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“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.”
