Unfinished Business (25 page)

Grimaldi nodded.

“It would have taken a minute or two to
hotwire it, I imagine, since one of his hands must have been fairly
useless by then.”

“I’d think so,” Grimaldi said.

“Then he drove toward Nashville. Say another
thirty minutes before the car broke down on the side of the road.
That’s at least an hour from the time Hernandez left; maybe more
like an hour and a half.”

Grimaldi nodded. She turned on her signal
and put her foot on the brake. We made the turn onto Potsdam
Street.

“It must have taken him another hour to walk
home after that. Maybe more.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“It was two-fifteen when I woke up, and I
didn’t get the impression he’d been there very long. That would
mean Hernandez left him sometime around midnight.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Grimaldi said.

I thought so, too. “He must have followed
Rafe to Gabe’s earlier in the evening, to know where to find him.
Because I don’t think it was a coincidence that he was outside
Gabe’s the night Rafe happened to be there.”

Grimaldi shook her head.

“He probably saw Kelly and Naomi cross the
parking lot. And that means he saw Kelly proposition Rafe, and
noticed how much she looked like Ginger. He would have known
exactly where to go to find her the next day. If the drive from the
cabin is somewhere between twenty and forty minutes, that would put
him at the truck stop sometime between twelve-twenty and
twelve-forty. Give or take.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“That’s the same time Naomi said he was
there. After midnight.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“At that point, if we’re right, David was
still in bed at Peaceful Pines. They probably stayed awake for a
while, the way kids do, and talked, but staying up late isn’t
anything new to them by now. They’ve been at camp for a week. And
he wouldn’t have waited too long after everyone else was asleep,
since he might have been afraid he’d fall asleep himself before he
could make his getaway.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“So he was most likely out of there by one
o’clock. Hernandez might have had time to grab him. If he drove
there directly from the cabin in Wilson County. But he wouldn’t
have made it to the truck stop by twelve-thirty if he did.”

“No,” Grimaldi agreed.

“Unless our timeline is off. If it took Rafe
another hour to walk home after the truck broke down, or if Naomi
was wrong about the time when Hernandez got there. All she said was
that it was after midnight. That could have meant two o’clock. Or
three.”

Grimaldi nodded.

“But if he had David, why would he bother
going after Kelly?”

David would have made a much more satisfying
statement. Kelly was an instance of thumbing his nose at
Rafe—
you stopped me last time, but you couldn’t stop
this!
—but David would have been personal. And devastating.

I imagined walking into my bedroom to find
David’s body on the bed, and shuddered.

“He wouldn’t,” Grimaldi said. And changed it
to, “Probably wouldn’t.”

“So chances are Hernandez doesn’t have him.
That’s good. But if he left the camp more than thirteen hours ago,
shouldn’t he be here by now?”

“He should,” Grimaldi said. “If he decided
to come to Nashville, where would he have gone once he got
here?”

“To the house,” I said, “if he was coming
home because he wanted to help look for Rafe. And I can’t think of
any other reason he’d run away the same evening I told him Rafe was
gone.”

Unless something was going on at camp that
we didn’t know about, but surely that was too much of a coincidence
to even contemplate.

“The crime scene crew is still there,”
Grimaldi said. “Or at least they haven’t called to tell me they’re
done. We can check with them and see if they’ve seen him. If not
your house, where else would he go?”

“Home, to the house in West Meade?”

“I can have someone check there,” Grimaldi
said.

“I don’t really know much about his
day-to-day life. His friends, who he hangs out with. I’m sure Ginny
would have checked with them, though.”

Grimaldi nodded. “Anywhere else?”

“The nursing home where Mrs. J lives.
Although he doesn’t know her very well, so it’s much more likely
he’d come here. Or he might have gone to the Bog. That’s where he
went last time he ran away. He might have reasoned that if Rafe had
changed his mind and didn’t want to marry me, that’s where he’d
go.” To the place where he’d grown up. I added, “David’s twelve. He
wouldn’t realize that Sweetwater is the last place on earth Rafe
would go if he left me.”

“Makes sense,” Grimaldi said. “I can call
the sheriff. Or if you don’t want to get him involved, you can call
your brother and ask him to swing by the Bog to see if David’s
there.”

