Home Stretch

by Jenna Bennett

  I flipped on my turn signal and waited for a break in traffic before pulling the car into the parking lot next to a small, red Mazda Miata. It looked familiar.

  “Everything is fine,” I added. “He probably didn’t even realize we were there. He was upset. Beverly Bristol’s nephews had just threatened to sue him for negligence. He was probably too angry to pay attention.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Rafe told me, but he sounded a little calmer. “Where are you?”

  I told him where we were. The coffee shop is literally just three minutes from the TBI building. “You can come down here if you want. I think Alexandra Puckett’s here, too. At least there’s a car like hers in the lot.” And she lived just a few minutes up the street and down on the other side. “Are she and Jamal still together?”

  Jamal’s one of the TBI recruits Rafe’s training. He and the late Brenda Puckett’s daughter had hooked up at Rafe’s and my wedding back in June. I hadn’t seen Alexandra for a few months, though, so I wasn’t sure whether that was over by now or not.

  Rafe made some sort of non-committal noise. “Stay there.”

  I had no plans of moving again until I’d devoured a triple-scoop of ice cream to settle my nerves, and told him so. He had plenty of time to throw himself on the bike or into a car and make it down here.

  “Ready?” I asked Mrs. Jenkins.

  She nodded, already smacking her lips in anticipation. We’d been here before, and it was obvious she recognized it.

  So we climbed out of the car, careful of our cuts and bruises, and headed into the mid-century building with the checkerboard of black and white stone walls.

  It used to be a bank. They use the old vault to make the ice cream now, and the drive-through window—for the coffee—is where people used to deposit and withdraw money. A heavy, old safe sits right inside the door, with a succulent garden on top of it.

  While Mrs. Jenkins zeroed in on the ice cream counter, I looked around the room, at the dozen or so tables and chairs ranged where the banker’s cubicles used to be. It didn’t come as a surprise to see Alexandra Puckett’s jet-black hair bent over a cell phone a few tables away.

  She was alone. Could be deliberate, or she could be waiting for someone.

  I peeled my eyes, but wasn’t able to X-ray vision my way through the tabletop to determine whether she was still pregnant. Unless she’d done something about it, she should be, but that didn’t mean anything.

  “What can I get you?” the barista’s voice interrupted my train of thought, and I turned back to the ice cream counter. Mrs. Jenkins ordered her triple scoop of chocolate, chocolate chip, and coffee, and the barista got busy scooping.

  “What about you?” she asked me.

  I hesitated, but only a moment. “Double mocha chocolate chunk.” The delicious odor of coffee hung heavy in the air, and since I couldn’t have any, I needed something to take my mind off it.

  And anyway, dairy. Good for the baby.

  Clutching our ice cream—Mrs. Jenkins was already digging into hers—we crossed the floor toward the tables. And toward Alexandra. She didn’t notice me until I said her name, and then she looked up with a guilty start.

  “Oh,” she said after a second. “It’s you.”

  It was me. “Who were you expecting?” After a second, I added, “Are you supposed to be in school?”

  She rolled her eyes. She wore less makeup now than when I’d first met her a year ago, right after Brenda’s murder, but her eyes were still heavily outlined in black. “Are you my mother?”

  I wasn’t. “Just concerned,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not supposed to be in school. We’re off this week. For Thanksgiving.”

  Nice work if you can get it. When I went to school, we didn’t get the whole week of Thanksgiving off. But then my parents had kept us in public school, while Alexandra went to a very exclusive girls’ school—and by exclusive I mean expensive—where maybe a lot of the families traveled for Thanksgiving and needed a little extra time.

  Anyway, it was apparently OK for her to be here at eleven on a Tuesday in November.

  “You remember Rafe’s grandmother?” I nodded to Mrs. Jenkins, who was busy spooning up chocolate chip. “Here. Have a seat.”

  I pulled out the chair at the table next to Alexandra’s. They were small two-tops, suitable for romantic tête-à-têtes, but not bigger groups. Mrs. Jenkins dropped down and put her ice cream on the table.

