A Done Deal

by Jenna Bennett

  “Family?” the doctor asked, looking from one to the other of us.

  “Sister.”

  He inspected me for a second, through tired, baggy, still sharp eyes, but I must have passed muster, for he nodded. “She came through the surgery OK. There’s a couple of broken ribs, a punctured lung, some internal bleeding, and a lot of bruising from the seatbelt. There’s also a concussion and some injuries associated with whiplash. At the moment she’s still unconscious. You can see her for a moment if you want, but she won’t be awake.”

  “I want to,” Aislynn said, clutching my hand hard enough to hurt.

  I nodded. “Please. Just for a minute.”

  “Follow me.” The doctor headed down the hallway. We trotted after, to a room down the hall, dimly lit and with beeping machines.

  I let Aislynn duck in first, and turned to the doctor. “How is she, really?”

  He swept the cap off the top of his head and rubbed his eyes. “She’ll make it. We repaired the lung, but until it gets better able to do the work on its own, we’ll keep her on the ventilator. The ribs will hurt for a couple of weeks, but they’ll heal. The concussion will get better sooner, and so will the whiplash. We’ll keep the neck brace on for the next few days, at least.”

  “Will her insurance cover this?” Hopefully I hadn’t set myself up for extensive medical bills by claiming kinship to Kylie. That was all I needed; Vanderbilt Hospital sending me bills for one of my clients’ medical treatment. Bills I couldn’t pay.

  The doctor nodded. “It should.”

  “Good. Thank you.”

  He nodded. “I’m Simon Ramsey, if you have any other questions.”

  “I appreciate that.” I glanced through the door, where Aislynn was standing next to the bed, holding Kylie’s flaccid hand and murmuring. I could see the teardrops on her cheek catch the light from above. “I guess I should go in and see her now.”

  Simon Ramsey nodded. “If all goes well we’ll move her out of the ICU tomorrow, and into a regular room. Then anyone who wants to can visit her during visiting hours, not just family.”

  “She’ll appreciate that,” I said.

  “Tough situation to be in, when you’re unmarried, or can’t get married, and something happens to your partner, but you’re not considered family.” He nodded to me and left. I entered the room, softly.

  “How is she?”

  “Breathing.” Aislynn spared me a glance before turning her attention back to Kylie again. “She looks horrible.”

  “She’ll heal.” I recapped what Doctor Ramsey had said while standing on the other side of the bed looking down at the unconscious Kylie. “He didn’t seem worried about her survival. And really, it could have been a lot worse, I think.”

  Broken ribs and a punctured lung, a concussion and whiplash, didn’t seem too big a price to pay when I remembered those brick gates.

  “Sure could,” Aislynn said with a sniff and a shudder, while the medical machines continued their steady beep.

  “They won’t let you stay here tonight. But he said if all goes well, she’ll be in a regular room tomorrow, and then it won’t matter that you’re not a relative.”

  Aislynn nodded.

  “Why don’t you say goodnight, and I’ll drive you home. You won’t do her any good staying here. What she needs is rest. And so do you.”

  Aislynn nodded and, sniffing, she bent down and kissed Kylie’s forehead, the only part of her face she could easily reach. “I’ll see you tomorrow, babe.” She smoothed a hand over Kylie’s blonde hair and stepped back, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand.

  “Do you have a way to get to the hospital in the morning?” I asked twenty minutes later, when we were parked outside the condo complex where the girls’ apartment was. We’d driven mostly in silence, at least until we got to the part of Edmondson Pike where the accident had happened. The car was gone now, but the grooves where the tires had ripped through the grass and dirt on the way toward the brick gates was still very much in evidence, and the gate itself was reduced to a pile of rubble. That’s when Aislynn’s lips had started quivering and the tears began again.

  Aislynn nodded. “Scooter.” She indicated a cute little Italian-looking one parked a few spaces down.

  “The car is shot, I’m sure?”

