Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“That should’ve eliminated us as suspects.”

“Not necessarily. She also had a knot on the back of her head, which she’d got before she died. What we figured is that she was struck from behind. By what, we were never able to determine. She fell facedown and was rendered unconscious, or at least too stunned to defend herself while the perp finished her off.”

“With her panties,” Bellamy said quietly.

“According to you, your stepmother, and the housekeeper who did the family laundry, she wore only one kind. Made of stretchy lace. Strong enough to choke someone to death. Rupe demonstrated in court how it could have been done. That was another of his shining moments.”

“Didn’t his courtroom shenanigans irk Strickland’s defense attorney?” Dent asked. “Did he ever file an appeal?”

“Right away, but before the appellate court had time to consider his case and make a ruling, Strickland was killed.”

“How did the lawyer react to his client’s murder?” Dent asked.

Moody snorted a mirthless laugh. “He moved over to the DA’s office. At Rupe’s urging. He’s still there, far as I know.”

Bellamy said, “Allen died for nothing.”

“Far as I know.”

Later, when he thought back on it, Dent figured it was Moody’s smirk that had set him off. He saw it, and the next thing he knew, he had closed the distance between the bed and Moody’s chair, and he was bearing down on the former detective.

“You and Rupe made quite a team. He was the brains and you were his bitch boy. It was working so well, why’d you quit?”

“Back off.”

“Not till I hear from you what I want to hear. You’ve admitted you knew Strickland was innocent from the get-go. How did you know?”

“I told you. He said that Susan had laughed at him. Guys don’t—”

“Give me a break, Moody. Guys don’t admit it and then whine about it. If she turned him down, he would have been steamed. He would have been cursing her, calling her names. Which would have been implicating, not exonerating. So sell that rationale somewhere else, because to me it smells like bullshit.”

“His brother—”

“Who you said could have been lying. You had to have had something else that cleared Allen. What was it, Moody?”

The former detective looked at Bellamy where she still sat on the end of the bed. When his bleary gaze came back to Dent he said, “When I’m ready.”

“When you’re ready? What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, I’ve said all I’m gonna say to you.”

“You lousy sot. She needs to know what you know,” Dent shouted. “Like fucking now.”

“Watch yourself, boy.” Moody struggled to stand up, but when he stood face-to-face with Dent, Dent didn’t back down, not even when Moody picked up his pistol from off the TV tray.

“What?” Dent scoffed. “You’re going to shoot me?”

“Just keep pushing me and see.”

“I don’t think so. You’re too chicken-livered.” Dent leaned closer until the barrel of the pistol was touching his shirt.

Bellamy gave a strangled cry.

“It’s all right,” Dent said. Holding Moody’s hostile stare, he said, “He’s not going to pull the trigger.”

“Don’t be so goddamn sure.”

“The only thing I’m sure about is what a coward you are. You didn’t have the guts to stand up to Rupe Collier, and you don’t have the guts to blow your own brains out now.”

“Dent!”

Bellamy sounded anguished and frightened, but neither he nor Moody heeded her.

Moody’s face was congested with anger. He was breathing hard. Dent felt the barrel of the pistol wavering as though the hand holding it was trembling.

“At least only one man died on account of me,” he snarled. “I gotta live with that. You gotta live with nearly killing a whole airplane full of people.”

Dent hit him. Hard. Moody took the blow on the chin and it sent him reeling backward, arms windmilling, until he broke his fall against the kitchen bar. He sank to the floor and landed in a heap.

Dent walked over to him, took a handful of his hair, and forced his head up. Moody looked at him through glazed and bloodshot eyes. “Don’t measure me by your yardstick, you miserable turd.” He bent down close. “You would’ve framed me for murder if you could’ve. You’ve had almost twenty years to set the record straight about your dirty dealings with Rupe Collier. You haven’t. Instead, you’ve been skulking in this hellhole, trying to drown your guilt in whiskey. Bellamy and I gave you a chance to atone, and you still can’t own up to what you did. You’re a god-damn coward.”

Making his disgust plain, he released Moody’s hair, went back to the bed, took Bellamy by the hand, and pulled her up. On their way to the door, he paused. “You know, Moody, Rupe Collier is so dazzled by his own image, so far up his own ass, he no longer knows right from wrong. What makes you worse than him, you do.”

“I can’t fly in this.”

Neither Dent or Bellamy had said a word since Dent had retrieved his pistol from the wobbly TV tray, shoved open the screened door, then stood aside and brusquely motioned her through it.

She had left the case file on the bed. As Dent dragged her past Moody, she’d paused, feeling she should say something. But the truth of it was, her revulsion matched Dent’s. Her eyes met the detective’s briefly before his head dropped forward. Without another word, she and Dent had left the dreary cabin.

For twenty minutes, he’d been speeding down the state highway in the direction of Marshall, pushing the rented sedan as though expecting it to respond with the velocity of his Corvette and cursing when it didn’t.

The sky had grown increasingly dark. Raindrops had begun to land hard on the windshield. Without music from the radio, or conversation between them, each splat sounded loud and ominous.

A jagged fork of lightning and the sequential crack of thunder emboldened her enough to speak. “I can’t fly in this,” she repeated, since Dent hadn’t responded the first time.

Now, he jerked his head around toward her. “Do you think I would?”

“Then…” She gestured at the airport signpost as they whizzed past it.

“I’ve got to secure that airplane. Anything happens to it, it’s my ass.” Snidely, he added, “Unless you’re good for it. You’ve got a lot of money. Maybe your daddy would buy it for you.”

“Shut up, Dent. You’re only mad at yourself.”

“Myself?”

“For being so hard on Moody.”

“Wrong. If I’d been as hard on him as I wanted to be, I would have killed him.”

When they reached the airport, he whipped into a parking space, his motions conveying his short temper as he shut down the car, got out, and slammed the door. Braving the elements, he ran toward the entrance to the airport terminal.

Bellamy cringed when another drumroll of thunder vibrated through the car. She didn’t want to be stranded inside it with nothing to protect her from the storm except for the window glass and a few panels of thin metal. But leaving the car and exposing herself to lightning and thunder was out of the question, even for the short time it would take her to run into the terminal.

Talking herself through her rising panic, she reached for her cell phone and placed a call to Olivia, who answered immediately. “Where are you? What’s that racket?”

“It’s thunder.” But she didn’t say where she was. “How’s Daddy?”

“Doing better, actually.” Judging by the unnatural brightness in Olivia’s voice, Bellamy suspected that she was at his bedside and putting up a false front. “He’s eager to talk to you.”

“I’d like that. But first, tell me how you’re holding up.”