Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19) Page 12

  Rafe growled again, and I put a hand on his back, and snuck my fingers under the edge of the Kevlar vest he was still wearing. He glanced down at me, and then made a visible effort to calm down. He rolled his head a couple of times, and then rolled his shoulders. I could feel the tense muscles from where I was standing.

  “I should get her home,” I said. “And Darcy, too.”

  “Nolan’s got Darcy,” Rafe said, and so it seemed. They were still standing together, but Darcy wasn’t as pale anymore. Nolan had his arm around her, though, but it was probably more to reassure himself that she was OK, than it was because she needed the support.

  “What about you? Do you need a ride?”

  He’d come in Nolan’s squad car, so the Chevy had to be parked somewhere else. Still at the police station, I guessed, or wherever the SWAT team had had their meeting.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Rafe said.

  “You don’t have to stay here and take care of anything?”

  He shook his head. “The fire department’ll post warning signs and cordon the property off. And it’s not like we gotta worry about what’s inside. Everything’s broken.”

  The new refrigerator and stove had been intact the last time I’d been inside, and it didn’t look like the bomb—or binary explosive—had touched the kitchen. But since telling him that might make him decide he had to camp out here overnight, so nobody looted the house of our appliances, I didn’t mention anything about it.

  “Let’s go, then. I’m a little shook up. I want to get home where I feel safe.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “You two go ahead. I’ve got this. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She put her hand on my shoulder for a second. “No problem. You just go on home and don’t worry about it.”

  I nodded. I didn’t think I was going to be able to stop worrying about it—or that Rafe would, either—but we could go home and give it our best shot.

  Eleven

  “Gotta make a stop,” Rafe said, and swung the car into the parking lot outside Beulah’s Meat’n Three.

  It was ten or twelve minutes later, and we’d left the lights and activity of Columbia behind, and were traveling down the dark highway toward Sweetwater. Until the little cinderblock building that housed Beulah’s came into view on the left, and Rafe discovered a sudden desire for meatloaf, or maybe something else.

  The Volvo bumped over the rutted gravel and dirt, and came to a stop in an open spot. There were plenty of them this late. The dinner crowd had mostly vanished, and there were only a few cars in the lot. It was almost ten at night.

  “Sudden hankering for a burger?” I wanted to know.

  “Yvonne called me,” Rafe answered, and put the car in park. “It won’t take long. You can stay here.”

  “I’d rather come in.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” Rafe said, fishing in the back for his nylon jacket. And added, “It’ll only take a minute or two. And you’d be safer here.”

  Safer? To the best of my understanding, there was nothing unsafe about Beulah’s. Not even at ten o’clock at night. But if he was concerned about my safety—and he was very rarely concerned about my safety when he was around to protect me—then of course I’d stay in the car. “Fine.”

  “Thanks, darlin’.” He swung his legs out and closed the car door without telling me to lock it. It was either implied, or he just wasn’t worried about that particular safety issue.

  So then what was he worried about?

  I watched him walk toward the door to the restaurant, yanking the jacket on over the vest, and zipping it. The word SWAT in big letters on the back caught the lights in the parking lot and reflected them back at me.

  He reached the door and pulled it open, and I stopped watching as he disappeared inside the low-slung building. Instead, I scanned the parking lot, to see whether anything there could give me a clue to what was going on.

  And lo and behold, there it was. A dark pickup truck with a couple of familiar stickers on the back. An 88 and a Confederate flag.

  I’d seen that truck before. As far as I knew, it belonged to Kyle Scoggins, Rodney Clark’s BFF and his alibi for Sunday night.

  The last time they’d been here—or at least the last time I’d seen them here—they’d caused a scene with Cletus Johnson and his little girl, and Yvonne had told them to leave and not come back. If they were here now, maybe that was the reason she’d called Rafe for help.

  And yes, when I squinted at the windows, there they were, sitting in a booth. There were more than just the two of them; I thought I could make out four distinct bodies.

