cell phone, plugged in and charging on the floor next to the bed.

  Rafe didn’t have a bedside table. I had stopped myself before I tried to figure out where he kept his condoms, although I can’t deny that the thought had crossed my mind. For a tenth of a second or so before I banished it. Maybe he just didn’t entertain here, I’d told myself. The idea that he might have been with someone, in the same bed I was sleeping in, was more disturbing than I wanted to admit, even to myself.

  Anyway, I rolled over onto my stomach and flipped the phone open, squinting at the display down there on the floor. And I thank God I did, because if I had answered without checking first, all hell would have broken loose.

  “Oh, no.”

  It was Todd.

  And suddenly I remembered what I’d forgotten in the whirlwind of the last two days: that I was supposed to have had dinner with him tonight. A date I hadn’t remembered to call and cancel. Todd must have driven up to Nashville from Sweetwater, to pick me up. Only to find a decoy, maybe an undercover police officer, in my apartment.

  “Oh, no!”

  Did the undercover cop know where I was, I wondered? Had she told him? Was Todd even now on his way over here? I tried not to imagine the look on his face when he saw me in a lacy nightgown snuggled up in Rafe’s bed. Even without Rafe around. Maybe I should get dressed again, just in case Todd knocked on the door.

  But no, surely my lookalike didn’t know where I was; surely Tamara Grimaldi would have kept that information to herself. Wouldn’t she...?

  In any case, I really ought to answer the phone, to set Todd’s mind at ease. Even if he didn’t know that I was here, specifically, he’d be worried that I wasn’t at home. Chances were that the undercover cop had told him what had happened, even if she hadn’t been able to tell him where to find me. I mean, Todd Satterfield wasn’t just anybody: he was the assistant district attorney in Columbia, and he wouldn’t have scrupled to put pressure on if he had to. I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the phone, though. If I talked to Todd, he’d ask me where I was staying, and then I’d either have to tell him the truth, which would send the manure winging its way toward the fan, or I’d have to lie. Something I do very poorly. So instead of answering, I watched the display until the call went to voicemail, and then I started breathing again.

  He didn’t call back. After a minute, the phone sounded the new voicemail ding, and I steeled myself to listen to Todd’s message.

  It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. “Savannah? This is Todd. I’m standing outside your apartment, but you’re not here. Someone else is. Her name is Megan, and she says she’ll be staying for a few days, while you’re away. You didn’t tell me you were going away, Savannah. You didn’t call to cancel our date, either. I’m worried about you. Where are you? Please call me.”

  And that was it. I gnawed on my bottom lip for a second while I debated what to do. If I didn’t do something, he’d be talking to mother and Dix in no time flat. It didn’t seem as if Megan the undercover cop had told him what had happened—it sounded like she had pretended to be a friend house sitting for me while I was elsewhere—but still, that was enough to make Todd, Dix, and mother worried. Just the fact that they didn’t know where I was.

  I didn’t want to call Todd, and I couldn’t call my mother, who’d have an aneurism if she discovered where I was. But maybe I could call Dix. I’ve had him run interference for me before, and he knows a little more about my practically non-existent relationship with Rafe than the rest of the family. Of everyone, Dix is least likely to judge me. Or if he judges me, at least he’s fairly nice about it.

  “Where are you?” were the first words out of his mouth when he picked up the phone.

  I sighed. “Obviously you’ve already heard from Todd.”

  “He called two minutes ago, to say you weren’t at home when he came to pick you up for dinner. Where are you?”

  “Staying with a friend. My apartment was broken into yesterday.”

  “Damn,” Dix said after taking a second to process the news. “Todd didn’t mention that.”

  “He p
robably didn’t know. Megan wouldn’t have told him.”

  “Who’s Megan?”

  “She’s a police officer who’s staying in my apartment for a few days. Supposedly she looks like me.”

  “Todd didn’t mention that, either,” Dix said. “How did you swing an undercover officer after a simple break-in?”

  “Detective Grimaldi thought that with everything that’s been going on in my life this fall, it was better to be safe. Just in case this has something to do with Walker Lamont or Perry Fortunato.”

  “Right.” Dix hesitated. “Are you all right, sis?”

  “I’m fine. I wasn’t home when it happened.”

  “So where are you now?”

