“I’ll take the stairs,” Jane said as Fiola stabbed the “up” button in the station’s glass-walled lobby. Channel 2’s elevator was notoriously unreliable. Jane had once checked the inspection record, handwritten in spidery script with what looked like a fountain pen, and it appeared no one from the state’s Inspectional Services had checked the thing since the blizzard of 2000. Stairs were healthier anyway, and she had to get exercise somehow, since her gym attendance was equally out of date. She yanked open the heavy metal stairwell door and held it ajar with her back, about to wave to Fiola, who’d snagged a Register from the stack on the guard’s desk.
“Fee? Anything in the paper about The Reserve?” Jane asked.
“Hang on.” Fiola flapped open the paper just as the elevator arrived. “See you in a sec.” She stepped inside and the doors closed behind her.
“It worked? Amazing,” Jane muttered. She entered the windowless stairwell of pitted metal banisters and scarred walls peeling their once-green paint. Tromping up the stairs, she tried to focus on how many calories she was burning per step. Her buzzing phone interrupted the count.
“Jane Ryland.” She made it to the landing, grabbed the newel post, swung around the corner to the next flight.
“Assistant District Attorney Frank McCusker,” she heard. “You’re sprung.”
Jane stopped, mid-step, mid-stairway. “Sprung?”
“Yeah. As in, off the hook. In the clear. Excused. You’re livin’ right, Miz Ryland. The driver of the Cadillac has come forward, turned himself in. So all good, we got our man. The judge is aware, nonsuggestive ID session is canceled, life goes on. Justice served.”
Without me, Jane thought. She felt her shoulders sag, almost imagined a black cloud lifting to the ceiling and floating out through the air-conditioning vent. She didn’t have to say anything. If that letter was a warning about her testimony, now it didn’t matter.
“Terrific,” she said.
“We’ll let you know if we need any more,” McCusker went on, “but at this point, seems slam-dunk. I mean—this guy’s all ‘I’m doing the right thing’ and about his ‘guilty conscience,’ I don’t know. Some bullsh—” Jane listened with amusement as the ADA apparently reconsidered his language. “Whatever. He’s here. He’s making a statement now.”
“Who is it? Did he say why he ran?”
“All I can tell you, he’s cooperating like a good little criminal,” McCusker said. “I foresee a plea, probation, and some kind of restitution. And on we go.”
Goodbye, widow’s-peak-and-cheekbones guy. Goodbye, nasty letter. “Middle-aged guilt, I guess, right?”
“Middle-aged?”
Jane heard the confusion in McCusker’s voice.
“Yeah,” Jane said. “Maybe older.”
“Uh, no.” McCusker paused, cleared his throat. “The driver is barely twenty-five. That’s why he skedaddled. He thought his insurance rates would kill him.”
Jane stared at the blotchy wall, then sank to the middle stair, sitting with her feet planted on a lower step. When in doubt, don’t say a word, an irreversible law of the universe, she knew, and I should have kept my mouth shut the wail of regret from centuries of rueful chatterboxes who realized, yet again, they should have left well enough alone. Know when to shut up, her father used to tell her and her sister.
Now, with her one throwaway question about middle-aged guilt, Jane had said too much.
“Jane?” McCusker’s voice dragged her back from her spiral of remorse. “You with me?”
“I lost you for a second—bad connection,” Jane lied. “I’m in the stairwell, and on my way to the office. Want to call me later?”
“What do you mean, ‘middle-aged’?” McCusker’s voice had an edge to it. “Can you hear me now? If we’ve got the wrong guy—”
Jane grabbed the banister, hauled herself to her feet. If she kept quiet, she was letting an innocent person plead guilty to something. She’d seen the driver, completely, consciously, indelibly. He was not a kid.
“Does your guy know I’m a witness?” Jane asked.
Silence. “I’m not sure I can reveal that,” the DA finally said. “Why?”
Her turn to be silent. She’d had that one moment of freedom, of relief that she no longer had to rat out a bad guy in front of a courtroom audience and a defense attorney and who knew who else. The bad guy had presented himself to law enforcement. Good news, except it was the wrong guy. Cue the quicksand.
“The driver I saw was definitely older.”
“Shit,” the ADA said.
Jane opened the door marked “Floor 2,” saw the hallway outside the Special Projects Unit and its framed posters of network shows, some of which had already been canceled. Only the smiling stars remained on display, all photoshopped and flatteringly lighted, blithely believing their shows would never become victims of bad promotion or bad writing or bad ratings.
Had Jane gotten it wrong, too? For a fleeting moment, she almost hoped so. Hoped that possibly, in the heat of the moment, she’d made a mistake. She sighed, shaking her head. In hard reality, there wasn’t any heat of the moment. She wasn’t wrong.
“You sure?” McCusker went on.
“Yeah. The man I saw was definitely—”
“Again, don’t describe him,” the ADA said. “We’ll hold this guy, nonetheless. But as for you, it’s back to plan A. Be in courtroom 206, at two. If we’ve got an innocent person confessing to a hit-and-run, that’s a whole ’nother problem. We’ll see who you recognize. If anyone. Remember, the driver, the one who confessed at least, may not be in court.”
So near and yet so far. She continued toward her office, dragging her feet, wondering, again, about that stupid letter. Wondering about bringing the station lawyer to court with her to make sure she didn’t say more than she should, though it might already be too late for that. But there was one more thing she had to ask McCusker.
“Why would he confess?” She’d broken a big story a few months earlier where a confession was key. As long as she was hopelessly ensnared in this, might as well get some answers. “Did he confess to the other hit-and-run, too?”
She paused in the hallway, eager to hear the answer. Two hit-and-runs by the same guy? That’d be a story.
“‘Other hit-and-run’?” the ADA asked.
Jane opened her office door. Fiola had the phone tucked between her cheek and shoulder, apparently taking notes on her computer. That white envelope was still on Jane’s desk. She’d tell McCusker about it in person.
“Jane? What other hit-and-run?” McCusker repeated.
“Sorry, I’m still in the stairwell,” Jane tried the lie again.
“Very convenient,” he said. “Well, listen, Jane. If you can hear me? Two things. One? See you at two. And as for the ‘other hit-and-run,’ that’s one phone call to the cop shop. So again, thanks for your help. We do welcome it when the media steps in to help law enforcement. Much appreciated.”
“Gah.” Jane stuck her tongue out at her cell phone as she clicked him away. Fiola hung up her call at the same time.
“Who was that?” Fiola asked. “Listen, I’ve set us up with the campus big sisters, so we’ll get a bunch of good stuff from them. SAFE, it’s called. They’re like, advocates, buddies, support systems. Victims, too, some of them.” She rubbed her palms together. “They’re happy to give us the scoop. Don’t you love it when someone spills the beans?”
“Yeah,” Jane said. At least Fiola didn’t know about the DA’s phone call. Far as this afternoon was concerned, nothing had changed. “That’ll be great. When?”
Jane’s desk phone trilled, the double ring that meant an outside call.
“Now what?” Jane picked up the receiver. “Jane Ryland.” Better not be McCusker again. Like, asking if the station had raw video of the other hit-and-run. All she needed.
“Jane?” A woman’s voice, tentative. “It’s Tosca.”