“You just happened to have it in the exact amount?”
“I anticipated.”
“Pretty damned sure of yourself, Counselor.”
He paused a second.
“It was n-not as unpleasant as I thought it might be, M-Max.”
This time I paused, letting Billy consider what he was saying about his lifelong fear that his stutter was an intolerable flaw that society would forever hold against him.
“So if this goes to trial, you’ll represent him?”
He stopped at the corner.
“They don’t t-take aggravated assault to trial, M-Max. They deal them down and plead them out.”
“I meant if they tag him for the disappearances,” I said. This time he looked me in the eyes.
“Be careful, M-Max,” he said without hesitation. “If they come up with enough evidence to indict O’Shea on homicide charges, w- we both may have made big mistakes.”
CHAPTER 21
She knew she’d made a mistake, and now she was paying for it. Scared as hell, and paying for it.
They’d gone to dinner, his choice, the steak house that she was really getting sick of, but whenever she balked he gave her that look, the one that made her turn her face away, waiting, the skin on her cheek almost warming like she’d already been slapped.
But the dinner conversation went well. He was smart, no doubt about that. He kept up on current events and spoke intelligently about issues that she rarely paid attention to. They’d talked, like adults. Then they went to the movies, again, his choice. Again, somehow, they always ended up at the show he first suggested. Not that she hated them. It was just that if she mentioned another film, he’d say “Yeah, OK, that’s a possibility. Let’s see what else there is,” and by the time they went through the listings in the paper, they’d be right back to his choice.
She’d thought about her father then, how they always “discussed” things but whenever it looked like she might get something her way, he’d pull his trump card: “Your holy mother and the Lord himself are looking down on us, Marci. Ask them. What would they do?”
Kyle didn’t have to push those cheap buttons. His trump card was now the back of his hand. In the last two weeks he’d stung her a couple of times. She’d told herself that was it. Then he’d show up with apologizing flowers. Then there was that “love light” with the candle in it that he said he wanted her to hang in her window to remind him that even brushing his hand too close to the flame could put it out, and he would never do it again. Christ, she’d thought. How do you dump a guy like that?
She’d told him after the movies that she didn’t want to go riding again. She was tired. She had another double shift coming up. He started driving out Broward Boulevard and pulled the flask filled with Maker’s Mark from under the seat and didn’t bother mixing it, just sipped it, right out in traffic.
“Come on, Marci. Just for a little while.”
“Kyle, no,” she said. He didn’t like no. But she wasn’t sure she cared anymore.
“Oh, I see. I take you to dinner. I take you to the movies. Then when I want to do something for me, it’s no.”
She was silent and he looked over. She sat there, slack-jawed. Then she let that half-grin come into her face, the one she knew pissed him off. The one he called her “It’s almost amusing how stupid you are” look. Then she made her big mistake. They were already west of Dixie Highway, past where he should have turned to take her home.
“Christ!” she snapped. “Can’t you give up this ‘My way, my way, my way’ all the time and give someone else a little say?”
She watched those marbles in his jaw start to roll, but didn’t care this time.
“I mean, goddamn. It’s not always about you, Kyle, and you ruin it when you’re always making it about you!”
He still remained quiet, but she could feel the car accelerate as they passed the Fort Lauderdale Police Department building doing at least fifteen over the speed limit. But what were his friends going to do? Pull him over?
“Goddammit, Kyle. Take me home! Now!”
The movement was faster than she could catch in the soft darkness of the car. She didn’t even pick up on it until the impact snapped her head to the side. He’d backhanded her with the speed and lightning-fast anger she’d seen him use on others. The sound of