Her eyes spoke eloquently to his.
“You followed me there,” he said quietly.
She hesitated for what seemed an interminable time before slowly nodding her head. “Yes. I followed you from the Charles Towne Plaza.”
Chapter 26
“You’ve known all this time that I was there?”
“Yes!”
“With Pettijohn?”
“Right again.”
“And you didn’t say anything? Why?”
“If I told you now, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Looking straight at his jacket, she stared at it as though she could see through the fabric to the envelope inside the breast pocket. She was angry. But she also appeared profoundly sad.
“That’s an ugly report, but it can’t come close to capturing how ugly it was in reality. You can’t begin to imagine.” Her eyes moved back up to his. “I’ll be judged on a damn report, not on what I am now.”
“I won’t—”
“You already have,” she said hotly. “I see it in the way you’re looking at me and I hear it in your nasty insinuations. It’s easy to judge from your lofty position, isn’t it? You of the wealthy family with the pedigree. Have you ever gone hungry for days on end, Hammond? Been cold because the utility bill hadn’t been paid? Gone dirty because there was no soap to wash with?”
He tried to reach for her, but she flung off his arm. “No, don’t pity me. Sometimes I’m glad for it because it made me strong. It made me who I am, made me better at helping people. Because nothing they tell me shocks me. I’m wholly accepting of people and their aberrations, because until you’ve been where someone else has been, you’ve no right to judge their behavior.
“Until you’ve gone hungry, and suffered humiliation, and come to hate yourself for what you’re doing… until you come to believe you’re filth, unworthy of anyone’s love, of a man’s love—”
She stopped and sucked in a quick breath that caused her chest to shudder. Then she sniffed her nose and tossed her head in defiance of the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Happy reading, Hammond.”
She pushed him aside and stalked off, turning the corner and out of the alley. Hammond watched her go, knowing that nothing he said now would reach beyond her anger. He cursed, braced his elbow on the roof of the car, and rested his head on his forearm. But the respite lasted only a few seconds.
A muffled cry brought his head up and around.
Alex was running back into the alley. A man was chasing her.
“He’s got a knife!” she shouted.
The attacker grabbed her by the hair, jerking her to a sudden halt. He raised his arm and Hammond saw the glint of steel. Without even thinking about it, he launched himself against the attacker, his shoulder catching him beneath his rib cage and knocking him off-balance.
In order to keep from falling, the man released Alex. She scrambled out of the way. Hammond barely had time to register that she was momentarily out of harm’s way when he saw a flash of silver arcing horizontally toward his middle. Acting on reflex, he protected his belly with his arm. The switchblade sliced it open from elbow to wristbone.
Unarmed, in a knife fight, he would lose. The only self-defense he knew, he’d learned playing football. To please his father, he had played with a bloodthirsty competitiveness.
Instinctually, he relied now on a blocking tactic that was effective if you could get away with it and not draw a flag from the official. He thrust his head forward as though he were going to ram his attacker in the throat but stopped just short of making contact. The mugger reacted as hoped by jerking his head backward, leaving his Adam’s apple vulnerable to Hammond’s ramming forearm. He knew it hurt like hell and would incapacitate the mugger for a precious few seconds.
“Get in the car!” he yelled to Alex.
Hammond thrust his foot toward the man’s groin but missed and caught him in the thigh. The kick didn’t do any real damage, but it bought him another half second in which to run backward toward the car while dodging slashing motions of the switchblade. Alex had gotten in through the open door on the driver’s side and climbed over the console. He practically fell into the driver’s seat, then leaned backward across the console and drove his heel into the guy’s gut. The mugger stumbled backward but managed another swipe with the blade. Hammond heard the fabric of his trousers rip.
Lunging for the door handle, he pulled the door closed and locked it. His attacker, having rapidly regained his balance, pounded on the window and door, shouting obscenitie
s and death threats.
Hammond’s right hand was slippery with blood, but he managed to cram the key into the ignition and start the motor. He dropped the gear stick into drive and stamped on the accelerator. The tires laid down rubber as his car shot down the alley and fishtailed out into the street.