Split Second (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 1)

Now King looked away. “Damaged goods?”

She touched his arm. “I guess you really don’t know me very well. It was a lot more than that.”

He looked back at her. “What do you mean by that?”

Joan looked more nervous than King could ever remember. Except on that morning, at 10:32, when Ritter had died. She slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

King unfolded the paper and read the words there.

Last night was wonderful. Now surprise me, wicked lady. On the elevator. Around 10:30. Love, Sean

It was written on the stationery of the Fairmount Hotel.

He looked up to see her staring at him.

“Where did this come from?”

“It was slipped under the door to my room at the Fairmount at nine o’clock that morning.”

He stared at her blankly. “The morning Ritter was killed?” She nodded. “You thought I wrote this?” She nodded again. “All these years you thought maybe I was involved in Ritter’s death?”

“Sean, you have to understand, I didn’t know what to think.”

“And you never told anyone?”

She shook her head. “Just like you never told anyone about me on that elevator.” She added quietly, “You thought I was involved in Ritter’s death too, didn’t you?”

He licked his lips and glanced away, his features angry. “They screwed us both, didn’t they?”

“I saw the note that was on the body found in your house. It clearly implied the person was behind the Ritter assassination. As soon as I read it, I just knew we’d both been used. Whoever wrote the note that was slipped under my hotel room door pitted us against each other in a way that guaranteed our silence. Or at the very least would have cast suspicion on one or both of us. But there was a difference. I couldn’t reveal the truth because then I’d have to tell what I was doing on that elevator. And once I did, my career was over. My motive was selfish. You, on the other hand, kept silent for another reason.” She placed a hand on his sleeve. “Tell me, Sean, why did you? You must have suspected I was paid off to distract you. And yet you took the full blame. You could have told them I was on that elevator. Why didn’t you?” She took a long, anxious breath. “I really need to know.”

The jarring sound of the cell phone startled them both badly.

King answered it. It was Michelle calling from the house.

“Kate Ramsey phoned. She has something important to tell us. But she wants to do it in person. She’ll meet us halfway, in Charlottesville.”

“Okay, we’re coming in now.” He clicked off, took the tiller and silently steered the boat back. He didn’t look at Joan, who, for once in her life, had nothing to say.

CHAPTER

51

THEY MET KATE Ramsey at Greenberry’s coffee shop in the Barracks Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville. The three bought large cups of coffee and took a table near the back of the room, which only had a few patrons in it this time of night.

Kate’s eyes were puffy, her manner subdued, even deferential. She fingered her coffee cup nervously, her gaze downcast. She looked up in surprise, however, when King pushed a couple of straws toward her.

“Go ahead and make your right angles. It’ll calm you down,” he said with a kindly smile.

Kate’s expression softened and she took the straws. “I’ve been doing that since I was a little girl. I guess it’s better than lighting up a cigarette.”

“So you had something important to tell us,” said Michelle.

Kate looked around. The person closest to them was reading a book and scribbling some notes, obviously a student on a deadline.

She said in a low voice, “It’s about the meeting my father had that night, what I was telling Michelle,” she explained with a glance at King.

“It’s okay, she filled me in,” he said. “Go ahead.”