  “I told you. I’m staying at a friend’s house. And I’d appreciate it if you’d call Todd back and tell him that I’m sorry for standing him up. Cancelling slipped my mind in all the excitement.”

  “Why can’t you call him yourself?” Dix wanted to know.

  “Because then I’ll have to tell him what happened and where...” I bit my tongue, but not soon enough.

  “Let me guess,” my brother said, his voice resigned, “you’re staying with Collier.”

  “I’m staying with Mrs. Jenkins. Rafe is still in Memphis. Or wherever he went. So no, I’m not staying with him. If he was here, I wouldn’t have to be. I’d come home to Sweetwater until things blow over. But since Marquita’s missing, Mrs. Jenkins needs someone to stay with her. And since she can’t stay with me, I’m here.”

  “Marquita Johnson’s missing?”

  “Apparently so. She left on Saturday afternoon for a half day off and never came back. Sheriff Satterfield is looking for her.”

  “Huh,” Dix said.

  “Right. Anyway, can you please talk to Todd for me? And tell him I’m fine and I’m sorry, but without telling him exactly where I am? You know he’ll have a fit if he finds out, and then he’ll tell mother, and she’ll have a heart attack.”

  “So I should do it to protect our mother’s health?”

  “That, and because you love me. You know the kind of trouble I’ll get into if mother and Todd find out about this.”

  “You should have thought of that,” Dix said and hung up. I grimaced and did the same.

  OK, so that hadn’t gone as well as I would have liked. Still, I thought I could trust Dix not to tell mother and Todd where I was. He’d call them and assure them I was fine, but he’d keep my whereabouts to himself. I hoped.

  The phone didn’t ring again, so whatever he’d told them must have done the trick. Tomorrow, I’d have to call Todd myself, to reassure him—he wouldn’t be satisfied until he heard my voice, and my personal apology—but for now at least, I could rest easy.

  That proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Between the worry over Todd’s and mom’s reactions and the encounter with Mr. Threatening earlier in the day, it took reading “Desire Under the Desert Moon” through to the end before I was ready to turn out the light. And even then I found sleep elusive. My mind spun, going over the events of the day. When I closed my eyes, the Hispanic man was looking at me with that lack of expression that had sent my stomach plummeting. The way he’d sounded when he told me that Rafe was alive, like it was just a matter of time before he wasn’t anymore, sounded in my ears. I re-experienced Mrs. Jenkins’s fear, palpable enough to touch. I saw the sinister tinted windows of that black SUV that might have been following us. Again, we drove across town, watching for it in the rearview mirror...

  It all translated into another uneasy night haunted by nightmares. I was running again, this time from the Hispanic man, who was coming after me with the sharp knife that had been used to slash my nightgown the other day. The sharp knife he was planning to use to slash the nightgown I was wearing, and me along with it. And I was running from mom and Todd as well; they were looking for me, to drag me back to Sweetwater and the Martin plantation, where they’d wrap me in cotton wool and put me on a shelf, up and away from harm. Under the circumstances, the idea should have held more appeal than it did.

  Through the middle of these dreams wove the plot of the book I had just read: I was the virginal Lady Serena, running from the lecherous Sayid Pasha and from the conventions of my proper British family. I was looking for someone to save me, not only from the harem but from a life of propriety and boredom as the wife of some chinless sprig of British nobility.

  Enter the dashing and dangerous Sheik Hasan, who, when he showed up in my subconscious, bore an uncanny resemblance to Rafe.

  After that, the dreams changed. The need to hurry, to run away, became a different sort of need; no less frantic and even less controlled, but not so terrifying. Or perhaps just as terrifying, but in a different way.

  So vivid were the dreams that the next morning, in that state between sleep and full wakefulness, with the sun shining on my closed eyelids, I could still feel the warmth of his body at my back and smell the citrusy, spicy scent I had come to associate with him. One of his hands was skimming lazily over my shoulder and arm, warm and hard, and I stretched luxuriously, lips curving with remembered pleasure. I’d feel guilty when I came back to my senses—a lady doesn’t entertain dreams like those, and if she does, she certainly doesn’t enjoy reliving them in the morning—but for the time being, I reveled in the warmth and smell and the drowsy heaviness. Until reality intruded, in the form of an insistent melody from my cell phone. My eyes popped open, the drowsiness gone. The hand, however, remained.

