We ended up going home before Dix arrived to pick up his girls, so I didn’t get a chance to ask him what the hell—excuse me, heck—he thought he was doing, going on a date with Charlotte Albertson.
“Can you imagine?” I fumed to Rafe on the way home. “I mean, what’s wrong with him? She’s still married. She has no business going on dates. He has no business taking her on them. And isn’t he supposed to be involved with Grimaldi?”
“I dunno,” Rafe said, expertly driving the car along the dark road toward the mansion. “Is he?”
I stared at him. “Isn’t he?” They’d certainly spent a lot of time together since Sheila—my sister-in-law—died. And there was that one time when Dix wanted to go work out with Rafe, because—I had assumed—he’d wanted to beef up for Grimaldi. Like Rafe, and like a lot of law enforcement, at least the people who take it seriously, she’s in good physical shape. And Dix, being a desk jockey and a small-town lawyer, maybe isn’t quite so buff.
Rafe gave me a quick look over his shoulder. I was still in the rear of the car, with Carrie, and Pearl was up front, sitting tall and watching the world go by outside the windows. “Haven’t you asked?”
“Not straight out.” Or maybe I had, and they just hadn’t given me a straight answer. Grimaldi had a way of ignoring the questions she didn’t like. And I don’t really feel comfortable asking my brother about his sex life. “She moved down here, didn’t she?”
“To help the sheriff root out corruption in the Columbia PD,” Rafe said.
Well, yes. But— “Don’t you think it was a little bit because Dix is here, too? I mean, they didn’t have any chance at a normal relationship with him here and her in Nashville. I assumed that was part of the reason she took the job.”
Even after I’d learned the real reason Sheriff Satterfield had offered it to her, I had assumed that.
Rafe shrugged. “You’re gonna have to ask her.”
“She won’t answer. She never does.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” my husband said, without any sympathy at all.
I changed the subject. “Did I tell you that I’ve come up with a title for that Barbara Botticelli ripoff I’ve been wanting to write? Bedded by the Bedouin. Would you mind dressing up in a robe and turban and be my inspiration?”
Unlike Catherine and Mother, and their joint looks of horror, he grinned at me in the mirror. “Sure thing, darlin’. I’m always happy to be inspirational.”
“My hero,” I said.
The grin widened. “What would my name be in this one?”
After the first few moments of shock and distaste when we first made the connection, he’d taken the fact that Elspeth had used him for inspiration in stride, and by now, he thought it was funny. Or at least he thought it was funny that I wanted to.
“Not sure,” I said. “When Elspeth—or Barbara Botticelli—wrote her Sheikh romance, the hero was named Hasan something.” I’d been reading it around the time I first met Rafe, or met him again, a year and a half ago. “Lady Selena—or maybe Serena; I can’t remember—and Sheikh Hasan.”
“I wanna be Raoul,” Rafe said, and I squinted at him.
“Really? Why?”
He glanced back at me. “Like I said, it’s easier to answer to something that’s similar to your own name.”
He had told me that once. When he was in character as Ry’mone, small-time gang banger and gun procurer.
I shook my head. “You won’t have to answer to it.”
“You weren’t gonna call me Raoul when we’re in bed tonight?”
Absolutely not. “Why would I want to make love to Raoul when I have you?”
Elspeth had to make do with Hasan, or Mac the Black MacGregor, or whoever—I couldn’t remember the names of all her romance novel heroes anymore—but I didn’t have to, because I had Rafe. And I was not about to call him Raoul. Or anything else.
“Good answer,” he told me. “But you want the robe and turban?”
“I’d rather have you naked. I’ll imagine the robe and turban.”
He grinned. “That works for me.”
It worked for me, too. Or would, once we got around to it.
But since that was a ways off—I’d have to take care of the baby first—I changed the subject again. “I don’t suppose Jonathan said anything interesting?”
“About what?” We approached the driveway to the mansion, and Rafe started to decelerate.
“Nothing in particular. Just interesting in general.”
“No,” Rafe said, and took the turn into the driveway gently. “We talked about basketball.”
