Cross My Heart (Alex Cross 21)

“His,” she replied firmly. “We were down in Cancún, drinking a little tequila, and he just looked over at me and said that he hadn’t been happy like this ever and he wanted to marry me. So we did.”

“Why not just announce it?” Sampson asked.

“It would of broke my mama’s heart she didn’t get to have a big wedding for me,” Mandy Bell said, glancing at her attorney. “We just figured to marry twice, you know, before football started up and he had to go on the road.”

“What about where he died?” I asked.

“You don’t have to answer that,” her attorney said.

“Why not, Timmy? He’s dead,” she said, and took a long sip of the bourbon. “If you’re asking if I knew M&M went to places like that, the answer is no. But I can understand why he did.”

“Why?”

“He was a sex addict,” she said. “Told me so himself.”

Chapter

24

Mandy Bell Lee uncoiled off the couch in the Mad Man’s library, crossed to an open bottle of Maker’s Mark, and poured herself another two fingers. She had something about her, star quality, I guess. You couldn’t take your eyes off her.

Sampson cleared his throat. “Sex addict, huh? How’d you react to that?”

She sighed as she came back to the couch, sat with one leg pulled up under her. “I appreciated his honesty because he promised he was gonna change, be a one-woman man.” Her face rippled with pain. “Guess not.”

“Tell us about his cocaine use.”

Mandy Bell’s eyes shot to her attorney, who said, “She only recently discovered that.”

“I flew up from Nashville the other day to surprise him and caught him snorting lines right on that table there,” she said, gesturing with her chin. “He said he used it like that Sherlock Holmes did.”

“And how was that?” I asked.

“M&M said he thought better when he did small amounts. I didn’t know what to think about that. Still don’t. Why?”

“He was high at the time of death, and we found several grams in his pockets,” I said.

Mandy Bell took a deep breath, shrugged. “I don’t know what to say.”

“His business manager said he was spending a lot of cash in the past few months,” Sampson said.

She drank and shrugged again. “Probably on me. He liked going out with lots of money and blowing it. Big tips. Anything we wanted.”

“Where were you Thursday night?”

She shook her head. “Nashville. I called Timmy the second I heard and we flew up last night.”

“And called a press conference?” I asked, not understanding that fully.

“That was Timmy’s idea,” she said.

Her attorney looked uncomfortable but said, “I felt we needed to state her claim right away. That seemed the best way to do it. Get it out in the open.”

“And how long have you known Timmy?” I asked Mandy Bell.

“Fifteen years,” she said. “We went to the same high school. He was a senior when I was a freshman.”

“You two an item back then?” Sampson asked, wagging his finger between them.