  “You look nice,” Alexandra said, looking me up and down.

  Since I hadn’t been able to make Mrs. Jenkins as presentable as I would have liked, I’d gone out of my way to look presentable myself. Black wrap dress, black boots. Very somber. “Thank you,” I said. “Funeral.”

  Alexandra’s lips turned down. “I’m sorry. Were you close?”

  “A friend of Mrs. Jenkins’,” I said. “I didn’t know her. She fell down the stairs at the nursing home last week and broke her neck.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  I guess it was. Not as horrible as Julia Poole getting her throat cut, but I didn’t bring that up, since I didn’t want to remind Alexandra of her mother’s death.

  “Anyway,” I said, “we decided to treat ourselves to some ice cream after the visitation.”

  Alexandra nodded.

  “Is that coffee?” I glanced at the cup in front of her. It was orange, waxed cardboard, and had her name scrawled on it in black marker.

  She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes again, but thought better of it. One hand closed around it, sort of protectively; the nails painted black. Maybe she was afraid I’d try to take it from her. “No. Hot chocolate.”

  Then she might still be pregnant.

  Another second, and she confirmed it. “I’m off coffee. Remember?”

  “I wasn’t sure,” I said. “I can’t see below the table.”

  She scooted out of the bench and stood up to reveal a distinct baby bump under a tight, black turtleneck. Twisting back and forth to give me the full, left-to-right view, she told me, “Five months.”

  “Good for you. Everything OK?”

  She nodded, and fitted herself into the bench again. “Everything’s fine. I had an ultrasound last week. They think it’s a boy.”

  “Nice to know ahead of time.”

  She looked at my stomach. “Don’t you know?” The implication was that since she did, I certainly should.

  “The baby wasn’t cooperative,” I said. “I guess we’ll be surprised.”

  I put my hand on the back of the empty chair across from her. “Are you waiting for someone?”

  She shook her head. “Have a seat.”

  I did. “Rafe’s on his way. We had a small accident in the parking lot of the funeral home—a car didn’t see us, and knocked us down—and he wants to stop by and make sure we’re both—all three—all right.”

  “Always nice to see your husband,” Alexandra said with a grin. Like Tim, she’s had a crush on Rafe since she first met him, shortly after her mother was killed last fall.

  I dug my spoon into the ice cream and looked at her from under my lashes. “Are you and Jamal still... um...?”

  Her face closed. “He’s been coming to some of the doctor’s appointments. He was there for the ultrasound last week.”

  “So you’re keeping him up to date on what’s going on.”

  “It’s his baby, too,” Alexandra said. “I don’t know whether he’s going to want anything to do with the baby once he’s born. Or with me. But I let him know what’s going on. Once the baby’s born, he can decide whether he wants any part of being a father or not. If not, he can sign away his rights, as far as I’m concerned.”

  As far as I was concerned, too. If he wasn’t going to step up from the beginning, I wouldn’t want him coming back three—or ten, or twenty—years later, trying to lay a claim.

  Then again, Jamal was only twenty-one or so. Young. And immature. I guess, even if he didn’t feel mature enough to be a father right now,
he should still have the right to change his mind later.

  On the other hand, Alexandra didn’t have a choice. She had to dredge up that maturity from somewhere, whether she wanted to or not. And it sounded like she had.

  “It sounds like you’ve worked things out,” I said.

  She shrugged. “The baby’s coming in April. I’ll have enough time to graduate with my class in May. I hope. And next year, I’ll go to college somewhere around here, so the baby can go to daycare while I take classes. My dad said he’d help out.”

  That was good to know. Not that I’d had any doubt. Steven Puckett loved Alexandra and her brother Austin, and I’d never doubted that he’d step up and support her, no matter what she decided to do.

  The front door opened, and Alexandra glanced in that direction. “Here’s your husband.”

  Then her voice changed. “And he brought a friend.”

  He had. Jamal, to be specific. Who looked just as uncomfortable about unexpectedly coming face to face with Alexandra as she looked about coming face to face with him.