And that wasn’t interesting at all, at least not to me. “Catherine and Mother were both pretty shocked that Katie Graves’s remains had been found. Catherine even more so than Mother. She turned green.”
“What did you tell her?” He glanced back at me as we rolled slowly up the driveway toward the mansion.
“Just the little bit that I know. That someone with the ATF found the bones before Christmas, and now she’s been identified.”
“To turn her green,” Rafe clarified, and pulled the car to a stop at the bottom of the steps. “If you grab the baby, I’ll take the car to the garage and bring the dog back.”
That made sense, so I reached for my door handle. “I don’t think I said anything to turn her green. Except that I said ‘what’s left of her.’”
“That’d do it,” Rafe said, as I swung my legs out. When I’d shut my own door and gone around the rear of the car and opened the back door to reach for Carrie, he added, “I’ll stay out for a couple minutes. I imagine the dog probably has some business to take care of.”
She probably did. It was getting close to bedtime, so she might as well get her evening bathroom break taken care of. “I’ll be upstairs.”
“I’ll come find you,” Rafe said, and rolled off as soon as I’d closed the door. I hoisted the baby carrier over my arm and climbed the couple of steps to the front door.
He did indeed come find me, after getting the dog settled and, I’m sure, after walking through the house and making sure all the windows and doors were securely locked. By then, Carrie was in her little footed pajamas, yellow with ducks all over them, and was having her final meal of the day in the rocking chair in her room.
Final, because the next time she woke me up, it would be after midnight. She still got me out of bed a couple of times every night. Somehow, my body seemed to have adjusted to this, since I didn’t feel so much like a zombie anymore. For a first few weeks, when she’d been nursing every couple hours around the clock, I’d been a walking disaster.
Rafe stopped in the doorway to watch for a moment. The look on his face was, as always, a mixture of amusement and tenderness, with a little awe thrown in for good measure. And just a touch of heat, since I was, after all, flashing my breasts at him.
After a minute he told me he was going to get ready for bed, and I nodded. He disappeared into the bathroom, and I glanced down at Carrie. Her eyelids were getting heavy, those long, inky lashes fluttering against her cheeks.
By the time Rafe came back, all washed and brushed and ready for bed, she had fallen asleep. I shifted her up to my shoulder and patted her back until she gave a sleepy belch, and then I got to my feet. “I’m going to put her down.”
“I’ll be over here.”
Of course he would. I wandered over to the port-a-crib we’d brought with us from Nashville, and lowered Carrie into it. There was a hundred-year-old baby bed somewhere in the attic, that I and Dix and Catherine and several generations of Martins before us had slept in, and I kept thinking that I should go dig it out so Carrie could take her rightful place in it. But so far I’d ended up just putting her down in the port-a-crib whenever it was time for a nap.
I left the door open and wandered into the bathroom next door to brush my own teeth. By the time I got back to my own room, or our room now, Rafe was underneath the covers, his skin a warm golden brown against the white sheets, and one arm curled under his head with muscles—very nice muscles—bunching.
“Hello, Raoul,” I told him, as I posed in the doorway in a suitably romantic fashion. One that would have looked better in one of the confectionary nightgowns I used to wear, dripping with ribbons and lace, and that probably didn’t look quite so alluring in the simple cotton camisole and pajama pants I wore to bed these days, to make nursing easier.
He grinned. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna do that.”
“I’m not.” I dropped my arm from the door jamb and headed across the floor. “I don’t want Raoul. I want you.”
“I want you, too. C’mere.” He turned to me as I slipped between the sheets, and tumbled me onto my back. His knee moved between my legs. One hand came up to cup my cheek. “I don’t wanna share you. Even with Raoul.”
Nice to know. I felt the same way. Meaning that even if Catherine was right and Elspeth hadn’t actually seen Rafe naked in fourteen years, I wasn’t at all happy about her fantasizing about him all this time.
“I don’t want to share you, either,” I told him. Perhaps, when it came to it, not even with the reading public.