  “Completely,” Aislynn said, wiping her eyes. “The police asked where they should have it towed, and I gave them the name of the place where Kylie takes it for maintenance. But I don’t think there’s anything they can do for it. The front is totally mashed in.”

  “Did you have insurance?”

  “Oh, sure. Kylie is good about that kind of thing.” She sniffed and reached for the door handle. “Thank you, Savannah.”

  “My pleasure,” I said, which was a little strange, I suppose, given the circumstances. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  She nodded. “You’ll call me if the hospital calls you, right?”

  “Of course. Um...” I shifted from one foot to the other.

  “What?” Aislynn said.

  “I was just wondering... I know it isn’t the right time, and you’ve got other things to worry about, but... you still want me to submit the offer for the house tomorrow morning, right?”

  I held my breath. And yes, I felt guilty asking, but I asked anyway. I have to make a living.

  “Kylie loved the house,” Aislynn said, as her eyes slowly filled with tears again.

  “Kylie still does. She isn’t dead.”

  “Right.” Aislynn blinked back the tears. “Yes, please. Submit the offer. Get us the house. It’ll make Kylie happy.”

  Excellent.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. Sooner, if they call from the hospital. But definitely once I hear about the house.”

  “Thank you, Savannah,” Aislynn said again. Impulsively, she leaned over and gave me a hug. “Good night.”

  “Good night.” I was wiping mascara stains off my cheek as I drove away.

  Chapter 8

  The hospital didn’t call, and Aislynn didn’t either. Nor did anyone else, for that matter. I got up the next morning and got dressed in business attire, since I had to attend the weekly sales meeting at the office. 9 AM Monday morning, like clockwork. For the first time ever, I was almost excited about it, since I actually had some good news to share. It’s not much fun sitting there listening to everyone else extol the virtues of their new listings or recounting how many offers they’ve written the week before. But for once, I had news of my own, so I didn’t mind too much.

  The meeting went about as expected. I sat through it, delivered my news, received my congratulations, and—after the meeting was over—handed Tim the offer with the following caveat. “The buyers were in a traffic accident last night.”

  “Oh, dear,” Tim said, looking up with a wrinkle between his brows. He’s in his mid-thirties, with bleach-blond hair and bright, baby-blue eyes, and a prettier-than-average face. He also has a brassy tenor voice. At one point he thought he’d make it on Broadway, but when that didn’t work out, he came back to Nashville and became a realtor instead. He’s quite good at it; probably better than he would have been at musical theatre, although I’m quite sure he would have enjoyed the applause.

  “One of them is in the hospital, and still unconscious.” At least I hadn’t heard differently so far this morning. “The other is fine. But I may have a problem getting signatures.”

  “But they still want the house?”

  I nodded. “They definitely still want the house. I made sure of it.”

  “I’ll present the offer to my sellers and let you know what they say,” Tim said. “It’ll probably be this evening before I get back to you.”

  I nodded. I’d expected that. “Thanks.”

  “My pleasure,” Tim said with a grin, and I knew he was thinking he’d be able to run circles around me in the negotiations. He probably would, too. Technically, we weren’t even supposed to do this. Tim was my broker, the one I was supposed to g
o to when I had problems; he wasn’t supposed to be on the other side of the transaction trying to take my clients for every dime they had.

  But oh, well... I’d muddle through somehow. And maybe I’d surprise him.

  Since I was there anyway, I spent a little time in my office, a converted coat closet off the reception area, checking the new listings and catching up on paperwork. It was while I was sitting there, scrolling through the morning’s new offerings, that my phone rang, showing Dix’s number.

  “Morning,” I told him.

  “Same to you,” my brother said. “I’ve got that information you wanted.”

  “About Maybelle’s first husband?” I grabbed a pen from the desk and dragged a piece of paper closer.

  “That’s it. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “Why not?”

  He told me. “The groom’s name was Joshua Rowland. The marriage took place in Natchez, Mississippi.”

  I put the pen down without writing anything. There was no way I’d forget this. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Dix said.

