Unfinished Business (18 page)

“Be that as it may,” I said, happy to hear
that my voice was steady, “I’m sure he’d be happy to finish the job
he started on you, too. And don’t tell me you can take care of
yourself. He caught you once. He can catch you again. Especially in
your current condition.”

He scowled. “Stop talking about my
condition. I can still aim and pull a trigger. And I want you
somewhere safe.”

“I’m safe here. With you.”

Since there was nothing he could say to
that—not without admitting that he wasn’t in any kind of shape to
protect me—he didn’t try. “I’d feel better if you’d go somewhere
else for a couple days.”

“I suppose you want me to go to
Sweetwater?”

Everyone was watching the show, their heads
swiveling from him to me and back. Mother looked apprehensive, Dix
looked concerned, and Grimaldi and Wendell—leaning in the
doorway—looked amused.

“It’s a start,” Rafe said.

“I don’t think so. What if he follows me to
Sweetwater? It’s only an hour away. I’d put Mother at risk. And
Catherine. And the girls. They’re just children, but who knows
where this sick bastard draws the line?”

Nobody looked amused anymore. Mother looked
nauseous and Dix terrified. Both Grimaldi and Wendell looked
grim.

“No,” I said again, shaking my head. “I love
you. I don’t want you to have to worry about me. But I’m not going
to Sweetwater. Although Mother and Dix should go. Now.”

Dix didn’t waste any time in getting to his
feet. “If you don’t need us,” he told Grimaldi.

She shook her head. “Go home. Take care of
your girls. I can get any information I need from Savannah.”

Dix nodded and extended a hand to Mother,
who took it and let him help her up.

Wendell stepped out of the doorway with a
polite nod to let them pass.

“I should go wave goodbye,” I told Rafe.
“And you ought to sit down before you fall down.”

“Sounds familiar. Didn’t I tell you that
once?” But he sat. Or more accurately, fell onto the nearest chair;
the one that had most recently held Mother’s posterior. Wendell
wandered over to the table and grabbed Dix’s chair.

“I’ll be right back.” I headed down the
hallway and out on the front porch, just in time to see Dix close
the passenger side door of the SUV with Mother behind it. “Sorry,”
I told him.

He shook his head. “Not your fault.” But he
didn’t stop, just continued around the car to the driver’s side
door. Couldn’t get away from me quickly enough.

Not his fault
, I reminded myself. He
was worried about his girls. And who could blame him?

“I’m sure the girls are safe,” I called
after him. “He doesn’t know who they are or where to find them. He
probably doesn’t even know who you are. They’re fine.”

Dix nodded and opened his door. “I just want
to see them. I’ll call you.”

He didn’t wait for me to answer, just got in
the car and closed the door. A second later, the engine cranked
over.

“He’s worried,” Grimaldi’s voice said next
to me, trying to excuse Dix’s rudeness.

I glanced at her. “I know. I don’t blame
him. I should have thought before I spoke. I just couldn’t believe
that Rafe would suggest that I should leave him alone here with
this nutcase gunning for him!”

“He’s worried, too,” Grimaldi said, as the
car crunched down the gravel driveway. “He knows better than anyone
what Hernandez is capable of. And not only are you his girlfriend,
you’re carrying his child. That’s two nightmares rolled in
one.”

The SUV slowed to turn onto Potsdam, and she
lifted a hand to wave. I have no idea whether Dix or Mother waved
back, or whether they were even looking at us, but I flopped my
hand in the air, too.

“He wants you to be safe,” Grimaldi added.
“That’s his main concern. Much more than his own safety. Or anyone
else’s.”

I knew that, too. But I still wasn’t going.
Wasn’t risking drawing Hernandez’s attention to Sweetwater and
everyone there, and wasn’t leaving Rafe.

The SUV had disappeared down the street. I
turned to go inside. “He’ll have to lump it.”

“I figure he knows that,” Grimaldi told me
as she followed me through the door. “But you can’t blame him for
trying.”

I suppose. In his shoes I might have done
the same thing. Although he really should have known better.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend any time
with Dix,” I told Grimaldi as we headed down the hallway together,
taking care not to step on any of the blood spots. At least I took
care; I’m not so sure about the detective.

