Survival Clause, стр. 40

“Not in here, at any rate. No, darlin’. I think he’d like to be rid of me. He don’t like me. He’s never gonna get past arresting me. And lately I’ve been doing some things that haven’t made him like me any more. But I don’t think he’d do anything to hurt or kill me. Nothing active, at any rate.”

“But if he was standing between you and a bullet,” I said, repeating the same words he’d used earlier, “he might step out of the way.”

He didn’t answer, just shrugged. Although it was answer enough. “Have you talked to Grimaldi about it?” I asked.

“What am I, twelve years old?” He shook his head. “No. I’ll deal with it. I’m prob’ly wrong, anyway. He’s been a cop a long time. It’s in his bones by now. He wouldn’t let a fellow officer down just because he didn’t like him personally.”

Hopefully not. But since there was no point in talking about it, I changed the subject. “Yvonne’s been gone a long time.”

“Just showing off the baby,” Rafe said, and nodded behind me. “Here she is now. Safe and sound.”

She was, cooing in her car seat and looking just as beautiful as always. Yvonne slid the carrier onto the seat next to me, and the two plates with our food in front of us.

“You make beautiful babies,” she told Rafe. “Your daughter was a hit with everyone who saw her. You’re going to have to beat the boys off with a stick when she gets older.”

“If anyone can do it,” I said, “he can.”

Rafe grinned. “She ain’t going on a date till she’s twenty-five. And she’s only dating boys with pickup trucks.”

Pickup trucks? Because…?

It hit me. “No back seat?”

Yvonne was already chortling appreciatively.

“Yes, darlin’,” Rafe said, with a wink at her. “I married a lady.”

“So you did.” Yvonne grinned at me. “Enjoy your food, princess.”

“Thank you,” I said demurely, as I picked up my fork. “I will.”

We were on our way home, replete with food and the cobbler Rafe had insisted on having to finish off the meal, when my phone made a noise. I fished it out of my purse and peered at it while Rafe kept the Chevy going in the direction of home.

“It’s Charlotte. She says there’s another video up.”

He glanced at me. “Of us?”

“Maybe. Probably.” I had clicked the link and was waiting for the video to start playing. “Yes. You and me. Inside… that’s you and me inside Beulah’s.”

Where he was kissing my fingertips and the inside of my wrist, before I had taken my hand away. The heart-eyed emoji were already mounting up.

“She was there,” I said. “Inside the restaurant.”

Rafe nodded, looking faintly amused as the camera zeroed in on his face and stayed there as the video ended. “Looks that way.”

“You don’t suppose Yvonne…?”

“She’s too busy to spend her time following me around to take pictures of me,” Rafe said. “She’s got a business to run.”

After a second, he added, “And she wouldn’t do that to you.”

Good to know. “I’m sure it isn’t Mo. And she—this woman, Jessica Rabbit—was behind me, where she could zoom in your face. You don’t think Tucker…?”

Rafe started laughing. “No, darlin’. I don’t think Sergeant Tucker is stalking me and posting videos of me on social media.”

“It could be some kind of underhanded way of getting you in trouble. You know, make you enough of a public spectacle that Grimaldi won’t want you around because you’re a liability. Because you make the Columbia police department look like a bunch of TV cops, or something.”

“I’m a real cop,” Rafe said. And added, “Or at least I work like a real cop.”

But he looked good enough to play one on TV. I didn’t bother saying it. I had already offended him, it seemed.

The phone dinged again, with another message from Charlotte. I opened it, expecting a comment on the video or a question about what I was planning to get up to with my oh-so-hot husband tonight.

It wasn’t either of those things.

“She says there’s another picture that was just uploaded. Did we do anything else?” I clicked the link. “God, I hope whoever it is, wasn’t close enough to record our conversation.”

We’d been discussing serial murder and confidential information, and Grimaldi would kill me—and probably Rafe—if that conversation was made public. I could see that the idea worried Rafe, too.

And then that concern, and all the others, vanished as I got a look at the still picture that had been uploaded after the video.

A close-up of my daughter, with her glossy curls and big blue eyes and pink rosebud lips, and Yvonne’s hand wrapped around the handle of the baby carrier.

#beautifulbaby, the caption read. Looks just like her daddy!