Unfinished Business (4 page)

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I’m
afraid the wedding’s off.”

“How about some lunch before we drive back to Sweetwater?”
Catherine asked brightly.

For the first few seconds after my
pronouncement, everyone had just stood there in glum silence.

All right, the silence may have been a happy
one on Mother’s part, but she managed to keep from jumping up and
down with glee. The three inch heels on her shoes may have had
something to do with that. Or maybe it was just good manners, which
she has in spades.

At any rate, when Catherine asked her
question, Mother was the first to recover. “What a lovely idea,”
she said warmly. “I’ve heard good things about the Germantown Café.
And it’s nearby, isn’t it?”

It was. Half a mile as the crow flew,
straight up Fourth Avenue from the courthouse garage.

“If y’all don’t mind,” Wendell said, “I
think I’m gonna pass.”

I turned to him. Far be it from me to
question why anyone would choose not to have lunch with my mother,
but I felt I had to ask. “Are you sure? You’re welcome to join
us.”

He shook his head. “I’m gonna go back to the
bureau. If the boy’s missing, the brass is gonna wanna know about
it.”

I would imagine so. “You’ll let me know if
you hear anything, right?”

“Course,” Wendell said. “Hang in there. He
can take care of himself. I’m sure he’s fine.”

I wasn’t, but it was nice of him to try to
reassure me. “I’ll let you know if he gets in touch,” I said,
“although it’s more likely he’ll get in touch with you than
me.”

“Depends on what’s going on,” Wendell said.
He nodded to my mother and sister. “Nice to meet y’all.” To Tamara
Grimaldi he said, “I’ll be in touch.”

She nodded. “Missing persons isn’t my
jurisdiction—and we’ll hope my jurisdiction won’t be needed for
this—but if there’s anything the MNPD can do to help, please don’t
hesitate to ask.”

Wendell promised he wouldn’t, and took
himself off.

“You’re coming with us,” I asked Grimaldi,
“aren’t you?”

She didn’t glance at Dix, nor he at her, but
I could feel the connection anyway. I wondered if Mother could. “If
you don’t mind.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I don’t mind at all.
I’d like you to come. Please.”

Of all of us, and with the exception of me,
she knew Rafe the best. In some ways she probably knew him better
than I did, since they had the law enforcement background in
common. When we got to the Germantown Café, I already knew Grimaldi
would take a seat with her back to the wall and her eye on the
door, just as Rafe would. She understood him on an elementary level
that I’m not sure I did, or ever would.

Besides, she was a cop. And you never know
when a cop might come in handy. Especially when someone didn’t show
up for his own wedding.

So we sorted ourselves into three
cars—Mother with Dix and Catherine with me, Grimaldi on her own in
her police issued sedan—and drove the half a dozen blocks to
Germantown.

It’s a formerly industrial area just north
of downtown. A hundred years ago it was Nashville’s meatpacking
district. Now it’s a hip and happening urban neighborhood in the
downtown core, with the hip and happening bars and restaurants to
go with it, and a view of the Nashville skyline and the state
capitol. It was also the neighborhood where my ex-husband Bradley
worked up until he was arrested a few months ago.

Indeed, when I walked through the door of
the Germantown Café, the first person I saw was Diana Morton, one
of the partners at Bradley’s former law firm, at a table against
the back wall, in conversation with a good-looking dark-haired man
in his early thirties.

Diana, for your information, is a cool
blonde in her forties, and as far as I know, she’s happily married.
Yet here she was, having a tête-à-tête with a
good-looking—
extremely
good-looking—younger man.

Of course, that was her business. I wasn’t
even sure she’d recognize me. I’d only met her a few times during
the two years I’d been married to Bradley, and it must have been
four or five years ago now. I did know I had no desire to talk to
her. So I pretended I had no idea who she was, and sat down with my
back to her, at a table by the window, on the opposite side of the
room. Mother sat down across the table, with Catherine next to her,
and Dix bowed Tamara Grimaldi into the seat next to me, leaving
himself the chair that had been hastily added to the short end of a
four-top table.

“So,” my brother said, making himself
comfortable—and I’m sure his knee was touching Grimaldi’s under the
table, “now what?”

