Page 87 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“Partially. And the fact that no one would hire me.” He lifted a shoulder. “Times were changing anyway, newspapers and magazines folding. This was steadier.” He thought for a second, his gaze, from behind his tinted lenses, taking in the Dumpster and broken-down cars beyond the fence. “And yeah, I miss it, but not that much.”

“She’s going to be released soon. Probably tomorrow.”

He visibly started, his eyes refocusing on Nikki. “Good,” he said, obviously digesting this new turn of events. Nodding, he added, “Yeah, that’s . . . good. I don’t believe she did what she was accused of, so justice will finally be served.”

“She never told you differently?”

“No. Not in the correspondence before . . . you know . . .”

“Before you helped her escape.”

“Yeah, and not after, either.” He adjusted the bill of his hat, and Nikki noted there was a line of sweat on what was left of his hair. The cuff of his sleeve pulled upward, and she saw the slightest discoloration on his wrist, evidence of the tattoo he’d had removed, the picture of a chameleon that had been the identifying mark that had led to his arrest.

“Look, I don’t want to be quoted in the articles you’re doing nor in the book. I’ve carved myself out a new life and it’s working, so I don’t want to mess it up.”

“I understand, but your name is a matter of record.”

He said bitterly, “I should never have gotten involved with her. Now that I look back on it a lot more clearly, I think she wanted me so she could get pregnant again. It was her thing, y’know. She had Amity in high school, then two more with her ex, then was pregnant with that fourth one. I mean there is such a thing as birth control. I figured I was just the latest sperm donor who got close enough to her to stick his neck out and help her find a way out of prison.” He closed his eyes for a second as if he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid.

“She wanted to have another baby?”

“Oh, yeah. She was all about it. No, I never saw her cry a tear for the daughter who

was killed or the ones who were hurt in the attack, but she was hot to trot to have another one. The damnedest thing. So, no, I don’t believe she tried to wipe out all her kids.”

“You were in love with her.” It wasn’t a question.

He lifted a shoulder, then the fingers of his right hand scrabbled in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit as if searching for a pack of cigarettes that didn’t exist. “At least lust. Whatever you want to call it. I was nuts about her.” He looked at the concrete, where an ant was crawling toward a crack. “But the trouble was, my feelings weren’t reciprocated.”

“No?”

Shoving his hands into his front pockets, he shook his head. “Nope. I think she was still in love with the last guy she’d hooked up with on the outside, before she was locked up.”

“Roland Camp?” Nikki said automatically, but Larry’s head continued to wag.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. She had nothing but bad things to say about him, put him in the same category with her ex-husband. She never mentioned his name, but I got the idea he might be an older dude. She’d use words like ‘mature’ and ‘sophisticated’ and ‘smart,’ or was it ‘well-educated’? Yeah. That sounds more like it. Didn’t exactly remind me of Roland Camp.”

“No,” Nikki agreed. “She didn’t mention his name?”

“No.”

Another man appeared in the doorway. “Hey!” he called, giving Nikki the eye. He too was wearing a gray jumpsuit. “I could use a little help, Tom!”

“In a sec, Chet,” Larry responded.

“You don’t go by your first name?”

“Nope. Just easier. Most people don’t know about my past, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it, but now that she’s going to be released, I think it’s probably going to be a problem. You found me. You won’t be the last.”

“Probably not,” Nikki said, and then, though she was starting to dread the answer, she asked, “What about her attorney? What did she think about him?”

He snorted. “That snob? Alexander Whatever? Yeah, she thought he walked on water, even after she got put away for life. Somehow she didn’t blame him. I told her to find someone new to represent her, to file an appeal with some big gun from New York or Chicago or Atlanta, but she wasn’t interested. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn she was in love with him.”

“But you did? Know better?”

“I know about the rumors, but I didn’t want to think about them. Legally, it was a nightmare, right? Anyway, what happened between them, she never said, but I do believe she was half in love with him, as much as she could be. Look, I gotta go,” he said, catching a harsh glare from Chet, who once again appeared in the doorway. “This job is important to me.”

“Just one more thing,” she said quickly, thinking of the viper in her car. “Amity was bitten by a snake before she died. Did Blondell ever talk about that?”

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