by Sandra Brown
He tried to smile, but knew he failed. The gloomy interior of the bar was suffocating him. The smoke seemed thicker. The odor of despair more pervasive. His head was throbbing and his gut was churning. Loretta’s eyes were as sharp as boning knives. Afraid they would see too much, he avoided looking straight into them.
“I’ll get your fee to you tomorrow.”
“I turned over every stone I could, Hammond.”
“You did a terrific job.”
“But you were hoping for more.”
Actually he had been hoping for nothing, but certainly less than what he had got. “No, no. With this, I’ll be able to move the case forward.”
Pathetically eager to please him, Loretta gripped his hand tighter. “I could try digging even deeper.”
“Give me time to assimilate this first. I’m sure it’ll be sufficient. If not, I’ll be in touch.”
Without fresh air, he was going to die. He worked his hand out of Loretta’s damp grip, told her to stay sober, thanked her again for a job well done, and tossed a hasty goodbye over his shoulder.
Outside the Shady Rest, the air was neither fresh nor bracing. It was stagnant and thick and seemed to take on the properties of cotton as he sucked it into his lungs.
Even hours after sundown the sidewalk was emanating heat that burned his feet through the soles of his shoes. His skin was clammy. Like when he was a kid, sick. After a fever broke, his mother would remove his damp pajamas and change his bed sheets, assuring him that the sweat was a good sign. It meant he was getting better. But it didn’t feel better. He preferred the dryness of fever to the cloying moisture on his skin.
The sidewalk was congested with people milling from doorway to doorway but having no real place to go. They were looking for something interesting to do, which might include, but wasn’t limited to, getting drunk in one of the taverns, stealing something they needed, destroying or defacing property just for the hell of it, or satisfying a vendetta with bloodshed.
Ordinarily Hammond would have been attuned to the potential danger the neighborhood posed to one who obviously didn’t belong there. Both blacks and whites sneered at him with palpable prejudice and cultivated hatred. He was definitely a “have” in an area of “have nots,” and resentment ran high. At any other time, he would have been looking over one shoulder as he made his way back to his car, half expecting to find it stripped when he reached it. Tonight, preoccupation made him careless and indifferent to the hostile glances cast at him.
Loretta’s report on Alex had plunged him into a moral morass. The incriminating information was stultifying. The emotional impact of it severe. The whole of it was so devastating, he couldn’t separate individual aspects of it.
When Smilow learned her history—and it was only a matter of time before one of his detectives uncovered it—he would have wet dreams. Steffi would break out a bottle of champagne. But for him and Alex, professionally and personally, the discovery would be disastrous.
Disclosure was like a lead weight hanging by an unraveling filament just above his head. When would it drop? Tonight? Tomorrow? The next day? How long could he stand the suspense? How long could he wrestle with his own conscience? Even if the time of death eliminated her as the actual murderer, she must have been involved to some extent.
These thoughts were so dreary, so absorbing, they were almost immobilizing. He had lost all sense of where he was. He was thinking about disbarment, not dismemberment. When he reached the alley where he had left his car, he used the keyless door lock and opened the driver’s door without even glancing around to see if it was safe.
Startled by sudden movement behind him, he reacted quickly. He came around in a blur of motion, his arm raised, ready to protect and defend himself.
He came close to striking Alex before arresting the momentum of his arm.
“What the hell!” Reflexively he scanned the immediate area, only now becoming aware of the dark, menacing surroundings. “What the hell are you doing in this neighborhood?”
“I followed her here.”
“Who?”
Green eyes snapped angrily. “Who do you think, Hammond? The woman you hired to follow me.”
“Shit!”
“My sentiment exactly,” she said heatedly. “I thought it was strange that the same tourist came down my street twice in one day taking pictures of my house. First this morning, then again shortly after Smilow’s raiders left. On my way home from that humiliating interrogation this afternoon, I stopped at the supermarket. She was there, too, trying to look interested in watermelons. It finally dawned on me that I was under surveillance.”
“Not surveillance.”
“True. That would imply professionalism. While this is classless, gutless, ordinary spying.”
“Alex—”
“So I dodged her, doubled back, turned the tables, and started following her. I thought Detective Smilow must be behind it. Imagine my surprise when you showed up to meet her here.”
“Don’t put me on a level with Smilow.”
“Oh, you’re much lower than Mr. Smilow,” she said, her voice cracking with mounting emotion. “You’re sneakier. More underhanded. You sleep with me first.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Really? Then what is it like? Which part is inaccurate? Is she a policewoman?”
“Private investigator.”
“Even worse. You paid her to snoop on me.”
“Okay, you caught me,” he said, his anger rising to match hers. “You’re a very clever lady, Dr. Ladd.”
“Did you two have a nice chat about me?”
“There wasn’t anything nice about it, but what she dug up on you was damned interesting. Especially the records from Tennessee.”
She closed her eyes and reeled slightly. But she recovered quickly, reopened her eyes, and told him to go to hell.
She turned on her heel, but Hammond caught her arm and brought her back around. “What she dredged up about you isn’t my fault, Alex. When I hired her, I thought I was doing us both a favor.”
