He grew hopeful, then the hope faded. “I tapped her car.”
“You did?”
“Shortly after she moved in. She thought the security was a joke.”
Neil kept staring at him.
“You telling me Gwen’s car isn’t tapped?”
Neil broke off eye contact.
“Exactly.” He went on. “So I know she’s at work. A court order will find the tap, and removing it now or denying it makes me look guilty.”
“And you know about cameras in parking lots. Have you been to her work?”
“I drove by it once before she moved here. Never went in and didn’t go in the garage.”
“But a lawyer will twist that.”
Lawyers sucked that way. “They’ll assume I know the garage, know her routine.”
“Her routine changed that night. She stayed late, got caught up talking to her boss. How would you know that?”
True. “I wouldn’t. I left my home to get to hers for date night.” For the first time since he left the station he started to breathe again.
“We do specialize in surveillance. Military background . . . they’ll assume and look for some way that you’d know she was still in the office or see what she was doing.”
“They won’t find anything.”
“But they’ll look.”
“OK. What’s my motive? I like this girl. She finally agreed to go on a date with me. Why would I attack her twenty minutes before?”
Neil shrugged. “You’re upset she wasn’t preening for you? Upset she didn’t take the date serious enough to get home early? Your manhood wasn’t strong enough to endure all the rejection and you’re twisted up now that you are going on a date.”
Rick rolled his eyes. “Lame.”
“Each potential motive will have to be proven wrong. And that will keep them from arresting you.”
He ran a hand down his face as if wiping it would erase all this bullshit.
“They will also conclude that because of the nature of your current employment and your taping of Judy’s initial questioning, and our involvement from the beginning, that you’re making sure you cover your tracks.”
“Jesus, Mac, you’re not helping.”
“Oh, am I supposed to be helping, Smiley? I thought I was supposed to think logically. You want sugarcoating, go to the candy store.” The use of their old names back in active service sobered him.
“All that aside, driving to Westwood in ten minutes on the 405, even with a motorcycle, would take quite a daredevil act. The route through Beverly Hills isn’t exactly a swift entrance and exit.”
“I bought the flowers.”
“Most flower shops aren’t magnets for crime. Chances are there won’t be any cameras and even if there are, the likelihood any footage was kept would be slim after a week. Best we can hope is for an eyewitness that can ID you.”
“That can ID me and give a time I was in the shop.”
“Exactly.”
No matter what angle he looked at, he didn’t look good.
“We’re doing exactly what the cops are doing. We’re focused on me and not on who did this.”
Neil nodded. “If we don’t focus on you, clear your involvement, they will never look for anyone else.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rick and Neil arrived at Zach’s house together, both wore stoic masks, and neither of them volunteered anything before Rick whisked her out the door.
The offshore winds kept Judy’s hair blowing in every direction. The way Rick kept glancing at her as they separated from everyone in Zach’s house made her nervous.
“How’s your day been?” he asked, which he’d already managed to ask when he walked in the house.
When she didn’t answer, he finally met her eyes.
“You’ve already asked that. Something’s happened.”
They reached the bench overlooking the sea and he encouraged her to sit. Sitting before talking was never a good sign.
“Did you find out something about him?”
He shook his head with a heavy sigh. “No.”
It wasn’t often Rick didn’t have a smile close to the surface.
She reached for his hand, and for the first time since the attack tried to cheer someone else up. “How bad can it possibly be?”
His beautiful green eyes kept hold of hers. “The police questioned me today.”
It took a moment to process his words. “You?”
“Normal procedure, actually. They should have brought me in before now.”
“Why you? I don’t understand.”
He squeezed her hand in his. “It’s normal to obtain alibis from husbands, boyfriends, guys that you’re dating.”
She’d seen enough crime fiction television to understand that.
“And since you didn’t see this guy, they need to check the whereabouts of all the men in your life.”
Judy didn’t like it, but she understood it. “I get it, I guess. I don’t have many men in my life so the list isn’t that long.” Rick still wasn’t smiling. Being questioned really bothered him. “If you knew they were going to question you, why are you so upset?”
His gaze moved to the waves below them. “The night of the attack I left my place to pick you up at six twenty, picked up flowers on the way, and pulled into your drive at ten to the hour.”
Judy swiped at her hair blowing in the wind. “Outside of the part where I never got the flowers, I don’t see the problem.”
He didn’t even laugh at the flower joke. “I drove my motorcycle. The police believe I could have made it to your office in ten minutes, give or take . . . then back to your brother’s house . . . after.”
She blinked, too stunned to speak.
“Neil and I are positive they are working hard right now to prove I could have attacked you.”
“That’s absurd.” Rick, her Rick, who had been her protector from the moment she arrived in LA, was not the villain here. “They’re wasting their time.”
“I know that. You know that. But they don’t.”
Judy released his hand and jumped to her feet. “Well I’ll tell them.”
She turned toward the house, determined to get one of the detectives on the phone. Rick reached out and held her arm. “Tell them what, Judy?”
“That it wasn’t you.” She didn’t even try to tame her hair. It blew in the wind like her temper.