Charlotte was not home. Or if she was, her mother lied about it. “Sorry, Savannah. She left early.”
“What’s going on?” I wanted to know, my voice a little demanding due to my frustration. “Has she found a job or something? Or does she just not want to see me?”
Mrs. Albertson flushed uncomfortably. “I’m sure it’s not you, Savannah.”
I waited, but she didn’t elaborate, which made it sound like, yes, it absolutely was me. “When do you expect her back?” I asked, when it became clear that she wasn’t going to say anything else.
She looked past me, out to the street, sort of longingly. Probably wishing I was out there instead of right in front of her. “I’m not sure.”
“She didn’t say?” Or her mother just didn’t want to tell me?
“I’ll let her know you stopped by,” Mrs. Albertson said, without answering the question.
Fat lot that would do, when she hadn’t responded to a text or phone call in days. But since there was nothing I could do about it, short of pushing Mrs. Albertson aside and searching the house myself, I accepted defeat. Not entirely gracefully, but I did it. “Thank you. I’ll wait to hear from her.”
Mrs. Albertson looked relieved. “Thank you, Savannah.”
“No problem,” I said. “But for the record, I think it’s lousy of her to make you do her dirty-work.”
Her jaw dropped, and I added, “Feel free to tell her I said that. She’s acting cowardly, and after twenty years of friendship, I would have expected better.”
I seemed to have struck her speechless, so I turned on my heel. “I’ll see myself out.”
Not a problem, since I was on the front steps, and ‘out’ in this case meant down the walkway and through the gate. By the time I got to the car, and turned to look back at the house, Mrs. Albertson had gone inside and shut the door. And upstairs, in what used to be Charlotte’s room, the curtain fluttered, as if someone had stepped back hastily when I turned.
It didn’t have to be Charlotte, of course. Her children might be sleeping in her old room. That might actually make sense. Or it could just be hot air from the vent below the window fluttering the curtain. But I scowled up at the window anyway, before I yanked my door open and got into the car. I hadn’t even bothered to take the car seat with Carrie out of the back this time, since I’d expected exactly what happened to happen, and I’d figured I’d be back in the car within a minute of getting out.
I was tempted to peel away from the curb with a squeal of tires worthy of Rafe, but there was no sense in giving vent to my feelings beyond what I already had. So I put the car in gear and rolled sedately down the street. On the next street over, I passed Sheriff Satterfield’s house, and decided, on a whim, to see if Mother was home.
There was a good chance she wasn’t, I realized that. Mother has standing appointments at the spa in Columbia, for massages and haircuts and facials. She also has friends she gets together with for lunch, including Audrey. And of course she has children and grandchildren. There was no reason to think she was sitting around with nothing to do, the way I was. But I pulled up to the curb nonetheless, got the baby out of the back seat, since I didn’t know how long I might be staying this time, and wandered up the path to the front porch.
It took a minute or two from the time I knocked until I heard footsteps inside, but then she peered through the window and blinked at me. And opened the door. “Savannah, darling! Something wrong?”
“Nothing at all,” I said. “I just don’t have anything to do, so I figured I’d stop by and say hello. I was just around the corner at Charlotte’s house, so it was on my way home.”
“Ah.” She glanced over her shoulder. It took only a second, although it was a second too long, before she stepped back. “Of course, darling. Come on in. Rafael isn’t with you?”
I shook my head, moving across the threshold with the baby. “We had breakfast together at Beulah’s, and then he went to work.”
“Let me take your coat, darling.” She whipped it down my arms and off before I had a chance to say anything one way or the other. After it was hung—properly, on a hanger—in the closet, she gestured me forward. “Come into the parlor. Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m fine,” I said, putting the baby seat down and unwinding my scarf. “Like I said, I just came back from Beulah’s.”
“As I said, dear.” She lowered her derriere onto the sheriff’s pale green loveseat without taking her eyes off me.
I’d been taught how to do that in finishing school, too, but I glanced at the sofa to make sure it was there before I parked my posterior on it. “So what’s going on with you?”
She looked startled. “What would be going on?”
I probably looked startled, too. But before I could tell her that I hadn’t meant anything by it, I heard steps on the staircase from the second floor. When I twisted to look at the hallway, the sheriff was on his way down, tying his official law-enforcement tie as he went. “Oh.”
