Survival Clause: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 20), стр. 8
It wasn’t much, but after a rocky start—a dead body in what was intended to become the new master suite—we’d persevered until the house was finished. And at that point, not only had someone gone inside it and vandalized the place, but someone else had set off a bomb outside and done damage to the structure.
Rafe and Grimaldi insisted it hadn’t been a bomb, and technically speaking they were right. It had been a cardboard box full of something called Tannerite, that blows up when you shoot at it. People use it for target practice, I’m told. Apparently it’s more exciting when the target explodes in a cloud of orange or blue smoke when you hit it.
In this case, someone had put a box of Tannerite outside our front door and shot it, and if it hadn’t been a bomb, it had acted like one, blowing out part of the front wall and floor and roof. Our poor house had come away from the experience with a gaping hole in the middle of it.
Those particular repairs were beyond Charlotte’s and my capabilities, so we had hired a construction company—at more cost to Darcy—to fix the damage for us. Meanwhile, Charlotte and I had spent our time on the interior of the house, fixing the cosmetic vandalism by replacing broken glass and smashed tile and repairing drywall and applying new paint.
At this point, we were almost back to where we’d been before Rafe—and by extension I—got tangled up with the white supremacy group that had been responsible for some of the damage. We’d only been on the market a couple of days the first time. Long enough to garner a little interest, but not long enough to get a purchase offer. At this point, we were in danger of missing out on the hot spring market. I wanted the house listed for sale ASAP.
I wanted it off my hands, to be honest, before something else could happen to it. By now, I was almost ready to believe the house was cursed. We’d had nothing but trouble with it since we bought it, and even before that, the previous owner was besieged by bad luck. Up until and including the moment he wound up dead in our master bedroom conversion.
“Good luck,” Rafe told me. I gave him a suspicious look, but he seemed to mean it sincerely, without any hint of sarcasm.
“Thank you.” I think.
“No problem.” He turned toward the door again. “I’ll make sure there’s plenty of coffee.”
“Thank you.” I was going to need it.
A few minutes later he called up the stairs that he was leaving, and then I heard the back door close, and a minute later, the sound of the police-issue Chevy making its way past the front steps and down the driveway. I got Carrie ready for the day and wandered downstairs, where the coffee was fresh and hot. And strong.
By the time I made it to Columbia and Fulton Street, it was after nine, and Charlotte was already there. She had finally got rid of the minivan her ex-husband had used to abduct her and their two kids—another long story—and was driving a new-to-her Jeep Grand Cherokee with plenty of room in the back for the car seats.
They were empty, though, because Mrs. Albertson was taking care of the children while Charlotte was busy renovating. It was for her sake, more than for my own, that I wanted to get the house on the market and sold as fast as I could. We had Rafe’s income, and we were living for free in Mother’s house. But I wanted to get Darcy her money back, and give Charlotte the opportunity to buy or rent a place of her own if she wanted one, or at least to pay her parents rent, so she’d feel more independent, and not like she was a failure living back in her childhood room.
She opened the door to the Jeep with her phone in her hand; glossy brown hair bouncing around her excited face. “Your husband’s all over Facebook!”
I winced. I know it was what I’d wanted last night. Another nail in the coffin of Rafe’s undercover career. But that still didn’t make me feel good. “No kidding.”
“No,” Charlotte said, almost dancing toward me. “Look at all the hearts and heart-eye emojis!”
She thrust the phone under my nose. I grabbed her wrist and pushed it a little farther away, so I could see the screen without going cross-eyed. The video was dark—it had been dark on Green Street last night—but… “Yep. That’s my husband.”
And those were definitely little hearts and heart-eye emojis accompanying comments like, He can arrest me anytime! and I need to be stopped and frisked immediately!
I rolled my eyes. “He stood there and pointed to the car and said, ‘That’s my wife and baby in there.’ I’m sure it’s part of the video.”
Charlotte looked like she wanted to laugh, but she contented herself with a grin. “It is. I watched the whole thing, and it’s definitely in there.”
“Then why are they talking like that?”
“Because he’s hot?” Charlotte suggested.
Of course he was. But since it had taken her as long as it had to admit it—because at first she could hardly believe I’d get involved with our hometown black sheep—I just sighed. “I hope they don’t drive down here and try to get themselves arrested. Rafe has more important things to do than dodge women.”
“I’m sure he’s used to it,” Charlotte said and dropped the phone in her pocket. And of course that was true. He was used to it. This was just blowing up on a larger scale than either of us had seen before.
But as long as they stayed where they were, and didn’t come to Columbia to get in his way,