“No,” I lie. “But he did have an affair with her.”
She shakes her head and takes another slug from the frosted bottle.
“Take it easy, now. What do you want to do? Besides get drunk. Are you hungry? I really can fix us something.”
A mocking laugh escapes her lips. “No, thanks. My friend’s expecting me.”
“Well. Let me walk you out to your car. Just to be sure Max isn’t out there waiting for you. He could have doubled back.”
“Okay.”
Pistols in hand, we walk out into the dark and make our way over to Nadine’s Acura, which she parked behind some hedges at the side of my house. She gives me a pained smile, then unlocks the car and gets behind the wheel.
“Drive fast to the gate,” I advise her. “And keep your pistol in your hand while you’re waiting for it to open.”
She nods once, looking impatient to leave.
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I’m fine.” She looks down at the steering wheel. “Look . . . I found something back in the bathroom. I thought Max might see them if he went through the house, which I assumed would be bad.”
“What are you talking about?”
She sticks her arm through the window, her closed fist turned down. “Open your hand.”
I open my hand beneath hers.
When she opens her fist, two sapphire earrings drop into my palm. A rush of recognition floods through me, and color rises into my cheeks.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Nadine says.
Then she shifts the car into gear and drives away over the grass.
Chapter 28
After Nadine’s abrupt departure, I sit at the kitchen table with my pistol at my left hand, drinking gin and staring at the Watchman website on my laptop. Ben Tate has been drafting a couple of stories based on the information I sent him earlier, but I’m not sure how far we’re going to be able to go in print. Byron Ellis still hasn’t returned my latest call, and without the coroner backing up my assertions about human bones and blood being found at the mill site, we can’t publish. If Quinn Ferris’s experts come through, we could, but apparently they’ve gotten wind of the controversy down here and have raised chain-of-evidence questions. But these concerns seem secondary now.
The realization that Max can betray Jet and me to Paul whenever he chooses has fundamentally altered my perception of reality. Max could be right: if Paul is confronted with a video of Jet making love to me, he might well flip out and kill me. After all, I do owe him my life. How big a leap would it be for him to decide he has the right to call in his marker? Before Jet left earlier, she instructed me not to call her. But I have no choice now. After pressing the speed-dial button for her number, I sit and stare at my burner phone without much hope of an answer.
After four rings, she hisses, “I said not to call.”
“Max showed up after you left.”
“What?”
“While Nadine was still here. She hid. Max knows about us, Jet. He took pictures.”
“Pictures of what? Us hugging on the patio?”
“Yes, but he was out there yesterday, too. He must have been following you. He filmed us on the steamer chair.”
This time I hear only staticky silence.
“Jet?”
“He didn’t really . . .”
“I haven’t seen the video, but I saw a still shot of us hugging. And he knew details from the patio yesterday. I believe him.”
“We’re dead,” she says flatly.
“No. But we have to start thinking about coming clean with Paul, before Max does.”
“Marshall . . . we can’t tell Paul now. He just lost his mother.”
“Hearing it from Max would be worse. Did you ever really think there was a way for us to be together without confronting Paul?”
“Of course not. But there’s a world of difference between hearing that your wife wants to leave you and watching her screw your best friend in living color.”
“You and Max agree on that. I don’t really think there’s much difference.”
“With Paul there would be. If he sees me strip-walking across that lawn . . . then riding you? He’ll snap.”
“You’re not giving him enough credit.”
“Oh, you don’t know. You don’t live with him. I tell you things, and you just don’t hear me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“His head injuries, for one thing. Remember those? Blast-induced TBIs?”