But I could make that decision later. For now, I had more important things to focus on. I wound my arms around his neck and pulled his head down so I could kiss him. And that was all either of us said for a while. Or at least all either of us said that I want to share in print.
He got up and went to work as usual the next morning. Except I guess instead of heading for Columbia and the police department there, he headed for the Maury County sheriff’s department and Bob Satterfield instead.
I wasn’t awake when he left. As usual, Carrie had been up a few times overnight, and as usual I was dead to the world when the alarm went off. The irritated beeping was loud enough to drag my gluey eyelids apart, but when Rafe turned it off and then bent over me and whispered, “Go back to sleep,” I did. He walked out while I was snoozing.
By the time I—or rather Carrie—got hungry and woke up the second time, it was after eight, and the house was empty except for the two of us (and Pearl). There was a faint aroma of coffee in the air, but as I discovered when I got down to the kitchen, there was no coffee in the machine. And since I’m not actually supposed to have much coffee, I heated some milk for a cup of hot chocolate instead—milk is good for the baby, chocolate is good in general—and consoled myself with that. It didn’t make it any easier to wake up, but it made up, to at least some degree, for not getting any coffee.
All that done, and once I was dressed and ready to face the day, I gave Pearl a dog biscuit and left her on her pillow in the kitchen, and then I walked myself and Carrie over to the converted carriage house that serves as the Martin Mansion garage, and strapped the baby and the car seat into the back of the Volvo and headed for Sweetwater proper.
Eight hours of interrupted sleep had done very little to ease my irritation when it came to Dix and Charlotte. How dare he take her on a date? How dare she go? How dared either of them do it without running it by me first?
Granted, it was really none of my business, and no reason either of them should have to run their respective love lives past me… but when one of them was my best friend from high school, and the other was my brother, and I had an investment in both of their happiness—with other people—it seemed like informing me was the least they could do.
I started with Dix. Charlotte had been avoiding me since she came back to Sweetwater, and besides, while there was a time in my life I would have gone to her first, that had changed. Dix was my brother. I started there.
Or rather, I tried. I drove to the square and parked the car in an empty space outside Martin and McCall Law Offices, hauled the baby seat from the back of the car, and went inside. Only to be informed that Dix wasn’t on the premises.
I put the carrier on the floor. Carrie wasn’t very big, but in combination with the seat she got heavy pretty quickly, and I didn’t see why I should have to stand there and hold her aloft when the seat would be perfectly fine on the floor. “Where is he?”
“He had an appointment,” Darcy said, smiling at the sight of the baby. She came around the desk and squatted in front of her. “Hello, Caroline!”
Carrie gurgled and Darcy laughed. “Yes, you are a pretty girl.”
“What kind of appointment?”
Darcy tilted her head and looked up at me. Standing, she’s a couple of inches taller than me, but since she was squatting, I could actually look down at her. Her brows, as elegantly drawn as her mother’s, pulled together. “What’s wrong?”
“He went on a date last night,” I said.
Darcy nodded. “I know. He arranged to have Catherine take the girls. I would have done it, but I was having dinner with Patrick.”
Patrick Nolan, Darcy’s beau, is a police officer with the Columbia PD. One of Tamara Grimaldi’s underlings now, and one of Rafe’s coworkers.
I waved it aside. “He went out with Charlotte Albertson!”
Or Charlotte Whitaker, but here in Sweetwater, she’d probably always be Charlotte Albertson, just as I’d always be Savannah Martin, even though we were both married now. And besides, if Charlotte’s separation from Richard stuck, she might become Charlotte Albertson again.
“Your friend from high school?” Darcy got up and legged it back behind the desk. “I thought you liked her.”
“I used to,” I grumbled, “before she went out with my brother.”
“Didn’t she go out with your brother in high school?”
“Yes, she went out with our brother in high school. That doesn’t mean I want her going out with him now. At least not until she’s properly divorced.” And preferably not then, either.
“For what it’s worth,” Darcy offered, “I didn’t get the impression that he was all that excited about taking her out.”