  For a second, I went as stiff as a board, in total shock and denial. There couldn’t really be a man in my bed, touching me. There hadn’t been a man in my bed for two years, and I’d certainly remember if I’d had one there when I went to sleep. The only logical explanation was that I was still asleep and I just thought I’d woken up.

  A soft chuckle gave the lie to that explanation. I knew that chuckle, and the voice that accompanied it. Sex-appeal incarnate, that voice. Dark and husky and full of things a woman shouldn’t be faced with at daybreak. “Morning, Goldilocks.”

  The ringing phone fell silent when I didn’t pick it up. I was afraid to turn around. “Rafe?”

  “Who else?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, cautiously. Just in case I was losing my mind and it was the man from yesterday, here to rape and kill me, to send a message to Rafe. Or just in case the past two years hadn’t happened, and I was still married to Bradley.

  I felt all the air go out of my lungs when I met a pair of brown eyes, long-lashed and dark as those on a Jersey cow, smudgy with fatigue.

  “Oh, my God. It is you.” I scrambled all the way around, not sure whether I wanted to throw myself around his neck in relief, or disappear under the covers in abject embarrassment. I compromised by pulling the sheet up to my nose and peering at him over it. “What are you doing here?”

  He quirked a brow, glancing around. “Don’t you think that oughta be my question, darlin’? You’re in my house, my room, my bed… Guess you musta missed me, huh?”

  I flushed. “Maybe just a little.”

  He grinned. “Looks like maybe more than a little.”

  I avoided his eyes. “Actually, I’m only here because of Marquita. Spicer and Truman found your grandmother wandering the streets two days ago, and she says Marquita never came home the day before that. They were going to take Mrs. Jenkins back to that awful place she was living when we met her, and I couldn’t let them do it. So I said I’d take care of her until Marquita came back or until I could get in touch with you and you could make other arrangements. But then someone broke into my apartment so we couldn’t stay there, and I didn’t want to sleep in Marquita’s bed, just in case she came back, and of course your grandmother’s in her own bed, but yours was just sitting here, empty…”

  Rafe’s grin had been getting wider and wider as I babbled on, trying to justify my actions. My reasoning had made perfect sense two days ago, but now, with him sitting on the edge of the bed looking like he wanted to crawl in beside me, I was
wondering what the hell I’d been thinking. If this ever got back to my mother, she’d drop into a dead faint on the spot.

  “Did you sleep well?” The end of that sentence hung in the air, unspoken. In my bed…

  I flushed. “Reasonably well.”

  “Dream of me?” He winked.

  “Not at all,” I said robustly.

  “Uh-huh. I’ve told you before, darlin’, you’re a lousy liar.”

  “Fine. So maybe you turned up in my dreams once or twice.” More like two or three dozen times, really, over the past few weeks, but telling him that would make him insufferable. More insufferable than he was already.

  His voice was smooth. “You know, darlin’, it’s OK to admit that you like me. Most women do.”

  “I’ve noticed,” I said. “Just out of curiosity, how many women threw themselves at you during the time you were gone? A dozen? Two?”

  “I wasn’t counting. Any chance you’ll be throwing yourself at me anytime soon?”

  “None at all.”

  “Pity.” His eyes slid over me, from my disheveled bed-hair over my naked shoulders down to the not very demure neckline of my nightgown, on display now that I’d forgotten to hold the sheet up to my chin. I blushed again, asking myself why on earth I hadn’t made sure to wear something that covered me a little better than this frothy confection of satin, ribbons and lace. Just in the unlikely event that he’d come home and catch me red-handed, so to speak.

  Or had I, in my heart of hearts, secretly wished that he’d arrive to find me sleeping in his bed? Wearing this nightgown that was as good as an invitation?

  I don’t know what showed on my face, but something did. His eyes turned darker and his lips softened in a way I’d seen before, usually as a precursor to his kissing me. And with me in my nightgown—and in his bed—that seemed like a very dangerous proposition. Before he could act on what I knew he was thinking, I put out a hand to stop him. The cotton of his T-shirt was soft against my palm, and I could feel the heat of his skin and the steady beat of his heart through the fabric. He glanced down, then up again. “No welcome home kiss?”