  It was hard to see, though. The windows in Beulah’s aren’t oversized to begin with, and the blinds were pulled halfway down. All that was visible, were slices of four people sitting, from the elbows to the neck, roughly. A plaid shirt, a green thermal, something that might be a black hoodie, and something gray. And—barely visible from here—a black torso standing in front of the table at the other end.

  Yep, that was my husband. I saw the light catch for a second on the badge he slapped down on the table.

  None of their heads were visible, so I couldn’t see any facial expressions, and it’s difficult to gauge reactions just from body language from elbows to neck, especially from the side. Nobody recoiled visibly. I think maybe one or two of them tensed, and the guy in the green thermal squared his—not too impressive—shoulders.

  Rafe snatched the badge up again. Words must have been spoken, I assume. Of course I didn’t hear them. If anybody protested being evicted, it didn’t take them long to reconsider. About a minute later, they all scooted out of the booth and started walking.

  I moved my attention to the front door, in time to see it fly open. Kyle Scoggins stomped out, his face dark. He was followed by a guy I’d never seen before. A few years older; maybe thirty, maybe not. He subscribed to the same style of military haircut as Rafe: a barely-there layer of fuzz covering his scalp. He was followed by Rodney, who had his head turned and was arguing, even as he jumped off the stoop and down on the ground.

  Rafe brought up the rear, with his hand fisted in the scruff of the neck of the guy in gray, whom he was wrestling along in front of him, while the guy bucked and cursed. When they reached the door, Rafe gave him a shove, and he stumbled off the stoop and into the group of three that was standing there. Two of them caught him and kept him from falling, while the third—Rodney—kept yelling at Rafe. I powered my window down an inch so I’d be able to hear more clearly.

  “—as much effing right to be here as anyone!”

  “You were told you were unwelcome the last time you were told to leave,” Rafe said calmly, but with an edge to his voice. “You show up here again, I’m taking you to jail.”

  Clayton—for it was him in the gray sweatshirt—snorted. “You and what army?”

  Rafe stepped right up to him and looked down from his four or so inches of height advantage. “You sure you wanna push your luck, son?”

  I smothered a snort. It was a masterful bit of condescension. Especially if you knew that Rafe would never, under normal circumstances, call Clayton ‘son.’

  Clay, of course, stood his ground. He knew he didn’t have anything to fear. The others didn’t, so they looked impressed. Or at least Rodney and Kyle did. The other man was a bit harder to read. I didn’t get the impression he was as young or as hot-headed—or as easy to manipulate—as they were. He stood a step back from the others, arms crossed over the chest of the green thermal, looking watchful, his eyes flickering from Clayton to Rafe and back.

  Rafe probably knew it was coming—or maybe not—but when Clayton elbowed him in the stomach, he bent over for a second. I gasped, as Clayton followed up with an uppercut to the jaw. Rafe’s head snapped back, and I saw Clayton reach for the gun at Rafe’s hip.

  Rafe must have felt it, too, or maybe this was a move they’d rehearsed before, because he grabbed Clayton’s wrist before he could g
et there. And when he twisted, Clay let out a squeal that sounded remarkably real. His knees buckled, too, for a second, so I imagine the pain was probably not faked. Or not entirely faked, at any rate.

  “You’re about two seconds away from spending the night in jail,” Rafe growled at him. He was still a little out of breath, and it only made him sound angrier. He propelled Clayton forward. The other three scrambled out of the way, until Rafe could slam Clayton, chest first, onto the hood of the nearest car, and hold him there, with one arm still twisted against his back. If I hadn’t known better, I would have totally believed the animosity that pumped off both of them.

  Clayton bucked and kicked while Rafe held him in place, and let out a string of invective. Rafe frisked him very efficiently, though, and confiscated a knife out of Clayton’s right pocket. When he flicked open the blade, it shone wickedly in the light from the restaurant. The knife disappeared into Rafe’s pocket, to Clayton’s very vocal, very vehement protest.

  “It ain’t even illegal!” he argued. “You can’t take my effing knife just because you want to. I didn’t do nothing!”

  “You hit me, kid. That’s assault on a police officer. I can take you to jail for that.”

