“Had.”

“Had with his wife. You argued. Something he said lit your fuse, next thing you know-”

“I picked up the letter opener on his desk and plunged it into his neck.”

Turner actually looked sad about it. “You’ve got a good chance of being charged with manslaughter, instead of murder one. That’s probably the best you’ll do on this one, and I’m telling you that both as counsel and as a friend.” He paused to let that sink in.

“I hate to paint such a bleak picture, but that’s how it is, Griff. And you’re only making yourself look guiltier by running. Turning yourself in to Rodarte will be rough. I’m not saying it won’t. But it’ll be much harder for you if you don’t.”

“I’m not turning myself in.”

“If you do-tonight, now-I’ll represent you. I’ll be right there with you every step of the way. Let them conduct their investigation, and then we’ll see just how badly the evidence is stacked against you. Rodarte has been known to exaggerate, to insinuate that he has more than he actually does, but we know he has the weapon and, coupled with the motive, it’s damn incriminating.

“It actually works in our favor that you left the money behind. You didn’t commit robbery, so it’s not a capital murder. I’ll argue like hell for the manslaughter charge. I’ll also file for change of venue. Get the trial out of Dallas.

“But wherever it’s conducted, you can bet the prosecutor will hammer home how defenseless Speakman was against you. He’ll paint you as a brute who attacked a man who couldn’t possibly fight back and win. He’ll make the jurors despise you, and any argument you put forth won’t change the indisputable fact that you were a football player and he was a paraplegic.

“Turn yourself in and let me take over your defense. The only time you have to speak is at your arraignment, when you plead not guilty. You don’t have to breathe a bloody word to Rodarte, the jury, nobody.”

Griff had listened patiently, but now he said, “And you think not talking will make me look innocent? Come on, Wyatt.”

“I believe in jurisprudence, in our system of justice.”

“Well, your perspective on it is different from mine. You promised me I’d get off with probation if I cooperated with the feds and told them what I knew about Vista’s operation. Look what happened to that.”

“That was different.”

“Right. We were dealing with the federal grand jury and what-ifs. This time Rodarte’s got my prints on the instrument that killed my lover’s husband.”

Turner’s head dropped forward. He stood, a frown creasing his brow. Finally he raised his head. “I appeal to you once more, Griff. Give yourself up.”

“That’s the best you can do?”

“That’s it.”

Griff studied him a moment, then said softly, “You haven’t even asked me.”

“Asked you what?”

Snuffling a rueful laugh, Griff said, “Never mind. Have you heard from Jerry Arnold?”

“He called this afternoon. Kept saying, ‘Why would he do something like this?’ Stuff like that. You’ve lost another fan.”

Griff wasn’t surprised. “Well, thanks for the info. And the sandwich.” He turned toward the French doors.

“Griff, wait.”

“See ya, Turner.” He opened the door.

He heard the squeal of brakes as though a car had taken a corner too fast. He heard gunning engines, the whish of rubber on hot pavement. And in the house across the street, the front windows reflected colored lights. Red. Blue. White.

CHAPTER 27

TURNER RAISED HIS HANDS IN SURRENDER. SELF-DEFENSE maybe. “I had to call them, Griff. It’s for your own good.”

Griff sneered. “As counsel and friend, go fuck yourself.”

Then he was out the door. He skirted the swimming pool and used a lawn chair to help him vault the privacy fence. His knees took the brunt of the eight-foot drop to the ground on the other side. Another swimming pool. This one had the underwater light on. It felt like a searchlight, directed on him.

A searchlight made him think of a police helicopter, and that gave him the impetus to bust through the gate without fiddling with the latch. He ran through that yard, across the street, into the front yard of another house, where the sprinklers were on. His thrashing legs got wet, and so did the soles of his shoes, making them slippery.

Another freaking fence. “Shit!” Didn’t these people trust their own neighbors? He searched for the gate, which was hard to detect in the darkness. He found it, but it was locked from the inside. He backed up, threw himself against it. It didn’t budge.

He heard tires screeching, close enough for him to smell the smoking rubber.

He ran through the sprinklers again to the neighboring house. Finally, a house with no fence, only a hedge. He plunged through it. The thorny holly plants clawed at his bare legs, tearing skin, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He ran between that house and the one behind it, which put him on the street where he’d left the borrowed car.

He paused in the darkness between two houses, his lungs a bellows, his heart a jackhammer. He could hear shouting, tires squealing, car doors slamming. Hunnicutt’s car was three houses from where he stood. Nothing here was moving. Yet. He couldn’t delay. The search for him would soon spread to this street. He had to risk exposure.

He stepped from between the two houses, primed to sprint.

A police car, lit up like a Christmas tree, took the nearest corner on two wheels.

Griff ducked back into the shadows. Cursed Turner. Cursed his luck. Cursed his whole frigging life.

Then he ran.

Later, he would wonder how in hell he had got out of there. His escape almost made him a believer in divine intervention. Maybe for once in his life, God had suited up to play on his team.

He zigzagged through the neighborhood, moving from one patch of darkness to another. The chopper did appear with its searchlight, which was more powerful than the beam of any lighthouse. For hours he dodged it and the squad cars that either sped or crawled through the streets. Policemen on foot searched, practically going door to door.

He took a few minutes’ refuge in an open garage, where he found a rag to blot the streams of blood off his legs. Sweat made the wounds sting mercilessly. Once, when he got trapped between the approaching chopper’s searchlight and a policeman on foot, he slid into the deep end of a swimming pool. Luckily there was no underwater light, and the pool was one of the pretentious ones, designed to replicate a tropical lagoon formed by lava rock, so it was dark.

He held his breath until he thought his lungs would burst, but because of all the swimming he’d done recently, he was better conditioned than he would have been normally. Looking up through the surface, he could see the chopper’s light sweeping the area. The policeman came so close, Griff could hear him muttering to himself.

Finally both the officer and the helicopter moved on. Griff’s head cleared the surface, and he gulped oxygen. He climbed out of the pool, pruney but revived. His legs weren’t stinging anymore. He didn’t even attempt to return to the car. Cops would have been all over it once they ran the tag number through the DMV and discovered it didn’t belong to anyone living on that street.

He still had his cell phone. Thank God he’d taken it with him. He thought about dialing Glen Hunnicutt, asking him to meet somewhere and pick him up. But he didn’t want to involve the man any more than he already had.

He had no one else to call. No one he could trust. No one who trusted him.

He felt safer when he was out of Wyatt Turner’s neighborhood, but only a bit, because he still had a long way to go to reach the motel. Cops all over the city would now be on the lookout for a man of his description on foot. There would be a lot of harassed joggers in Dallas that morning. Those who ran before daylight were sure to be stopped and scrutinized.