Hot Property

by Jenna Bennett

  “Well,” I said finally, into the awkward silence, “I guess we should get going.”

  Perry nodded. “Thank you for coming, Savannah. It was a pleasure to meet you.” He captured my hand and lifted it to his lips. They were moist and lingered just a fraction of a second too long. Rafe didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed.

  “Thank you, Mr. Fortunato,” I said politely, retrieving my hand. Before either of them could say anything else, I started down the stairs, leaving Rafe to follow. The door closed with a substantial thump by the time we’d descended a few steps.

  “What was that all about?” I asked in a low voice while Rafe deposited the bag he’d been carrying in the trunk of the Volvo. “Did he see the way his wife was looking at you, do you think? Is that why he was squaring off like he wanted to fight with you?”

  Rafe shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. Don’t like the way he looked at you.”

  “Funny,” I said lightly, “that’s exactly what Todd says about you.”

  He smiled. “Why d’you think I don’t like it?” He glanced up at the sun, hanging low over the treetops, and added, “How about some dinner?”

  I hesitated, squinting up at him. “Are you asking me out?”

  He arched a brow. “You don’t want me to ask you out?”

  I shook my head. Definitely not.

  “In that case I guess I ain’t.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having dinner. Just as long as we’re not going on a date.”

  His lips quirked. “I’m sure that makes sense to you.”

  “Look,” I said. “My family will disown me if it gets back to them that I went on a date with you. Another date with you. I’m still getting backlash from the first time. But if we’re just having dinner together, as business associates or what-not...”

  He shrugged. “Whatever works for you. Where do you want to go? Fidelio’s again?”

  God, no. I shook my head. “Somewhere where no one will know who I am.”

  Rafe grinned. “I know just the place.” He threw a long leg over the seat of the black Harley-Davidson parked behind the Volvo, and revved the engine. I slithered into my car and, when he had pulled around me, followed him down the driveway. As we turned onto the main road, I glanced back at the house and caught sight of someone standing by the window in what I thought must be the music room. But before I’d had a chance to determine whether it was Connie gazing longingly after Rafe, or Perry watching both of us drive away, the person had disappeared from view.

  Near the real estate office, there’s a neighborhood hangout called the FinBar. It’s a young, hip watering hole where young, hip professionals hang out after work and shoot the breeze and watch extreme sports and golf on big-screen TVs. The place Rafe took me also called itself a sports bar, but that was where the resemblance ended. The Shortstop was located off the beaten path, on a back road off Nolensville Pike in South Nashville, and people shot pool there, but not the breeze. From the outside, the small cinderblock building looked like a dive, and the inside was no better. There were TVs, true, but they weren’t big-screen and they didn’t show golf. There was NASCAR on one and pro wrestling on the other.

  The FinBar has mood-lighting and ceiling fans and lots of ferns and polished wood; the Shortstop’s mood was considerably darker, with Formica-topped tables and discarded kitchen chairs. I was afraid to lean back for fear of what might adhere to my dress, and when the gum-chewing waitress came to take our order, I had a hard time making out her features in the gloom. “What can I get you folks?” She was addressing both of us, but looking at Rafe. Nothing new there; every woman I’d ever met reacted the same way. Rafe opened his hand in my direction, indicating I should go first.

  “I don’t suppose you have any Sauvignon Blanc?” I inquired, without much hope.

  “Come again?”

  “Wine? White, preferably?”

  She turned to Rafe. “Where d’you find her, hon? Buckingham Palace?” She guffawed. I rolled my eyes.

  “She’ll have sweet tea,” Rafe said. He was lounging in his chair, long legs stretched out under the table and one arm hooked over the back corner of the chair. “I’ll have a beer. Thanks, darlin’.”

  “Sure thing.” The waitress stuck the pencil she’d been holding through her bouffant hairdo and popped a bubblegum bubble before she walked off. I looked around.

  “Horrible place.”

