Unfinished Business (26 page)

He turned to the next customer as I hustled
out of the store and over to the Volvo.

Dix still hadn’t called, and while the car
was filling up with gas, I defied all the posted warnings and used
my cell phone to call Grimaldi to tell her what I’d just learned.
“What do you think? Could David have made it here by seven in the
morning? Could Hernandez have grabbed him?”

Grimaldi hesitated. “I don’t know,” she told
me. “It seems tight. It’s a long way to pedal. But maybe. If he got
a ride.”

“A ride?”

“There are people in this world,” Grimaldi
said, “who’d give a twelve-year-old on a bike a ride out of the
goodness of their hearts. Just like there are people who’d grab
that same twelve-year-old and hurt him. If someone picked him
up—along with the bike—and shaved some time off his ride, then yes.
He might have gotten there before seven. And if Hernandez was
lurking, he might have taken the opportunity to snatch him.”

Damn. I mean—darn.

Not that I hadn’t expected it. I just didn’t
want it to be true. “Should I call Rafe?”

“No,” Grimaldi said. “Nothing’s changed. We
don’t know that he was here or that Hernandez grabbed him. No sense
in upsetting your boyfriend unnecessarily. Any word from your
brother?”

“Not yet. But I should get off the phone. In
case he calls.”

“Let me know what he says,” Grimaldi said
and hung up.

I finished filling the tank, and then headed
for West Meade, where the Flannerys live.

Mrs. Jenkins’s house is in East Nashville,
which are the urban neighborhoods just east of downtown. West
Meade, obviously, is on the other side of town, just beyond
Hillwood.

I was halfway there when my phone rang. I
snatched it, and pushed the button with a shaking finger.
“Dix!”

“Sorry, Savannah,” my brother’s voice said.
“He isn’t here.”

My heart sank. “Are you sure?”

Dix sounded about halfway between
sympathetic and annoyed. “There’s nowhere for him to hide, sis. All
the houses are gone. It’s just bare dirt and some stakes and
string. We got out of the car and called his name, just in case he
heard us coming and went into the trees, but he didn’t respond. And
since I assume he’d remember us from yesterday, and he’d realize
we’re not there to hurt him, he wouldn’t have a reason to keep
hiding.”

No, he wouldn’t.

“Damn,” I said. “I mean... darn.”

“Sorry.”

I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see
me. “It’s not your fault. I was just hoping it would be easy. My
neighbor Malcolm told me he’d seen a blue van parked in a driveway
across the street early this morning. If David happened to come
by...”

I didn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t have
to.

“Let’s hope that didn’t happen,” Dix said
firmly. “What are you going to do now?”

I told him I was on my way to West Meade.
“Just in case he went home.”

“Let me know when you find him.”

I promised I would, and secretly felt
cheered by the ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ “Thanks for checking the Bog.”

Dix nodded. I couldn’t see him, but I knew
he did. “We’re on our way to drop Mother at home. Then we’re going
back to the house for the rest of the day. Let me know if there’s
anything else I can do.”

I told him I would, and then I put the phone
down and concentrated on driving. If David wasn’t in Sweetwater, it
was even more imperative that I find him, healthy and in one piece,
at home.

West Meade is an affluent neighborhood full of large mid-century
ranches and custom-designed, hug-the-hillsides contemporaries. I
don’t spend much time there, although I’ve sat the occasional open
house for one of my colleagues, and shown the occasional house to
clients, as well. And of course I’ve been to the Flannerys’
before.

They live in a 1960s ranch on a road called
Pennywell. The lots are all oversized, with the houses sitting back
from the road, and there are a lot of trees everywhere. I couldn’t
see the Flannerys’ house at all until I’d stepped on the gas and
gunned the car up the steep driveway.

There was no sign of life. Not surprisingly,
since Ginny and Sam were two hours away, at Peaceful Pines.

I looked around for a bicycle, but couldn’t
see one. And I had a hard time believing that David, if he had
biked all night and half the day from the Cumberland Plateau,
wouldn’t have just tossed the bike into the nearest bush and
hobbled up to the door. He wouldn’t have taken the time to put it
away neatly in the garage.

Still, I went up to the front door and
knocked. Then I went around to the back door and knocked there,
too. I called David’s name. I pressed my nose to the windows, but
without seeing any sign of life inside.

