Adverse Possession Read online

  She didn’t roll her eyes, but she looked like she wanted to. “Really?”

  “I’m just worried, that’s all. And curious. I thought you and Dix were... you know...”

  “Your brother and I are friends,” Grimaldi said firmly.

  I lowered my voice, with another sideways glance. “And you and Detective Mendoza are...?”

  “Colleagues.” Her expression challenged me to disagree with her.

  “So this...?”

  “Isn’t a date.” She lowered her voice, too. “He’s still married, you know. And not about to do anything that would jeopardize his ability to spend time with his son. He may have screwed up in the past, but he’s toeing the line at the moment.”

  Ah. “Sorry,” I said. “But if he wasn’t married...?”

  She sat back against the seat. “You do realize that my love life is none of your business, don’t you? I didn’t ask you questions about your relationship with Mr. Collier.”

  “You didn’t have to,” I said. “I volunteered information. Probably more information than you wanted to hear.”

  She didn’t contradict me, and I added, “And I’m worried about my brother.”

  It’s possible I might have imagined it, but I think her steely gaze softened. “You don’t have to worry about your brother.”

  “He likes you.” And if she was going out with someone else, whether she called it a date or not, then yes, I needed to worry.

  “And I like him,” Grimaldi said. “But he hasn’t even been widowed a year yet. And he has two daughters to worry about.”

  “Abigail and Hannah are fine,” I said. “I’m sure dealing with Sheila’s death was easier for them than for Dix. They’re so young.”

  “Losing a mother is hard for any young girl,” Grimaldi said, and since her own mother had died young, I figured she knew.

  “I wasn’t saying it hasn’t been hard. But they’re children. They have a lot of other things to focus on. School and friends and things like that. Dix lost his wife and his co-parent.”

  “Precisely why he isn’t ready to move on yet,” Grimaldi said.

  “Just tell me what I’m supposed to tell him about this!”

  “This?”

  I indicated the restaurant, the table, and Detective Mendoza.

  “You don’t have to tell him anything,” Grimaldi said. “I already told him I was having dinner with you tonight. He said to give you his best.”

  “Did he offer to drive up and join us?”

  “He had plans,” Grimaldi said. “Pizza and the latest Disney Princess movie with his daughters.”

  “Did he ask you to join him?”

  Her expression warned me that I was crossing the line, but she answered. “As a matter of fact, he did. And I told him I couldn’t. I’m on call this weekend.”

  “But you could go out to dinner with us?”

  “Here,” Grimaldi said, “I’m within fifteen minutes of any fresh body that turns up in Davidson County. At your brother’s house, I’m an hour away.”

  So she had a point. And scored a few more when she added, “And when I’m there, I’m not doing something I want to stop doing. I enjoy your brother’s company. It’s nice not to talk shop. If I ever get serious about a man, I can tell you right now, he won’t be involved in law enforcement.”

  “I guess my husband is safe from you.”

  “Your husband has always been safe from me,” Grimaldi said. “Not that I would have gotten anywhere if he were my type. It was obvious from the first time I met you both you had no interest in anyone else.”

  Good to know, although it was a little disconcerting that everyone but me had realized it long before I did. Not that Rafe was interested in me—I had known that, although it took me a while to realize the extent of his interest—but that I was in love with him. That had taken a lot longer than I’m comfortable admitting, since it makes me sound like a dunce for not seeing something that was right in front of my nose, that everyone else was seeing, clear as day.

  But I digress. “In case you wondered,” I told Grimaldi, “if you consider a lawyer to be uninvolved in law enforcement, I’d love it if you and my brother worked things out. You’d make a much more interesting sister-in-law than Sheila. Rest her soul.”

  Grimaldi looked daunted. I hadn’t realized I had the ability to do that. And it hadn’t even taken much effort on my part. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”

  “Besides, if Dix marries you, maybe Mother will go a little easier on Rafe. Since he won’t be the only unsuitable spouse in the family.”

  Grimaldi arched her brows.

