Page 79 of Thick as Thieves

“I don’t deny that. I never did. But this I did not do.”

“Did you see Rusty that night?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Out at the bar. On the parking lot.”

“What were you two doing together?”

He never wanted her to be placed in a position of having to lie for him, so he skirted around the whole truth. “What he and I are always doing when we’re together. Wishing we could eat each other’s liver. We pawed the ground, but that’s as far as it went. Not a single punch was thrown. I left him and was on my way into town to see you when I was pulled over. The officers found the pot. I was arrested.

“I didn’t see Rusty again until I came home on leave just before my first deployment overseas. We spotted each other in passing and from a distance. We didn’t even acknowledge each other.

“We didn’t speak until years later, after my discharge. He strolled into the bar one night while I was there. He made out like we were long-lost buddies and asked if I’d heard the good news that he was the district attorney. I told him he was the only person who thought that was good news. I wasn’t kidding.

“He advised me not to get too used to the idea of being seen as a hero, that he couldn’t wait for me to screw up again and give him a chance to prosecute me. He wasn’t kidding, either. Then he gave me that smirk of his and left. I swear that’s gospel.”

“All right. But why did he come to me that night and tell such a lie?”

“He needed you as his alibi. He told you so himself.”

“But an alibi for what?”

Cautious in his reply, he said, “I think the answer lies in who banged him up.”

“He was in bad shape, Ledge. It was a serious fight.”

“Um-huh. Over something Rusty didn’t want anyone to know about.”

Crystal’s expression became increasingly troubled. “So he made up that lie about you, the marijuana, to shift blame.”

“Knowing that you wouldn’t want to believe it, but that you just might because of my prior possession charge, and because of the pounding I’d given your stepbrother.”

“God, how easily he manipulated me.”

“He’s good at it. He knew you would never contradict his version of the events that night, not to the police or to anyone, for fear that I would be the one who paid the penalty. Your loyalty to me was his single ace, and he played it. He banked on that loyalty.”

Which brought him to another matter. The one that hurt. He went over to the sofa, braced his hands on the arm of it, and bent down until he was on eye level with her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this, Crystal? I had to hear it from Rusty. Today.”

Her gaze shifted to the wound on his cheekbone. “Is that how you got that?”

“Technically I got that before he told me.”

“You two were fighting today?”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said curtly. “What does matter is that you never told me about his late-night visit. Not in twenty years. That doesn’t seem like an oversight. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were going into the army. Why borrow trouble? What difference had it made? None.”

“It made a difference to me when the dirty little secret came out today.”

“It wasn’t dirty. Nothing happened between Rusty and me.”

“Then why keep it from me? It feels like a betrayal.”

“It wasn’t.”