It was a good question. I could go home—to
Rafe’s house, where I had no business being without Rafe—and curl
up in a corner and cry. It was what I wanted to do.

Or I could eat too much food to try to fill
that gaping hole in my stomach—and for once, it had nothing to do
with the pregnancy. Then I’d get sick, and I’d have a legitimate
reason for curling up in a corner wanting to cry.

No, scratch that. Having my boyfriend go
missing on our wedding day was reason enough. I didn’t need
another.

Of course, if I started putting everything
in sight in my mouth, Mother would have something to say about it.
I couldn’t help it that my waistline was expanding, but she’d
remind me that whatever pounds I put on now, were extra pounds I’d
have to take off again after the baby came.

God forbid I ended up a size bigger after
having a baby.

Or I could pull myself together and try to
figure out what was going on.

While I’d been weighing the options, Mother
had spoken. “It’s obvious,” she said. We all turned to look at her,
and without missing a beat, she added, “She’ll have to come back to
Sweetwater with us. She can’t stay here, in
his
house, after
being practically left at the alter.”

She turned to me. “You don’t have your
rental apartment anymore, do you, darling?”

“No,” I said. “I gave that up after the
prostitute was murdered in my bed last month.”

There was a moment of silence. Not even
Mother wanted to touch that one. And in justice to her, it was a
tough act to follow. Also, it was true. A prostitute had been
murdered in what used to be my bed, and I’d stopped renting the
place out after that, and had handed the keys back and let the
lease lapse with a month to go. So Mother was technically right: I
had nowhere else to go. Just Rafe’s house and the ancestral mansion
in Sweetwater. An ancestral mansion I hadn’t returned to after
Bradley and I divorced, much to Mother’s annoyance.

However, if I hadn’t scurried home with my
tail between my legs when my marriage fell apart, I wasn’t about to
do it now.

In the silence following my prostitute
remark, the scuff of a foot sounded next to the table. The waitress
stood there, eyes wide. “Um...” she said. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t
help overhear what you were saying.”

I smiled magnanimously. “No worries. These
things happen.”

I was referring to people overhearing what
other people were saying when those other people were talking in a
public place, but she must have thought I was referring to
prostitutes turning up dead in people’s beds, because she
gulped.

“Take your time,” Dix said kindly, while
Mother sniffed. Grimaldi hid a smile.

The waitress took a breath and closed her
eyes for a second. “Welcome to the Germantown Café,” she said when
she’d opened them again, with a passable, clearly fake smile. “Can
I start you off with something to drink?”

I wanted to order wine, but of course I
couldn’t. “Sweet tea, please. Extra sugar.” For the shock.

Mother frowned, but placed her order too.
The others did the same, and the waitress wandered off, I’m sure to
share with her brethren what she’d overheard us talking about.

“We should take a look at the menus,” I said
and opened mine. “And be ready to order when she comes back.”

Since it was a reasonable suggestion, the
others followed suit. For a couple of minutes, all was peaceful and
calm. Then Mother closed her menu and opened her mouth. “You can’t
mean you’ll consider staying here, Savannah.”

“You can’t mean you expect me to leave,” I
shot back. “It’s only been a few hours. And we don’t know where
Rafe is. He could walk in the door at any moment.”

I glanced at it. Nobody walked in, although
Diana Morton’s companion was on his way in that direction. I guess
their meeting was over. As he passed our table, he slowed down and
then came to a stop. “Slacking?” he asked Grimaldi.

Up close he was even more gorgeous than from
a distance, and I could feel Dix bristle. There’s nothing wrong
with the way my brother looks—like me, he takes after Mother’s
people, the Georgia Calverts. We’re all tallish, blue-eyed, and
fair of hair and complexion. Catherine, on the other hand, takes
after our father’s family, and is shorter, rounder, and darker.

However, Dix was no match for the guy
currently grinning down at Grimaldi. And while I love Rafe, and
remain quite convinced that he’s the most gorgeous man in
Nashville, this guy ran a close second. Like Rafe he was dark, with
black hair and melting brown eyes, high cheekbones and the kind of
eyelashes women dream about. Unlike Rafe, who prefers to dress
casually in jeans and T-shirts, the newcomer was decked out in a
killer suit that I’m sure had cost as much as Rafe’s entire
wardrobe, and a gorgeous silk shirt. Mother clearly approved,
because she shot me a look that said, “
See? This is what you
could have ended up with if you hadn’t hitched your star to a loser
who couldn’t even bother to show up for his own nuptials
.”

