something?”
“No.”
Vince scanned the desktop. Morgan had made no attempt to hide the fact that he was drinking. A heavy crystal tumbler sat to the left side of his blotter with three fingers of something in it. Jameson Irish whiskey from the bottle sitting on top of a book containing California divorce law.
“I like Sara,” Vince said. “She’s a nice gal. She’s smart, she’s talented. Beautiful—that goes without saying, right? And she loves you.”
“Hard to believe, huh?”
Vince shook his head. “Nah. I can see it. You’re a good-looking guy—usually. You’re a go-getter. You’re compassionate to the less fortunate in your community. You do good works. She tells me you’ve overcome a lot in your life. That’s admirable. Why shouldn’t she fall in love with you?”
Morgan gave a barely perceptible shrug.
“She had your baby,” Vince went on, “gave you a beautiful daughter. The two of you had it all.”
Steve Morgan took a stiff swig of the whiskey and sat back in his chair.
“And then I fucked it all up, right?”
Vince shrugged. “You tell me. The wheels started coming off the tracks somewhere along the line. Did you start to think she couldn’t really understand you? Her being from a nice family, how could she really get it?
“Or did you start to think you just really don’t deserve it? She’s out of your league. You might as well fuck it up and show her instead of waiting for her to figure it out on her own.
“Most women marry down, you know. It’s a known fact,” Vince said. “This is the voice of experience talking here. I’m one lucky son of a bitch, and I know it. I have to look over my shoulder every day, looking for the other shoe to drop. But I cut myself some slack and figure not to look a gift horse in the mouth, you know? Horses bite.”
It was a good sign, he thought, that he hadn’t been asked to leave. That meant something. Morgan was listening. Was he processing or was he just sitting there thinking how full of shit this jackass from Chicago was?
“Do you ask yourself these questions, Steve?” he asked quietly. “You’re a smart guy. Jesus, look at the diplomas,” he said, pointing to the wall at one end of the room. “How can such a smart guy be so fucking stupid? Do you ask yourself that?”
“Every day,” Morgan murmured, and took another sip of the whiskey.
A little jolt of excitement went through Vince. Score. He wasn’t just talking. He had given something up. He felt unworthy. Maybe he didn’t get it himself how he could have something so perfect and throw it away with both hands.
“Can I have a couple fingers of that?” Vince asked, gesturing to the bottle of Jameson.
Morgan shrugged. “Why not?”
He reached around to the bookcases behind him and came back with another tumbler, which he handed across the desk. Vince poured himself a drink and took a sip, savoring the smooth smoky quality of the liquor.
“That’s nice,” he said. “The Italians can stomp a grape, but you can’t beat the Irish for whiskey.”
Morgan lifted his glass in a toast to the sentiment.
“So,” Vince said. “What do you think? Have you broken it? Is it over?”
“You tell me. She talked to you.”
Vince gave him a pained expression. “It doesn’t look good.”
The barest hint of a sad smile creased Steve Morgan’s mouth. “I make a living persuading people to see things my way.”
On the face of it, that sounded as if he meant to try to win Sara back. But Vince had a feeling it meant he had already succeeded in convincing Sara she should leave him.
“You scared her pretty bad last night,” Vince said. “What was that? The coup de grace? Really drive it home what an asshole you are? Or do you really want her to think you might have killed that woman?”
“She already thinks it.”
“Might as well be true?” Vince asked.
Morgan said nothing, but poured himself a little more to drink.
“You were supposedly in Sacramento when it happened,” Vince said. “But you weren’t, were you? And don’t bother lying about it because Cal Dixon has a guy who can track that shit down like a freaking bloodhound.”
“I wasn’t where I said I would be.”
“You were with a woman.”
“I plead the fifth.”
“You’d rather get charged with a murder than admit you’re an adulterer when everybody who matters already knows you fuck around? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It might to the person I was with.”
“It does if that person was Marissa Fordham.”
“It wasn’t.”
“ ‘Do you think I was stabbing her forty-seven times and cutting her throat?’ That’s what you said. How did you pick that number, Steve?”
“Why? Was I right?”
“Damn close. Close enough to raise an eyebrow,” Vince said. “Not that most killers keep count when they’re going at it with a knife like that. But I can tell you, stranger things have happened.”
“If I did, I’d be crazy to say so,” Morgan said.
“Yeah,” Vince said. “Like a fox.”
Morgan slowly drank the last of his whiskey and set the glass down without making a sound. He looked Vince right in eye and said, “You have no evidence linking me to Marissa’s death because there is no evidence linking me to Marissa’s death because I didn’t kill her. I’d like you to go now, Vince. Thanks for stopping by.”
65
Marissa was on her hands and knees in the mud, bending down in her face.
All she wanted to do was go to sleep, but Marissa grabbed her good arm and pulled it straight out in front of her, and tried to drag her.
The fire road. She remembered being driven onto the fire road and marched up it with a gun in her back in the dead of night.
