Loving Again(71)

                Happy to leave a familiar face to deal with her house, Amanda started out the door to follow the ambulance taking Sam to the ER. Danny took the car keys from her hand and put them on the dining room table. “Talk first. Hospital later. You shouldn’t drive right now and they won’t let you see Sam anyway. What the hell happened here?”

                Amanda took a deep breath and let out a barrage of words. “Beal Matthews came here to get the money from the safe Tommy put in my basement. Drake Vos came to help. After Drake found the safe, Chihuly barked and Matthews found Sam in the backyard. Sam cut Matthews with an Ulu knife. Sam got shot while I was looking for my phone. Matthews came to shoot me. Chihuly bit him. I hit Matthews with my glass … ”

                “Sorry I asked. Let’s go over that again. Why did you say Matthews was here?”

                Amanda dropped her eyes and made little coughing noises before answering. “Because I told him I knew where the safe was. That I’d give him money. I thought I could get him off my back, keep him away from Sam, if I paid him off. Then you would find him, arrest him, and everything would be okay.”

                “How the hell did you even know who he was? Unless … you did recognize him when I showed you his picture, didn’t you?”

                Another deep breath before the last confession came out in a whisper. “Yeah, I saw him at Bullseye the night of the murders. He threatened me and Sam if I talked to you. I knew he thought there was money here from Tommy’s drug business so when I got a second threat from him, I decided to bribe him.” She ran out of explanation and stopped talking, still not looking Danny in the eyes.

                Danny exploded. “What the fuck is wrong with you, woman? How many times have we talked — three, four times? And you didn’t tell me any of this? What kind of game are you playing?”

                “I’m not playing a game. I was scared he’d hurt Sam. Besides, it didn’t seem important.” She knew she sounded as feeble as her excuse did.

                “You don’t get to decide what’s important and what’s not. We do. You tell us everything you know, we put it together with what we know and we figure out what happened. That’s how it works.”

                “Not always.”

                “I got the message. You had a bad experience last year. Props to you for getting through it.” Danny paced in front of Amanda, who was now sitting on the couch. “But that doesn’t give you a pass on this. What were you waiting for, another person to turn up dead?”

                Amanda shuddered. “That’s exactly what I didn’t want. I’m sorry, Danny, I should have … ”

                “Bullshit.”

                Amanda hung her head for a moment then looked directly at Danny. “I was stupid. If I’d been thinking clearly I wouldn’t have even been at Bullseye that night. But the phone call I got said Eubie was about to go public with his accusations. I went to meet him. That’s when I saw Matthews. He came out into the delivery area, outside the classroom. I could see him in the security light.”

                She rummaged around in her pocket, found a tissue, and blew her nose. “The next morning, I found the studio wrecked and an envelope with letters in it. From him. I have them here. I can get them … ”

                Danny didn’t seem to be listening. “You lied about being at Bullseye. When we caught you at it, you still didn’t tell us the whole story. You lied about what you saw there. Then you tried to bribe a killer to … ” She stopped. “Wait. Rewind. You decided to bribe him because he threatened Sam?” She stared at Amanda. “Oh, shit, you pushed Sam away because you thought that would protect him, didn’t you? I can’t believe it.”