Survival Clause: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 20), стр. 22
“Are you sure?”
“I caught you, didn’t I?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just added, “Go home, darlin’. If this person turns out to be a problem, I’ll deal with it. But I don’t want you and Carrie mixed up in this business. Or Charlotte. Tell her to take you home.”
“She can hear you,” I said, while next to me, Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Where are you going?”
“I guess if I don’t tell you, you’re gonna tail me over there?”
Again, he didn’t wait for my response. “I’m taking Agent Yung to the sheriff’s office in Sweetwater. Feel free to follow us there if you don’t believe me.”
“Don’t mind if we do,” I said, since my car was in Sweetwater anyway. “You want to pull around, since right now you’re the one following us?”
“No,” Rafe said. “Just keep going until you hit Sweetwater. We’ll be right here.”
Fine. “Promise you’ll be careful?”
“Always.” He hung up before I could point out that he always said that, and never was.
“What do you want me to do?” Charlotte asked.
I sighed. “Drive to Sweetwater. There’s nothing else we can do.”
She nodded. “At least we know he’s keeping an eye out.”
Yes. At least we knew that. And I guess it was better than nothing.
Seven
When we turned down Green Street, the Chevy with Rafe and Agent Yung continued straight ahead into Sweetwater. I left Charlotte and the hybrid in front of the Albertsons’ Victorian and transferred myself and Carrie back into the Volvo. When I swung by the sheriff’s office on my way out of town, I saw that Rafe’s Chevy was indeed parked there. And although I drove slowly and took a good look around, I didn’t spot anyone lying in wait with a camera on a tripod, waiting for him to come back out. I gave up and headed home. And realized, halfway there, that I still needed to go back to Columbia and unlock the door of the house on Fulton for the photographer, so we could get it back on the market sooner rather than later.
So off I went, back to Columbia yet again. By the time I had let him in and explained what I wanted, and told him how to lock up and dispose of the key after he was done, and I had driven back to Sweetwater yet again, Carrie was ready for a nap, and so was I. I fed her and changed her and put her in her crib, and then I mixed up some tuna and capers and curled up on the loveseat in the parlor, to watch an hour of mindless TV to relax.
Only to have to get back up ten minutes later, when I heard the crunch of tires outside.
I figured it would be Rafe. That he had ditched Leslie Yung at the sheriff’s office, pawned her off on Bob Satterfield, and had decided to stop by for lunch on his way back to Columbia and the police station.
It wasn’t. It was Grimaldi’s official vehicle that had come to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, and the detective—chief of police—herself climbing the couple of steps toward the porch floor.
“De… um… Tamara.”
Her eyes glinted with amusement. It had taken both of us quite some time to get over the Detective/Ms. Martin bits.
Now that she wasn’t a detective anymore, and I wasn’t Ms. Martin, old habits still died hard.
“What can I do for you?” I added. “Want some lunch?”
“No, thank you. I grabbed a sandwich on the way.”
She moved past me and into the foyer. I shut the door behind her. She greeted Pearl, and gave a compreshensive look around. “Baby asleep?”
I nodded. “I put her down fifteen, twenty minutes ago. She’ll stay there for another hour, at least. Something you need to talk about? Something wrong?”
She shook her head, and then shrugged.
“Let me get you a drink, at least. It’s getting warmer out there.” I pushed past her and headed down the center hall toward the kitchen. “Come on.”
I didn’t look back, but I heard the noise of her heels on the old plank floors as she followed: less the clicking of high heels than the clomp of low ones.
In the kitchen, I gave Pearl a treat for being such a good guard dog, and filled two glasses with iced tea from the fridge—Grimaldi was on duty, so there was no point in bringing out the bottle of white wine I had cooling in the same place—and put them both on the island. “Chips and salsa? Cheese and crackers? Hummus and crudités?”
Her lips twitched as she sat down on one of the bar stools. “No. Thank you.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I went to finishing school. Making people comfortable is part of the job.”
“I’m comfortable.” She reached for one of the glasses and took a sip. “See?”
“Sure.” I took the other and did the same. “So what can I do for you?”
“I came to talk,” Grimaldi said.
My brows rose. “Really?”
“I talk.”
“I suppose.” I mean, yes. She did. “You just don’t usually talk to me.” Or not about anything important.
She shrugged and took another swig of tea. And turned the glass over in her hands.
After a few seconds I decided to make it easier on her, since she obviously didn’t know how to start. “Rafe took Agent Yung around to the crime scene and to see Bob.”
Grimaldi’s lips curved. “Yes.”
“Did you call her in, or did Bob? Or did she just show up on her own?”
“She saw the video,” Grimaldi said, with an amused look at me.
“The video of Rafe?”
She nodded. “She’d heard about the new victim of the Classicist, of course.”
The Classicist? “Is that what you’re calling him?”
“It’s what she’s calling him,” Grimaldi said. “We reported the murder to VICAP, of course.”
I must have looked blank, because she added, “The Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. It’s an FBI database that keeps records of violent