  “Well, then, do it!” Clayton howled.

  Rafe unhooked his cuffs from the back of his belt, and Rodney and Kyle immediately began gabbling. Clayton did, too, twisting his head practically backward to see what was going on.

  When he caught sight of the handcuffs, his eyes widened, and he began squirming like an eel. “The fuck, man? I ain’t going back to prison!”

  “Tell you what.” Rafe hauled him upright, spun him around, and pushed him back toward the others. “I don’t really wanna spend the rest of the night filling out paperwork. So why don’t you gimme a good reason why I shouldn’t haul you off to jail.”

  He folded his arms across his chest and waited.

  “How the hell do I do that?” Clayton wanted to know, as he tugged his sweatshirt back into place from the rough handling.

  A corner of Rafe’s mouth turned up. “You could start by saying you’re sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Clayton’s voice rose. “Sorry?! You want me to apologize to you? You throw me out of the restaurant and take my fucking knife and now you want me to apologize to you?!”

  “If you wanna stay outta jail.” Rafe’s smirk widened, and I could see Clayton’s eyes narrow. He spat out a string of invective, some of it quite nasty.

  “That don’t sound like you’re sorry,” Rafe told him.

  “That’s because I’m not, you bleepety-bleep-bleep!”

  I winced at the choice of words, and watched Rafe’s mouth tighten and his eyes turn flat and dangerous. “You sure you wanna go down that road, kid? You gotta chance to walk away here. Otherwise, you’re spending the night in jail. And one of your friends here’s gonna have to come up with bail money to get you out tomorrow.”

  He glanced at Rodney, Kyle, and their friend. The friend still didn’t say anything. He was just watching the proceedings with his arms crossed over his chest. They weren’t Rafe’s arms, but none too bad for that. Kyle and Rodney—and Clayton—were all stringy and boy-like. This guy was a grownup, with grownup muscles, and Rafe wouldn’t have been able to throw him around the way he did Clayton.

  Of course, the only reason he was able to dominate Clayton was because they’d worked it out in advance, so maybe that wasn’t a fair comparison.

  “Go on, Clay,” Rodney said finally. “Just say you’re sorry, man. I ain’t got the money to bail you out.”

  Kyle shook his head, too. The third guy still didn’t move a muscle, and I wondered whether he was just stingy, or whether he suspected that something more was going on than what was on the surface. It was hard to imagine how, because I knew them both and couldn’t tell that they were acting, but I suppose anything’s possible.

  Clayton gave Rodney a look. “You go around apologizing to his sort down here?”

  Rodney gave a nervous giggle. “When the war starts,” he said, and then seemed to think better of it. “Just do it, bro. Let’s get outta here. Places to go, people to see.”

  Something seemed to pass between them, and for a second, I didn’t see Clayton as Rafe’s protégée and an employee of the TBI, but as Rodney’s confederate. He was playing his part very, very well.

  When he turned to Rafe, he grinned. “Sure thing, man. I’m sorry. Please don’t take me to prison. I didn’t mean to hit you. I was scared, you know? You’re a big dude, and I was afraid you were gonna hurt me. Skinny little white boy…”

  Rafe’s eyes flashed in the dark, but he put on a creditable sneer. “Get outta here. Before I change my mind.”

  “Yessir.” Clayton threw a sloppy salute, and then the three of them scurried toward the big, dark pickup with the Confederate flag on the tailgate. Kyle got behind the wheel, and Rodney shoved Clayton in ahead of him before they both slammed the doors. The truck reversed out of the parking space, and took off out of the parking lot with a spray of gravel.

  Rafe turned toward the last guy, who hadn’t taken the opportunity to tuck tail and run. “Something I can do for you?”

  The guy looked at him. A second passed, then another. Finally he shook his head.

  “Then get going,” Rafe told him. “Those three ain’t welcome here. And if you’re with’em, it might be best if you stayed away, too.”

