he claims are the most beautiful in the world. Today’s big news? He thinks about me every time he masturbates.”
My stomach rolls like it does when a plane hits an air pocket, and a tingling fight-or-flight sensation goes through my legs. “How long has this been going on? His behavior, I mean.”
“He’s always had a thing about me. But watching you and me make love two days ago pushed him over the edge. He’s snapped, Marshall. Halfway up this hill, he took out his cell phone and played me the video of us on the patio. He acted like I’d cheated on him, not Paul.”
Again I remember Max sitting in my kitchen, casually commenting on Jet’s body and talking about wanting to screw Nadine. “I’m not surprised about Max being sexually aggressive. Even Dr. Kirby called him a ‘pussy hound’ yesterday. But why is he obsessed with you? His son’s wife?”
Jet cuts her eyes at me but says nothing. This is clearly tough for her to talk about.
“So he didn’t talk to you about the case at all?”
“Nothing new. He was just stalling.”
“What happened once he got you out here?”
She settles back in her seat and recounts her story in a mechanical voice. “He drove right through the trees and parked by the water. I asked why he’d come here, but he just got out of the truck and told me to follow him. I wasn’t sure what to do. I had a bad feeling, but he’d taken the keys with him. Before I got out, I looked around for anything I might use as a weapon. He keeps a tool bag in the backseat, just like Paul. I wanted a screwdriver, but I couldn’t get one without crawling back there. That hammer was sticking up, though, and I could just reach it. It was too big to hide, so I dropped it on the ground as I got out. At least it would be close in a crisis.”
“That was smart.”
She nods reflexively. “Once we were out of the truck, he didn’t waste time. He walked out on that pier and said we ought to go swimming to relax.”
“Without clothes, I suppose?”
“Naturally.”
How many times did Jet and I do that out here?
“Apart from being scared,” she goes on, “all I could think about was his cell phone. If I could get hold of it, I’d have two choices: try to get away with it—which would give me a chance to try Sally’s passwords on it—or just throw it into the middle of the pool and at least destroy the video. Getting away with it didn’t seem very likely at that point.”
“I was watching by then, but it was hard to tell what was happening.”
“As soon as I got close to him out on the pier, he pulled me to him. He started talking shit and touching my breasts. He tried to get a hand up under my top. It was like junior high. I tried to play it off as him kidding around. Then he pressed my hand against his penis. I jerked my hand back, and that’s when he ripped my top.”
She shakes her head, obviously reliving each second. “Once it got that far, I knew he wasn’t going to stop. But I forced myself to relax, like I was going to submit. He pulled my hips against his. He was hard already, and I let him sort of dry-hump me standing up, until his eyes glazed over. Then I shoved him back and I broke for the truck.”
“I saw that happen.”
“Did you see how he just walked after me?” She shudders in her seat. “It felt like a damned monster movie. He knew he didn’t have to hurry up here. Motherfucker. For a second I thought about running out to the road or trying to hide in the woods. But I knew I couldn’t get away from him. Besides . . . I was just sick of it all, sick of him. So I picked up the hammer.”
“I saw that, too,” I tell her, my mind hanging on to something she said. “And I know I can’t possibly understand the full horror of what happened back there . . .”
“But?” she says. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
I should just let this go. But I’ve known Jet a long time, and something isn’t adding up. She’s twenty years younger than Max, and four months ago she was running half-marathons. Since she isn’t physically hurt, I figure she’d have had