Page 78 of Thick as Thieves

“Why, Crystal, honey, I’ve been with you since around nine-thirty, when your mama turned in for the night. No more than five minutes after her bedroom light went out, I tapped on your window, and you let me in. The prints of my boots will be outside your window under those scraggly bushes, and right there under the window on your rug.”

She pulled on her arm, but he held fast. “If your jailbird sweetheart tries to implicate me in his little sideline business, I have a rock-solid alibi. You. We were screwing each other’s brains out.”

“You filthy piece of crap. We were doing no such thing.”

“Okay, then. We weren’t screwing. You were sucking me.”

She looked at him with disgust. “I will never lie to protect you.”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Like hell, and you can’t make me.”

“Crystal, dear, you will go along with whatever I say. Want to know why? Because, so far, in order to save face, I’m willing to lie to anybody who asks how I wound up in this sorry state.

“But if Ledge squeals on me, and you side with him, I’ll be forced to tell the truth. In which case, Ledge will be charged not only with dealing weed, but also with assault and battery. Maybe even attempted murder.” He snickered with regret. “In case you didn’t know, that’s serious shit.”

“It would be your word against his,” she said. “Besides, your injuries aren’t life-threatening. A split lip, a broken arm? You’re hurt, but hardly knocking on death’s door.”

“Oh, wait. You thought I was referring to this little fender-bender he inflicted on me?” He touched the center of his chest with his fingertips. “No, honeybun. I was talking about the near-fatal assault he wreaked on your sorry stepbrother.”

Crystal felt the earth giving way beneath her. “How did you know it was Ledge?”

A slow grin spread across Rusty’s features. “I didn’t. But I do now.”

Chapter 21

When Crystal told Ledge that he could drop the pretense, that she knew what Rusty and he had done that night, she hadn’t been referring to the burglary.

Not at all.

As she related her account of Rusty’s visit to her house, Ledge was by turns incredulous and enraged. Rusty had spun quite a tale. He’d left Crystal convinced that if she denied he had been with her much of that night, it would be Ledge who

suffered the consequences.

But beyond the personal ramifications, this previously unknown information painted an even blacker picture of Rusty and what he might have done that night after he and Ledge had parted.

I have a rock-solid alibi. But where were you? Where did you get off to after the four of us split up? Who could vouch for your whereabouts later that night?

He’d baited Rusty with that this morning as part of his chest-thumping threat to go to the attorney general and try to get the cold case of Foster’s questionable death reopened. From the moment Ledge had learned of it, he’d suspected Rusty of having had a hand in it, though he’d figured it would have been from a distance, that Rusty would have had someone else do his dirty work.

But maybe not. The burglary hadn’t left him anxious and sweaty. He’d come away from that humming a tune. It hadn’t left him bleeding and broken, either.

When Rusty came to Crystal’s house with an urgent need to establish an alibi, he had been incapacitated, and Foster was dead. There was only one logical conclusion to draw from that. At least to Ledge’s mind. He would need more than supposition before he started slinging accusations.

First, he must set the record straight with Crystal. “Everything Rusty said about selling marijuana that night was one big, fat lie.”

“It was found in your car, Ledge.”

“But I didn’t put it there. I sure as hell wasn’t in a dealing partnership with Rusty. If I’d had an intention to peddle it, I wouldn’t have done it on my uncle’s property. Risk implicating him? No way in hell.”

He pushed himself off the sofa and began restlessly prowling the room. “I didn’t beat up Rusty. I didn’t break his arm, but I’d like to break his neck now for making you believe that I had.” He stopped meandering and faced her. “Do you believe me?”

“I want to.”

“Not good enough, Crystal.”

“After what you did to Morg—”