  For a second, I thought he was going to turn around and run. Then he visibly squared his shoulders. And across the table, Alexandra braced herself.

  I looked at my husband. He arched a brow back before saying a few words to Jamal. Jamal beelined for the coffee counter, while Rafe sauntered across the floor to us.

  “Darlin’.” He slipped a hand down the back of my hair to curl around my neck before he bent and gave me a lingering kiss. I could hear Alexandra sigh on the other side of the table. And then I didn’t hear anything else until he stopped and the hand dropped from my neck.

  “Hi.” I smiled up at him, still dazzled after all this time.

  He winked at Alexandra, and then he went down on one knee in front of his grandmother. “You all right?”

  She nodded, and patted him on the cheek. “You’re a good boy, worrying about your mama.”

  He was Tyrell today, it seemed. I guess that made me LaDonna. I wondered who Mrs. Jenkins though Alexandra was. Or whether she was even aware of Alexandra.

  “Savannah said you hurt your knees.”

  Mrs. J nodded and pulled her housedress up to show him. “We went to the doctor.”

  We hadn’t, but it amounted to the same thing, I guess. “It isn’t bad,” I told him. “She skinned her knees when she fell. I landed on my butt. You can check that later.”

  “Don’t think I won’t.” He got to his feet and pulled an empty chair over from a nearby table, and straddled it. “That looks good.”

  He was looking at my ice cream.

  “It is,” I said.

  He grinned. “You ain’t gonna share?”

  “You’re seriously going to take ice cream out of your pregnant wife’s mouth?”

  But I handed the cup over, and watched him scoop a couple of spoonfuls into his mouth before he handed it back. “Thanks, darlin’.”

  “No problem,” I said. “You really didn’t have to stop doing whatever you were doing to come check on us, you know. I told you we were fine.”

  “We needed some coffee,” Rafe said, with a look at Jamal, who was waiting patiently at the counter. He had a cardboard container with two cups in front of him. And he must have ordered more, because he was still standing there. “Tell me again what happened at the funeral home.”

  “Not much. We arrived. They were arguing. One of Beverly Bristol’s nephews told Fesmire he was lucky they didn’t sue. The nursing home, I guess. I can see their point. I mean, she was supposed to be safe there. Someone was supposed to make sure she didn’t hurt herself. And then she fell down the stairs and broke her neck.”

  Rafe nodded. “And Fesmire said...?”

  “Something about that maybe not being a good idea. Then he turned around and saw us. And stared at your grandmother for a moment before he left. We stayed another minute, but it was awkward, so we left again, too. When we got halfway across the parking lot, the BMW backed out of the parking space and clipped us.”

  “And he didn’t stop.”

  I shook my head. “He drove away. Chances are he didn’t even see us. I mean, he’s a doctor, right? If he thought someone was hurt, don’t you think he’d stop and check?”

  “Unless he was trying to run you down,” Alexandra contributed from the other side of the table. She was very carefully not looking in Jamal’s direction. At all.

  “But if he was trying to run us down, don’t you think he’d stop and make sure he had?”

  Alexandra shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to scare you, and he wanted you to think it might have been an accident but it wasn’t.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. It was all very confusing. And I found it very hard to believe that a respected medical doctor—and I had to assume he was respected; he was still licensed, right?—would go around running people down.

  “Are you going to talk to him?” I asked Rafe.

  “Eventually. Right now I’m just keeping an eye on him.”

  From here?

  Who he was keeping an eye on, was Jamal. A third cup of coffee appeared in the cardboard container, and Rafe got to his feet. “Time to go.”

  “Only three cups?” I said, as Jamal picked up the cardboard container with a smile for the barista. She was young and pretty, and Alexandra watched with a stony face.

  “José and Clayton are sitting on Fesmire,” Rafe explained.

  José and Clayton are the other two rookies. The last coffee must be for Wendell, who keeps them all—including Rafe—in check.

  “What are you afraid he’s going to do?”

  “No idea,” Rafe said, as he pushed the other chair back under the other table, “but if he tried to run into you on purpose, he could be doing something.”

