“Thanks for the warning.”
“Sure. Now back to Kate. She’s really smart.”
“I know…”
“I mean really, really smart. I’ve seen her find evidence that all of us have missed. She’s relentless, tough, and never gets discouraged.”
“I believe that, Banner.”
All the while they talked, Jericho drank. The drunker he got, the more he worried about Kate.
“You know, the last time I got this drunk, I got a tattoo.”
“Where?”
“Groin.”
“Ouch. Did it hurt?”
“Don’t remember a damn thing, but when I woke up in the morning with a mother of a hangover, it hurt like hell. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to feel the same way when I wake up tomorrow.”
Jericho’s eyes drifted shut and his last thought was for Kate.
* * *
Kate stared open-eyed at the beach scene in Paige’s spare room. Paige had coddled her and soothed her and given her a room to sleep in for the night.
To keep her mind off Jericho and her performance, Kate turned her thoughts to Danny’s case. She went over the crime scene in her mind, bit by bit. She was convinced that someone had surprised Marie LePlante. She believed that the woman had been knocked to the carpet by Danny’s blow and he’d left the apartment. She had gone to the bathroom mirror to check her wound and clean it. That’s what most people would do. She’d been staring in the mirror and…he’d been hiding in the shower. Kate was sure of it. Mrs. LePlante had seen him and had whirled away from the sink to confront him. Kate didn’t believe that she would have run. Maybe she’d recognized him, and it had momentarily paralyzed her? The assailant had jumped out of the shower and grabbed Mrs. LePlante around the neck, shoving her into the full-length mirror. There’d been an indentation in the glass that was the exact size of her head, but there’d also been another one below it. The blood on the sink and the depression in the glass could have come from the assailant shoving her into the mirror. Kate replayed her encounter with Ken Mitchell over in her mind…
He’d had his hands in his pockets. Could he have been hiding his hands to cover small cuts? It occurred to her that he’d told her there was a rash of burglaries in her building. It would make sense that Danny was committing the crimes because he had access to every apartment. But Danny wouldn’t do such a thing.
She made a mental note to go see Sienna after Danny’s arraignment tomorrow morning.
The thought of Danny’s arraignment made her remember that Jericho would be there. Paige had called Sienna and Lana to let them know where Kate was. Sure enough, Jericho had been to see both of them.
Kate hadn’t been up to talking to them. She’d told Paige that she promised to explain everything tomorrow.
Losing her cool at Jericho’s had been nothing but cowardice. She was ashamed of herself for acting like such a fool. She was going to tell him tomorrow as soon as she got the chance.
With that resolution, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.
* * *
Jericho bolted up off the couch for a moment, disoriented. Then he grabbed his head and groaned.
Eric came out of the kitchen, and the aroma of bacon twisted Jericho’s stomach.
“I was just about to wake you. Do you have court today?”
“What time is it?”
“Six.”
Jericho relaxed back into the cushions. “I don’t have to be there until eight.”
“Head hurt?”
“Like a bitch.”