In the kitchen, he was in the middle of preparing a sandwich. His dog sat at his feet, his tongue lapping at his jowls hungrily.
“Spit it out,” Ricky said as he slapped mayo on two slices of bread. “I got things to do.”
She could just imagine what kind of things he had to do. “Shelley was pregnant.”
His gaze shot to hers. “What?” He made one of those faces that said he thought she was full of crap.
“I verified it at the clinic today. She was about six weeks pregnant.” CJ met his condescending glare with determination in hers. “Was it you?”
“Six weeks, you say?”
She nodded.
He braced his hands on the counter and appeared to pull up a mental calendar. Then he shook his head. “No way.”
“Are you certain? The two of you hadn’t been intimate in the past two months?”
He plopped bologna on the bread, rolled his eyes. “We were neverintimate, Dr. Patterson. We hooked up—played hide the sausage. You ever tried it?”
Equal parts fury and frustration burned her cheeks. He couldn’t know about last night. “Answer the question, Ricky. I’m not interested in discussing my sex life with you.”
After tearing off a big bite of his sandwich with his teeth, he laughed as he chewed. “You have to have one before you can talk about it. Is that it?”
“Did you and Shelley—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He took a slug of Maker’s Mark bourbon straight from the bottle. “No. Shelley and I hadn’t participated in sexual activity together in about three months. All we did when we ran into each other was fight.”
That couldn’t be right. “But you gave her a concussion and broke her wrist just a little over a month ago. What did she do? Blow you off?” Anger stung through CJ at the thought of this brute hurting her sister. He outweighed her by seventy-five or eighty pounds, stood eight or ten inches taller. Scumbag. Maybe he hadn’t killed Shelley, but he’d been abusing her for years.
Ricky shook his head. “I took the fall for that, but I didn’t lay a hand on her.” He took another slug of bourbon. “Here’s the thing.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Shelley’s dead and she’s still busting my balls. What’s up with that? I didn’t lay a hand on her a month ago and I still got harassed about it. I didn’t do nothing but yell at her the other night, and the cops are all up my ass.”
Of course he would say that. “I was told that you were the one who beat her.” Mr. O’Neal, the neighbor, had seen Ricky at Shelley’s that night. Had heard the yelling.
“Did Shelley say it was me?” He crammed another hunk of sandwich into his mouth.
CJ had to think about that a moment. She and Shelley had spent the whole time arguing when CJ was here last. But now that she thought about it, Shelley didn’t say it was Ricky. CJ had taken O’Neal’s word for it.
“I didn’t think so.” Ricky swallowed. “I’m the one she called for a ride to the ER. But I didn’t lay a hand on her. The next day the cops questioned me about it just because I was the one who took her to the hospital.”
CJ rubbed at her right temple. That dull ache just wouldn’t go away. “Did she tell you who did it?”
“You have to ask?”
A frown furrowed. “Are you saying Tyrone beat her up?” Was it possible Tyrone had killed Shelley? CJ needed to take a big step back and look at this without all those emotions getting in the way.
Ricky laughed. “Are you serious? He don’t get his hands dirty like that. But I guarantee you one of his people took care of it for him.”
“But why?” CJ couldn’t fit all the pieces together. “Shelley worked for you, right? Why would Nash get involved?”
“She used to work for me. Two and a half, three months ago she started working directly for Tyrone kind of under the table, if you know what I mean. I raised hell with her about it, but I know the food chain around here. Tyrone’s the top and I’m somewhere in the middle. So I shut up and recruited some fresh meat to take her place.”
CJ gritted her teeth.Don’t let him see your disgust. Keep him talking. “Is it possible Nash was the father?” CJ had butted heads with Nash a few times years ago when he’d been a fledgling tyrant. He’d had a thing for her, sort of. She’d kept telling him no when he would ask her out, until her name was shifted to his mortal-enemy list. And then he’d tried to take what she wouldn’t give him. She’d left her mark for him to remember that he couldn’t always have what he wanted.
“I doubt it.” Ricky reached into the fridge and pulled out what appeared to be a small chunk of raw steak. He tossed it to the dog. Thebig animal devoured it. “The King don’t touch the whores. Like you,” Ricky pressed with a haughty look, “he keeps his sex life private.”
CJ let the ugly reference to Shelley being a whore slide. It hurt her to think it, but it was true.
“Could one of her johns have gotten her pregnant?” Surely there was a way to narrow down the possibilities.
