Survival Clause: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 20), стр. 10
I glanced at her. “You aren’t really afraid of that, are you?”
“Not really,” Charlotte said. “Not when I’m sane. I know he’s probably safe where he is. And I hope if he does get out, he won’t come for me. Or the kids. But if something changes and nobody tells me, I want to know about it.”
Hard to blame her for that, when this was the guy who had put her and their children into a car at gunpoint, and tried to drive them back to North Carolina. “How do you know to do this, anyway?”
“Paul showed me,” Charlotte said.
I gave her a closer look. “Something going on with you and Jarvis I should know about?”
“No,” Charlotte said, but she flushed again. “Worry about your own husband. Look at the video.”
“It’s just twenty seconds of Rafe walking from his car into the police station.” And while he looked just as good as he always does, he wasn’t doing anything that could get him, or anyone else, in trouble.
“Somebody stood outside the police station and waited for him to show up so she could film him getting out of the car and walking up the stairs and through the door,” Charlotte said. “She called out to him so he’d turn and smile at her, too. And then she posted it online. And several hundred other women piled on with hearts and comments. You don’t find that a little creepy?”
The first part, maybe. The second I was used to. Women always make googly-eyes at Rafe. In person, most commonly, but I wasn’t surprised that he was a hit on social media, too. “How do you know she stood there and waited?”
“Either that or she was following him,” Charlotte said tartly. “Which do you prefer?”
Now that I thought about it, I decided I preferred neither. “Couldn’t it just be a coincidence? She happened to be there, and…”
I trailed off, because it didn’t make much sense. People don’t tend to loiter outside the Columbia PD unless they have business there. And anyone who had legitimate business there wasn’t likely to be filming my husband get out of his car and walk into the building.
Plus, she’d known his name. She’d used it when she called out to him.
If she’d had a gun, she could have shot him.
I dropped Charlotte’s phone and dug for my own. It rang once, twice, then—
“Darlin’,” my husband’s voice said in my ear. “This ain’t a great time for chit-chat.”
“Are you OK?”
His voice changed, went crisp and lost the Southern drawl. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It can wait.”
“Hang on a sec.” I heard him excuse himself to whoever he was with, and the sounds of him, probably, exiting whatever room he was in. I pictured him leaning a shoulder against the wall in the hallway, phone to his ear. “What’s going on, darlin’?”
“I panicked,” I admitted, now that I’d had a few seconds to think about it. “There’s another video of you on social media. Some woman stood outside the police station and waited for you to show up this morning, so she could film you.”
He sounded more amused than bothered. “More hearts and kisses?”
“Yes. Lots of them. But that’s not the point. Some woman is stalking you. She stood there and waited for you to show up, and when you did, she called out so you’d turn around. Do you remember?”
There was a pause. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“So you know what she looks like.”
“No,” Rafe said. “Some woman called my name when I was walking up to the door. I turned around, but I didn’t see nobody, so I kept walking.”
Another pause. “I don’t like it,” I said. “I mean, we don’t want a repeat of Elspeth, do we?”
Elspeth, who had done her best to kill me, so she could have him to herself…
“No, darlin’. But that was a different situation. I knew Elspeth. I slept with Elspeth. Hell, I knocked her up…” Even if he hadn’t known about it at the time. And that was Elspeth’s fault, for not telling him.
“I know it’s not the same,” I said. “This is someone you don’t know—”
Or so I assumed. I gestured to Charlotte, who had picked her phone up when I dropped it, and was examining it, maybe for damage. Now she dutifully handed it over. I peered at the screen. “Do you know someone named Jessica Rabbit?”
“No,” Rafe said, his voice amused.
Yeah, I hadn’t thought so. “It doesn’t sound like a real name.”
“No,” Rafe agreed, while next to me, Charlotte wiggled her fingers. I handed the phone back while I kept talking to Rafe.
“The point is, this woman took the time to stand outside the police station this morning until you got there, just so she could film you walking from your car through the door. She might have been the one filming last night, too. Or one of the ones…”
Charlotte was shaking her head.
“No?” I said.
“Not as far as I can tell. Those videos were posted by other people. She might have been there, but without filming, or she might be someone who saw the video last night and decided to show up today and get a video of her own.”
“What’s that?” Rafe wanted to know in my ear. I repeated what Charlotte had said. “Could be,” he agreed. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Thank you.” I resisted the temptation to suggest that he should put on a flak vest and keep it on. “What’s going on where you are?”
“The victim’s been identified,” Rafe said. “Her name was Ramona Mitchell. She had a record for solicitation in Nashville.”
“So he picked up a prostitute.” Probably at a truck stop not unlike the one he’d dropped her off at.
Had he picked up another one here in Columbia and taken her south with him?
But no, probably not. Most of these guys—serial killers—don’t kill several people