The conference room, located a few doors down the hall from the D.A.'s office, seemed stiflingly hot. The ceiling fan overhead wasn't moving; somewhere above him, Duncan could hear the droning buzz of a fly bouncing off the wall.
The place obviously doubled as a library; except for an open rectangle to accommodate the single door, all four walls, from floor to ceiling, were lined with shelves holding ponderous legal tomes. But the rectangular, windowless room—Duncan estimated it at twelve-by-fourteen feet, tops—wasn't nearly large enough. There was barely enough space to pull out a chair and sit at the table without bumping into the bookshelves behind. Every time he moved the slightest bit, he knocked into something. He was beginning to feel as if the walls were closing in on him.
"Where is she?" Duncan ground his teeth and drummed his fingers on the scarred wooden tabletop.
The "she" in question was the assistant D.A., a woman named Elise Glass, who was obviously trying to make it in a man's world because she couldn't get a man. A homely, flat-faced woman with dishwater hair and, in Duncan's estimation, barely above average intelligence, Glass had telephoned Boxer O'Malley yesterday afternoon and proposed a meeting, the subject of which she had refused to reveal. O'Malley was pretty sure she wanted to cut a deal, since she obviously—in O'Malley's words—"didn't have squat" in the way of evidence.
But if Elise Glass were running scared, her actions this morning certainly didn't indicate it. "She called this meeting, and so far she's kept us waiting—" he glanced at his gold wrist watch, "twenty-five minutes. Doesn't she know that I'm—"
Duncan was about to say, that I'm an important elected official with a town to run, but he stopped himself. The fact was, he no longer held public office, no longer had urgent business demanding his attention, no longer could claim anything, in fact, of what had once been his life.
Jack put a hand on his arm. "Take it easy, pal. Calm down. You know the drill. She calls us here, keeps us on ice, tries to psych us out. It's a power play."
Duncan stared at Jack. Since when had his attorney started talking like a B-grade private detective in the movies?
"Don't tell me to take it easy!" Duncan shot back. "Don't tell me to calm down!" He rolled his chair back from the table and hit the bookcase so hard that the volumes above him shifted and threatened to come down on his head. He jerked at his collar, dislodging the top button, and loosened his tie. "It's sweltering in here."
Jack dragged a sweating pitcher of water from the center of the table and poured a glass full. "Look, Duncan," he said, cutting a glance at O'Malley, who sat at the far end of the table, "this is exactly what they want. They want us to be nervous, to get rattled. But we've got nothing to be rattled about. The only proof they have hinges on CeCe's testimony about the molestation. And that charge has already been thrown out." He pushed the water in Duncan's direction. "Take a deep breath,now, and when the D.A. gets here, try to keep your mouth shut and let Boxer do the talking."
Duncan nodded, drained the glass, and poured another. "Okay. I'm— I'm all right." He took a few short, shallow breaths. But he wasn't all right. He felt as if a million tiny spiders were running up and down along his nerve endings. The room was getting smaller by the minute. And then, just as he feared he might start climbing the walls, the door opened.
Duncan looked up. Elise Glass entered, carrying a cardboard file box and wearing an ill-fitting navy pantsuit. Two other figures followed close on her heels and seated themselves on the opposite side of the table. Diedre and . . .
Her.
Duncan felt his insides lurch. He had seen her in the square, on the morning of his arrest, but except for that brief glimpse, he hadn't laid eyes on his elder daughter for more than twenty years.
He remembered it as if it were yesterday—the wild, disbelieving look she gave him, the fear in her eyes, the way her dark, wavy hair tumbled around her face. She had been—what? Fifteen, sixteen? Barely grown, still with that gangly, coltish appearance.
But old enough. Old enough to give him what he needed. Old enough to bear a child. Old enough to know to keep her mouth shut.
He glanced in her direction again. She wasn't a child any longer. She was a woman, older than Cecilia had been when it first happened. She could have been Cecilia, for that matter, sitting there with her hands folded in her lap, avoiding his gaze. The wife who had withdrawn from him, despised him. The wife who told him she hated what he had become.