“Then he shouldn’t have asked her!”
“I got the feeling she asked him. And that it was more of a friendly dinner than anything romantic.”
Friendly? “Catherine said she’s still angling for a job here. Although there’s nothing for her to do and she isn’t family.”
“Maybe she thinks, if she marries Dix, she will be family,” Darcy said.
I folded my arms across my chest. “That’s a lot of trouble to go to for a job.” And besides, if she married Dix, she wouldn’t have to work. Sheila hadn’t worked.
“Maybe that’s what she’s looking for,” Darcy said when I’d aired this thought. “Someone to support her the way her husband does. Or did.”
“If so, I think she’ll be disappointed. Not that Dix is poor. But he’s a family practice lawyer in a small town. Richard is a cosmetic surgeon in a big city. I’m sure he makes a lot more money than Dix.”
Darcy shrugged. “Why don’t you go ask her?”
“That was going to be my next stop. I wanted to talk to Dix first.”
She nodded. “Well, I’m sorry you can’t. He’ll be back after lunch, but that’s a few hours from now.”
“I’ll just go look for Charlotte.” I bent and snagged the handle of the baby seat.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Darcy said. “And for bringing the baby.”
I headed for the door, and told her over my shoulder, “Now that we’re settled, at least for a while, and Rafe’s recovered and back to work, you and I should grab lunch or dinner sometime so we can catch up.”
“I’m always happy to see you,” Darcy said. “And the baby.”
“I’ll text you. We’ll figure out a time and place.”
She nodded. “Looking forward to it.”
I was, too. It was nice to have another sister. We weren’t as close as I was with Catherine, since I’d only known that Darcy was family for six months or so, and Catherine and I had been sisters for twenty-eight years, but I enjoyed her company. And since she was also Rafe’s cousin a few times removed on his father’s side, we had that in common, as well. Really and truly, for having discovered one another late, I thought we were doing just fine.
Outside, I put Carrie and the carrier back into the Volvo, and got behind the wheel. And was just about to pull away from the curb when the door to Audrey’s On The Square, the only designer boutique in Maury County, opened. “Savannah!”
I put the car back in park and turned off the engine before I got out. “Audrey.”
“I thought that was you.” My mother’s best friend, as well as Darcy’s mother and Rafe’s aunt or cousin of some sort, beamed at me.
“I was just looking for Dix,” I explained after I’d given her the expected hug. “But Darcy said he wasn’t in the office. So now I’m going to look for Charlotte.”
“Your friend from high school?”
I nodded. “She and Dix went on a date last night. I want to know why.”
Audrey got a sort of funny look on her face. “I’m sure for the usual reasons.”
Well… yes. Probably. But— “She’s still married to Richard. She only left him after Christmas. She can’t possibly have had time to get a divorce yet. The usual reasons don’t apply when she’s still married.”
“Be that as it may,” Audrey started, and then shook her head. “How’s Rafe?”
I told her he was fine. “On loan to Sheriff Satterfield. They found what’s left of Katie Graves up in the hills by the Devil’s Backbone.”
Her eyes widened. “The girl who disappeared all those years ago? Back when y’all were kids?”
I nodded. “She went to school with Catherine. With Rafe and Dix, too, but she was Catherine’s age.”
“And now she’s back?”
“I imagine she was always there,” I said, although I had no way of knowing whether that was true or not. But it made sense to think that she’d been there ever since she disappeared. The thought of anything else was upsetting.
Audrey shook her head and clicked her tongue. Her wedge of thick, black hair swung. “Dear me. I remember all the hoopla when she went missing. Margaret was frantic.”
No doubt. I remembered some of that myself, but Audrey had probably seen, or noticed, more of it. Mother would have tried to keep some of her hysteria hidden from her children, probably, but she was likely to have cut loose with her best friend. “The sheriff wants Rafe to help him figure out what happened.”
“Good for Bob,” Audrey said, with a glance over her shoulder at the store. “I should get back inside. But I saw you out here and wanted to say hello.”
