“Is that significant?”
“Only that Erin never let me forget it. Whenever we happened to run into each other she made a point to ask about Brody and then imply that she had recently seen him. As if she thought I’d be jealous.”
“Were you?”
She just stared at him. Clearly the answer was no. He was pretty sure after what he’d learned that she was wrong about Rogers. It irked him that she still believed the douchebag. “For the record, I think you were used. A man who hides his stash in his girlfriend’s place is looking for a scapegoat. Pimps and dealers do it all the time. Rogers had a plan if he was caught. You were his patsy.”
He tried to ignore the sick look that washed through her expression. Jesus. He thought what he said would help break the spell of Rogers. But the echo of his words in his ears sounded coldhearted.
Even as he was freaking at the possibility of making her cry, though, the detective part of him noticed that she didn’t look so hurt. She did look angry. He watched that emotion smooth the pinched look from her face until her eyes were bright with it.
“I know I was stupid. I was a sorority girl with bleached-blond hair and all the right clothes dating a member of the Tice family. I was self-involved and while not totally an all-about-me girl, I knew that marrying Brody would make me a fixture in society. It was only when I accepted his ring that I discovered I didn’t want it, any of it.” She looked straight at Law. “I wasn’t going to marry him.”
Law knew she was talking to herself as much as him. He kept eating, just to have something to do that kept him from staring as he listened to her answers. To his surprise, Argyle appeared on his lap and tried to make herself at home. But she kept sliding off his stump. Law grabbed her and tucked her in his right arm. “Tell me more about the night he died.”
She made a turn around the room. “It was late April. I’d been trying to get up the courage to give back the ring almost since the day I accepted it.” She glanced down at her left hand, as if expecting to see the engagement ring she’d once worn. “I was glad he wasn’t staying regularly at the apartment. He’d begun making excuses about not showing up for the weekend, or until Saturday night. Then leaving first thing Sunday morning. I didn’t even ask why. I wanted out.” She glanced at Law again. “I didn’t love him. Not really.”
Law broke off a bit of frittata and fed it to Argyle. “Then why did you go down without a fight?”
“What are you talking about? We had a big wicked fight that night. I threw the ring at him and told him to pack and get out.”
This was news. It wasn’t in the court record. “What did he do?”
“He said a few ugly things and left.”
“What did he take with him?” Argyle purred and rubbed herself against Law’s Henley.
Jori frowned. “Nothing.” Her voice trailed off in thought. “He did go into the bedroom. I thought he was going to pack so I didn’t follow him. But when he came back he had nothing except the leather backpack with his laptop that he carried everywhere.”
“How long was he in the bedroom?” Argyle pawed lightly at the hand Law ate with.
She frowned. “I don’t remember. I just wanted him to leave.”
Law waited a beat. “When did you learn about the accident?”
She flinched. “When the police came to my door at five a.m. with a warrant to search the apartment. I don’t even think I heard anything they said after they told me Brody had died when his car went off the highway and crashed.” All the blood had drained from her lips.
Ridiculously jealous that a man who’d been dead more than four years could make her so sad, Law pushed on quickly. “Why didn’t your attorney use the breakup as motive for you being framed by Rogers?”
“He said what happened between me and Brody wasn’t relevant. That I had been found, independently, in possession of illegal substances and that I was being tried for drug possession.”
“But they wouldn’t have searched your apartment if Rogers hadn’t been found in possession first. Your defense attorney wasn’t worth spit because he didn’t argue cause.”
She rounded on him, her face flushed. “My parents hired the best lawyer they could find. They tried everything. It didn’t work.” She was back on the brink of emotions Law was pretty certain he couldn’t handle. So he pushed on, again.
“Did you tell your counsel that Brody was cheating on you?”
Jori waved a hand. “Brody wasn’t cheating.”
Law licked a greasy finger clean then touched his keyboard until he found what he wanted. “According to the statement of a woman named Erin Foster, Brody Rogers had been with her on the night he died.” He watched Jori’s expression closely. “Did you know about that?”