  “You know what I mean,” I said. “Mother probably has her eye on some vapid blonde for Dix, just like she had her eye on Todd for me. He deserves better than a wife my mother picks out for him. I’m sure he loved Sheila, and it isn’t like it was an arranged marriage or anything like that. He met her and married her on his own. But Mother liked Sheila better than she liked any of the rest of us. If he isn’t careful, she’ll saddle him with a Sheila-clone.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Grimaldi said and looked up. “Here’s the food.”

  It was. And since it was, I let the conversation lapse, even though I was pretty sure she’d been looking for a way to stop talking to me, and the food was just the excuse she needed.

  The discussion moved on to Virgil Wright, and from there to Aislynn and Kylie and the anonymous letters.

  “Your friend decided to drive up to Kentucky to spend the night with her parents,” Mendoza told me between bites of Philly cheese steak.

  Grimaldi eyed him critically. “You let a suspect leave the state?”

  “Just across the state line to Bowling Green,” Mendoza said. “She was so incoherent I couldn’t get anything out of her. I figured a day to calm down might be the best thing for her. Maybe tomorrow, she’ll make more sense.”

  “If she comes back,” Grimaldi muttered.

  “She’ll come back,” I said. “Her girlfriend’s unconscious in the hospital. Of course she’ll come back. And what do you mean, suspect? Surely you can’t suspect Aislynn of killing Virgil? Why would she? And have you seen her? She can’t weigh more than a hundred and fifteen pounds. She’d never be able to hit anyone hard enough to kill him.”

  “She’s a waitress,” Grimaldi reminded me. “They’re usually pretty strong from carrying all those trays. But I wasn’t thinking she’d killed Mr. Wright. I was more interested in the possibility that she might have put her girlfriend in the hospital.”

  My jaw dropped. “Aislynn? Hit Kylie? Why?!”

  “A couple of possible reasons,” Grimaldi told me, while Rafe looked on, amused. I guess he’d already figured this out for himself. Everyone’s mind but mine worked along the same track. “You said they had an argument and then one of the women went to talk to her ex. The same ex the other woman suspects her of wanting to get back together with. What was to keep the woman who stayed home from hitting the woman who got back...”

  “Please. Just call them Aislynn and Kylie. The woman who left and the woman who came back make me confused.”

  Grimaldi sighed. “Kylie left to talk to her ex-girlfriend. When she came back, she and Aislynn may have gotten into an argument that ended with Aislynn hitting Kylie and then tearing the place up to make it look like a burglary.”

  “But she spent the night with us,” I said.

  “It could have happened before she arrived at your place.”

  “But she said she walked there. That would have taken at least an hour. Maybe more like an hour and a half.”

  “Or she took a cab,” Grimaldi said, “and told you she walked.”

  Well... yes. She might have done that.

  I turned to Mendoza. “Do you think she hit Kylie?”

  He shrugged, his mouth full of sandwich. I looked at Rafe, who winked at me.

  “You guys are depressing,” I said. “Always looking for hidden agendas everywhere. Always thinking that people are
lying.”

  “Thinking that people are lying’s saved my life a time or two,” Rafe reminded me calmly. “I’ll just keep thinking that, if it’s all the same to you.”

  And since there was nothing I could say to that, I just forked up some lettuce and started chewing.

  Chapter Twelve

  We went out for breakfast the next morning. Just Rafe and me this time. To the Pancake Pantry in Hillsboro Village, where the line snaked around the corner of the building. And after I had built up my strength on Belgian waffles and strawberries, I made him take me up the road to Vanderbilt Hospital, so we could check on Kylie.

  Dr. Ramsey was working again this morning, and greeted me like an old friend. He even remembered Rafe, since had Rafe had been with me the time Tim got shot. In fact, it was Rafe who had kept pressure on Tim’s shoulder—with a T-shirt he’d ripped off his own body—while I called for the ambulance. I think having a bare-chested Rafe bending over him had done just as much to keep Tim alive as the EMTs did.

  Anyway, Dr. Ramsey was on duty, and updated us on Kylie—or ‘your sister,’ as he called her. I avoided looking at Rafe, but I knew he was arching a brow at me.

