Last Call

  Savannah Martin Mysteries

  Book 21

  Jenna Bennett

  It’s wedding season in Sweetwater, and plenty of Savannah’s nearest and dearest have paired up to tie the knot. First up are Todd Satterfield and Marley Cartwright – but things take a turn when the father of the groom, Sheriff Bob Satterfield, doesn’t show up in time for the wedding.

  * * *

  Todd and Marley exchange vows anyway – the church is full and the minister waiting – but of course there’s no question about honeymooning in Tuscany under the circumstances. They stay home and, like everyone else in the family, turn their brains inside out to try to figure out what could have happened.

  * * *

  But as the hours and days tick by, Bob’s disappearance remains a mystery. The investigation is only made more confusing, and more urgent, by the discovery of another three missing men from a nearby town.

  * * *

  The next weekend is the wedding of Savannah’s brother Dix to Chief of Police Tamara Grimaldi, and Savannah’s determined that that’s going to take place as planned, Bob or no Bob. She takes over most of the wedding duties from Grimaldi, so the chief of police, along with Savannah’s husband Rafe and sheriff’s deputy Cletus Johnson, can keep scouring the county for any sign of the missing.

  * * *

  But when all four are found, all shot and left for dead in a pickup truck in the Bog, it’s clear that something big is at stake, and getting Bob back in (mostly) one piece, doesn’t mean he’ll stay that way long enough to attend his own wedding to Savannah’s mother two more weeks hence...

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  The month of June opened with Todd Satterfield’s wedding to Marley Cartwright. It went down in history not for the novelty of being the nuptials between the Assistant DA and the woman he’d tried to prosecute for murder, but instead for the disappearance of the father of the groom, Sheriff Bob Satterfield, who also happened to be my mother’s significant other.

  But I seem to be getting a little ahead of myself, and should set the scene better before I go into the details of what happened.

  Todd is an old boyfriend of mine, which ought to have been an impediment to my being included in the wedding.

  On the other hand, I had once saved Marley’s life, as well as helped her discover what had happened to her son Oliver, and then played a part in making sure the people who kidnapped Oliver paid the appropriate price for their crime. As a result, I was a shoe-in for bridesmaid, or more accurately, matron of honor.

  There were two other bridesmaids, or -matrons. We were all in our late twenties to early thirties, so we were all, actually, married. One was Marley’s best friend from college, Anastasia, and the other was my older sister Catherine, whose youngest son, Cole, was best friends with Oliver now that Marley had him back.

  Todd had a best man—my brother Dix—and two other groomsmen, one a friend from law school and the other a colleague from the Maury County DA’s office.

  It was a fairly small occasion, in other words. At least as far as the wedding party went. Todd’s mother Pauline had died a few years ago—cancer—and Marley’s parents disowned her back when everyone (including Todd) believed she’d killed Oliver and disposed of the body.

  Long story.

  And then there was the fact that Marley was more than seven months pregnant, and looked more like a white whale than I’d done a year ago, when I tied the knot. It was something Marley had said she didn’t want to do, walk down the aisle looking like a hot air balloon, but I guess in the end she’d changed her mind and decided that it was more important for her baby to be born in wedlock than it was for Marley herself to be svelte as she made her way down the aisle.

  So there we were, at the pretty, little local church in Sweetwater, Tennessee, the first Saturday in June. It was a couple minutes before two, the time when the ceremony was scheduled to start, and Mother was shaking her head. “I have no idea what happened.”

  We were standing outside the church—me in my bridesmaid dress, mother in a lovely, champagne-colored stepmother-of-the-groom-to-be suit—and Mother was explaining why she’d shown up by herself instead of with Bob.

  “He got a call around ten this morning. He wasn’t on the roll—”

  No, of course not. Not only was it a Saturday, but it was his son’s wedding day. The sheriff wouldn’t be working today.

  “—but he went out anyway. Said it wouldn’t take long and he’d be back in plenty of time to get changed and to the church before two.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  Mother shook her head. “When he didn’t come back by one, I tried calling. Multiple times. But the calls went straight to voicemail.”

  “Did you try the sheriff’s office?”

  Just because the sheriff himself had the day off, didn’t mean the office wasn’t manned. Or womanned, as the case might be. Crime doesn’t take a holiday, even when the sheriff’s son’s getting married.

  “Of course I did,” Mother said. “They didn’t know anything about it.”

  “So the call didn’t come through the dispatcher? Do you know who called?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t say. Just told me he had to go out for a while, and that he’d be back in time to change for the wedding.”

  “Can you remember exactly what he said?” Just in case there was a clue there. Although if there had been a clue there, surely Mother would have recognized it for what it was. She wasn’t stupid.

