“Making love?”
“Screwing.”
“Where?”
“Her house.”
“Nora Gail said you were in her car.”
He whipped his Blazer around a farmer in a pickup truck. “Maybe we were. Car, house, what’s the difference? I don’t remember.”
“You had been to the ranch earlier.”
“Yeah, so?”
“You ate dinner there.”
“We’ve been over this already.”
“This was a special night—Celina was there for dinner.”
“Don’t you remember talking about this?”
“I remember. You told me that you’d left before dessert because apple pie wasn’t one of your favorites.”
“Wrong. Cherry pie. It’s still not one of my favorites.”
“That’s not why you left, Reede.”
“N
o?” He risked taking his eyes off the road to glance at her.
“No. You left because you were afraid Junior was going to propose to Celina that night. You were even more afraid that she was going to accept.”
He brought the truck to a jarring stop outside her motel room. He got out and came around to her door, almost jerking it off its hinges when he opened it. Grabbing her arm again, he pulled her to the ground and pushed her toward her door. She resisted and turned to confront him.
“I’m right so far, aren’t I?”
“Yeah, I went out with Nora Gail to blow off some steam.”
“Did it work?”
“No, so I sneaked back to the ranch and found Celina in the mares’ barn. How the hell I knew she was going to be there is something you’ve yet to figure out, Counselor,” he sneered.
“I took the scalpel out of my pocket. Why I’d taken it from the vet’s bag when I could have strangled her with my bare hands is something else you’ll have to muddle through. While you’re at it, think about where I’d hidden it when I took off all my clothes to screw Nora Gail, who would in all probability have noticed a scalpel.
“Anyway, I used the scalpel to stab Celina repeatedly. Then, I just left her body there on the outside chance that Gooney Bud would come wandering by, see her, try to help her, and, in the process, get her blood all over himself.”
“I think that’s exactly how it was done.”
“You’re full of shit, and a grand jury will think so, too.”
He angrily gave her another shove toward her door. In a quavering voice, she said, “There’s blood on your hands.”
He looked down at them. “I’ve had blood on them before.”
“The night you murdered Celina?”