  He shrugged. “You said you wanted someplace where nobody’d recognize you. The food ain’t bad.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Although you told me once that after spending two years in prison, most food tastes good to you.”

  “Prison’ll do that. Among other things.”

  “I hope Detective Grimaldi fed you this morning. By the way, you never told me what she was questioning you about.”

  He arched a brow. “Can’t you guess? She asked me to provide an alibi for Friday night.”

  “Friday?” I blinked. I’d assumed she’d been questioning him about the robberies, not the murder. “Surely she doesn’t suspect you of killing Lila?”

  “Ain’t that long ago you suspected me of killing Brenda Puckett,” Rafe pointed out.

  “You had a good reason for killing Brenda. She had cheated your grandmother out of her house. And I changed my mind about that, anyway. I no longer think you’d kill anyone.”

  He didn’t answer, just quirked a brow. I wasn’t quite sure what that signified, but I decided I’d rather not ask. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

  I continued, “You had no reason to kill Lila. Unless Detective Grimaldi can prove otherwise, you never even met her.”

  “She can’t.”

  The waitress arrived with our drinks, and he nodded his thanks. I narrowed my eyes. Not ‘I didn’t’ but ‘she can’t’...?

  “You eating?” the waitress said.

  Rafe nodded. “I’ll have a cheeseburger and fries. Medium-rare.” He turned to me. “What about you, darlin’?”

  I hesitated. If I asked for something I liked, they probably wouldn’t have it. “Why don’t you order me something you think I’ll enjoy? You seem to know the menu by heart.”

  Rafe grinned. “She’ll have what I’m having.”

  The waitress nodded and sauntered off. I turned to Rafe, incredulously. “Do you know how many calories are in a cheeseburger and fries?”

  His voice was easy. “I ain’t worried about gaining weight.”

  “I know you’re not,” I said, eyeing his flat stomach and hard biceps straining against the sleeves of the white T-shirt, “but I could stand to lose a few pounds.” The viper he had tattooed around his left arm was looking at me. I tore my eyes away from it and added, “I’ve already had my share of red meat and French fries for this week. Couldn’t you have ordered me a salad or something?”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong with the way you look, darlin’.” He lifted the beer bottle and toasted me before he drank.

  “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You haven’t seen me without clothes on.”

  I nearly bit my tongue in half when I realized what I was saying, but it was too late. He smiled. “Not yet.”

  “Not ever,” I corrected firmly.

  The smile widened. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t. You just think you do.”

  “No, I really...” I realized I sounded like a petulant five-year-old, and stopped. “We were talking about Lila. What makes Detective Grimaldi think you had something to do with her death?”

  “I assumed I had you to thank for that.”

  “And you’re still talking to me?” I shook my head and took a sip of tea. It was passable, if a little too sweet. “Sorry. So could you give her an alibi for Friday night?”

  Rafe shook his head. “After about ten o’clock or so, ain’t nobody who can prove where I was.”

  “And was Lila killed after ten?”

  He shrugged. “Tammy didn’t say.
But why else would she ask?”

  The burgers arrived shortly thereafter, and to my surprise, they really weren’t bad. Not quite as good as Rotier’s, but better than I’d feared. Not too greasy, and with a bun that didn’t disintegrate between my hands. I even ate a few fries, which were salty and just crispy enough. At the same time, Rafe polished off his burger, his fries, and what was left of mine. Plus an order of onion rings he decided he needed. After dinner, he insisted on having apple pie, a thick slab of which he ate with every sign of enjoyment while I watched surreptitiously, nursing my cup of black coffee and feeling as if the lard in the pie crust was applying itself directly to my thighs just from watching.