As always when I brought up her relationship
with my brother, Grimaldi looked blank. “Finding your boyfriend was
more important.”

“Of course.” No argument here. Not that
anyone had found him; he’d found his way home on his own. “But I’m
sure Dix was hoping to spend time with you. And then Mother
insisted on staying.” I shook my head.

“I was gonna ask you about that,” Rafe told
me, catching the last sentence as Grimaldi and I walked into the
kitchen. “Your mama drove up from Sweetwater to watch you marry
me?”

I nodded.

“Why’d she wanna do that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I assume it’s
because I’m her daughter, and it was an important day for me.” Or
would have been, if the groom had been present.

“Or maybe she woulda objected when the
preacher said, ‘If anyone knows of a reason...?’”

“Maybe. Do they say that in civil
ceremonies?”

“Dunno,” Rafe said. “I’ve never been married
before.”

I had, but not in a civil ceremony. And the
preacher at the church in Sweetwater had said, ‘If anyone knows of
a reason why this man and this woman should not be joined in holy
matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.’ Or something very
like it.

I doubted Mother would have drawn attention
to herself by speaking up at that moment, though, no matter how
happy it would have made her if I didn’t marry Rafe. Although who
knew?

“Whatever her reason,” I said, “she was
here. Catherine was, too, but she went home after lunch, so she
could take care of the kids. Her own, and Dix’s. I thought for sure
Mother would go with her, but no. She wanted to stay. And that was
after seeing the house and the neighborhood.”

“No accounting for taste,” Rafe said.

“You know I don’t mean that. I like it here.
But it’s not exactly Mother’s style. Although she did say it was a
nice house.”

“No kidding.”

I shook my head. “She seemed to like David,
too.”

Rafe’s brows lowered. “When did your mama
see David?”

“We drove out to Peaceful Pines yesterday
afternoon,” I said. “That was when we still thought you might have
left of your own free will. We thought you might have told him
something.” Like goodbye. “But he said he hadn’t seen you since
last week.”

And that reminded me—again—that I had to
call David and tell him Rafe was back, and safe. I’d forgotten in
the excitement of finding Ginger.

Or maybe I should just have Rafe call him.
It would make him feel better to hear Rafe’s voice.

But first we should get Ginger squared
away.

I turned to Wendell. “You obviously got my
message.”

He nodded.

“Is it Ginger?”

He shook his head.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “Too young. Someone else he
picked up.”

“Another hooker?”

“They’re easy to find,” Rafe said. “And they
get into your car with no fuss.”

Not like abducting a kicking and screaming
civilian. “You don’t know her, I suppose?”

“Not from the picture,” Rafe said, putting
his hands on the table and pushing himself to his feet. It took
effort, and we could all see it, but nobody commented. “I’ll go
look at the real thing. And put on some clothes while I’m up there.
Before the crime scene crew starts crawling all over my
bedroom.”

He took a second to find his balance before
tottering off across the kitchen toward the door. He was moving
like an old man, stiff and slightly hunched.

“Do you want help?” I threw after him.

“I got it.”

Sure
. Because it’s so easy to bend
from the waist to pull on a pair of pants when your torso’s
bandaged almost from hips to armpits.

But I didn’t say so. Instead I just told
him, “Holler if you change your mind.”

He didn’t answer, just moved down the
hallway to the stairs. After a moment—I figured he stopped at the
bottom to gauge how far away the last step was, and I’m sure it
looked like the top of Mount Le Conte—he began dragging himself
up.

“Like a mule,” Wendell said.

I nodded. “Did you go upstairs and look at
her?”

He shook his head.

“Maybe you should. That way you can help him
with his pants.”

“I don’t think he’d like that,” Wendell
said. “I’m damn sure I wouldn’t.”

“Just wait for him to ask,” Grimaldi
advised. “Give him a chance to realize he needs help. If you force
it on him, he’ll keep telling himself he could have done it on his
own.”

He probably would, at that. Like all men,
he’s nothing if not stubborn.

“So what happens now?” I looked from one to
the other of them.

“I called in a crime scene team,” Grimaldi
said. “I’m waiting for them to get here. Once they’re working, I’ll
have to try to figure out who the girl is.”