  “He answered the phone,” Mother said, “and said, ‘hello.’ The person on the other end said something. He asked what had happened. They answered. He asked ‘where?’ They answered. He told him he was on his way. He hung up and told me he had to leave for a while, but would be back.”

  So nothing very helpful there. No names or anything. “And he didn’t tell you where he was going?”

  “If he had,” Mother said, “do you think I would be standing here talking to you?”

  I guess not. “So what do you want me to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mother said. “Tell your husband, for one thing. But I wanted to ask your opinion about the wedding. Do we tell Todd and let him cancel? Or not mention anything and go ahead with it?”

  “Do you think he’d cancel if we told him?”

  She gave me a look that questioned my sanity. “Of course he would.”

  “Then perhaps we should just carry on. Although I expect he’ll probably be angry once he figures out what’s going on.”

  But on the other hand, maybe the sheriff would just show up in the middle of the ceremony, having been caught up in something that had taken longer than he thought it would, and the issue would resolve itself.

  “Get Rafael,” Mother said.

  “Go ahead and text him. There are no pockets in this thing.” I was wearing a very tasteful, but skimpy, bridesmaid dress, and my own phone was in the diaper bag sitting next to Rafe and our daughter Carrie, on a pew inside.

  Mother’s fingers flew over the keys. A whooshing sound from her phone indicated that she’d sent the message, and we both turned to look at the door to the church. Waiting.

  “What’s going on?” Catherine wanted to know. She’d been standing a few yards away talking to Anastasia when Mother drove up with a spurt of gravel, and she had left us alone thus far, but now she picked her way across the parking lot toward us to find out what had happened. “Is everything OK?”

  “We don’t know,” Mother said. “Bob is missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Surely it’s a little soon…” I demurred, and Mother turned to—or more accurately on—me.

  “He’s late for his only son’s wedding! He’s missing!”

  Her voice was loud enough that Anastasia’s eyes widened. She began to make her way toward us, too. Over at the church, the front door open and my husband strode out.

  We’d been married a year ourselves by now, or just about. The first Saturday in June should have been our wedding day last year, and for reasons—reasons that might impact Mother’s fears about Bob, now that I thought about it—that hadn’t happened. Rafe had been abducted. It would really be too much of a coincidence if the same thing had happened to Bob.

  Anyway, even after a year of marriage—or close to it—he still took my breath away regularly. Now was one of those times. It isn’t often I see my husband dressed up in a suit and tie—he’s more the T-shirt and jeans type—but there’s no denying that he cleans up nicely. And the fact that he was carrying a baby car seat in one hand and had a diaper bag with jungle animals over the other shoulder only added to the appeal.

  There was a scowl on his face when he opened the door, but by the time he reached us, it was gone. “What’s wrong?”

  He looked from me to Mother to Catherine, and then included Anastasia, as she had minced her way over to us by then, as well.


  “Bob’s missing,” Mother said, and this time I didn’t try to correct her. She was right. If Bob wasn’t here for his only son’s wedding, he was missing. At least temporarily.

  “Where’d he go?”

  Mother told him about the phone call and how Bob had left the big foursquare in downtown Sweetwater at a few minutes after ten this morning, and hadn’t returned by the time she left to come to the church, after waiting for him for as long as she thought it advisable without waiting so long that she’d miss the wedding herself, too.

  He went over all the obvious questions, the ones I’d already asked, and then he nodded. “I’ll go get the sheriff’s office going. You take the baby.”

  He transferred Carrie and her paraphernalia to Mother.

  She took the car seat and diaper bag, but distractedly. “Do you think there’s a problem?”

  “It’s too soon to tell,” Rafe told her. “Could be he had a car problem somewhere up on the Devil’s Elbow, in one of those dead cell areas, and he’s stuck up there with no way down but to walk. It needn’t be that anything more than that is wrong.”

  “No, of course not.” Mother looked cheered. “You’ll take care of it?”

  “I’ll see who’s available at the sheriff’s office,” Rafe assured her, “and we’ll figure this out. You just go inside and watch the wedding. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thank you.” She went up on her toes to kiss his cheek—he’s six-three and a bit—before heading toward the door to the church.

  “So you don’t think we need to cancel the ceremony?”

  He turned to me, from watching Mother and his daughter moving away. “Better to go through with it. If something’s wrong, at least Todd’ll have a wife to help him get through.”

  “Do you think something’s wrong?” Catherine wanted to know.

  Rafe shrugged. “The man’s late for his son’s wedding.” So obviously something was wrong. “But it could be something like what I said. Car trouble. Or he ran off the road and knocked himself out. Or whatever he got called out for took longer than he figured it would. Or it could be something more serious. No way to know until we find him. Or at least the car.”

  “You don’t think—?” I began.

  He shook his head. “No, darlin’. Nothing like what happened to me, likely happened to him. Two totally different situations.”