I suppose it couldn’t hurt to do that.
Sweetwater’s a small town. Everything’s a hop, skip, and jump from
everywhere else. And I wasn’t really interested in getting into a
conversation with Sheriff Satterfield at the moment.

Grimaldi crunched over the gravel up to the
front door while I dialed. “The thing is,” I said, while I waited
for Dix to pick up on the other end of the line, “David has no idea
that the Bog is gone. I mean, it’s still there. The land. But all
the trailers and shacks are gone. Ronnie Burke had them hauled away
when he started laying out the plats for Mallard Meadows.
Before—”

“Savannah?” Dix’s voice said in my ear, and
I broke off my conversation with Grimaldi.

“Dix. I need a favor.”

“Sure,” my brother said.

“Where are you? It sounds like you’re still
in the car. Aren’t you home by now?”

“We went out for lunch,” Dix said. “Mom and
I drove to Catherine’s house to pick up the girls, and then we all
went out for something to eat while we updated Catherine and
Jonathan on everything. We’re just coming back now. I’m about to
drop Mother off at the house.”

“The mansion.”

“Yes,” Dix said, “but that sounds so
pretentious, doesn’t it?”

It did. My lips curved. “Rafe calls it the
mausoleum on the hill.”

“I’m sure he does,” Dix said dryly. “How is
he?”

“Worried. David’s gone.”

There was a moment. I pictured Dix glancing
into the back seat at his own daughters, just to make sure they
were still there. Of course he knew they would be, but it would be
any parent’s first inclination. “Gone?”

“Went to sleep with the other campers last
night. Gone by this morning. I think he ran away so he could help
look for Rafe. We probably worried him when we came out to talk to
him yesterday afternoon.”

“What can I do?” Dix asked.

I took a breath. “I think there’s a chance
he might have gone to the Bog.”

I laid out my reasoning, with Grimaldi
nodding in the seat next to me, especially as I managed to make it
a bit more succinct this time.

“So you want me to go to the Bog to look for
him.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, while in the
background, I could hear Mother murmur something.

“No,” Dix said. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Thank you. And tell Mother thanks.”

“No problem,” Dix said. “What do you want me
to do with him if we find him?”

“Sit on him. Put him in the car and take him
home with you. Or take him to the mansion. And then call me so I
can come pick him up. And so I can call everyone else and let them
know he’s safe.”

“Consider it done,” Dix said. “We’re turning
around right now. I’ll call you when we get there.”

He hung up before I had the chance to thank
him.

“They’re going to look for him,” I told
Grimaldi. “They’ll call me if they find him.”

She nodded.

“In the meantime, I guess I should get in my
car and get going. Either way, I’ll have to drive somewhere.”
Either to Sweetwater or, if David wasn’t there, to Peaceful
Pines.

“I’m going to go inside and check with the
CSI team,” Grimaldi said, “and then go back to the office and get
busy on the reports and the notification. Keep me updated.”

“Of course.” I opened the car door and swung
my legs out. “If Dix doesn’t find him in Sweetwater, I think I’ll
drive out to West Meade myself, and make sure he isn’t at his house
before I head to Peaceful Pines.” Ginny and Sam would have gotten
the call that he was missing, and would have left home before David
had time to get there.

“I’d be happy to send a car,” Grimaldi
began, but I shook my head.

“I’m sure Spicer and Truman have better
things to do. And if he’s at home, he’s not in any danger. I’ll
just drive over there and make sure while I wait to hear from
Dix.”

“Whatever you want,” Grimaldi said with a
shrug, and turned toward the porch steps. “Let me know what
happens.”

“You do the same.”

She headed up the steps, and I walked across
the gravel to the Volvo and got behind the wheel. Only to realize,
when I cranked the engine over, that the gas gauge was hovering
perilously close to the big E.

The last thing I wanted to do, was take time
out to fill gas. But if I didn’t, I’d make it no more than ten
miles down the road before I’d be stranded, and that wouldn’t help
anyone.

