“I have nothing to say to you.”
Donovan considered this for a moment. He ordinarily didn’t like to take this tack, but right now he couldn’t think of an alternative strategy. He made up his mind. “I’ll give you this as an inducement. If you talk to me, I’ll give you forty-eight hours to leave the country before I go public. If you don’t talk to me then I go public with everything I have as soon as I get off the phone.” He struggled internally for a moment and then added quietly, “Murder doesn’t have a statute of limitations, LuAnn.”
Riggs stared over at LuAnn, wide-eyed. She looked away from him.
“Where?” she asked.
Riggs was shaking his head fiercely but LuAnn ignored him.
“Let’s make it a very public place,” Donovan said. “Michie’s Tavern. I’m sure you know where that is. One o’clock. And don’t bring anyone with you. I’m way too old for guns and speeding cars. I catch a whiff of your boyfriend or anyone else, the deal is off and I call the sheriff in Georgia. Do you understand?”
LuAnn ripped the phone free from Riggs and slammed it down.
Riggs faced her. “Would you like to fill me in on what’s going on? Who are you supposed to have murdered? Somebody in Georgia?”
LuAnn stood up and pushed past him, her face crimson from the abrupt revealing of this secret. Riggs grabbed her arm and pulled her back roughly. “Dammit, you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
She snapped around and, quick as a ferret, connected her right fist flush with his chin, causing his head to snap back and hit hard against the wall.
When he came to Riggs was lying on the bed. LuAnn sat next to him holding a cold compress to his bruised chin and then pressed it against the growing knot on his head.
“Damn!” he said as the cold went through his system.
“I’m sorry, Matthew. I didn’t mean to do that. I just—”
He rubbed his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you knocked me out. I’m not a chauvinist, but I can’t believe a woman just flattened my butt with one punch.”
She managed a feeble smile. “I had a lot of practice growing up, and I’m pretty strong.” She added kindly, “But I think your head hitting the wall had a lot to do with it.”
Riggs rubbed his jaw and sat up. “Next time we’re having an argument and you’re thinking about popping me, just let me know and I’ll surrender on the spot. Deal?”
She touched his face gently and kissed him on the forehead. “I’m not going to hit you anymore.”
Riggs looked over at the phone. “Are you going to meet him?”
“I don’t have a choice — that I can see.”
“I’m going with you.”
LuAnn shook her head. “You heard him.”
Riggs sighed. “I don’t believe you murdered anyone.”
LuAnn took a deep breath and decided to tell him. “I didn’t murder him. It was self-defense. The man I was living with ten years ago was involved in drugs. I guess he was skimming off the top and I walked right into the middle of it.”
“So you killed your boyfriend?”
“No, the man who killed my boyfriend.”
“And the police—”
“I didn’t stay around long enough to find out what they were going to do.”
Riggs looked around the room. “The drugs. Is that where all this came from?”
LuAnn almost laughed. “No, he was a small-timer. Drug money didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Riggs wanted desperately to ask what did, but refrained from doing so. He sensed that she had divulged enough of her past life for now. Instead he watched in silent frustration as LuAnn slowly got up and started to leave the room, the bedspread dragging behind her, the well-defined muscles in her bare back tensing with each stride.
“LuAnn? That’s your real name?”
She turned to look at him and nodded faintly. “LuAnn Tyler. You were right about Georgia. Ten years ago I was a lot different. A lot.”
“I believe it, although I bet you’ve always had that right cross.” He attempted a smile, but neither of them was buying it.
She watched Riggs as he dug into his pants pocket. He tossed something to her. She caught the keys in the palm of her hand. “Thanks for letting me use your BMW; you might need the horsepower in case he starts chasing you again.”
She frowned, looked down, and then walked out of the room.
Chapter forty
Wearing a long black leather coat and a matching hat, her eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Bans, LuAnn stood outside the “Ordinary,” an aged wooden building that was part of Michie’s Tavern, a historic structure originally built in the late 1700s and later moved to its current location down the road from Monticello in the late 1920s. It was lunchtime and the place was starting to fill up with tourists either lining their stomachs with the fried chicken buffet offered there after touring Jefferson’s home and its neighbor Ash Lawn, or fueling up before setting out on the tour. Inside, a fire blazed in the hearth and LuAnn, who had arrived early to check things out, had soaked in the warmth from the flames before deciding to wait for him outside. She looked up when the man walked toward her. Even without his beard she recognized him.
“Let’s go,” Donovan said.
LuAnn looked at him. “Go where?”
“You follow me in your car. I’ll be checking my rearview mirror. If I see anyone who remotely looks like they’re following us, then I pick up my cell phone and you go to prison.”
“I’m not following you anywhere.”
He leaned into her face and said quietly, “I think you might want to reconsider.”
“I don’t know who you are or what you want. You said you wanted to meet. Well, I’m here.”
Donovan looked around at the line of people making their way into the tavern. “I had in mind a little more privacy than this.”
“You picked the place.”
“That I did.” Donovan jammed his hands in his pocket and stared at her in obvious discomfort.
LuAnn broke the silence. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll go for a drive in my car.” She stared at him ominously and spoke in low tones. “But don’t try anything because if you do, I will hurt you.”
Donovan snorted for a moment and then just as quickly stopped as he stared into her eyes. An involuntary shiver swept over him. He followed her long strides to her car.
LuAnn got on Interstate 64 and put the big sedan on cruise control.
Donovan turned to her. “You know, you threatened me back there with bodily injury. Maybe you did kill that guy in the trailer.”
“I didn’t murder anyone. I didn’t do anything wrong in that trailer.”
Donovan studied her features and then looked away. When he spoke next, his tone was softer, calmer. “I didn’t spend the last several months tracking you down, LuAnn, in order to destroy your life.”
She glanced over at him. “Then what did you track me down for?”
“Tell me what did happen in that trailer.”
LuAnn shook her head in frustration and remained silent.
“I’ve dug through a lot of dirt over the years, and I can read between the lines with the best of them. I don’t believe you murdered anyone,” Donovan said. “Come on, I’m not a cop. You can check me for a wire if you want. I’ve read all the newspaper accounts. I’d like to hear your version.”
LuAnn let out a deep sigh and looked over at him. “Duane was dealing drugs. I didn’t know anything about it. I just wanted to get out of that life. I went to the trailer to tell him so. Duane was cut up very badly. A man grabbed me, tried to cut my throat. We fought. I hit him with the telephone and he died.”