  He could. Although he’d probably just go to work and spend the rest of the day there.

  Rafe nodded when I said so. “Long day for Clayton, then.”

  Clayton must be sitting on the nursing home. I guess that meant José was hanging out outside—and maybe inside—Fesmire’s home.

  “Where does he live?”

  Rafe contemplated me in silence for a moment. “Not sure I should be telling you that.”

  “I’m not going there,” I said.

  He arched a brow.

  “I’m not!” I was extremely pregnant, and babysitting his grandmother. It wasn’t like I’d risk either of them by doing a spot of breaking and entering on Doctor Fesmire’s place. Especially if Rafe had already sent José to do just that.

  “He has a house in Franklin,” Rafe said. “José’s on his way there. Clayton’s on his way to Brentwood. They’ll both check in when they get there. Should be another five minutes for Clayton and maybe fifteen for José.”

  “Let me know if they discover anything interesting.”

  Rafe said he would. “What’re you three up to?”

  I glanced at Alexandra. “We’ll stay here a little longer and talk. Then I guess we’ll go home and watch more TV.”

  My life was becoming about food and TV. I almost wished I could go to Franklin and break into Doctor Fesmire’s house just for something to do.

  Although if José was there, I wasn’t likely to get within three feet of the door anyway.

  “I’ll check in later.” Rafe dropped a kiss on my lips, another on the top of his grandmother’s head, and winked at Alexandra across the table. “Be good.”

  She sighed as he sauntered off. “Why can’t all guys be like that?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, as Jamal gave her a tentative nod as they headed for the door, and she gave him a grimace back. It might have been mistaken for a smile if you felt charitable. “But I don’t think Jamal’s a bad guy. He signed on for law enforcement. That says something. He wants to keep people safe.”

  Alexandra shrugged. But I noticed she watched him until they had gotten inside the white TBI van parked outside—Rafe was driving—and had peeled out of the parking lot. Doctor Fesmire had nothing on my husband. I hoped the lids were on the
coffee cups, or Jamal was likely to arrive back at the TBI building drenched in coffee.

  Nine

  They took off in the direction of the TBI building—I had a feeling Jamal was cursing Rafe as hot coffee soaked his jeans—and then it was just the three of us again.

  “So what are you up to today?” I asked Alexandra.

  She shrugged. “Dinner with my dad and Austin. Until then, I’m just hanging out.”

  “No plans with friends?” Maybe they’d all gone on vacation.

  “I’m pregnant,” Alexandra said. “Most of my friends—or the girls I go to school with—think I’m contagious. The rest think I’m stupid for not getting rid of it.”

  Ouch. “What about...” I searched through my memory banks for the name, “—Lynne?” She’d been Alexandra’s best friend, as far as I’d been able to make out last fall. Or at least she’d been the excuse Alexandra had used when she’d wanted to spend the night with her then-boyfriend, Maurice.

  Alexandra grimaced. “Switzerland with her family.”

  “I’m sorry. Are you still good friends?”

  Alexandra shrugged. There was a lot of non-verbal communication going on. I wondered whether I’d done the same when I was seventeen, and whether my mother had found it as irritating as I did. “I’m having a baby. She’s talking about which Seven Sisters colleges to apply to next year.”

  After a second, she added, “We still get along. We’re just in different places. Lynne would never be stupid enough to get herself knocked up.”

  “Things happen the way they’re supposed to happen,” I said, since that’s what I believe. And since I figured she needed to hear something like that. “Rafe’s mother was young when he was born. Younger than you. David’s mother was about your age.”

  In addition to being Rafe’s son, David is also Austin Puckett’s friend from school. Alexandra knows him.

  She shrugged again. “His mother gave him up for adoption.”

  Not willingly. He’d been taken away from her and given to someone else, and it had taken her years to find him again. But that brought up another point. “You could do the same, you know. Just because you carry the baby to term, doesn’t mean you have to keep it. There are lots of people who want to adopt newborns. You might even talk to the Flannerys. They might be happy to have another baby.”