  A hand landed on Rafe’s shoulder, and we both looked up. I saw a tall, black man with a shaved head and eyes of a melting brown. The two of them spoke softly, and the noise level was too high for me to hear what they were saying, but they exchanged a complicated handshake, and then the other man indicated the pool tables. Rafe shook his head, saying something, and the man glanced over at me. His eyes may have been pretty, with long lashes and rich color, but the expression in them was too bold for my taste. I looked away and he said something else to Rafe, accompanied by what I interpreted as a congratulatory fist to the shoulder. All in good fun, although it didn’t appear that Rafe found the joke quite as humorous as did his friend. His reply was short and succinct, and stopped the conversation dead. A beat followed, until the man lifted his hands and stepped back fractionally. He said something else, and Rafe turned to me and raised his voice. “Excuse me a second, darlin’? Something I gotta do.”

  “Of course,” I said politely, not at all sure I meant it.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, with all sincerity, and was rewarded by one of his rare, genuine smiles.

  “No problem. Ain’t no hardship looking at you.” He winked and got up. I watched him follow the other man across the floor, over to the pool tables, where yet two more men were occupying themselves playing a game. They all exchanged the same complicated handshake, and got into a conversation. From the looks on the men’s faces, it concerned something serious. Rafe took part, but as he’d promised, he kept his eyes on me. And not in the protective, brotherly way I had hoped for, either.

  A few weeks earlier, during that date-that-wasn’t-a-date at Fidelio’s, one of Rafe’s looks had flustered me to such a degree that I’d had to ask the waiter for ice water to cool down. He had been sitting across the table from me at the time – Rafe, not the waiter – and I had convinced myself that the proximity was part of the reason for my overblown reaction. Now I discovered I’d been wrong. He could still pack a punch from all the way across the room. I squirmed uncomfortably as those dark eyes snagged on my lips, my throat, the top button of my blouse, and then followed my legs from hem to floor and back. Twice.

  By the time he returned to the table, I’d had time to pull myself together (with the help of what was left in the iced tea glass), and it was a good thing, because his greeting wasn’t designed to help my mental peace. “Nice legs.”

  “Thanks,” I managed. “I hope you weren’t planning to ask when they’re open.”

  He laughed, tendons moving smoothly under the golden skin of his throat. “I wouldn’t be that crude, darlin’.”

  The waitress gazed raptly at him, and the three men over at the pool table turned around to stare, as well. The bald one who had come over to the table to fetch Rafe earlier, gave me a leisurely once-over, and I turned away from the boldness of his gaze.

  We left shortly thereafter; or I guess maybe I should say that I did, because I think Rafe went back inside after he walked me out to the car.

  I unlocked my car door and turned to him. “Thanks for dinner.”

  He grinned. “My pleasure.”

  “Did you... um... have a particular reason for asking? We didn’t talk about anything in particular.” And he hadn’t hit on me, either. Much.

  “Maybe I just like spending time with you, darlin’.”

  My wide-eyed expression made him laugh, and he waited a few seconds before he added, “Or maybe it’s all part of my master plan to get you in the sack. Maybe if I just keep acting like I’m a nice guy, one of these days you’ll relax enough to let me have my way with you.”

  “Don’t hold your breath,” I retorted, but I admit that as a brush-off it wasn’t very effective, mostly because the idea of Rafe having his way with me made me lose my breath for a moment. In terror. He chuckled softly, and it was the kind of noise that made all the little hairs on my arms stand up at attention.

  “All the same it’s gonna happen one of these days, darlin’, so you may as well prepare yourself.”

  I found I didn’t have anything to say, so I got into the car and, after a few tries, managed to fit the key into the ignition and turn it over. My hands were shaking when I drove out of the graveled lot and into the road, and when I looked in the rearview mirror as I started back toward town, he was still standing there watching me drive away.

  Chapter 9

  Monday morning found me back in Brentwood, visiting the houses where the two robberies had taken place. Snooping.

  The police must have been over the crime scenes after the robberies, gathering fingerprints and DNA and such, but when I’d called to set up the appointments, there hadn’t been any problem with going to see the houses, and there was no sign of any cops now. No yellow crime-scene tape across the doors, or anything. Everything was back to normal inside, neat and clean, and both houses were crammed with nice stuff, albeit with obvious holes where the missing objects must have been. What was left behind gave me a good idea of the quality of the things that had been taken. Whoever had planned these robberies, had known what they were doing. They must have had previous knowledge of what was here, in order to be able to pick and choose so accurately.

