Сандра Браун - Thick as Thieves

In the hospital waiting room, she and her mother were questioned by a sheriff’s deputy. When asked if she knew anyone who held a grudge against her stepbrother, she was trembling on the inside but had lied with remarkable composure. “No, sir. No one.”

Now, as then, her concern was more for Ledge than for his victim. “Is he as banged up as you are?”

“You’re worried about him?” He looked at her with contempt. “I told you, he doesn’t fight fair. He walked away with barely a scratch, if any.” He reached for the glass on the nightstand and spat bloody saliva into it. “He left me there like this and sped off with what was left of our stash and the money we’d made. But I got the last laugh.”

When he chuckled, it was an ugly, evil sound. Pinkish bubbles formed between his swollen lips. “Not long after he left me bleeding, he got busted. Caught with what we hadn’t sold. As we speak, he’s in lockup.”

She made to leave the bed in a rush, but Rusty’s good arm shot out and caught her wrist. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the jail.”

“Like hell you are.” He pulled her back down onto the bed. “You and I are staying right here. Where I’ve been all night.”

“All night? What are you talking about?”

“Why, Crystal, honey, I’ve been with you since around nine-thirty, when your mama turned in for the night. No more than five minutes after her bedroom light went out, I tapped on your window, and you let me in. The prints of my boots will be outside your window under those scraggly bushes, and right there under the window on your rug.”

She pulled on her arm, but he held fast. “If your jailbird sweetheart tries to implicate me in his little sideline business, I have a rock-solid alibi. You. We were screwing each other’s brains out.”

“You filthy piece of crap. We were doing no such thing.”

“Okay, then. We weren’t screwing. You were sucking me.”

She looked at him with disgust. “I will never lie to protect you.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Like hell, and you can’t make me.”

“Crystal, dear, you will go along with whatever I say. Want to know why? Because, so far, in order to save face, I’m willing to lie to anybody who asks how I wound up in this sorry state.

“But if Ledge squeals on me, and you side with him, I’ll be forced to tell the truth. In which case, Ledge will be charged not only with dealing weed, but also with assault and battery. Maybe even attempted murder.” He snickered with regret. “In case you didn’t know, that’s serious shit.”

“It would be your word against his,” she said. “Besides, your injuries aren’t life-threatening. A split lip, a broken arm? You’re hurt, but hardly knocking on death’s door.”

“Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to this little fender-bender he inflicted on me?” He touched the center of his chest with his fingertips. “No, honeybun. I was talking about the near-fatal assault he wreaked on your sorry stepbrother.”

Crystal felt the earth giving way beneath her. “How did you know it was Ledge?”

A slow grin spread across Rusty’s features. “I didn’t. But I do now.”

Chapter 21

When Crystal told Ledge that he could drop the pretense, that she knew what Rusty and he had done that night, she hadn’t been referring to the burglary.

Not at all.

As she related her account of Rusty’s visit to her house, Ledge was by turns incredulous and enraged. Rusty had spun quite a tale. He’d left Crystal convinced that if she denied he had been with her much of that night, it would be Ledge who suffered the consequences.

But beyond the personal ramifications, this previously unknown information painted an even blacker picture of Rusty and what he might have done that night after he and Ledge had parted.

I have a rock-solid alibi. But where were you? Where did you get off to after the four of us split up? Who could vouch for your whereabouts later that night?

He’d baited Rusty with that this morning as part of his chest-thumping threat to go to the attorney general and try to get the cold case of Foster’s questionable death reopened. From the moment Ledge had learned of it, he’d suspected Rusty of having had a hand in it, though he’d figured it would have been from a distance, that Rusty would have had someone else do his dirty work.

But maybe not. The burglary hadn’t left him anxious and sweaty. He’d come away from that humming a tune. It hadn’t left him bleeding and broken, either.

When Rusty came to Crystal’s house with an urgent need to establish an alibi, he had been incapacitated, and Foster was dead. There was only one logical conclusion to draw from that. At least to Ledge’s mind. He would need more than supposition before he started slinging accusations.

First, he must set the record straight with Crystal. “Everything Rusty said about selling marijuana that night was one big, fat lie.”

“It was found in your car, Ledge.”

“But I didn’t put it there. I sure as hell wasn’t in a dealing partnership with Rusty. If I’d had an intention to peddle it, I wouldn’t have done it on my uncle’s property. Risk implicating him? No way in hell.”

He pushed himself off the sofa and began restlessly prowling the room. “I didn’t beat up Rusty. I didn’t break his arm, but I’d like to break his neck now for making you believe that I had.” He stopped meandering and faced her. “Do you believe me?”

“I want to.”

“Not good enough, Crystal.”

“After what you did to Morg—”

“I don’t deny that. I never did. But this I did not do.”

“Did you see Rusty that night?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Out at the bar. On the parking lot.”

“What were you two doing together?”

He never wanted her to be placed in a position of having to lie for him, so he skirted around the whole truth. “What he and I are always doing when we’re together. Wishing we could eat each other’s liver. We pawed the ground, but that’s as far as it went. Not a single punch was thrown. I left him and was on my way into town to see you when I was pulled over. The officers found the pot. I was arrested.

“I didn’t see Rusty again until I came home on leave just before my first deployment overseas. We spotted each other in passing and from a distance. We didn’t even acknowledge each other.

“We didn’t speak until years later, after my discharge. He strolled into the bar one night while I was there. He made out like we were long-lost buddies and asked if I’d heard the good news that he was the district attorney. I told him he was the only person who thought that was good news. I wasn’t kidding.

“He advised me not to get too used to the idea of being seen as a hero, that he couldn’t wait for me to screw up again and give him a chance to prosecute me. He wasn’t kidding, either. Then he gave me that smirk of his and left. I swear that’s gospel.”

“All right. But why did he come to me that night and tell such a lie?”

“He needed you as his alibi. He told you so himself.”

“But an alibi for what?”

Cautious in his reply, he said, “I think the answer lies in who banged him up.”

“He was in bad shape, Ledge. It was a serious fight.”

“Um-huh. Over something Rusty didn’t want anyone to know about.”

Crystal’s expression became increasingly troubled. “So he made up that lie about you, the marijuana, to shift blame.”

“Knowing that you wouldn’t want to believe it, but that you just might because of my prior possession charge, and because of the pounding I’d given your stepbrother.”

“God, how easily he manipulated me.”