  “My mother-in-law’s name was Rowland.” Althea Rowland, of the Natchez Rowlands, an old and revered Southern family, same as the Martins.

  “Yes,” Dix said. “Small world, isn’t it?”

  Sure is. “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “Not much,” Dix said. “The marriage took place in Natchez City Hall. Joshua was quite a few years older than Maybelle. Forty eight at the time. She was twenty nine.”

  “So another May-December romance.”

  “So it seems,” Dix said. “I checked, but I couldn’t find another marriage for Joshua. This seems to have been his first.”

  Confirmed bachelor, maybe. Misogynist won over late in life. Or a geeky romantic who never found the love of his life before Maybelle came along.

  Chiding myself for cynicism, I asked, “Anything else?”

  “I don’t think so. Sorry, sis. There’s just not a whole lot of information to be had.”

  “Did you happen to look for divorce papers? Or are those harder to find?

  “They’re harder to find,” Dix said, “but they’re public record. I looked. I couldn’t find any.”

  So Maybelle and Joshua Rowland were either still married, making Maybelle a polygamist, or Joshua was dead. Like Harold.

  “I appreciate it. So are you going to tell me what you were doing the other night? And who you were with?”

  “No,” Dix said, and relented. “Dinner with a friend.”

  “A female friend?”

  Dix hesitated for long enough that I figured the answer had to be yes. “Anyone I know?”

  “No,” Dix said. “You don’t know her at all. Absolutely not.”

  Huh. I thought he protested too much. “Yvonne McCoy?”

  “God, no.” He sounded horrified. Yvonne was a woman we’d gone to high school with, who’d had a crush on him back then, and she was about as different from Sheila as it was possible for one woman to be from another. I wasn’t surprised that Yvonne didn’t appeal to my brother that way; I just couldn’t imagine anyone else he might be having dinner with. It wasn’t like he had a whole lot of female friends. And Charlotte, his girlfriend from high school, my best friend back then, lived in North Carolina, so it wasn’t her.

  “Marley Cartwright?” I ventured.

  Marley had been a friend of Sheila’s, and had gotten acquitted of murder—not Sheila’s murder—just a week or two ago. It was during that whole debacle that I’d managed to get myself shot. I supposed it was just possible that she and Dix had gotten together to reminisce about my late sister-in-law.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Dix said. “Marley just got reunited with her son. She won’t let him out of her sight for a year at least.”

  “Who, then?”

  “I told you,” Dix said. “You don’t know her.”

  “How can I not know her? I grew up in Sweetwater.” And it wasn’t like a whole lot of people had moved there in the past ten or twelve years.

  “Maybe she isn’t from Sweetwater,” Dix said.

  Huh. Maybe not. “Columbia? Pulaski? Nashville?”

  “Just let it go, sis,” Dix said. “There’s nothing going on. My wife died less than a month ago. I’m not ready for another relationship. It was dinner with a friend, that’s all. I like her, but it’s too soon to be anything but friends.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” Dix said. “If—or when—I go on a date, I’ll let you know, but until then, just leave it alone, if you don’t mind.”

  He was right. I apologized again, and we sat in silence for a moment.

  “Have you seen Collier?” Dix asked.

  I steeled myself against the reaction I knew was coming. Just the sound of his name brought it on. “Twice. First at Fidelio’s on Friday night. I was having dinner with Todd, he was having dinner with someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “No idea,” I said. “Pretty woman with long dark hair. Just his type.”

  “I thought you were his type,” my brother said.

  “Obviously not. Not after he got what he wanted from me.”

  Another few seconds passed. Then Dix said, “What about the second time?”

  “He knocked on my door later that night. Said he’d seen me at the restaurant and wanted to clear the air.”

  “And did he?”

  “No,” I said tightly, “he didn’t. All he did was tell me he was back in town and working. He didn’t say a word about the baby. Not one word.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course not! If he doesn’t care enough to bring it up, I’m certainly not going there!”

  “I see,” Dix said. “What about the woman? Did he say anything about her?”