  “She’s resting comfortably,” Dr. Ramsey said. “Heart and brain wave functions are normal. Everything seems fine. We’re cutting down on the meds to see if she’ll wake up on her own.” He glanced at his watch. “She should be about ready to come out of it.”

  He gestured us to follow.

  “Is anyone else here?” I asked, as we trailed him down the hall toward Kylie’s room. “Her girlfriend? The police?”

  “The girl with the black dreadlocks?” He shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday. Her husband stopped by after visiting hours last night, but since he wasn’t on the list of visitors, he didn’t get in.”

  “Husband?”

  Dr. Ramsey stopped in the middle of the hallway. “That’s who he said he was. Your sister isn’t married?”

  “She was,” I said. “They got divorced a couple of years ago.” And as far as I knew had nothing to do with one another anymore.

  “You don’t have any contact with him?”

  I could say in all honesty that I didn’t. “I wonder who told him she was here. I doubt it was Aislynn. She and Kylie got involved after Damian was history. And Kylie wasn’t in any condition to call him yesterday.” Or anyone else, I assume. Like her parents.

  Dr. Ramsey shook his head.

  “I wonder who notified him.”

  “I wonder if it really was her husband,” Rafe murmured.

  I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “It mighta been whoever hit her, coming back to make sure the job was done.”

  A caterpillar with very cold feet crept down my spine. “You mean, whoever hit her thought he’d killed her, and when he realized he hadn’t, he came back to finish the job?”

  Rafe shrugged.

  “Surely that’s a bit melodramatic,” Dr. Ramsey said.

  I was about to tell him that in my world—our world—things like that happened regularly, but before I could, Rafe had spoken up again. “Better safe than sorry, doc. After all, someone did hit her in the first place.”

  Dr. Ramsey nodded. “I’ll append a note to her file that no one gets in except family and law enforcement. And that she has no husband.”

  “I’ll talk to Mendoza about putting a guard on the door till she’s outta here,” Rafe added. I nodded my thanks, just as we arrived outside Kylie’s room.

  Dr. Ramsey pushed the door open, into the same beeping, pulsating world as yesterday. Kylie looked the same: pale and still on the bed.

  I forgot that Rafe hadn’t seen her before. It didn’t occur to me at all—until he went stone still next to me.

  I glanced at him, and saw that he’d turned a shade paler, staring at her.

  Uh-oh. I reached for his hand, and he turned to me. It took a second, and then he got his voice to cooperate. He had to clear his throat first. “She looks like you.”

  I nodded, but it was Dr. Ramsey who said, “There’s a strong family resemblance.”

  That statement hung in the air like a dying fish for a few seconds, before I said. “We drive the same kind of car, too. Hers is a few shades darker than mine.”

  “The twin bond,” Ramsey nodded sagely.

  I bit the inside of my cheek. He was a nice man, and I felt bad for deceiving him, but I needed to know what was going on. And Aislynn, not being legally married to Kylie, needed to know, as well. Saying we were sisters had seemed like a good idea at the time, although now it felt uncomfortable.

  Not to mention that while we did resemble one another, superficially, we didn’t look anything like twins.

  To get past the awkwardness, I crept forward to the bed and peered down. “Is she doing all right?”

  Dr. Ramsey glanced at the various beeping and whooshing machines. “Nothing wrong that I can see. Her head will hurt when she wakes up, but we can give her something for that. At the moment, it’s important to see if she’ll come out of it. If she won’t, we might have problems.”

  “You mean, she might stay unconscious for longer?”

  He nodded. “I can’t see any reason why she will, but with head injuries, it’s sometimes hard to tell.”

  “But you X-rayed her head, right? There’s nothing wrong? No bleeding or anything?”

  “Just a concussion,” Dr. Ramsey said. “She should come out of it just fine, and in a week or so, be good as new. Let’s see if she can hear me.”

  He stepped over to the other side of the bed and leaned in. “Ms. Mitchell? Kylie? Can you hear me?”

