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Damn, he was blunt!
I hung my head in shame and stared down at the kitchen table and never took my eyes off its wooden surface as I poured out my pathetic saga of lust, obsession, and humiliation.
When I got to the part where Paul fled down the stairs after seeing me in my slip, Keith made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a choked-back snicker.
He sucked in his breath when I described the sound of Victor retching in my bathroom.
“That’s it,” I said finally.
He tapped his pen on the table and it was clear he was thinking out loud. “I’ve been told that Victor and Joe Long are good friends. Is that true?”
“Yes, but I can tell you right now that no one in the Black Pack had a reason to kill Annabelle.”
“You’re probably right, but I’m going to have a talk with Victor anyway.”
“About what?”
He neatly sidestepped the question. “Maybe I just want to get a real good look at this brother. I’m wondering what he has that would make a smart, good-looking woman like you go to such lengths to get him.”
I rolled my eyes toward the ceiling as though Keith was full of shit, but he was making me feel good inside.
“I also want to look into the eyes of a man who had you alone and willing in a bedroom and ran out. I can’t imagine what such a fool would look like.”
He winked at me and I smiled back at him.
“Perhaps,” Keith continued, “the poor man needs to be in a hospital for the criminally insane. I can arrange that, you know.”
Victor in a straitjacket! The image struck me as funny and I got a bad case of the giggles. Soon Keith was laughing, too.
I chose a vanilla-frosted donut and poured myself some juice.
“Let’s talk about little Dora Murray.”
“Did you find out what was wrong with her?” I asked.
“There was nothing wrong with the child.”
“But she said that the doctor gave her a needle.”
“The doctor wasn’t putting medicine into her body,” Keith replied. “He was taking blood out.”
“Why?”
Keith grinned. “For DNA testing.”
I jumped up and started waving my arms around like I’d just won a race. “I knew that child wasn’t Craig’s. Both her parents are blond but she looks Hispanic. Have you seen her yet?”
He waited until I had calmed down. “No, but that can wait.”
I slumped back into my seat.
“Poor Craig. This is awful. Is there any way to keep Craig from finding out about this DNA business? He adores that kid.”
Keith leaned forward. “Jackie, I need you to understand something. Look at me.”
I looked.
“I’m going to find out what those test results are and when we walk into that courtroom, the gloves are off. There is nothing I won’t do, no reputation that will go untarnished, no secret unrevealed, in my effort to win. I intend to get a ‘not guilty’ verdict in this case.”
