JACK KIRKLAND
Jack had almost lost it on his own front porch, gut-punched with worry that Rachel was dead or in the hospital, something so unthinkable it had to be said in person.
He was almost right. The unthinkable part was true. Martha Gardiner thought they—he and Rachel—had something to do with Danielle Zander’s murder.
That woman had been obsessed with this case since I beat her ass, Jack thought. But he’d never imagined she’d sink to such depths. Standing in his living room, offering this load of bull. She was delusional. Possibly insane. Definitely dangerous.
He leaned back in his chair, crossed arms over his chest. Tried to pretend he was amused about this, not enraged. Rage could come later. Now he needed information. This whole thing was spurious. A tactic. Starting with that warrant.
He could tell it was bogus the moment he read it. No sane judge would have signed such a generic piece of crap. Unless Gardiner had Saunders in her pocket, which, of course, she might. Was this another corner she’d cut? Another rule she’d manipulated? Gardiner was arrogant, had always been, but she’d plummeted over the edge.
“How’d you even get this case, Gardiner?” That’d bothered him ever since Rachel divulged she was working on it. “You think Danielle Zander was killed in Middlesex? In your new jurisdiction? And then, let’s see. You think Rachel and I toted her, maybe in my car, to the statehouse parking lot and dumped her body there? When, why, how? And while we’re at it. How do you think I knew Rachel back then—that we’d hooked up while she was on my jury?”
“You two got married at City Hall?” Gardiner pointed toward the framed photos on the piano. She crossed in front of him. Picked one up.
Jack held himself back, had to, from leaping up and snatching it from her hand.
“Happy couple,” she said. “How much younger is she than you are?”
“What?”
“Ever wonder—why she picked you?”
“Picked?” Jack tried to ignore his impulse to pick up the fireplace poker and bash the hell out of the woman. “Give me a break, Gardiner. This is beneath you. Even you.”
Gardiner put the photo back on the piano. Something thudded on the floor upstairs. Then again. Jack imagined their mattresses flipped over, landing on the crazy white rugs Rachel chose. A door slammed. What the hell were they looking for? Or was Gardiner, relishing her power, simply screwing with him?
“Where is she, anyway?” Jack imagined the worst. In a cell or custody. But if she’d been arrested, she would have called him. Rachel knew the rules.
“Like I said. Rachel’s fine.” Gardiner returned to her spot in the entryway, glanced upstairs, then glanced at her watch. Recrossed her arms as if to demonstrate she was in charge. “You can be in touch with her soon.”
“Let me ask you…” Jack stood, mimicking her crossed arms and her supercilious attitude. “While we wait for your thug upstairs to finish whatever goose chase he’s on, let me get your take on something. It’s about the Marcus Dorn case.”
“Your pillar of the community? Your security-guard slasher?”
“Be that as it may. Off the record, tell me what happened to my disappearing witness. Remember? The one the feds suddenly ‘detained’? Out of the clear frigging blue?”
A shadow passed over Gardiner’s face. “Why should I?”
“Yeah, well.” Jack sat on the arm of the chair. Supercasual. “You might be hearing from my people about it. Working on the appeal. You know?”
Jack waited a beat, then walked to the bay window, yanked open the curtains. Saw the cruiser and the unmarked Chevy. He waved at whoever was out there waiting for Gardiner’s exit. Another car was paused at the stop sign. He turned back to Gardiner, who was leaning against the wall, watching him. “And while we’re at it. Deacon Davis?”
“Another in your loss column, Jack, if I remember correctly.”
“Back then,” Jack went on, ignoring her sarcasm, “your court-officer lackeys told you about the two ‘not guilty’ jurors, didn’t they? And you got them excused. But hey—did you know they’re all getting together again? To nail you and your cronies? They’re getting ready to drop a dime to Clea Rourke—did you know that?”
Gardiner’s face changed. “Clea Rourke?”
She was worried. Good. Time to push.
“What other inside information have your courthouse rats divulged?” Jack returned to his perch on the arm of the leather chair, refusing to sit on the couch like a suspect. Or stand like a combatant. “Did Deacon Davis somehow figure out he’d been railroaded? And then—before he could contact me—he got killed in prison. Pretty damn odd. You know, his sister’s convinced you made it happen.” Jack shook his head. “Yeah, wacky. But the sister’s talking to Clea, too. And you know our Clea. Murder for hire, with you bankrolling it? That’s a big damn headline.”
Gardiner pressed her lips together. Jack could tell she was considering. If she’s smart, Jack thought, she won’t react.
“What’ll that do to your career, Martha? Everyone knows you’re gunning to be the next AG. Jury tampering, witness tampering, and murder?” Jack pushed even harder. Until he calculated his next move, he needed to keep this playing field level. Sure, this was all Gardiner’s obsession. Her revenge. But she had power, and knew how to use it. She could ruin his life. And Rachel’s. He would not let that happen. “And what do you think the bar overseers will say about that?”
More sounds from upstairs. The warrant was open on the coffee table, an instrument of prosecutorial power.
“They’ll laugh,” Gardiner said, waving him off. “They know as well as you do that court officers always talk. Am I supposed to tell them to keep quiet? I’m sure you’ve never gotten information from them.” She raised a dismissive eyebrow. “Besides. Your clients were guilty as sin.”
“You threw those cases, Gardiner.” Jack leaned forward, stabbed a forefinger at her. “You engineered those jurors’ dismissals with the help of a complicit judge. The same one who signed this ridiculous warrant.”
“You’re watching too much TV, Jack.”
“Possibly. Possibly.” He tried to not smile. His accusations were pretty much right out of Rachel’s imagination, but from Martha’s reaction, they might not be far off the mark. Plus, Deacon Davis. This was for him, too. “But when Clea Rourke gets her teeth into a story, well. You know those TV types.”
Gardiner gestured toward the wedding photo. “Jack? I know a different story your Clea—oh, yes, I know about you and her—might be interested in.” She walked toward it, touched the silver frame with one finger. “What if your beloved Rachel has forgotten about her vow of ‘for better, for worse’? And has decided to do what’s better—for her?”
“What?”
“Just throwing this out to you. She came to work this morning as usual. But have you heard from her? No? So, say we confronted her with our evidence. Say we offered her a deal. She gives you up for the murder—or else we take her in. She’s no dummy, Jack. You or her? You know her better than I do. What do you think she’d do?”
That was Gardiner’s fantasy. Her attempt to distract him from her own transgressions. To take the heat off herself and put it back on him. They were playing courtroom in his living room. Prosecution and defense. But here they didn’t have to play by any rules.
“What evidence?” he asked.
Her phone rang, a nasty trill.
“Yes?” She held up a palm, turned away from him.
Jack stared at the wedding photo. Gardiner was right, it had been Rachel who—he supposed, thinking about it now—had pushed to get married. But wasn’t that what women did? She hadn’t even bought a new dress for the occasion, though he’d urged her to. “It’s not about a dress,” she’d told him one night when she wasn’t wearing anything at all. “It’s about you and me, together forever no matter what.”
Now Gardiner was suggesting Rachel sent her here. To rat him out? Or frame him? Did Martha think Rachel killed Danielle Zander?
The first to talk is the first to walk, that was a law school cliché. Which by now in Rachel’s classes, she’d heard more than once.
But if the other person in the equation knew nothing about the crime, it was not about the first to talk. It was about the first to lie.