It seemed I had caught them in flagrante delicto, as it were. Taking it easy on a Friday morning instead of going in to work early. Mother blushed delicately. I cleaned most of the amusement off my face before I gave Bob a polite smile. “Good morning, sheriff.”
“Morning, Savannah.” He sat down next to my mother on the loveseat. She glanced at him, and blushed harder. I suppressed—or did my best to suppress—a grin. They looked like two kids who had been caught making out.
“Sorry to interrupt,” I told Bob. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d stop by. I didn’t realize you’d still be here.”
“Swing shift,” he answered, putting his hand on my mother’s thigh. She looked from it to me to him and back to it, but made no move to get rid of it. After a moment she put her own hand over it.
I pretended I didn’t notice, just smiled politely at the sheriff while I watched the byplay out of my peripheral vision.
“Where’s your husband?” Bob asked.
“He went to work.” I explained how we’d had breakfast together and then he’d headed for the Columbia PD. “He took all of Darrell Skinner’s trophies into evidence.”
“Darrell Skinner’s trophies?” the sheriff repeated.
“Girls’ underwear he collected. From the girls he slept with when he was younger.”
The sheriff arched his brows, but didn’t ask me any more questions. He probably thought I didn’t know anything else. And it was just as well, since I knew things I didn’t particularly want to share with him. Especially in front of my mother. “Is he coming back this way?”
“He said he’d check in with you afterwards. And if you didn’t have anything for him to do, maybe he’d start re-interviewing people.”
The sheriff nodded, looking pensive.
“Something wrong?” I asked. “I can text him and ask him to drive back to Sweetwater, if you want.”
He hesitated for a second, and then he shook his head. “I’ll call him myself. It’s nothing he needs to come back for. Just an update from the lab. I can tell him over the phone.”
I looked politely expectant, but he didn’t say anything more. After the silence had gone on for a little too long, I realized he wasn’t going to share the update with me, whatever it was, and that I’d have to ask Rafe later whether it was anything interesting.
I pushed up from the sofa. “I guess I’ll just move along, and let the two of you enjoy the rest of your morning in peace.” And as a side note, it was the last time I’d stop by without warning at this time of day. I had assumed Mother and the sheriff were sharing a bed—why else would they need to shack up?—but I didn’t need the reminder right in my face like this.
They both nodded. “Let me see you out, darling,” Mother told me. The sheriff lifted his hand, and she got up from the loveseat with a little twinkling look at him. There was little doubt in my mind that as soon as I’d cleared out, they’d go back to their necking. Or worse.
“Sorry,” I told her, sotto voce, when we were standing in front of the door to the outside and I was shrugging into my coat while she was admiring the baby. “I didn’t realize he was home this morning. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have interrupted.”
“Don’t be silly, darling,” Mother told me, but without assuring me that I hadn’t interrupted, “you’re always welcome.”
“Next time you want to fool around, why don’t you hang a piece of rope on the doorknob or something, so I’ll know not to disturb you.”
And if anyone had told me I’d have to give my mother this piece of advice, I would have called him or her a big, fat liar.
She looked very, very prim. “That’s ridiculous, darling. If I hadn’t wanted to open the door, I wouldn’t have.”
I guess that was true.
“Well, from now on, just ignore me if I knock on the door while you’re in the middle of something.”
Mother smiled. “I’m always happy to see you, Savannah. And little Caroline.” She shifted her attention to the baby for a moment, and then back to me. “So where are you off to now?”
“I’m in town,” I said, “I might as well go see if I can get hold of Dix. Did I tell you that he skipped out of the office when he heard me coming yesterday?”
“That’s terrible,” Mother told me, but I could tell she thought it was funny.
I scowled at her. “Yes, it is. And when I do get my hands on him, I plan to tell him so.”
“Good luck, darling.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I should go and make sure Bob has everything he needs.”
Bob could probably fend for himself. He’d done it for the decade or so since Pauline died. But I liked to fuss over my man, too, so I just nodded. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Of course, darling,” Mother said, and shut the door. I took the baby seat and trudged down the walkway to the street and the Volvo again.