Luckily, there was a gas station on the way
to the interstate. I drove down Potsdam to Dresden, stuck my tongue
out at the Milton House on my way past, and headed out Dresden to
Dickerson Road, where I pulled in beside a pump. And because I
could use some fuel, too, I went inside to pay for my gas and pick
up a snack. And found myself face to face with Malcolm, the kid
from two houses up, across the counter.

“Savannah!” He gave me a big, white grin.
“Everything OK?”

“Not so much,” I admitted, digging for my
wallet to pay for the candy and gas. “Someone dumped a dead girl in
my house.”

That statement very effectively wiped the
grin off Malcolm’s face. “No shit?”

I shook my head. “None. I spent most of the
night in the hospital with Rafe, and when we came back this
morning, there she was.”

“Shit.”

Like a true Southerner, Malcolm drew the
four-letter word out until it had at least three syllables. He took
my debit card and swiped it through the machine.

“Thirty dollars on number two,” I told him,
“and the candy bar.”

He started hitting buttons on the cash
register, but without paying much attention. I might end up
overpaying for this visit. “Who’s the girl?”

“Just a random girl,” I said. “Cute redhead.
Sixteen. A runaway from Milwaukee turning tricks at the truck stop
on Trinity Lane.”

“Shit.”

“I don’t suppose you happened to see
anything around my house this morning? Or in the middle of the
night?”

“I was sleeping in the middle of the night,”
Malcolm said, handing me my debit card back. “Didn’t see
nothing.”

“That’s too bad. I thought maybe you’d
worked late, or something.”

He shook his head. “Got home before midnight
last night. Didn’t see nothing.”

“When did you start work this morning?”

Malcolm said he’d started at seven. “Thirty
more minutes.” He glanced at the clock on the wall.

I did, too. It was just past two-thirty.
Twelve hours since I’d found Rafe washing blood off his chest in
the bathroom.

Ten minutes since I’d called Dix. Shouldn’t
he have called me back by now?

“Rafe’s son’s missing,” I told Malcolm. “He
was at a camp on the Cumberland Plateau, and it seems like he snuck
away in the middle of the night. I don’t suppose you’ve seen him?
He looks like Rafe, but smaller. He’s twelve.”

Malcolm shook his head. “Ain’t seen nobody.
The lady down on the corner was walking her rat-dog when I went out
this morning.” A white Chihuahua, and silently, I agreed with
Malcolm that it did bear an unfortunate resemblance to a
long-legged rat. “And the Kings were headed out to church.” The
Kings lived on the other side of Malcolm; an elderly black couple,
very active in their congregation. “Somebody working across the
street.”

The house across from Malcolm was a
renovation object. Someone had bought it and was in the process of
fixing it up, prior to moving in. I wouldn’t have thought they’d be
doing it before seven on a Sunday morning, however.

“That’s a funny time to be doing work. Are
you sure?”

“Van in the driveway,” Malcolm said.

I felt a squiggle of ice down my spine.
“What color?”

He squinted at me. “Blue, I think.”

My heart started beating harder against my
ribs. “Did you see anybody? A person?”

“Mexican guy,” Malcolm said. “He was just
sitting in the car when I saw him. Smoking. I guess maybe he was
taking a break. Or waiting for his boss to come open the door.”

It was a logical assumption. Except I didn’t
think this particular Mexican guy—if Hernandez was Mexican—was
waiting for his boss. It was more likely he was waiting for us to
come home, so he could see what happened.

I hadn’t noticed the blue van there when we
got home, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been there. I wouldn’t
have thought to look for it.

Or maybe he hadn’t been there by the time we
came home. Maybe, in the hours between seven, when Malcolm went to
work, and nineish, when we got back from the hospital, David had
pedaled down the street and into the driveway.

I had made a good case for why Hernandez
hadn’t been able to snatch David out of bed at the church camp in
the middle of the night. But there was no reason at all why he
couldn’t have been hanging out outside Mrs. J’s house when David
arrived, and why he couldn’t have taken the opportunity to snatch
him then. He had lost Rafe, and Kelly was dead. At that point, he
must have been thrilled to find another victim.

“Thank you,” I told Malcolm and grabbed my
receipt. “I appreciate it.”

“Sure thing, sugar.”