He might be dead asleep in his room, worn
out from the long ride. But surely he wouldn’t have gone to bed
without first calling his parents to tell them he’d made it home
safely? He was twelve, but he was neither stupid nor thoughtless.
And he knew how they’d worried last time he’d run away.

I was just about to start hunting under the
doormat and above the door for a key, when a voice came from
somewhere to the left.

“Can I help you?”

Narrow escape. Another ten seconds, and she
would have seen attempt to break and enter.

I looked in the direction of the voice, and
saw a tall woman of the type usually called handsome peering at me
over a hedgerow. She had short, gray hair cut close to her head,
and was holding a pair of garden shears in gloved hands.

“Hi.” I gave her my best smile as I made my
way closer. “I’m Savannah Martin.”

I dug one of my real estate business cards
out of my bag and handed it over.

She looked at it. “Ginny and Sam are selling
their house?”

“Oh, no. Not at all. I’m just looking for
David.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

I hesitated. This was a dilemma. Had Ginny
and Sam told the neighbors that David was adopted?

Likely not, I figured, since they hadn’t
mentioned it to David himself until they’d had no other choice.

Hell—heck—as far as I knew, they hadn’t even
told Ginny’s mother the truth. At least that’s what Ginny had told
me last fall. She hadn’t been thrilled when Ginny married
Sam—shades of my own mother and her racial prejudices—but once
David was born—or adopted—she’d fallen in love with him, and had
forgiven Sam the crime of being black.

I wondered whether Mother was likely to
forgive Rafe for being who he was once the baby was born. It didn’t
seem very likely, unfortunately. Even if she had seemed rather
taken with David yesterday, when they met.

Anyway, telling the suspicious lady that I
was David’s biological father’s fiancée probably wasn’t the best
thing to do.

I tried another bright smile. “I’m one of
his teachers.”

“This says that you’re a real estate agent,”
the neighbor said, lifting the card.

Oops
. “Um...” I thought fast. “Part
time job.”

She didn’t even bother to look like she
believed me.

“Have you seen him today?” I added.

“No,” the neighbor said. She didn’t add,
‘and I wouldn’t tell you if I had,’ but it was implied.

“What about Ginny and Sam? Have you seen
them?”

“This morning,” the neighbor said. “They
went to church.”

“But not David?”

“David’s away at camp.”

I wish
. “So you haven’t seen him
today?”

“No,” the neighbor said firmly.

“How about someone else? Has anyone else
been here? Like... maybe someone in a blue van?”

She looked like she suspected me of being a
few bricks shy of a load. “No one’s been here. Not between the time
Ginny and Sam left this morning and now. Not David. Not someone in
a blue van. No one but you.”

Good
. “Thank you,” I said. “If you
should happen to see David, please have him call me. Or call me
yourself.”

“He’s at camp, Ms. Martin.”

I nodded. “I know. You said that. But if you
see him, please tell him to call me. Or his mother. Or call one of
us yourself.”

She didn’t roll her eyes, but I got the
feeling she wanted to. She did not continue arguing, however. Just
said, “Of course,” and watched me as I walked back to my car and
got in. She watched as I executed a neat eight-point turn and
headed down the driveway, and she was still watching as I turned
left out of the driveway and onto Pennywell. I have no doubt she
continued to watch until I stopped at the stop sign at the bottom
of the hill and took a right, too.

And then I was on my way back to the
interstate and to Peaceful Pines, since I couldn’t think of
anything else I could do in Nashville, or anywhere else David might
have gone, that I should check.

It had been quite disappointing to find out
that he wasn’t in Sweetwater. I’d been so sure I’d been right, that
he’d done what he did last time he ran away, and had gone there.
His reasoning had made sense, from a twelve-year-old perspective,
and for someone who didn’t realize that all the dwellings in the
Bog were gone, courtesy of Ronnie Burke, the real estate developer
who had bought the land with the intent of building an affordable
housing development called Mallard Meadows there.

Was there a chance Dix may have missed
him?

But no. David might have gotten out of sight
when he’d heard the car. He was a smart kid. But once they started
calling his name, and once he realized they were my family, the
same people he’d seen with me yesterday, I didn’t think he’d have
continued hiding.