This time, before I opened the door to Martin and McCall on the square, I sat in the car for a minute and dialed Darcy on my phone. “Don’t say my name,” I warned her, as soon as she’d done her chirpy, professional greeting.
“Sa… Sure.” A moment passed, and then she added, “Why?”
“Because I don’t want Dix to know I’m here. I don’t want to give him another chance to run out the back door rather than face me.”
“OK,” Darcy said, but she sounded amused.
“Is he there?”
He was. In his office.
“Good,” I said. “When I walk in, pretend you don’t see me. I’m going to leave the baby up front with you, and then walk back to Dix’s office.” All without saying a word. “With any luck, he won’t realize I’m coming until I’m standing in his doorway.”
“Sure,” Darcy said.
My eyes narrowed. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.” Her voice was uneven. “No problem.”
“Good. I’m on my way.”
I dropped the phone back in my purse and exited the car, slinging the purse over my shoulder before I took the baby seat out of the back and made my way over to the door to Martin and McCall. A quick look through the glass showed me that Darcy was alone in the front office. I pushed the door open and maneuvered myself and the baby carrier through, as quietly as it’s possible to maneuver a women and a thirty pound baby carrier through a hundred-year-old door with a glass panel in the front.
Darcy looked up at me, amusement dancing in her eyes.
I put the index finger of my free hand to my mouth to make sure she hadn’t forgotten what I’d told her less than a minute ago.
She nodded, and watched, eyes alight, as I tiptoed across the lobby and put Carrie down next to her. “I’ll be right back.”
I mouthed the words more than said them, and she nodded. I left them both behind and moved off down the hallway, making sure to stay on my toes, so my heels wouldn’t click against the floor, and to keep on top of the runner in the middle of the floor, so it would muffle my footsteps.
The conference room was empty. So was Catherine’s office across the hall, although the light was on, so she might be around. In fact, as I approached the door of Jonathan’s office, I saw that she was there, bent over his shoulder, looking at something on the computer screen.
The both lifted their heads when they saw me coming, and I put my finger to my mouth again. Catherine looked surprised—she hadn’t been here yesterday—but Jonathan grinned.
I turned my back on them both and moved to Dix’s closed door, and the question of whether to knock or not presented itself.
Surely, if he’d been with a client, Darcy would have mentioned it? I probably didn’t have to act professionally, and throwing the door open to scare the crap out of him had a certain appeal.
On the other hand, just because he’d acted childishly yesterday, didn’t mean I should stoop that low today.
So I did the mature thing, and applied my knuckles to the wood. “Yes?” Dix’s voice said from inside. I twisted the knob.
It turned, and I pushed the door open and stepped through.
Dix looked up from what he was doing. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
I smiled. Sweetly. “Have a minute?”
He sighed and put his pen down. “Sure.”
I left the door open—as incentive not to lose my temper and yell—and crossed the floor to the two chairs parked in front of Dix’s desk. One of them was piled high with paperwork, but the other was empty. I sat down. And contemplated him.
He contemplated me back.
“I don’t like you going out with Charlotte,” I said.
He nodded. “So noted.”
“Are you going to do it again?”
“I don’t see that being any of your business,” Dix said.
“You’re my brother. She’s my best friend.” Or was. Until Grimaldi, or maybe Rafe. And until this. Now I was angry with her. “I don’t like it.”
“You don’t have to like it,” Dix said. “It’s my business, not yours.”
I changed my tactic. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to Grimaldi. She uprooted her life in Nashville, and quit her job—a job I happen to know that she liked—and moved down here, and now you’re going to dinner with somebody else!”
“Tamara’s and my relationship is also none of your business,” Dix said, and of course he was right. Although it didn’t feel that way.
“She’s my friend. And you’re still my brother. I want you to be happy.” Together.
“Let us worry about that,” Dix said.
This wasn’t working, either. I wasn’t getting anywhere. “You’re frustrating me, Dix.”
He grinned. “I’m your brother. It’s my job.”
“Can’t you be the nice brother who tells me things?”
“Not about this. Sorry, Sis.”
Fine. I was just about to accept defeat when the door to outside opened, up front, and then I heard a familiar voice. “Morning, Darcy.”
