She marched back to the chair. Once she was seated, he knelt in front of her and took a roll of duct tape from the black bag. She tucked her feet beneath the chair. “Please. I promise not to get up until you tell me I can. Please.”

After a short staring contest, he relented and resumed his place in the other chair. “You never answered my question. Did you have sex with Jay?”

She studied a button on his shirt. At least her gaze landed in that vicinity of his chest and remained there. “I swear to you, I don’t know. My gynecologist examined me, but all she could determine was that there hadn’t been any…any trauma to the tissue.”

Raley gnawed the inside of his cheek, ruminating on that, wondering if he believed her, wondering why he gave a damn whether she and Jay had had sex or not.

“You joined him at the table in the corner of the bar. How was he?”

She laughed softly, but there was a touch of sadness behind it. “Like Jay. Handsome and well dressed. Charming. Flirtatious.”

“That’s our Jay.”

She looked at him curiously. “Was he always like that? Even when you were boys?”

“Always. What did you have to drink?”

She seemed about to ask more about their boyhood friendship but answered his question instead. “He was drinking vodka, maybe gin. Something clear, on the rocks. He’d had two or three. He ordered another when I ordered my wine.”

“From one of the waitresses?”

“She came to our table.”

“Did the same waitress deliver your drinks, or another?”

“I’m almost certain it was the same one. I remember thanking her when my wine appeared, but I was involved in my conversation with Jay, so I didn’t really take much notice.”

“What happened then, after your drinks came?”

“We clinked glasses.”

“Do you think Jay slipped something into your wine?”

“Why would he?”

“Do you think he did?”

“No.”

“Did he have an opportunity to?”

“No. We-”

Suddenly she stopped, her gaze turning inward.

“What?”

“I…” She looked at him, wet her lips. “I just remembered something. I took a cardigan with me. I always do. Air-conditioning.”

“So?”

“The bar was crowded, warm, so I didn’t need my sweater. I remember turning away to drape it over the back of the chair. The chair had a curved wood back, sort of like that one,” she said, nodding toward the one he was sitting in. “My sweater slipped off onto the floor. I bent down to pick it up.”

“Giving Jay enough time to drop something into your wineglass?”

“I don’t know. I suppose. But he would have had to be incredibly quick and dexterous.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe he did. And, anyway, why would he?”

“Right. When he knew you’d go to bed with him without being drugged.”

She stared back at him with teeming animosity, but she didn’t address the insult. He didn’t apologize, but he did say, “I don’t think Jay put anything in your drink, either. Resorting to that would be demeaning to his ego. He was awfully proud of his ability to get women into his bed.” He let that sink in, then said, “If not Jay, who?”

“I have no idea. Maybe someone just playing an ugly prank. But I’m convinced it happened at The Wheelhouse. I was already feeling funny when we left there. By the time we reached Jay’s town house, I wasn’t well at all.”

“Did you tell Jay you didn’t feel well?”

“I don’t believe so. I was anxious to hear what he was about to tell me. I didn’t want him to cut the evening short, saying it could wait for another time.”

“Right. You wouldn’t let anything stand in the way of getting a big story.”

She fired back, “You’re damn right I wouldn’t!”

Raley could have said how well he knew the lengths to which she would go to nail a story, but he let it pass. “Jay lured you with-”

“He didn’t lure me. He said he needed to talk to me. When he told me about his cancer, I thought that was the purpose of the meeting.” She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice had altered, become softer. “Did you know he was sick?”

Something inside him twisted, but he kept his features schooled. “Not until I heard he’d died in bed with you.”

“The two of you didn’t stay in touch after you left Charleston?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.”

“He was your best friend.”

“Was.”

“You hadn’t seen or spoken to him in five years?”

“No.”

“What caused the split? Your leaving? Or the events leading up to it?”

He wasn’t yet ready to talk about that. He had to get his facts straight on how Jay had died before he could address how he’d lived. “Jay told you he was dying.” She nodded. “Do you think he told you because he wanted a mercy fuck?”

She gave him a withering look. “That’s such a juvenile question. Such a man thing to conclude. I thought so when the two detectives asked me the same.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told them no. Jay didn’t have to resort to pity any more than he would resort to date rape drugs.”

“That’s such a woman thing to conclude.”

“He didn’t.”

“Spoken with the voice of experience.”

She was about to retort to that but changed her mind and only stared at him, seething but silent.

“So he didn’t get you there to tell you he had only a few weeks to live.”

“No.” She told him that Jay had dismissed her sympathy. “He said he didn’t have time to talk about cancer and funerals. He said that he had something much more important to tell me, and that the story he had to tell would launch me straight into a network job.”

Raley waited, his heart knocking with anticipation. After several seconds passed, he said, “So what was the career-making story?”

“I don’t know.”

“Bullshit!” He came out of his chair so quickly, she jumped in alarm. “I’m not a competing reporter. I’m not gonna call a network and get the jump on you. You can have your precious story, I just want to know what Jay told you.”

She came out of her chair to face him squarely. “Nothing! He became-”

“What?”

“Nervous. On edge.”

He barked a laugh. “Jay?”

“Jay.”

“Nerves of steel, always in control, never ruffled Jay? That Jay Burgess?”

“Yes. I realize it sounds out of character-”

“No, it sounds ludicrous.”

“I’m telling you, he got jittery and began to sweat.”

He raked the fingers of both hands through his hair, holding it off his heated face for several seconds before letting it go. He propped his hands on his hips and stared at her. “You’re a real piece of work, aren’t you? You see an opportunity and you grab it. You’ve got everybody by the balls and you’re loving it. The police. Me. Everyfuckin’ body. You’re milking this thing for all it’s worth, making up this elaborate story about memory loss when what really happened is that you and Jay got drunk together and then you screwed him to death.”

“I don’t give a damn what you think about me,” she said, one angry word tumbling after the next. “You, who live out here in this…this…shanty that looks like Tobacco Road, have no room to talk to anybody about ambition and what one does with one’s life. Think what you want about me.”

“Thank you, I will. I do.”

“But for whatever else I am, I’m not a liar. If you dragged me out here to beat the truth out of me, then you’ve committed a crime for nothing. You could have got the same truth from the newspaper. I went on record today at that news conference with the truth. You can like it or not, accept it or not, believe it or not. I really don’t give a damn.”

She took another step so they were standing almost toe to toe. “Jay was on the verge of divulging something vitally important to him. But he became nervous and distracted. He began to take notice of people at nearby tables. He glanced toward the bar several times. Even when he was talking to me, he was looking past me, over my-”

She broke off and for several seconds continued to stare into Raley’s face, but he thought she wasn’t really seeing him anymore. She backed away and sat down hard in the chair, staring into near space.