Adverse Possession Read online

  “I don’t blame him,” Rafe told me. “I get cranky, too. I just can’t do nothing about it right now.”

  “Maybe you can stop for a burger or something on the way.”

  He chuckled. “Sure. I’ll just keep the burger in one hand and the gun in the other.”

  “Gun?”

  His voice was easy. “Just business as usual, darlin’. Don’t worry.”

  Sure. I wanted to pursue it, but figured I’d probably be happier not knowing the details. “Just make sure you come home in one piece.”

  He smiled. I could hear it in his voice. “Always.”

  “And try to keep Jamal in one piece, too.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Well, if anyone could do it, he could. “I’ll probably just crawl into bed,” I said, “and watch a movie or read a book or something while I wait for you to get here.”

  Nice and normal. Something that had been sadly lacking in his life so far.

  “Don’t wait up,” he told me. “I have a feeling it’s gonna be late. Just take care of yourself and the baby. I’ll take care of this.”

  “I know you will. Stay safe. I love you.”

  “Love you too, darlin’.” He hung up. I did the same, and settled in with my lonely fajitas and a romance novel.

  In my former life, before Rafe, I used to be a fan of steamy historical romance. My favorite author was Barbara Botticelli, who wrote such masterpieces as Tartan Tryst, Apache Amour, and Stand and Deliver. All of her heroines were innocent, blond, and well-bred, while all her heroes were tall, dark, and dangerous, with more than a passing resemblance to Rafe. I stopped reading the books when I realized that in real life, Barbara was none other than Elspeth Caulfield from Damascus, Tennessee, who’d had a one-night-stand with Rafe in high school and never gotten over him. The fact that she’d imagined him naked every time the hero unbuttoned his buff britches, turned me off.

  And since I now had Rafe in my bed every night, and was living my very own romance with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous, I had switched to reading mysteries. Cozy mysteries, the kind with cats and gimmicks and very little blood.

  I was halfway through a holiday mystery—the Fourth of July, not Christmas—and after dinner, I crawled into bed with it. There was nothing else to do, I was tired, and anyway, bed was where Mr. Tall, Dark, and Dangerous would want to find me when he got home.

  It took a couple of hours to finish the book, and by then my eyelids were drooping. It was almost ten, and Rafe wasn’t home yet. He probably wouldn’t be here for a few hours, judging from what he’d said on the phone. I turned out the light and crawled under the covers, while I tried not to worry about what might be going on, and the danger he might be putting himself in.

  It had been a while since I’d worried like this. Except for the twenty-four hours last month when he’d gotten himself kidnapped and tortured, of course, and we didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him. But that hadn’t really been an occupational hazard, or only indirectly. A blast from the past that none of us could have predicted. This was putting his life and safety on the line in the line of duty, and he hadn’t had to do that for a while. He’d gotten out of undercover work last December, and had taken what amounted to a desk job in February. At that point, I’d stopped worrying so much, since he wouldn’t put himself in danger all the time.

  And now here he was, putting himself in danger again. Strapping on a gun and walking into a war between rival gangs to protect his protégé.

  It took me a while to fall asleep, and when I did, I was plagued by bad dreams. It could have been the beans and onions, although it was more likely to be worry. And as usual, my nightmares were a strange mixture of things that didn’t necessarily belong together. Rafe was going to the mailbox outside our house at 101 Potsdam to see if we’d gotten any more poison pen letters, but he was carrying a gun and looking left and right for gang members while he did it—like we were under siege or something—and when he got there, a car came rolling down the street with the subwoofer blasting, and as it came closer, the tinted windows rolled down, and I knew it was the poison pen... except the points of semi-automatic weapons stuck out of the windows, and they started spitting bullets, and Rafe returned fire as he zigzagged through the yard toward the front door, and I called to him to hurry, but then he stumbled and fell... and I woke up with the sheets twisted around my legs so I couldn’t move, and a scream caught in my throat.