It was her fault. Everything was her fault. . .
Amber hadn't been in a room with her father for more than two decades, and seeing him now, up close, shook her to the core. What would he do? What would he say?
She could feel his eyes on her, scrutinizing her; she reached to straighten her collar. But her hands, still bandaged, moved clumsily, and she dropped them back into her lap.
She ventured a glance at him out of the corner of her eyes. He was older, beefier, his face red, his eyes bloodshot. A thin sheen of sweat shone on his upper lip, and his tie had been loosened and lay crookedly below his Adam's apple. Not the man she remembered as being a meticulous dresser, scrupulous about his appearance.
With Daddy, it had always been about appearances. Keeping up a good front, making other people believe you were smarter or richer or more savvy than you really were. He had always been smooth; she'd give him that much. He had pulled himself out of that swamp of poverty and disgrace into which he had been born by sheer force of personality and an iron will. Even his marriage to her mother, Amber believed, had been a calculated act designed to improve his image.
And it had worked. He had made it—until now.
Diedre, Amber noticed, had not so much as glanced at him since they entered the room. Now she nudged Amber and whispered, "Look at him. He looks awful."
"I thought so, too. But I haven't seen him in twenty years."
Diedre shook her head. "Something in his eyes. He was always so composed, so in control. Now he looks like he's coming apart at the seams."
The defense attorney had begun speaking, and they fell silent. "Well, Ms. Glass," he said, emphasizing the Ms., "we're all assembled, as requested. This is your meeting. I'm listening."
Elise Glass reached into her box and removed several thick file folders, clapping them down on the table. "These are records from the office of your client, Mr. Underwood. After a thorough investigation, aided by a former legal assistant of Mr. Underwood's, we have uncovered a trail of evidence that points to your clients' collusion in falsifying legal documents—namely, the birth certificate of Diedre Chaney McAlister. We also have information on a cash payment made to one Silas B. Willis, a convicted felon known as Shiv, for various criminal acts."
"Pamela Langley?" Jack burst out. "Pamela helped you? I'll kill her, I swear—"
"If I were you, Mr. O'Malley, I would advise my client not to further incriminate himself."
"Shut up, Jack," O'Malley growled.
But Jack wouldn't shut up. "It's a bluff, Boxer," he insisted. "I fired Pamela Langley, so she'll say whatever they want her to say. They can't prove a thing without Shiv's testimony, and they can't find him."
"Mr. Willis is in custody even as we speak," Elise corrected smoothly. "He has agreed to testify, and he'll say enough to put your clients away for, oh, at least seven to ten. On each count." She smiled briefly. "An aggravated child molestation conviction would have gotten Mr. McAlister thirty, but by the time we're done, it'll add up to about the same."
Amber watched as her father's face went an odd shade of gray. He tugged at the knot of his tie and exhaled heavily.
"If you're so certain of your case," O'Malley said, "why are we here?"
Elise's gaze flitted to Amber and Diedre, then back to the defense attorney. "Mr. McAlister's daughters have endured a great deal of suffering at his hands—particularly Amber Chaney, the elder daughter. They need closure and resolution. They don't need to be further abused by the trauma of a trial. Let's save the state the cost—"
"Enough of the bleeding-heart speech," O'Malley interrupted. "What are you offering?"
As if through a fog, Duncan heard the woman's words.
"They plead guilty and serve the minimum time on each count. Seven years for each charge—a total of twenty-one. With any luck, they'll be out in fifteen."
"Ridiculous," Boxer O'Malley shot back. "Absolutely absurd. What have you got? An ex-con who's agreed to roll for a reduced sentence and an indignant bimbo who lost her job and has a beef with her employer. Not exactly unimpeachable or objective witnesses. Unless you can give me one good reason why I should even consider this offer, we'll take our chances at trial."
"Restitution," the woman said quietly.