So he wasn’t in Sweetwater.

He wasn’t at camp.

Maybe Ginny was right and he really had just
walked in his sleep and gotten lost. Maybe they’d find him in the
woods.

But wouldn’t they have found him by now?
They must have been looking for four or five hours. Surely, walking
in his sleep wouldn’t have taken him that far from camp?

So I was back to his having stolen a bike
and left. And something having happened to him on the way. A
traffic accident, hit-and-run, or someone grabbing him. Hernandez
or some other sick bastard.

Maybe instead of taking the direct route to
Peaceful Pines, I should figure out the route David would have
taken, and drive that. I didn’t relish the idea of finding him dead
in a ditch along the way, but horrible as it sounded, at least we’d
know something.

I tried to picture the landscape in my mind,
from Nashville east to the Cumberland Plateau, but there were just
too many roads. So I pulled over at the next exit, and into a
Cracker Barrel parking lot, where I manipulated buttons on my phone
until I had found the location of Peaceful Pines. From there, I put
myself in David’s shoes and tried to figure out the route he would
have taken back to Nashville, if he hadn’t decided to risk the
interstate.

Looked like maybe US Highway 70 through
Watertown to Lebanon, and then state route 24 into town.

That was if he’d been going to Nashville, of
course. If he’d been headed for Sweetwater, it was more likely to
be SR 53 to US 70 to SR 231 to 373 through Lewisburg... and my head
was already spinning. Was it even possible for a twelve-year-old to
manage that? In the dark, on a bicycle?

And anyway, I was in Nashville, going to
Peaceful Pines. What made sense, was for me to take Highway 70 to
Lebanon and Watertown, and keep a sharp eye out along the way, for
a twelve-year-old boy or an abandoned bicycle.

I was about halfway there—to Lebanon Road, Highway 70; not Peaceful
Pines—when my phone rang again. Less than ten minutes had passed
since I left the Flannerys’ house, in other words. And when I saw
that it was my mother, I was tempted to let it go to voicemail. I
had a lot on my mind, and the last thing I needed—and granted, I
had said that a lot today, about a lot of things—but the last thing
I needed, at least at the moment, was to hear my mother’s opinion
of the situation and how we could all have been so amiss as to let
David run away.

She wouldn’t include herself in ‘we all,’ of
course.

Not that she should. She hadn’t been there.
Then again, neither had I.

But if I didn’t pick up now, I’d just have
to call her back later, and come up with some sort of excuse for
why I hadn’t answered the first time. And she had cared enough to
spend the night with me in scary East Nashville to provide moral
support when Rafe was missing. And as I’d told Grimaldi, although I
sometimes forget, I do realize how lucky I am to have a mother who
loves me.

I answered the phone. “Mother.” I even
managed to force my lips into a smile.

“Darling,” my mother said, and I could
already hear the faint whiff of accusation in her voice. So I
decided to nip it in the bud.

“I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m not happy to
hear from you and learn that you got home safe, but I’m a bit busy
up here...”

“That’s all right,” Mother said. “This won’t
take long. About the child...”

“David.” She had always had a problem
uttering Rafe’s name. Usually, she referred to him as ‘your
boyfriend.’ In rare instances, when she couldn’t avoid his name,
she called him Rafael. Looked like maybe she was transferring her
feelings for Rafe onto David, and was going to be giving him the
same treatment. Poor kid. He couldn’t help who his father was, and
the fact that my mother doesn’t like him.

“Yes,” Mother said. “David.”

“He’s still missing. I’m on my way out to
Peaceful Pines now. Along the route I think he must have taken if
he bicycled to Nashville. I’m hoping I’ll get lucky, but to be
honest, I’m afraid Hernandez may have gotten him. Did Dix tell you
that one of my neighbors saw Hernandez’s van parked across the
street this morning?”

“Yes, darling,” Mother said. “About
David...”

“If he got there while Hernandez was sitting
outside, there’s no way Hernandez wouldn’t have tried to grab him.
The house was empty, and nobody else was around. He wouldn’t even
have to force David into the van. All he’d have to do, would be to
say he works with Rafe at the TBI. That he was doing surveillance
from the other side of the street. That Rafe was back and in the
hospital and that if David got in the car, he’d drive him
there.”