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r subdue him.
I’m breathing hard, and in a little pain as I glance at Angie. She might have run to his defense, but there is nothing of rescue in her expression now. She’s staring at Robert in a way that looks like she’d like to pick up the bat, have a go at him.
“You were the one at Lulu’s yesterday morning,” I say, my voice quiet. “You went to talk to Gretta,”
Angie looks at me. “Of course I did. I thought maybe—”
“You could talk her into having an abortion.”
She took in a breath. “She was already thinking it—I know it. She was at that clinic. I picked her up and we argued. I gave her some money and I told her we’d pay for it, but she was angry and she got out and ran—” She looks at Robert. “You did this. You stole our lives from us.”
Robert is still breathing hard, still on the ground and I wouldn’t mind picking up the bat, either. “How did you know?” he asks Angie.
A wife knows, is what Eve would say. I can hear her voice, and suddenly long to get back to her.
Please, don’t die, Bets. I still can’t believe I screwed up that badly.
Angie’s voice, so full of vitriol shakes me back to the now. “She called me, Robert. She told me everything.”
“I tried to take care of it. I tried to talk to her—”
“You tried to strangle her,” Burke says to Robert. “That’s where she got the bruises. You scared her. And that’s why she called Angie. And then, she called her mother.”
Poor Karen. If she’d only waited a few more minutes. She’d gone looking for Gretta, but her daughter was trapped in Angie’s caravan, having an argument outside the clinic.
The same caravan Robert drove to the game the day Jeff had it out with him. After his deal. Where he was wearing his cuff links, all cocky, like he was some hotshot, Jeff had said.
Just to confirm my racing deductions—“Jeff, when you and Robert had that fight—was he driving the caravan?”
Jeff frowns, looks at Robert. “Yeah.”
“You grabbed his shirt, didn’t you? Maybe his sleeve?”
Jeff lifts a shoulder, then nods.
“Robert, did you lose a cuff link?”
His eyes are widening. “How did you—”
“It fell out at Lulu’s, when your wife got out to chase Gretta.”
Angie is crying now. “She was running, and I was desperate, so I did chase her, but then, Sammy was crying, and I couldn’t leave him, and I shouted at her that we weren’t finished.” She puts her hand over her mouth, her eyes widening. “She looked back at me and—”
“You saw her trip. Saw her hit her head.”
Angie stiffens. “I didn’t know she was that hurt. She screamed and fell and I…I got back in the caravan and drove home. If I’d known she was dying…” She tightens her jaw, and her eyes spark. “She was a tramp who shouldn’t have my husband’s child.”
Jeff makes a sound, something of a keening, but I get it.
It’s the sound of despair, and somewhere inside me, it connects with the subconscious memory of losing Ashley.
I’m broken for him.
“I’ll call Booker and have him send a squad car,” I say to Burke. I give Angie a look. “You stay here.”
Then I walk over to Robert and help him up from the grass.
“Thanks,” he says.