“In God’s name, how?”
“I had hoped, stupidly, that she would find something exculpatory. But that was before you started lying to the police with every breath, and painting yourself into inescapable corners.”
“Would you rather I had told them the truth?”
She had asked him the same question when they accidently met in the elevator. He’d had no answer for her. But since then he had given it a lot of thought. “It doesn’t matter that we spent Saturday night together.”
“Then why haven’t you told them? When I was being put through that humiliating interrogation about my dirty laundry, literally, why did you just stand there? Why didn’t you tell them everything, including who broke into my house last night and stained my sheets?”
“Because it’s irrelevant.”
She laughed without mirth. “You’re delusional, Solicitor Cross. Even given your brilliance, I think you would have a hard time persuading anyone of its irrelevance. And while we’re on the subject, I explained away the blood. But there’s only one explanation for semen. Which wouldn’t have been there if you’d worn some protection.”
“I didn’t think about it.” Lowering his face close to hers, he added on an angry whisper, “And neither did you.” He knew he had scored on that round when she averted her face. “Besides, one has nothing to do with the other.”
She looked back at him. “I have trouble following that logic.”
“Our sleeping together has no bearing on the case.” If he could convince her, he might be able to convince someone else. He might even come to believe it himself. “I’ve been thinking about it. Last Saturday, you could have murdered Pettijohn before leaving Charleston.”
She sucked in a quick breath, and folded her arms across her middle as though a pain had just shot through her. “That’s what you’ve been thinking? You said the time of death didn’t fit.”
“Because I didn’t want it t
o.”
“And now you do?”
“You killed him, then finagled our meeting to establish an alibi.”
“I told you last night, I did not kill Pettijohn.”
“Right, right. Like you didn’t fuck him, either.”
Once again, she spun around to leave. Hammond’s arm shot out. This time, she put up more of a struggle. “Damn you! Let me go!”
He turned her around and trapped her in the wedge formed by the open car door. In order for her to escape she would either have to go around or through him. He was determined that she would hear him out first. “I don’t want to think that, Alex.”
“Well, gee, thanks. I’m so glad you don’t want to think of me as a slut and a murderer.”
“What else am I supposed to believe?”
“Believe anything you like, just leave me alone.”
“All along, even when it stretched credibility, I’ve been giving you the benefit of the doubt. Until tonight.” He opened his jacket far enough for her to see the envelope inside his breast pocket.
Suddenly she ceased to struggle. She stared at the envelope for a moment, and he saw her lips twitch with what looked like remorse. But to her credit, when she raised her eyes to his, they were defiant and proud. “Juicy reading?”
“Damaging. Very damaging. This is the ammunition they need to nail you.”
“Then why are you standing here talking to me?”
“Smilow will take this and run with it.”
“So call him up. Give him the lowdown. You got what you wanted, what you paid for.”
“I’m giving you a chance to explain it.”
“I rather imagine it’s self-explanatory.”
“So I’m supposed to take it at face value?”
“I don’t give a damn how you take it.”
“Okay. I’ll interpret it the only way I can.” He pressed his lower body against her. “It means you’ve come a long way, baby.”
Her composure and hauteur deserted her. With both hands, she pushed hard against his chest. “Get away from me.”
He didn’t yield. “What this indicates to me is that last Saturday night was more than a simple seduction.”
“I didn’t seduce you.”
“Like hell, but we’ve been through that before. You’re implicated in a felony crime, and you deliberately drew me in. Why, Alex? You intentionally created a conflict of interest for me as a prosecutor. You made me part of it—whatever the hell it is.”
“There is no ‘it.’ There never was. Not until Lute Pettijohn turned up dead.”
“Was he in on it?”
“Aren’t you listening?” she cried.
“Was I the target of his last scheme? Was he plotting my downfall when he was murdered?”
“I don’t know. His being murdered had nothing to do with me.”
“I wish I could believe that. Our meeting was not accidental, Alex. You’ve admitted that much.”
She tried to sidestep him, but he blocked her and placed his hands on her shoulders.
“You’re not leaving until I get to the truth. How did you know I would be at that fair?”
She shook her head.
“How did you know?”
She remained stubbornly mute.
“Tell me, Alex. How did you know I was going there? You couldn’t have. The only way you could have known is if—” Suddenly he broke off. He gave her a hard, piercing look and gripped her shoulders tighter.
Her eyes spoke eloquently to his.
“You followed me there,” he said quietly.
She hesitated for what seemed an interminable time before slowly nodding her head. “Yes. I followed you from the Charles Towne Plaza.”
Chapter 26
“You’ve known all this time that I was there?”
“Yes!”
“With Pettijohn?”
“Right again.”
“And you didn’t say anything? Why?”
“If I told you now, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Looking straight at his jacket, she stared at it as though she could see through the fabric to the envelope inside the breast pocket. She was angry. But she also appeared profoundly sad.
“That’s an ugly report, but it can’t come close to capturing how ugly it was in reality. You can’t begin to imagine.” Her eyes moved back up to his. “I’ll be judged on a damn report, not on what I am now.”