  It took at least a minute before my heart settled into a normal rhythm and I could unwind myself from the sheet and kick my feet free.

  The lighted numbers on the digital clock said 12:43. I was still alone in bed. I didn’t even have to look to know that. Rafe is a light sleeper, and if I’d had a nightmare, he would have woken up before I did, and would have been soothing me now. Or distracting me; whichever he thought would do the trick. Since he’s pretty much always happy to get laid, he might have opted for distraction.

  But since nothing like that was going on, I was definitely alone. His side of the bed was cold and untouched, the comforter still smooth.

  I settled back against the pillows and concentrated on breathing. In and out, slowly and carefully. Everything was all right. Rafe was safe. Nobody had gunned him down in the front yard. I would have heard the shots.

  And I knew it, logically, but even so, I pushed the comforter back and padded over to the window. The old floorboards were cold against the soles of my feet, and the air conditioning vent sent a blast of icy air at my ankles as I moved past.

  The bedroom window overlooks the front yard: the circular driveway, a lot of old oak and hackberry trees, and beyond the yard, Potsdam Street. At this time of night, there was very little to see. Most of the neighboring houses were dark, with the occasional porch light above or beside a front door, and here or there the blue flicker of a TV where someone had gotten caught up in a late movie. Straight below me, I could see the roof of my Volvo, parked in the driveway, and I could also see that Rafe’s Harley wasn’t parked there with it. Whatever he’d been doing with Jamal, he was still doing it.

  Down the street, there was a flash of light. As the vehicle came closer, I saw a pair of matching headlights approaching slowly. Not Rafe coming home, then.

  I squinted, but couldn’t make out the car itself. Maybe it was Spicer and Truman, driving by to make sure everything was all right. Or just a neighbor, coming home from a late night on the town. Malcolm, the nineteen-year-old who lived two houses up, worked at the gas station on the corner of Dickerson Road and Dresden. His shift ended at eleven, but maybe he’d put in an extra hour and a half, or something.

  But no. The car passed Malcolm’s place and kept going until the red taillights winked out up the street.

  I stayed where I was. My feet were cold and I was flagging, but the baby was wide awake, doing what felt like cartwheels inside my belly. Maybe it was excited that I was up and about, since that was rather unusual for this time of night.

  Practice for after it was born, when I would have to get up for nightly feedings.

  I was about to go back to bed when something moved outside. And instead of heading back to curl my cold toes into the covers, I leaned closer to the window and squinted.

  A dark shadow moved down the street from the direction of Malcolm’s house.

  Now, that’s not anything unusual. People do walk around the neighborhood sometimes, coming and going. I wouldn’t choose to do it, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t, either because they want to, or they have to. People go to or get off work at any hour of the day or night these days. Cars run out of gas and people have to walk home. We have a few homeless in the area, who get rousted from one place and have to move to another in the middle of the night, for one reason or another. And we live in a fairly high crime area, so we have our share of drug dealers, hookers, and other undesirables wandering our streets. Including some of the gang members Rafe was hunting tonight. They tend to avoid the area right around our house, th
ough, since word has gotten out that Rafe works for the TBI. The law-abiding neighbors love him, since crime has gone down since he moved in, while the not-so-law-abiding take the long way around.

  This person did not take the long way around. He—or she; it was impossible to tell in the dark—hesitated at the bottom of the driveway. I expected him (or her) to flit across, and continue down the sidewalk, but instead, he—she—ducked inside the yard and vanished among the shadows of the trees.

  A second later, another shadow followed.

  Two of them. In our yard, on their way toward the house.

  And I was alone, without Rafe—or his gun—to protect me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  My phone was on the bedside table, charging. I ran to it, yanked it out of the charger, and ran back to the window, terrified I’d miss something. Only to realize when I got there that the glow from the screen was probably visible outside, and might show them—whoever they were—that I was standing there watching them. So I ran back to the bed and crawled under the covers for long enough to dial the number I wanted.

