“What other reason do you have for even considering it?”
She gave him a look that said he knew the reason. And he did. He shifted in his seat, looked away, came back to her. “I thought we’d canceled it.”
“As you said, it’s not something you can take back.”
“No, but it doesn’t have to dictate your future. I’m not gonna rat you out. Nobody will know.”
“We will.”
Her tone was disturbingly reminiscent of Conrad’s “You will,” which prompted him to argue all the harder. “You’d be crazy to throw away your career over it. At a stretch it lasted for all of two minutes. We didn’t even kiss, for crissake!”
“Like that excuses it?”
“No, but it’s not like you languished in lust.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it lasted a few minutes or all day. You can’t breach ethics just a little.”
“Sure you can.”
His flippancy annoyed her. “You are a principal in one of my pending court cases. It was a no-no for us to even talk privately, much less…” Then she paused, and, when next she spoke, it was barely audible. “Is that why you did it?”
“Pardon?”
She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “Is that why you came to my house? Is that why you did it?”
He had hoped she wasn’t leading up to that. But by repeating it, she’d made herself perfectly clear. He began to simmer. “Is that why I did it? I?”
“Well, you knew that was the one compromise I couldn’t possibly get beyond. Not if I had a grain of integrity. I couldn’t preside over another custody hearing after…after…”
“After screwing me on your sofa?” He snuffled a laugh and nodded his head knowingly. “I wondered when you’d get around to it.”
“To what?”
“To laying the blame on me for laying you,” he said, seething now. “I could turn it around and ask you the same question, judge. Why’d you do it? To let yourself off the hook, maybe?” He sputtered a bitter laugh. “I can hear your ruling now. ‘The court can’t award this man custody of his daughter. He’s reckless, unstable, and immoral. He can’t control his impulses, his temper, or his dick.’”
“That is so unfair.”
“No, I’ll tell you what’s unfair. When you go all weepy and clingy, it’s unfair to blame a guy for acting on your please fuck me eyes.”
They glared at each other with such intensity, they didn’t see the man’s approach and nearly jumped out of their skins when he knocked loudly on the driver’s window.
Holly slapped her hand over her chest as though to keep her heart from leaping out. She reached for the button to lower the foggy window, but then realized she had to start the car engine first.
When the window went down and Neal Lester’s face appeared, Crawford swore viciously.
Neal, wearing his sternest expression, looked at Holly first, then across at Crawford. “Well, this is interesting.”
Chapter 12
They caravanned to an all-night café on the outskirts of town. Crawford was in the lead, Holly behind him, Neal bringing up the rear. Neal had dictated the order so they couldn’t peel off and avoid the meeting, although neither had any intention of doing so.
Customers consisted mostly of long-haul truckers, seated on counter stools, hunched over platters of deep-fried food. Crawford, still in the lead when they filed in, claimed a booth, motioned Holly into one side of it, slid in beside her, and tried not to look peeved when she put the maximum amount of space between them.
Neal sat across from them and, after ordering three coffees from the indifferent waitress, said, “I’ll listen to your explanation for the tête-à-tête, then decide if I need to bring Nugent in and relocate us to an interrogation room at headquarters.”
Holly took umbrage. “It wasn’t a tête-à-tête.”
“I’m the lead investigator of a murder investigation. You’re material witnesses. What were you doing together in the park?”
“I get the feeling you didn’t come upon us by accident,” Crawford said.
“No. I saw the two of you talking on the courthouse parking lot.”
“Hmm. Refresh my memory. What’s the maximum sentence if convicted of talking on a public parking lot?”
Crawford’s taunt had an effect. Neal had to unclench his jaw to speak. “When you left one behind the other, I followed.”
“Why didn’t you just flag us down?” Holly asked.
“Because, judge, your conversation had looked covert, and I wanted to know why.”
He was forestalled from saying more when the waitress returned with their coffees. They declined menus. She ambled away. The coffee mugs went untouched as Neal began speaking low and angrily, now addressing Crawford.