“Screw you.”
The slightest pressure and the knife pierced the skin, slid right between two bones and into the laminate tabletop beneath. Blood bloomed and slid around the wound. Baker screamed, thrashed his legs around a bit, but he didn’t dare move his hand.
“Tell me where she is.”
“She didn’t come! I passed out. If she came by after that, she left without trying to get me up.” His eyes were wild when they connected with Clint’s. “I swear. I didn’t see her.” His voice shook.
Clint pulled the knife free but didn’t release Baker’s hand. The guy howled as if Clint had cut the damned thing off.
“Why did you call her?”
Troy glared at him, his eyes looking like road maps, his face red from consistent overindulgence in alcohol.
“Why?” Clint repeated as he positioned the knife again.
“Nooo!”
“Tell me,” Clint urged. “This only has to hurt as much as you want it to.”
“Because I wanted to get you here,” Baker cried.
“Why?” The knife remained poised for the next intrusion.
“I want you to pay, you son of a bitch!”
Clint let that go. “Any other reason?”
“My life is falling apart,” Baker cried. He started to sob. “My wife left me. She took my kids.” His whole body shook with his anguish. “My best friend is dead and it’s my fault.”
Clint stilled. “Why is it your fault?”
Troy wiped his face with his free hand. “What the hell is it to you?”
The tip of the knife pierced skin in the next spot.
Baker howled. It really wasn’t that bad, but the alcohol magnified everything. This technique didn’t hurt nearly as much as numerousothers Clint could have used. It was the watching it happen that got to the victim.
“We had a fight!” he screamed. “He told me that he cheated on Heather that night.”
Clint wasn’t sure her boyfriend’s cheating was relevant to her murder, but pursued it anyway. “That’s it?”
Baker pointed the best glare a drunk could muster at Clint. “He was with another girl the night my sister was murdered.”
“That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?” Didn’t sound right to Clint.
Baker’s face fell into grim defeat. “I wanted to kill you,” he admitted. “You came back here and tore all our lives apart.” He stared at his bloody hand, at the knife Clint still held over him. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve lost everything I care about.” He settled his drunken gaze on Clint. “You should just cut my throat and put me out of my misery.”
“You didn’t kill Turner?”
A long pause of obvious confusion. “Why the hell would I tell you if I did?”
The fear and uncertainty in his eyes told Clint he wasn’t getting more than that.
Clint pushed out of his chair. He grabbed a clean dishcloth from one of the drawers he’d looked in before and wrapped Baker’s hand.
Before leaving, Clint picked up the receiver of the kitchen extension and punched in 911. He placed it on the counter. When no one responded, an officer would be dispatched. Baker would survive the injury to his hand, but Clint wasn’t altogether sure the guy was safe from himself or whoever the hell had killed Turner and Ray.
Clint wiped the knife clean and tossed it into the sink. “Sober up, Baker.”