  “There are two people in my yard,” I told Grimaldi when her sleepy voice picked up on the other end of the line, “and Rafe isn’t here.”

  “Shit.” She was wide awake immediately. “I’m on my way. Did you call 911?”

  “I called you first. I’m in bed, under the blankets. I was afraid they’d see the light from the phone and realize I was awake.”

  “Get out from under there,” Grimaldi said, “and get dressed.” I could hear scuffling from the other end of the line as she was already doing what she was telling me to do. “Don’t worry about making any more calls. I’ll get the nearest black-and-white on its way to you. Put on some clothes and find a weapon. I don’t care what kind. Knife, gun, fireplace poker.”

  The knives and fireplace pokers were downstairs. So was my lipstick-canister pepper spray, along with my lipstick-canister serrated blade. And there was no gun in the house. Not without Rafe.

  “Shit,” Grimaldi said again when I told her so. “Can you get downstairs and out the back door?”

  “Probably not. They were on their way toward the house a minute ago. Besides, I don’t know who’s back there. The two in the front might have split up. Or there might be more than two. Someone could be outside the back door already.”

  Grimaldi muttered something. I don’t think it was critical. Or at least not critical of me. “I don’t suppose you have any secret rooms or staircases in the house?”

  We didn’t. “There’s a third floor with a big ballroom. But other than that it’s just the usual bedrooms and bathrooms and common rooms and closets.”

  “Just do your best to stay alive,” Grimaldi said. “I’m on my way.” She hung up.

  OK, then. I slithered from under the blankets—slithering was becoming more difficult as my pregnancy progressed—and padded back over to the window. I know Grimaldi’s instructions had been to get dressed—and I would, since I didn’t want to face burglars (or whoever I was dealing with) in my nightgown—but first I wanted to see how far they’d gotten, and whether they were actually on their way into the house. Maybe they were just cutting through the yard or playing war games or something.

  Maybe they weren’t after me at all. Or after Rafe, which was much more likely.

  It took a few seconds for my eyes to focus outside the house again. At first everything looked quiet, but then I saw movement among the trees in the yard. They were taking their time, gliding smoothly toward the house, sticking to the shadows under the leafy branches.

  There were still just two of them, or at least I didn’t see any more. And it was too dark for me to make any kind of identification. They were dressed in dark clothes, and they either had dark hair or dark caps or hoods covering their heads. It was impossible to see faces, or anything other than just moving patches of darkness. I watched as one of them made it out from under the cover of the trees and scurried around the front end of the Volvo. Three seconds later, the other one followed.

  They disappeared from sight as they approached the stairs to the porch.

  Time to move.

  My hands were shaking so badly that it was hard to dress. I choose a pair of black yoga pants, thinking they’d be easy to pull on, but it was like fitting my legs into a pair of control-top pantyhose: slow and agonizing. All the while I struggled with my uncooperative hands and the uncooperative fabric, I kept my ears peeled for sounds from downstairs.

  For the first few seconds there was nothing. Then a small sound, followed by the tinkling of glass.

  A very small sound. Much smaller than I’d expected.

  Once upon a time, last fall, someone had shot out one of the front windows of the house, trying to kill me. The sound had been deafening. Both the shot itself, and the sound of the pane of glass shattering onto the floor. By comparison, this was so small it was almost comforting.

  At least until I heard the front door open and footsteps on the floor downstairs.

  I pulled one of Rafe’s black T-shirts over my head and tip-toed out into the hallway.

  They were both inside now. I heard murmurs, but no words. Certainly not voices I could recognize.

  Then I heard the scuff of a foot on the bottom step of the stairs, and it was the kick in the pants I needed to get going.

  As I’d told Tamara Grimaldi on the phone, we have a ballroom on the third floor of the house. Not that we ever have balls, but in the days when this house was built, during the Victorian era, wealthy families did just that. Invited friends over, had dinner, and waltzed the night away. Many of the big Victorian houses in East Nashville and Germantown have ballrooms.