  “Nothing. Just that she was none of my business.” The bastard.

  Another silence fell.

  “The reason I ask,” my brother said.

  “Yes?”

  “The DNA test came back for David Flannery.”

  “And?”

  “He’s the father.”

  “I see,” I said. “Was there ever any doubt?”

  Dix admitted there hadn’t been. “But it’s good to have it confirmed, officially.”

  “I suppose. I guess I don’t have to ask whether Elspeth was the mother?”

  “No,” Dix said, “you don’t. Do you want to tell him? I don’t have his number.”

  “I don’t either.” And whereas, in the past, I’d always been reasonably certain he’d turn up sooner or later, now I wasn’t. “Your best bet is to try to contact him through Detective Grimaldi. Do you still have the number?”

  Tamara had investigated Sheila’s murder, and she and my brother had met then. After I got shot and—incidentally—caught Sheila’s murderer, Dix was the one who had called her to impart the good and bad news.

  “I have it. I’ll try to get hold of him that way. Thanks, sis.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, and refrained from asking him to relay what, if anything, Rafe happened to say about me if Dix managed to get hold of him. “Thanks for the information about Maybelle and Joshua Rowland.”

  “You’re welcome. You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you, Savannah?”

  “Like what? I might call Bradley and ask him whether Joshua is a relative, but beyond that, there’s not a whole lot I can do. And it’s not like you have to worry about Bradley doing anything to me.”

  “True,” Dix admitted. “Just... hang in there, sis. OK?”

  “OK,” I said, and hung up.

  By the time I made it across town to Vanderbilt Hospital, it was almost lunch time. When I walked into Kylie’s new room, out of the ICU, she was awake, and Aislynn was sitting by the bed, feeding her bites of chocolate.

  “Are you sure she’s supposed to have that?” I said, and Aislynn turned to me with a big grin.

  “I don’t care. Look, Savannah! She’s awake!”

/>   “I can see that,” I said, wandering over to the bed and looking down. “Hi, Kylie. How do you feel?”

  “Crappy,” Kylie whispered, her voice hoarse.

  I nodded. She looked sort of crappy too, not that I’d tell her so. But at least she was conscious now, and breathing on her own. “I’m so sorry about what happened. But the doctor said you’ll be fine.” I gave her an encouraging smile.

  She nodded. He must have come by to tell her the same thing.

  “Any word on the house?” Aislynn wanted to know.

  I shook my head. “It’s too soon. I gave the offer to Tim a couple hours ago. He’ll have to call his clients. Depending on how they want to handle it—over the phone, by email, or in person—he might have to wait until tonight to present the offer. They’ll need time to think about it and decide what to do. We might not hear until tomorrow. Or we might hear later tonight. I’ll call you the second I know anything.”

  They both nodded.

  “Any idea when you’ll be out of here?” I asked Kylie.

  She shook her head. “I’m breathing on my own, but it’s uncomfortable. A couple of days, maybe.”

  “Do you have insurance to cover this?”

  “Yes, thank God. If it had been Aislynn...”

  She glanced at Aislynn, who made a face. “No health insurance at Sara Beth’s. And since we’re not married, Kyle can’t put me on her policy at work.”

  “I pay for my own,” I said. “There are no benefits in my line of work, either. I was on my husband’s policy while we were married, but that ended with the divorce.”

  And that reminded me: I had to call Bradley, to ask him about Joshua Rowland.

  I wasn’t looking forward to it. That was why I hadn’t called earlier, as soon as I got off the phone with Dix.

  I hadn’t seen Bradley in the more than two years since he divorced me and married Shelby, and although I was over him—completely and utterly—talking to him again might still prove to be awkward. I wouldn’t go out of my way to avoid him, he just wasn’t important enough for that, but I wouldn’t mind continuing not to see him, either.

  However, that didn’t seem to be a possibility, so when I left Kylie and Aislynn, with another promise to call them the minute I heard anything from Tim, I stopped in the Vanderbilt hospital lobby and pulled out my phone.