"What do you mean, restitution?"
"Your clients have caused Miss Chaney and Miss McAlister immeasurable harm. They called him—" she pointed at Underwood, " Uncle Jack. Did you know that? He was like a member of the family. They trusted him. And him—" her accusatory finger swung around and aimed like a pistol at Duncan's chest, "they called Daddy. He raped his older daughter, stole her child, had her committed to a mental institution, lied to the younger one, and together he and his attorney conspired to cover up the crimes. They hired Shiv Willis to do their dirty work, and if Willis hadn't bungled the job, they probably would have succeeded in killing Miss Chaney." She paused and leveled her gaze on Boxer. "Neither of your clients has ever once taken any responsibility for the ruin they brought to these two young women's lives. Plead them out, O'Malley. Let them stand in open court and say, 'Guilty.'"
All during her speech, Duncan had struggled to keep a firm grip on his resolution to stay quiet. But the tiny conference room was as close as a coffin; it had begun to shift, just slightly, and he felt his head reeling. He couldn't breathe. The assistant D.A.'s litany of his sins ground into his brain like salt on a gaping wound, and the final word, guilty, pierced like a red-hot knife into his skull. An invisible jackhammer slammed into his temple, pounding . . . pounding . . .
"No!" he yelled, jumping to his feet so quickly that his chair flung itself against the bookcase behind him and bounced back to clip him in the knees. "She's the one who's guilty!"
He watched as his arm stretched out and his finger, shaking violently, pointed at the woman sitting across from him. His daughter. Or was it his wife? He couldn't tell, couldn't quite remember. For a moment he felt as if he had been lifted from his own body and was watching the scene from high above—from the ceiling fan, or the top of one of the tall bookcases. Maybe he had become that fly which had been buzzing around all morning. Maybe he was dead . . .
His voice came again, sounding oddly strained and foreign to his ears. "She got what was coming to her! It was my right; she had a duty to me! She wanted it!"
"Shut up, Duncan. Shut up NOW!"
He heard Boxer's strangled plea, but paid it no mind. "We worked it all out, you and I, didn't we, Jack? It was brilliant. A mental institution—that would keep her quiet, and even if she told, who'd believe her? She was crazy! She could have ruined everything, but we took care of it."
The hammering in his head grew louder, and his daughter's face swam before his eyes, as if she were submerged in shallow water. "Nobody knew, did they? Nobody knew the secret. We kept it from them all, didn't we, Jack? Even Cecilia didn't know. Then why did she stop loving me? Why did she turn away and say those terrible things to me?"
O'Malley was yelling now, trying to get control of the situation. But Duncan had the floor, and he wasn't about to relinquish it. They were going to hear him out, and then they'd understand. "We fooled them all, didn't we, Jack?" he shouted. "I made it. I was respectable, honored. Everybody loved me. They even put a bronze plaque of me on the courthouse . . . "
Both of his hands were stretched out now, shaking uncontrollably, as if they had suddenly developed Parkinson's disease. He watched them with detached curiosity as they reached in her direction. "I loved you. I always loved you. Just like your mama, so pure and beautiful and undefiled. But you couldn't keep quiet, could you? You had to talk, had to tell—," one hand wavered in Diedre's direction, "had to tell her."
Jack reached for him, trying to pull him back down into the chair. "Get off me!" he screamed. "You know this is her fault! If she had just kept her mouth shut—if she had only stayed away. And now it's gone . . . gone. Everything's gone, all because of her. She's the one. SHE'S THE GUILTY ONE . . ."
Amber sat frozen in her seat as her father disintegrated into a quivering heap. She felt Diedre next to her, holding onto her, sobbing against her shoulder, but she couldn't move.
Jack stood behind Daddy with both forearms clenched around his chest as if to keep him from jumping up again. But there was no danger of that. The man who had once been her father had no place left to go.
"We'll take the deal," the defense attorney was saying in a subdued voice. "Notify the judge and tell her we're changing the plea."