  If we ended up having more children, I figured the big room on the top floor, from which you could see the downtown skyline, would make a good playroom.

  At the moment there was nothing much up there. Just a cavernous room full of shadows and boxes, with a dusty floor and a bit of starlight floating in above the treetops.

  I scurried across the expanse of floor and crouched behind a stack of boxes, trying to regulate my breathing.

  The door had shut behind me—thankfully without squeaking. I made a mental note to thank Rafe for keeping the hinges oiled, if I got out of this alive.

  And then I hunkered down and waited to see what would happen.

  Time dragged on. I keep my ears peeled for noises from downstairs, and for the sound of sirens outside. Grimaldi had said she’d call 911; surely someone was on their way? She lived on the other side of town, at least twenty minutes away, and while time felt like it was dragging, I knew it hadn’t been that long. She wasn’t anywhere close. But surely there was a squad car within a few minutes of me? And the East Precinct was just up on Trinity Lane, no more than five minutes away.

  Why wasn’t anyone coming?

  A brush of a foot on the stairs brought my head up, and suddenly the idea of cowering here, behind my stack of boxes, seemed like a bad idea. I was a sitting duck, just waiting for my burglar—whoever he was—to come and find me.

  Maybe I should be proactive instead.

  Praying that the closed door between us would mask the sound of my movements, I slid out from behind the boxes and along the wall. My bare feet didn’t make a sound, and I held my breath, hoping the old floorboards wouldn’t squeak and alert him to my location. If he’d been through the second floor, he would know I wasn’t there, and that it was likely I was up here somewhere, but I didn’t want him to know my exact position.

  The doorknob turned.

  I started moving faster.

  By the time the door opened, I was five feet away.

  And by the time a dark shadow stepped up into the doorway, and starlight glinted on the barrel of the gun in his gloved hand, I threw myself forward and propelled him back.

  I’m almost five-eight, and I’ve always carried a few pounds extra. Not that I’m fat, but I’ve always been a bit broader in the beam than I’d like to be. I’d gained a few more p
ounds since getting pregnant, too.

  In other words, I’m not a small person. And I was terrified, on my own behalf and for the baby. Terror, combined with rage—how dared these people come into my house in the middle of the night and threaten me?—combined with my physical attributes, might not have been enough to take on someone like Rafe. He’s a lot bigger than me, and he fights dirty. He’s also prepared for any eventuality, and it isn’t easy to take him off guard.

  That was not the case with the burglar. This guy—whoever he was—wasn’t any bigger than me. And he obviously wasn’t prepared for a hundred and forty-five pounds of terrified female.

  My palms slammed into his chest—which was a lot squishier than I had expected.

  A woman?

  By the time that thought registered, it was much too late for it to do any good. And honestly, I don’t know if it would have made any difference anyway. A person with a gun is a person with a gun, no matter the gender. And anyway, that first push had taken her back a step, and then it was too late. Her heel came down beyond the edge of the step outside the door, and when her weight landed on it, she tipped over backwards and tumbled down the stairs.

  A shrill scream rang in my ears. Simultaneously, the gun went off with a deafening bang. The bullet whizzed past me and buried itself in the wall above my head. A trickle of plaster dust floated down.

  I clapped my hands over my ears, so I didn’t hear the sound of her body hitting the steps and sliding the last few feet onto the second story floor, but I did hear the silence when her scream was cut off. My ears were still ringing, but not so loudly that I didn’t hear the wild scramble from the first floor. Running footsteps in the hallway downstairs, the sound of the front door being yanked open, and then the slamming of said door again as burglar number two took to his heels down the porch steps and through the yard.

  I let him go. No way was I going to jump over the body—dead or alive—at the foot of the third floor stairs to give chase. I didn’t want to catch anyone. I wouldn’t know what to do with him—or her—if I did. I just wanted to be safe.