“We’re going back out to Wilson County,”
Wendell added. “Now that the sun’s up and folks are awake, we’re
gonna start going door to door in the area around the cabin. Just
in case he has another hole out there, or somebody knows something.
He musta chosen that area for a reason. I doubt it was luck that he
found an empty cabin.”

I nodded. “I should get busy trying to find
out who owns it. I forgot all about that, with everything that’s
happened since we left the hospital.”

The sound of crunching gravel from outside
reached our ears.

“That must be the crime scene team,”
Grimaldi said, getting to her feet. “I’ll go let them in. You—” She
glanced at me, “had better go upstairs and help your boyfriend get
dressed before you do anything else. I’m sure he won’t want to be
caught with his pants down and a dead woman sprawled across the
bed.”

My face twisted at the image. “No. I’m sure
he won’t.”
Gah
. “Do people really...?”

They both looked at me, two pairs of flat
cop eyes that had seen a lot more than I had, and I shook my head.
“Never mind.”

“Lots of sick people in the world,” Wendell
said, and Grimaldi nodded.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

She headed for the door, and I got to my
feet and followed. In the foyer, Grimaldi went to the front door
and out on the porch, where I’m sure she’d brief the CSI team to
give me time to get Rafe dressed and ready. I hustled up the stairs
and into the bedroom, where he was leaning against the wall,
breathing hard, as naked as the day he was born and with a pair of
jeans pooled around his ankles.

Normally, the sight of my butt-naked
boyfriend would have gotten my blood pumping. At the moment, I was
too concerned with the fact that his face was ashen with what had
to be pain, and that a couple of new, bright red spots of blood
decorated the hitherto pristine white of the bandages.

Yelling wouldn’t do any good, though, and
would just make him feel worse. So I didn’t say anything, but
simply crossed the room, edging around the bottom of the bed—making
sure to keep my eyes off the body sprawled there—and crouched in
front of him.

He looked like he couldn’t lift his head,
but his lips curved. “If I was feeling better, that’d look
promising.”

“If I thought it would help,” I told him,
“I’d consider it. But you’d probably fall flat on your face.”

He nodded. “Prob’ly.”

“So I’m just going to help you get these
on.” I grabbed the pants and tugged. “I guess you decided that
underwear was too much trouble?”

“Pants are too much trouble,” Rafe muttered,
but let me pull them up and close the zipper. Gently.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I wish you could
just go to bed and stay there. But Grimaldi’s crime scene crew is
downstairs. We figured you wouldn’t want to be caught with your
pants down, standing over the body.” I turned to the bureau and
then hesitated. “A shirt with buttons might be easier to deal with
than a T-shirt.”

“Whatever,” Rafe said. “No, that wouldn’t be
good.”

“You’re bleeding again. I guess we’ll have
to go back to the hospital.” I pulled out a long sleeved shirt.
Under normal circumstances it would be much too warm for June, but
he was shivering. And very docile when I helped him slip his arms
through the sleeves. I didn’t bother with the buttons.

Downstairs the door opened, and we could
hear voices. Grimaldi was explaining about the different trails of
blood: one going down the hall to the half bath—Rafe’s—and one
going up the stairs to the bedroom.

“Just another minute. You keep holding up
the wall.”

I pulled the sundress over my head, dropped
it in the laundry basket, and pulled another out of the closet and
yanked it over my head. New underwear would just have to wait. I
could already hear footsteps on the stairs.

“Let’s go.” I put my arm around him and
guided him around the bed. His feet dragged. “Did you look at
her?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not Ginger, is it?”

He shook his head. “Don’t look much like
her, really. Except for the hair.”

We walked a few steps before he added, “Seen
her before, though.”

“You have?”

“Friday night. Outside Gabe’s.”

“Really?”

He shrugged, so maybe he wasn’t entirely
sure. Or maybe he just needed his breath for walking.

“We can talk about it when we get
downstairs,” I said, as we passed over the threshold and into the
upstairs hallway. The crime scene crew—two women and a man—were on
their way up, followed by Grimaldi, and we stood aside to let them
pass. Both of the women gave Rafe curious glances on their way
past, but nobody commented.