  Yes, of course. My husband had been an undercover agent who had infiltrated a huge criminal organization and made loads of enemies over the course of ten years. Bob Satterfield had been a small-town sheriff and sheriff’s deputy his whole life. It wasn’t the same thing at all.

  “Go,” I told him. “See if the sheriff’s office can track down the truck. Keep us updated on what you discover. We’ll hold down the fort here.”

  Catherine nodded. After a second, Anastasia did the same.

  I tilted my face up, and Rafe brushed a kiss over my lips, careful not to upset my makeup or the flowers that were decorating my upswept hair. “I’ll let you know what I find out. OK if I take the car?”

  “Take whatever you want,” I said. “I’ll figure out a ride to the reception. Just… be careful.”

  “Always,” Rafe told me, in blatant disregard for the truth, and headed for the parking lot.

  I turned to Catherine and Anastasia. “Let’s get this show on the road.” And damn the torpedoes. If something was wrong, we’d deal with it after the ceremony. “Where’s Marley?”

  “Sitting with her feet up,” Anastasia said. “Swollen ankles. I’ll go get her.” She headed for the side of the church.

  Catherine looked at me. “This doesn’t sound good. Does it, Savannah?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t think about it. One thing at a time. Let’s go line up.”

  We headed toward the front of the church to get in formation for the procession down the aisle.

  Chapter Two

  Todd might have realized that his father was missing, but honestly, I’m not sure. And at any rate, once Marley started walking up the aisle toward him, I think the sight of her blew everything else out of his head.

  By then, Oliver had made his way up the aisle with the rings, followed by Cole and his sister Annie, sharing a big basket of rose petals between them. Annie was distributing them elegantly, in lovely swathes to her left, while Cole was grabbing handfuls and chucking them at certain members of the audience on the right. They went to sit next to Oliver on the steps at the front of the church, and then Catherine made her way down, followed by Anastasia, and finally me.

  Todd, with his three attendants, was already parked up at the altar, and I’ll admit to a second or two of awkwardness as I started on my own walk up the aisle. If Todd had had his way a year and a half ago, it would be me in the white dress walking toward him now, not Marley, and for just a second, I think we were both thinking about it. I met his eyes, and saw a shadow of that knowledge there, that if things had worked out differently, he’d be standing at the front of the church waiting for me now. There’d be no Rafe, no Carrie, and no Marley and Oliver.

  And then I arrived, and took my place next to Anastasia, where I could no longer see Todd, and turned my eyes toward the back of the church. The organ struck up the wedding march, and the congregation scrambled to its collective feet. The doors in the back swung wide, and Marley started down the aisle.

  She’s a pretty girl, although you wouldn’t have known it back when I first met her. Back then, she’d been drinking too much and smoking too much and hardly sleeping at all, as she worried about her missing son and the fact that she was going on trial for having killed him.

  Now she looked great. She was pregnant, of course, so she had a glow even without the wedding excitement, and she sailed up the aisle like a ship at full sail. Her dark hair was glossy and arranged in soft curls under the veil, and her eyes, when she looked at Todd, shone. I leaned out far enough that I could twist and catch a glimpse of him, and what I saw reassured me that he had absolutely no regrets about letting me get away. Whatever had been in his eyes earlier was nothing to the awe and amazement and relief—that she’d gone through with it instead of changing her mind?—with which he looked at Marley.

  I leaned back into the short row of bridesmaids feeling very much better about the whole thing.

  * * *

  It wasn’t until two hours later that I heard from Rafe again. And I say ‘heard from,’ but what actually happened was that he walked into the reception at that point, looked around, and made a beeline for me.

  Todd had noticed that his dad was missing, of course. He wasn’t so wrapped up in Marley that he could have overlooked something like that. But in the excitement I guess it hadn’t made that big of an impact on him. Not enough that he asked to postpone or cancel the wedding or reception until things could be worked out. He’d asked what was going on, and where his dad was, and Mom explained that Bob had been called away by someone at ten that morning, and hadn’t come back yet. Todd looked a little worried, since by then it was more like three-thirty, and there was still no sign of Bob. But I told him that Rafe had gone to see what he could figure out, and that seemed to reassure Todd enough that he was able to give Marley his full attention.

  And that in itself was pretty amazing, really, because it wasn’t that long ago that Todd would have sneered at the mere mention of Rafe’s name. But now he accepted the fact that my husband was the best man to look into the matter of what had happened to Todd’s dad, and left it at that.

  Miracles do happen.

  Anyway, it was after four by the time I saw Rafe come into the big tent where the reception was taking place, on the grounds of a winery on the outskirts of town, and look around. I was sitting at one of the tables feeding Carrie, with my shoes off and my feet up on one of the chairs next to me, so all I could do was wave and hope he saw me.