  We waited, but there was no response. The machines kept beeping and Kylie kept sleeping.

  Dr. Ramsey took a step back. “You try. Maybe a familiar voice will make a difference.”

  Sure. Even if mine wasn’t as familiar as he obviously assumed it would be.

  I took a breath and leaned in. “Kylie? It’s Savannah. Can you hear me?”

  We waited. “Kylie?” I tried again. “Are you in there?”

  “Her eyebrows moved,” Rafe said.

  I looked, and yes, she was wrinkling her brows. Only about a millimeter, but wrinkling. “Kylie?”

  She pursed her lips.

  “Good,” Dr. Ramsey said approvingly. “Keep talking to her. Let’s see if we can get her out of it.”

  “Hi, Kylie,” I said obediently. “It’s Savannah. Rafe is here, too.” I glanced at him. “It’s Sunday morning now. You’ve been sleeping a long time. We’re worried about you. Can you wake up and tell us what happened?”

  Her eyebrows drew together again. “Is she confused?” I whispered to Dr. Ramsey.

  He shrugged. “Could be. Could be she’s trying to remember. Could just be a muscle thing as she’s trying to wake up.”

  OK, then.

  “Just keep talking to her. Ask her to open her eyes.”

  I kept talking to her, and kept asking her to open her eyes. It took a small eternity, or at least it felt like one, but five or ten—or twenty—minutes later, her eyelashes fluttered.

  “There you go,” Dr. Ramsey said, pleased. “Good girl, Kylie. Open your eyes.”

  Her eyelashes fluttered some more. But eventually she did get around to opening her eyes. They were vacant at first, staring up at the ceiling. Another eternity passed while she blinked and tried to get her bearings. Her head moved slowly from one side to the other as she took in the room and the people in it. Rafe didn’t rate a second glance. She obviously didn’t know who he was. She watched Doctor Ramsey for a while, with that little wrinkle between her brows, probably trying to place him.

  “Hi there, Kylie,” he said, his voice friendly and undemanding. “I’m Doctor Ramsey. Remember me? We met last year.”

  If she did, she didn’t respond. Having identified him to her satisfaction, she moved on to me, and this time her eyes registered recognition.

  “Hi, Kylie,” I said, moving a step closer and ta
king her hand. It was hooked up to a contraption that measured what I thought was her heartbeat, but at least there were no needles going into it. “How do you feel?”

  She tried to move her lips, but nothing came out.

  “We’ve been worried about you,” I told her. “Do you remember what happened?”

  She blinked, and then moved her head slowly from side to side.

  “That’s not unusual,” Dr. Ramsey said softly. “A blow to the head can cause temporary memory loss.”

  I glanced at him. “Will she remember later?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  Helpful. Not.

  “Someone hit you,” I told Kylie. “On the back of the head. At home. Maybe someone who was looking through the office when you came home?”

  Her eyes turned blank for a second as she thought it through, and I could almost feel her probing for the memory of what had happened. A look of frustration crossed her face when she couldn’t find it.

  “It’s OK,” I told her, patting her hand. “It’ll come back to you. Just give it time.”

  The corners of her mouth turned up, and she curled her fingers around mine. Her lips moved.

  “What?” I asked, leaning down.

  There was hardly any breath at all behind the word, and no sound, but I’m pretty sure I heard her right. “Aislynn? She’s fine. I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

  She’d have to be. Or Grimaldi would rub Mendoza’s nose in the fact that he’d let her leave the state.

  Kylie looked frustrated.

  “She went up to Bowling Green to spend the night with her parents,” I added, trying to explain what had happened, so she’d understand why Aislynn wasn’t here. “Your house is a crime scene. The police were all over it, trying to figure out what went on. And she was probably afraid of staying there by herself. She spent the night before with us.”

  Kylie’s gaze moved from me to Rafe, behind me.

  “Remember Rafe?” I smiled. Of course she didn’t—she’d never met him before—but since we were supposed to be sisters, I’d just have to pretend that my ‘sister’ knew my husband.