“Maid of honor at a wedding,” Grimaldi
said.

“Congratulations.” He had obviously picked
me out as the bride, because he transferred the grin to me. Not
surprisingly, since I was the one in the semi-white dress. Mother
was wearing blue and Catherine pink, while Grimaldi had jazzed up
her usual dark suit with a turquoise shirt.

“And you must be the lucky guy,” he told
Dix. “Congratulations.” He held out a hand.

“I’m the brother of the bride,” Dix
answered, but took it anyway. “Dix Martin.”

“Jaime Mendoza.” They shook, and if Dix
tried to crush bones, Mendoza gave no sign of it. Dix was either
behaving himself, or Mendoza was made of sterner stuff.

“The groom didn’t bother to show up,” Mother
said. “I don’t suppose you’d want to marry my daughter?”

Mendoza’s dimples deepened.

“Mother!” I exclaimed, somewhere between
shocked and embarrassed and furious, at the same time as Mendoza
said, his face solemn but his eyes twinkling, “While I appreciate
the offer, ma’am, I’m not entirely divorced yet. I figure I’ll
better wait until it’s official. No offense.” He winked at me.

“None taken,” I said. “Sorry.”

He just shook his head, and turned back to
Grimaldi. “See you around, Detective.”

“Likewise,” Grimaldi said. “Be careful out
there.”

“Always.” He bathed us all in the glow of
that thousand-watt smile. “Nice to meet you all. Have a nice
day.”

And then he headed for the door. I barely
waited until he was out of earshot before I turned on Mother—and I
do mean
on
. “How could you ask him that?! He’s a stranger!
He doesn’t need to know that my fiancé didn’t show up to the
wedding. And besides, I don’t want to marry him. I want to marry
Rafe.”

“It seems,” Mother said, her lips tight,
“that Rafael doesn’t want to marry you.”

“You don’t know that!” My fingernails dug
divots into my palms because I was curling my fists so tight. The
tiny pinpoints of pain kept me from launching myself across the
table and going for her throat. “It’s only been a few hours. He
could have gotten caught up in something. Or he could be hurt. He
could be dead. He could be in terrible trouble, and we’re sitting
here waiting to eat while you ask a perfect stranger if he’d like
to take your pregnant daughter off your hands! I’m surprised he
didn’t run screaming out of the restaurant!”

“Inside voice, darling,” Mother reminded me,
with a glance around to make sure no one else was listening.

“I don’t care about my inside voice!” I
shrieked, just as Diana Morton walked by. She sent me a startled
look, and then did a double take, as if she thought she recognized
me. She hesitated for a second, but then she moved on. No doubt she
realized that now wasn’t a good time to ask me if I was Bradley
Ferguson’s ex-wife.

On the heels of Diana came the waitress, who
by now looked acutely uncomfortable, like she wished she’d called
in sick and stayed in bed today. I wished I could go back to bed,
too, and pull the covers over my head, and wake up tomorrow with
this all having been a horrible dream.

But of course I couldn’t. And with Mother on
the opposite side of the table, I had to keep a stiff upper lip.
“I’d like a Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad,” I told the waitress as
she put my iced tea on the table. “With extra cheese.”

Mother gave me a look across the table, and
I added, “Dairy is good for the baby.”

She had no answer to that, just turned to
the waitress and ordered a Cobb salad of her own. Catherine
followed suit—we’ve both been brought up by the same standards of
eating—while Dix wanted a turkey sandwich on wheat with a side of
coleslaw. Grimaldi, bless her heart, bucked the system and asked
for a blue cheese burger with extra bacon and a side of onion
rings.

Mother sniffed.

“I love you,” I told Grimaldi.

She stared at me for a second, and then she
grinned. “Thanks. But I’m not marrying you.”

“I don’t love you that much. Besides, I
haven’t given up on Rafe yet.”

“No,” Grimaldi said, “don’t do that. He’ll
be back.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.