“And I’m glad you did.” I’ve always liked Audrey. And now that I knew she was related to Rafe, I liked her even better. “Mrs. Jenkins OK?”
“Aunt Tondalia is fine,” Audrey said. “She’s coloring in the back room. I’d tell you to come inside and say hello, but I know you have to go. Maybe the two of you can stop by some night, with the baby.”
I was sure we could. “I’ll let you know.”
Audrey nodded and turned back to the door. She was just wearing a thin silk shirt with polkadots, along with a skirt and shoes, so I didn’t blame her for wanting to get back inside where it was warmer. “Drive carefully.”
I wasn’t going far, but I told her thanks, and went back to the car. And drove the two or three blocks to the big, white Victorian where Charlotte had grown up.
Last time I’d been by, a couple of weeks ago, Charlotte’s mother had been out in the yard watching her grandchildren play. Today the front lawn was empty, just an expanse of dead yellow grass and a few spiky sticks of vegetation where the flower beds would be in warmer weather.
I parked at the curb and hauled the baby out of the car. We made our way through the gate, up the walkway, onto the covered Victorian porch, where I rang the doorbell.
After a minute, the door opened, and Mrs. Albertson peered out. “Oh,” she said after a beat. “It’s you.”
Like the last time I’d shown up unannounced, she seemed less than happy to see me. It had struck me as strange then, and still did now, since when we were younger, the Albertsons had always seemed happy that Charlotte and I were friends. “Hi, Mrs. Albertson.” I gave her my best smile. “Is Charlotte home?”
I inched forward. She stood her ground instead of stepping back. “No. She’s out.”
Not much sense in trying to force my way into the house, then. I stopped. “Where’d she go?”
“She didn’t say,” Mrs. Albertson said. That also seemed strange to me, but it wasn’t like I could call her on it.
“Any idea when she’ll be back?”
She shook her head. “You can try to text her.”
I could, and probably would. Although it hadn’t worked the last time I tried. Or the time before that. Or the time before that.
But there was no point in saying that, either, so I just nodded. “Thank you.”
I turned and started to make my way down the couple of steps again. The door shut and the deadbolt locked with a sound of finality before I’d even gotten down on level ground.
“That was weird,” I told Carrie as I put her back into the Volvo. She pursed her lips and blew a bubble.
After getting back behind the wheel, I sat for a moment and thought about what to do next. I’d tried to find Dix, and he hadn’t been there. I’d tried to find Charlotte, and she hadn’t been there, either.
The only thing left to do, as far as I was concerned, was talk to Tamara Grimaldi. I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days anyway. Not since Rafe started work. I should probably check in with her and make sure everything was copasetic.
Decision made, I put the Volvo in gear and rolled off toward Columbia.
It isn’t a far drive. When I was a teenager, we’d gone by bus to high school in Columbia every morning. It took twenty minutes or so. When I was driving myself, and I didn’t have to stop every few minutes, it took less. In no time at all, I was pulling up outside the police station in downtown Columbia, pulling the car seat with the baby out of the car, and walking into the lobby.
The same woman as last time I’d been here was on duty behind the desk over in the corner. She gave me a polite look, and then a second look. And then a smirk. “He isn’t here.”
“I know he isn’t here,” I said. And because I didn’t like her—she had ogled Rafe when we were here two weeks ago—I added, “When he left me in bed this morning, he was going to see Sheriff Satterfield.”
After this reminder that I shared a bed with him and she didn’t, I finished up with, “I’d like to see Detec… um… Chief Grimaldi, if she’s available.”
She gave me another smirk, so maybe she thought the fact that I’d felt it necessary to stake, or remind her of, my claim on Rafe was amusing. “I’ll see if she’s in.”
She punched a couple of buttons on her phone. I waited. “Chief Grimaldi. Mrs…. um… Collier is here to see you.”
Grimaldi said something, and the young woman nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She put the phone down and told me, “She’ll be right out.”
I thanked her and took the baby over to the sitting area. I hadn’t even managed to get my butt planted in a chair before the door to the inner sanctum opened and Grimaldi came through.