“Morning,” Darcy answered, sounding surprised. “Savannah didn’t say you were coming. She’s back with Dix.”
“I didn’t know she was gonna be here. Or that I was.” I imagined him bending over the baby seat to greet his daughter. And while he sounded perfectly nice, there was an edge to his voice that gave me the idea that he was angry.
Dix must have noticed the same thing, because he gave me a look across the desk. I got to my feet, just as Darcy said, “You can go ahead and go back. I don’t need to announce you.”
By the time I got to the door, he was already halfway down the hallway toward me. And the first look at him told me that I hadn’t been wrong about his state of mind. His eyes, always dark, were flat and black, and his jaw was tight.
“What’s wrong?” I wanted to know, stepping out in front of him. He had to stop, perforce, and took the time to drop a kiss on my cheek.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
It was practically like listening to Dix. Who had gotten up from his desk and made his way to the doorway, too. “Rafe.” He held out a hand. After a second’s hesitation, Rafe took it, and Dix added, “If you’re here to yell at me about Tamara, you can forget it. Your wife already did.”
Rafe glanced at me, and then back at Dix. “Tammy can take care of herself. She don’t need me doing it for her.”
No, she didn’t. Or me either, for that matter. Not that that was likely to stop me.
“So what can I do for you?” Dix wanted to know.
Rafe shook his head. “I wasn’t looking for you.”
And he hadn’t been looking for me either, according to what he’d told Darcy. “Jonathan?” I suggested. “Catherine?”
By now, they’d both abandoned whatever they were looking at, and had joined us in the hallway. Or Jonathan was in the hallway, while Catherine was hanging back, still inside his office. I was starting to get a bad feeling about this.
Rafe gave Jonathan a polite nod, and then looked beyond him to my sister. “Got a minute?”
Catherine hesitated.
“I got some questions,” Rafe added.
Catherine glanced at Jonathan, and then back at Rafe. “We already spoke this morning.”
Jonathan’s eyebrows winged up, so he must have left for the day by the time Rafe showed up at their house earlier. Now that I thought about it, I think he had a habit of going to the gym before going to the office. He’s tall and lean, so he’s probably doing something to stay in shape.
At any rate, this was obviously the first he’d heard of his wife’s conversation with my husband. And he didn’t seem too pleased about it.
“More questions,” Rafe clarified, although I would have thought that was obvious.
“But I told you everything I know!”
He arched a brow, and Catherine flushed.
“What’s this about?” Jonathan wanted to know. He looked from Rafe to Catherine and back, and then took a step closer to her, protectively. I saw Rafe’s lips tighten, but he didn’t say anything. Not about that.
“Your wife is helping me with the Katie Graves case,” he told Jonathan instead.
Jonathan glanced at her. “The girl who went missing? I thought you didn’t know her.”
“I didn’t,” Catherine said.
“So why does he want to talk to you?”
She didn’t answer.
Jonathan looked from one face to another again. From Catherine, looking flushed and uncomfortable, to Rafe, looking annoyed, to Dix, looking as confused as Jonathan, and finally to me. I probably looked guilty. I felt a little guilty, to be honest. Not that I could have done anything different. Catherine stole evidence from Darrell Skinner’s trailer. I hadn’t had a choice but to tell Rafe.
But that guilt made me question him now. “What’s going on?”
He looked at me for a second. Then he sighed. “I decided to take a look at the box of…” He hesitated slightly, “—of evidence before I logged it in.”
I nodded. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do.
He turned to Catherine. “You didn’t take a good look before you scooped’em all into the box, did you?”
“It was dark,” Catherine said defensively, while Dix muttered, “What evidence?” in Jonathan’s direction, and Jonathan shook his head. Catherine added, “And I was in a hurry.”
“What did you find?”
I was the one who asked, but Rafe didn’t respond to me, just kept his eyes on Catherine. “And after you left, and went home, I guess you didn’t take a look then, either?”
“It was late. And I didn’t want to bring the…” She faltered. After a second, she continued again, “—the evidence into the house.” Where Jonathan could see it and ask her about it, I assumed. She didn’t say that, but it was implied.
Rafe nodded. “Well, you missed the fact that Darrell marked’em all.”
