Free Just Take My Heart by Mary Higgins Clark Page A

behind him in court was as welcome as a warm blanket would be to someone in the throes of hypothermia. But sometimes he simply needed to be alone.
    This was one of the evenings Katie had gone out to dinner. Gregg had promised her that he would order room service from the club in the building, but after she left, he poured himself a double scotch over ice and settled down in the den, the remote television clicker in his hand. He intended to watch Courtside, but before then he needed to search his memory.
    At their meeting a few hours earlier, Richard and Cole Moore had warned him that Jimmy Easton would be on the witness stand tomorrow and that the whole case hung on his credibility as a witness. "Gregg, the crucial, absolutely crucial statement he'll make is when he talks about meeting with you in the apartment," Richard had warned.
    "I'll ask you again. Is there any chance he was ever there?"
    Gregg knew his response had been heated. "I never had a meeting with that liar in my apartment and don't ask me about it again." But he was haunted by the question. How could Easton possibly claim he was here? Or am I going crazy?
    Now, as he took a sip of the scotch, Gregg found himself bracing for his nightly viewing of Courtside, but when it came on, the soothing effect that the fine single-malt scotch had offered vanished. Seventy-five percent of the viewers who had responded to the Courtside Web site poll thought he was guilty.
    Seventy-five percent! Gregg thought incredulously. Seventy-five percent!
    A clip from the trial showing Emily Wallace looking directly at him came onto the screen. The expression of disdain and contempt she conveyed made him cringe now as it had in the courtroom. Everyone watching this program was seeing it, too. "Innocent until proven guilty," he thought bitterly. She's doing a mighty good job of proving I'm guilty.
    Aside from the obvious, there was something about Emily Wallace that was unsettling him. One of the panelists on Courtside had called her performance "pure theatre." He's right, Gregg thought, as he closed his eyes and lowered the volume of the television. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the folded sheet of paper that was like so many others he had scribbled on during the day in court. He had been doing some calculation. The rental car had 15,200 miles on it when he picked it up, and when he returned it 680
    miles had been added. Five hundred and forty would account for the round trip from Manhattan to the Cape. He'd driven back and forth between the motel in Hyannis and Natalie's home in Dennis five times between Saturday afternoon and Sunday evening. About 20 miles each round trip. At the most that would use up another 100 miles or so.
    Just enough mileage left for me to have driven to Natalie's house that Monday morning, killed her, and been back in Manhattan on schedule, Gregg thought. Could I have done that? When did I ever jog for over two hours? Was I so out of it that I don't remember going there?
    Could I have left her bleeding to death?
    He opened his eyes and turned up the volume with the remote. His former close friend Michael Gordon was saying: "Tomorrow there should be fireworks in court when the state's star witness, Jimmy Easton, testifies that he was hired by Gregg Aldrich to mur-der his estranged wife, acclaimed actress Natalie Raines."
    Gregg pushed the off button on the remote and finished his drink.

18
    "Your Honor, the state calls James Easton."
    The door leading from the holding cell opened. Easton emerged, walking slowly toward the witness chair, escorted by sheriffs officers on either side of him. As she looked at him, an expression that had been a favorite of her grandmother's rushed through Emily's mind: "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."
    Jimmy was wearing the dark blue suit, white shirt, and patterned blue tie that Emily had personally selected for his appearance in court. Under protest, he had gotten a haircut from the jailhouse bar-ber,