“Absolutely. Just as I’ll indict you if my investigation warrants it.”
After a slight pause, Preston said softly, “Don’t bluff me, Hammond.”
“Call it, Dad. See if I’m bluffing.”
“Then do it. Just be sure to examine your motives first.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, be certain you have substantial evidence and not just a petty grudge. Don’t cause us both a lot of time, effort, and embarrassment just because you’re pissed off at me for being hard on you. I would never be convicted. In your attempt to spite me, you’d only be spiting yourself.”
Hammond’s fingers had turned white and were aching from gripping the telephone receiver so hard. “Your phone is cutting out. Goodbye.”
* * *
Ignoring the rain, Alex had decided to go out for a run. Through the downpour, her legs pumped at a steady pace. Adherence to her exercise regimen seemed essential when the rest of her life had been pitched into chaos. Besides, after seeing rescheduled patients late into the evening, it gave her a physical outlet for cerebral overload. It cleared her head and allowed her mind to wander freely.
She worried about her patients. If and when it became public that she was a suspect in a murder case, what would happen to them? What would they think of her? Would it change their opinion of her? Naturally it would. It wouldn’t be realistic to hope that they would disregard her involvement with a murder investigation.
Maybe she should begin as early as tomorrow trying to place them with interim therapists so there would be no suspension of their treatment if she were to be incarcerated.
On the other hand, finding replacements for them might not become her problem. When they learned that their psychologist had been accused of murder, they would probably leave her practice in flocks.
As she ran past a car parked at the curb only a half block from her house, she noticed that the windows were fogged, indicating that someone was inside the vehicle. The motor was idling, although the headlights were out and the windshield wipers were still.
She ran another twenty yards or so before glancing back. The car lights were now on. It was turning onto a side street.
Probably nothing, she told herself. She was just being paranoid. But her apprehension lingered. Was someone watching her?
The police, for instance. Smilow might have ordered surveillance. Wouldn’t that be standard operating procedure? Or Bobby could be watching her to make certain she wouldn’t abscond with “his money.” It hadn’t been his convertible she’d just seen, but he was resourceful.
There was another possibility. One much more threatening. One that she didn’t want to entertain, but knew it would be foolish and naive not to. It hadn’t escaped her that she might be of interest to Lute Pettijohn’s murderer. If it got out that she had been identified at the scene, the killer might fear she had witnessed the killing.
The thought made her shiver, and not strictly because she feared a murderer. Her life was presently out of her control. That’s what she feared most—that loss of control. In its way, that was a death more real than death itself. Living, but having no choices or free will, could be even worse than being dead.
Twenty years ago, she had determined that her life would never again be given over to someone else to manage. It had taken her almost that long to convince herself that she was finally free of the bonds that had fettered her, that she alone would chart her destiny.
Then Bobby had reappeared and everything had changed. Now it seemed that everyone around her had a say-so in her life, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
After a half-hour run, she let herself into the house through a door off the piazza. In the laundry room she stripped off her drenched running clothes, then wrapped herself in a towel for the walk through her house.
She had lived alone all her adult life, so when by herself at home, she was never afraid. Loneliness was more frightening to her than the threat of an intruder. She didn’t feel the need to protect herself from burglars, but she steeled herself against the emptiness felt on holidays when even the company of good friends didn’t compensate for the lack of a family. Solitude didn’t make for coziness even when sitting in front of the fireplace on a cold night. When she was startled awake in the middle of the night, it wasn’t because of imagined noises, but because of the all-too-real silence of living alone. The only fear she had of being by herself was of being by herself for the rest of her life.
Tonight, however, she felt slightly ill at ease as she switched out the lights on the lower floor and made her way upstairs. The treads creaked beneath her weight. She was accustomed to the protests of the old wood. Usually a friendly sound, tonight it seemed ominous. On the second-floor landing, she paused to look down the shadowed staircase. The hallway and rooms below were empty and still, exactly as she had left them when she went out to run.
As she continued on into her bedroom, she blamed her nervousness on the rain. After days of oppressive heat, it was a relief, but it was almost too much of a good thing. It was coming down in torrents that pelted windowpanes and hammered against the roof. It spilled over gutters and gushed from the downspouts.
Opening a door onto the second-story piazza, she stepped out to drag a potted gardenia bush beneath the sheltering overhang. Below, in the center of the walled garden, the concrete fountain was overflowing. Flower petals had been beaten off their stalks, leaving the vegetation looking bare and forlorn. Returning inside, she secured the door, then moved from window to window to close the shutters.
The rainfall was enough to make anyone nervous. The Battery had been deserted tonight. Without the usual joggers, bicyclers, and people walking their dogs, she had felt isolated and vulnerable. The large trees in White Point Gardens had seemed looming and menacing, where usually she thought of their low, thick branches as being protective.
In the bathroom, she draped her towel over the brass bar and leaned into the tub to turn on the faucets. It took a while for the hot water to travel through the pipes, so she used that time to brush her teeth. When she straightened up out of the sink, she caught a reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror and whirled around.
It was her robe hanging on a hook on the back of the door.
Knees weak, she leaned against the pedestal sink and ordered herself to stop this silliness. It was so unlike her to jump at shadows. What was wrong with her?
Bobby, for one thing. Damn him. Damn him!