“All what?” Dix asked in the silence that followed. Nobody answered.
“Marked them?” Catherine repeated. The flush was gone now, and she looked paler than normal.
“Name and date. On every single pair.”
“Pair of what?” Dix said, but by this point he probably didn’t expect an answer. He looked thoroughly confused, and so did Jonathan. Rafe and Catherine only had eyes for each other, and although I knew what they were talking about, I was too busy looking from one to the other of them, following the conversation, to take the time to explain anything to my brother and brother-in-law.
“Do I need to spell it out?” Rafe wanted to know, and Catherine finally got a little shot of color in her cheeks again. She shook her head.
Rafe glanced around. “Where d’you wanna talk?”
Catherine hesitated for a second before gesturing to the conference room. Rafe headed that way. Catherine made to move, too, but was stopped by Jonathan’s grabbing her arm. “What’s going on, Catherine?”
For a second, it looked like my sister contemplated throwing his hand off. Then she sighed. “It’s stupid. I’ll tell you later.”
“Do you need a legal representative?” Dix wanted to know, a tiny wrinkle between his brows. He was probably just looking for an excuse to sit in on the discussion to see what was going on, but it was clever of him to think of it. Rafe, as a representative for the sheriff’s department and Columbia PD, was probably conducting an official interview about an official case, and although he’s my husband, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to take that lightly.
On the other hand, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that the dynamic of this thing—my husband against my sister, brother, and brother-in-law—didn’t exactly give me warm and fuzzy feelings inside.
Catherine hesitated, but ended up shaking her head. “I can represent myself.”
Jonathan looked like he wanted to argue, but Dix nodded. “We’re both out here, if you change your mind.”
With their ears pressed to the crack in the door, no doubt.
I ducked into the conference room after Rafe, and looked around.
The last time I’d spent any time in this room, was back in the fall for the denouement of Darcy’s parentage. It was going to be hard to top that, frankly, but I had a feeling he’d give it a good shot.
“What’s going on?”
His eyes were a sort of opaque black I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the way he used to look at me back when he didn’t want me to guess what he was thinking. Before we’d gotten involved, or as involved as we were now.
“You heard me. I have some more questions for your sister.”
“About the… um… evidence?”
He nodded.
“Darrell marked everything?”
“Sure did.”
“I guess… Would it be accurate to assume that there are more than one pair of panties with Catherine’s name on them in the box?”
“You can assume that,” Rafe said.
I had my mouth open to ask him just how many pairs there were—and how big the lies she’d told me, since it was obvious that she hadn’t slept with Darrell just once—but then Catherine stepped in from the hallway and, after a beat, pulled the door shut behind her.
“Darlin’,” Rafe told me, and nodded to it.
I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to hear what Catherine had to say first. So I ignored my husband’s directive to get out. “You lied to me,” I told my sister. “And then you lied to Rafe.”
She flushed. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Of course you had a choice! The other option was to tell the truth.”
“I couldn’t do that,” Catherine said.
I thought about asking why, although the answer was obvious. Whatever she’d kept back would make her look bad. “Well, you’re going to have to do it now.”
“Savannah…” Rafe tried again.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. And then I looked back at my sister. “I’d like to hear the whole story. If Catherine doesn’t mind.”
She sighed. Rafe sighed, too. And then we stood in silence for a while—it probably felt longer than it actually was—until she said, “Fine. Stay. That way I’ll only have to say it once.”
I was pretty sure she’d have to say it again, to Jonathan if not Dix, but now wasn’t the time to point that out. “Do you mind?” I asked Rafe. It seemed polite. He was here in his official capacity, and he might not want his wife sitting in on his interview with her sister.
For the first few seconds I was sure he was going to tell me he minded, that he didn’t want me in here. Then he sighed. “If Catherine don’t mind, I guess it don’t matter to me.”
“Thank you,” I said, to both of them. “I’ll be quiet.”
Rafe gave me a look, one of those ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ looks, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he pulled out a chair and nodded to Catherine. “Have a seat.”
I scurried over and grabbed a chair, too—on the short end of the table, where I could see them both but where I might not look like I was on anyone’s side in particular—and waited for the fireworks to start.