  There was another second while nothing happened. Long enough for me to worry that something would. I hadn’t been concerned about Clay hurting Rafe—obviously not—and Rodney and Kyle both came off as too cowardly to engage in an actual confrontation, especially with someone like my husband. Sure, they were probably hell on paper targets, and if they’d been behind the vandalism and box of ammonal on Fulton Street, they were capable of doing damage as long as it didn’t involve risking their own skin, too. But I didn’t see them actually taking on Rafe one on one, or even two on one.

  This guy was different. He didn’t strike me as the type who’d back down from a challenge. There was something very calculated about him, about the way he’d been standing there watching instead of getting involved.

  And so I found myself holding my breath, waiting to see what would happen.

  In the end, nothing did. After the silence had stretched out long enough to be threatening—or at least threatening to me; if Rafe was threatened, he didn’t show it—the guy gave a short nod. “Of course, officer.”

  Rafe turned to watch him go. I did, too, from the safety of the car.

  He disappeared into the shadows in the far end of the parking lot. After a few seconds, we heard the sound of a car door slam, and then an engine came to life. A small compact reversed out of a slot up there, and came toward us.

  The car was nothing special. A ten-year-old import, white or cream or maybe silvery gray. It had no identifying marks—no 88 sticker or Confederate flag on this one—and nothing else to draw the attention, either. Nor did the driver tear out of the lot in a temper, kicking up a lot of loose stone. No, he drove carefully, making sure he gave Rafe a safe berth—safe for Rafe, I mean; there was no attempt to run him down or even make him step back—and when the car headed up the road toward Columbia, it was at an unremarkable speed that would do nothing to draw attention.

  Rafe waited until the car was out of sight before heading back toward the door into Beulah’s, probably to let Yvonne know that everything was OK. Two minutes later, he was back behind the wheel of the Volvo.

  The first thing he did was rest his head against the back of his seat and let out a breath I deduced he’d been holding since first dragging Clayton out of Beulah’s.

  Not physically, of course. It isn’t possible for normal people to hold their breath that long. But I thought he’d probably been tense throughout the encounter, and hadn’t been able to relax until it was all over and everyone was gone, and he was back inside the car.

  “Rough night,” I told him sympathetically.

  He nodded, w
ithout opening his eyes.

  “He didn’t really hurt you, did he?”

  His lips curved. “Not enough to matter.”

  “It looked good. I didn’t get the impression that Rodney and Kyle questioned the scenario at all.”

  He slanted a look my way, amusement still in the curve of his mouth. “Rodney and Kyle maybe ain’t too smart.”

  Maybe not. But— “You still did it well. For a second or two, I looked at Clayton and saw him as Rodney and Kyle’s friend, not yours.”

  “Good,” Rafe said, and straightened in the seat, “because Rodney and Kyle ain’t the problem. Rodney bought Clay’s cover this afternoon. And if Rodney believes Clay, Kyle does, too.”

  “So what’s the problem? The other guy?”

  Rafe nodded. “I think they set up this meeting so they could put Clay up for membership in the group. I’m guessing this other guy is the one making the decisions.”

  “So this was another exercise in establishing Clayton’s bona fides.”

  He shrugged. “That, and Yvonne wanted them outta Beulah’s. She told’em last time they were there not to come back.”

  I nodded. I remembered. “So who’s the third guy?”

  “Dunno,” Rafe said. “But now that I got his plate number, I’m gonna find out.”

  He turned the key in the ignition, and the car came to life.

  “He looked scarier than Rodney and Kyle,” I said, as we rolled over the gravel and dirt toward the exit. “Older, and more serious. Rodney and Kyle just come across as two stupid kids.”

  Venal and nasty kids, for sure, but the type who would break down into tears if they actually had to deal with something like being hauled off to prison. Sure, they liked to look and sound tough. But the only fight I’d seen them pick so far, was with Cletus Johnson’s five-year-old daughter.

  Rafe nodded. He looked both ways on the highway before turning the Volvo south toward Sweetwater. “Stupid kids can do plenty of damage if there are enough of’em. And Rodney and Kyle are the type who’ll feel brave in a crowd, but get’em alone and they start sniveling.”