“I won’t—”
“You already have,” she said hotly. “I see it in the way you’re looking at me and I hear it in your nasty insinuations. It’s easy to judge from your lofty position, isn’t it? You of the wealthy family with the pedigree. Have you ever gone hungry for days on end, Hammond? Been cold because the utility bill hadn’t been paid? Gone dirty because there was no soap to wash with?”
He tried to reach for her, but she flung off his arm. “No, don’t pity me. Sometimes I’m glad for it because it made me strong. It made me who I am, made me better at helping people. Because nothing they tell me shocks me. I’m wholly accepting of people and their aberrations, because until you’ve been where someone else has been, you’ve no right to judge their behavior.
“Until you’ve gone hungry, and suffered humiliation, and come to hate yourself for what you’re doing… until you come to believe you’re filth, unworthy of anyone’s love, of a man’s love—”
She stopped and sucked in a quick breath that caused her chest to shudder. Then she sniffed her nose and tossed her head in defiance of the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Happy reading, Hammond.”
She pushed him aside and stalked off, turning the corner and out of the alley. Hammond watched her go, knowing that nothing he said now would reach beyond her anger. He cursed, braced his elbow on the roof of the car, and rested his head on his forearm. But the respite lasted only a few seconds.
A muffled cry brought his head up and around.
Alex was running back into the alley. A man was chasing her.
“He’s got a knife!” she shouted.
The attacker grabbed her by the hair, jerking her to a sudden halt. He raised his arm and Hammond saw the glint of steel. Without even thinking about it, he launched himself against the attacker, his shoulder catching him beneath his rib cage and knocking him off-balance.
In order to keep from falling, the man released Alex. She scrambled out of the way. Hammond barely had time to register that she was momentarily out of harm’s way when he saw a flash of silver arcing horizontally toward his middle. Acting on reflex, he protected his belly with his arm. The switchblade sliced it open from elbow to wristbone.
Unarmed, in a knife fight, he would lose. The only self-defense he knew, he’d learned playing football. To please his father, he had played with a bloodthirsty competitiveness.
Instinctually, he relied now on a blocking tactic that was effective if you could get away with it and not draw a flag from the official. He thrust his head forward as though he were going to ram his attacker in the throat but stopped just short of making contact. The mugger reacted as hoped by jerking his head backward, leaving his Adam’s apple vulnerable to Hammond’s ramming forearm. He knew it hurt like hell and would incapacitate the mugger for a precious few seconds.
“Get in the car!” he yelled to Alex.
Hammond thrust his foot toward the man’s groin but missed and caught him in the thigh. The kick didn’t do any real damage, but it bought him another half second in which to run backward toward the car while dodging slashing motions of the switchblade. Alex had gotten in through the open door on the driver’s side and climbed over the console. He practically fell into the driver’s seat, then leaned backward across the console and drove his heel into the guy’s gut. The mugger stumbled backward but managed another swipe with the blade. Hammond heard the fabric of his trousers rip.
Lunging for the door handle, he pulled the door closed and locked it. His attacker, having rapidly regained his balance, pounded on the window and door, shouting obscenitie
s and death threats.
Hammond’s right hand was slippery with blood, but he managed to cram the key into the ignition and start the motor. He dropped the gear stick into drive and stamped on the accelerator. The tires laid down rubber as his car shot down the alley and fishtailed out into the street.
“Hammond, you’re hurt!”
“What about you?” He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Alex. She was sitting on her knees in the passenger seat, reaching across the console to examine his arm.
“I’m okay. But you’re not.”
What was left of his right sleeve was soaked with blood. It dripped from his hand, making the steering wheel almost too slippery to hold on to, and forcing him to drive left-handed. But that didn’t slow him down. He ran a red light. “He’s probably got friends. They’ll rob us and then steal the car. I’ve got to get us out of this neighborhood.”
“He wasn’t trying to steal anything,” she said with remarkable composure. “He was after me. He called me by name.”
Hammond gaped at her; the car veered off the road, nearly striking a telephone pole.
“Hammond!” she shouted. Once he had regained control of the car, she said, “Head for the emergency room. You’re going to need stitches.”
He released the steering wheel long enough to drag his left sleeve across his forehead. He was sweating profusely. He could feel it on his face, in his hair, trickling down his ribs, gathering in his groin. Now that the adrenaline surge was over, he was feeling the impact of what had happened, and what might have happened. He and Alex were lucky still to be alive. Jesus, she could have been killed. The thought of how close she had come to dying made him very weak and shaky.
At the first major intersection they came to, he was forced to stop for a traffic light. He took deep breaths in an effort to clear his head of a buzzing noise that sounded like a thousand swarming bees.
“Your leg is bleeding, too, but it’s your arm that concerns me,” Alex said. “Do you think he cut into the muscle?”
Green light. Hammond pressed the accelerator hard and the car bucked forward like a bronco charging out of the chute. Within seconds it was exceeding the posted speed limit. He could see the hospital complex a few blocks ahead.