  It begged the question of how they had known. There was a possibility that they simply had a truck on standby, and spent every Sunday afternoon visiting open houses until they came across one they liked. It would be a brilliantly simple way of committing robberies. Considering the price range of the houses in this area, the chances were better than 90% that each and every one of them had something in it worth taking, and keeping the selection random would ensure that they didn’t get caught, because there was no real common denominator, and no trail of clues for anyone to follow.

  If the houses weren’t chosen at random, that meant that someone had picked them deliberately. (Obvious, I know, but sometimes it helps to state the obvious.) If the same person had picked both houses, that meant that out there somewhere, there was someone with a connection to both.

  I ran over likely possibilities in my mind, starting with the truly basic and working my way down from there. The same listing broker – no. Kieran Greene worked for Re/Max, Lila (and her colleague whose listing it was) for Worthington Properties.

  A selling broker who had seen both houses, with or without clients in tow? Possible, but the police would be better equipped to check that than me. I would suggest it to Detective Grimaldi the next time I spoke to her. Just to cover all the bases, however, I wrote down the names of all the Realtors who had left their business cards at both houses. There were a few names that appeared twice, but that wasn’t really surprising, when both houses were in the same area and the same price range, and a buyer looking in this area and price range would probably want to see both. As for Timothy Briggs, who had left his nicely laminated card in both houses, he had probably just wanted to see how they stacked up to his own listing, the Fortunatos’ house. Checking out the competition is common practice, and I would have thought less of Tim if he hadn’t.

  The police would also have to check all the potential buyers who had come through with agents, and there would probably turn out to be a lot of them, as well. Moving right along, I considered the possibility of a shared home owners insurance agent. An insurance agent would have a detailed list of all t
he valuables in the house. It could be a case of insurance fraud, maybe, if the owners had decided to burgle their own houses and sell their property on the black market, while at the same time getting their money back from the insurance company. Something else I could suggest to Grimaldi, to take her mind off Rafe. If the houses were insured with different companies, I could point out that the owners wouldn’t necessarily even need an insurance agent to be in on the scheme; they could have hatched the plot between them. From family photographs and personal items left in both houses, I gathered that the Worthington property was owned by a family with two children; boy and girl of about 16 and 14, respectively, with a pretty, dark-haired mother and a tall and handsome, balding father. Kieran’s listing belonged to a gay couple with a penchant for leopard and zebra prints. Between the two families, they had enough tall males to make up a foursome, and in ski-masks and coveralls, it would be impossible to tell whether the men were young or old, gay or straight. The boy had inherited his mother’s dark eyes, and one of the gay men was brown-eyed also, although I personally wouldn’t have asked either to tie me to the bed. There’s no accounting for taste, however, and Lila had clearly been more impressionable than I.

  If the families had friends in common, the scheme could have been orchestrated by someone who knew them both and coveted their possessions, but I couldn’t help but think that there had to be a connection to real estate somewhere. If it was just a matter of robbing the houses, a friend wouldn’t have waited until the houses were on the market before he/she acted. Much safer and easier to just break in some night when the family was out. It seemed as if the fact that these houses were on the market and open to the public had some significance. Which pointed to either a Realtor or someone else involved in the business; someone who wouldn’t have had access to the houses if they hadn’t been for sale.

  After Brenda’s murder and Walker’s arrest just a week or two ago, and the new crop of reality TV-programs painting all Realtors as greedy, immoral, unethical sharks, our profession really didn’t need any more bad press. There didn’t seem to be any way to avoid it, however. I would have to call Detective Grimaldi and tell her my conclusions, and let the pieces fall where they may. If nothing else, at least she’d have to focus on someone other than Rafe as a suspect. And there was always the possibility that the robbers were posing as buyers, checking out the open houses first, and then coming back to do the actual robberies.