62

They were halfway to Richmond before Nikki dialed Randolph’s cell. Wellington rode shotgun, his knuckles white from the speed, his face drained of blood by the plan Nikki had concocted. He was too scared to even lecture Nikki about talking on her cell while driving. At least she didn’t break out the makeup.

God was with them. Randolph answered.

“Preston, it’s Nikki. Got a second?”

Randolph mumbled something about a court hearing, but Nikki pretended he had said yes.

“Two things; I’ll be quick. First, I received an e-mail from you about an hour ago claiming you were leaving the practice of law and going to work at some new company named Passion, Inc. When I dialed the 800 number, I got a porn line.”

“It’s a virus,” Randolph explained. “It sent the same message to everyone in my Outlook database. But my secretary said the 800 number was some telemarketing group, not a porn line.”

Nikki shot a sideways glance at Wellington, who quickly gazed out the side window. It was supposed to be a porn line, but her partner in crime apparently couldn’t bring himself to do that.

“We had the same thing hit our computers last week at the Norfolk Courthouse,” Nikki claimed. “Did you hear about that?”

“No.”

“I think they call this virus Insidious or something like that. Anyway, we had our own guys mess around with our computers for about three days, and then we called this one firm that apparently specializes in this type of thing. They fixed it in about two hours.”

She heard Randolph talking to somebody in the background. She wanted to reach across the line and slap him.

“Say that again,” Randolph said.

Nikki repeated herself and this time Randolph bit. “Can you call my assistant and give her that number?” Randolph asked. “I’m out of the office right now.”

Nikki nudged Wellington and gave him a thumbs-up when he looked her way. “Okay, Preston. But I’ve also got something a lot more serious and really need to meet with you about this issue right away.”

“Um . . .” She could hear the tension in his voice. “I really can’t right now, Nikki. I’ve got a thousand things going on. I just left a hearing in federal court, and I’ve got two pleadings to file by day’s end. Can we do it later by phone?”

“An investigative reporter called me, Preston. A friend of mine from Norfolk. He says he’s going to run a story on the eleven o’clock news that you’re involved in some kind of fraud with the Faith on Trial show. I can probably keep him from running it if I call in all my chips, but I really need to get a few things straight with you first.”

“Hang on a second,” Randolph said. He apparently stepped into someplace quiet, since the background noise disappeared.

“What’s his name?” Randolph asked.

“Byron Waterman,” Nikki replied. “Works for WVAR, a local affiliate of a major network. He’s been following Judge Finney’s exploits pretty closely, and I think Finney somehow managed to communicate with him.”

“How soon can you meet?”

“I’m on my way right now,” Nikki said. “Can you meet me someplace in Fredericksburg?”

“Fredericksburg?”

Yeah, Nikki thought. A city where the commonwealth’s attorney is a good friend of Mitchell Taylor’s. “It’s an hour south of DC,” she said, stating the obvious. “I thought it might save us some time.”

Finney exercised no self-control at lunch, gorging himself on a large roast-beef-and-cheese sandwich, french fries, soup, and two kinds of dessert. He started cramping up almost immediately.

The three contestants who didn’t make the finals were told to pack their bags and report to the courthouse for one final cross-examination session. The helicopter would pick them up at four.

The Feds should have been here by now, Finney thought. Something is very wrong. He was sure that Wellington would have decoded the message about getting the Feds involved. But the message pointing to Preston Randolph was far more difficult. If Wellington and Nikki hadn’t figured that message out, if they had somehow confided in Randolph about the coded messages . . . no, that wasn’t possible. Finney wouldn’t let himself entertain those thoughts. One of Nikki’s messages had assured him that Randolph didn’t know about their code talking. Surely she would not have involved Randolph when she went to the Feds.

Maybe the Feds had already arrested Randolph. Maybe they were preparing to swoop down on the island at this very moment. And even if they weren’t, Finney was pretty sure that the only contestants in danger now were the two finalists. He still thought it all came down to the speedy-trial cases somehow, though he couldn’t quite make that final link.

But he also knew that being pretty sure wasn’t good enough, not when the price for being wrong could be the lives of his fellow contestants. He believed that Kareem had been set up when he searched Murphy’s computer. The message Kareem had found—containing scenarios in which all the contestants were killed—was therefore fraudulent. Or perhaps, as Hadji suggested, Kareem had made it all up.

But one thing that didn’t neatly fit into Finney’s theory was the fact that Kareem had made the finals. And if Finney was wrong about his theory, the other contestants could still be in danger, and the consequences would be dire. It could happen in a thousand different ways. A staged helicopter accident. Food poisoning. A plane accident.

Unless Finney could prevent the possibility with one bold, preemptive stroke . . .

He found McCormack setting up for another shoot at the courthouse. Finney demanded a meeting in the library. Immediately. Bring Cameron Murphy. No cameras.

“Why should we agree to that?” McCormack asked.

“Because you want me to stick around for the finals. And if this meeting doesn’t happen, I’ll quit.”

Nikki pulled her Sebring into a spot on the side of the truck stop where she had agreed to meet Randolph. The location had been her idea. Always keep your opponent off-balance by meeting on unfamiliar turf. What could be more unfamiliar to Randolph than a truck stop?

She handed Wellington the keys. “Randolph won’t be here for another hour or so,” she said. “He didn’t know I was already on my way when I called him, and I wanted to give you time to get to his office and send me copies of any juicy e-mails.”

Wellington climbed into the driver’s seat, speechless.

Nikki checked to make sure Byron’s smartphone was in her purse. It gave her Internet access, e-mail access, and cell phone all in one. She double-checked to ensure it was on vibrate. “You’ve got Byron’s e-mail address, right?”

It was the third time she had asked Wellington and the third time he promised that he did.

Next, she tested the hidden camera Byron had stitched into the front of her Fendi Spy bag. “Can you tell he’s cut out a piece of the purse for the camera?” she asked Wellington.

“You can hardly see it,” Wellington said.

But the big problem was the hidden mike and the small battery pack. Byron said the mike wouldn’t pick up well from inside Nikki’s purse. But she couldn’t hide the mike in her sheer silk V-neck top or skintight jeans.

She tried hiding it in her bra. “Can you see the mike?” she asked Wellington.

“No,” he said, though he was too polite to look very hard.

“Yes, you can,” Nikki said, checking it out in the window of the car. “This’ll never work.”

Then she had another idea. “Is your ODU cap still in the backseat?” Nikki had thrown the hat in the back earlier, brushing her thick hair out as much as possible.

“Sure,” Wellington said, fishing it out.

“I’ll be right back.” Nikki took the hat and went into the truck stop to grab a large plastic coffee cup. She rolled the bill of the hat and stuffed it inside the cup, then placed the cup and hat under the rear tire of her Sebring.

“Back up a little,” she told Wellington.

He looked at Nikki as if she had lost her mind, but then he backed up anyway, running over the hat.

Nikki retrieved it and put it on her head. This time, the bill curved like a normal hat, except it still looked brand-new. Not much she could do about that right now.

Nikki handed Wellington the mike and the hat. “Will you attach the mike to the underside of the bill of that cap?” she said. “I’m going inside to get a T-shirt that will go better with my outfit. I look like a moron wearing this top and a baseball hat.”

She returned a few minutes later with a pink Virginia Is for Lovers T-shirt. She hated pink and she hated the shirt, but it wasn’t exactly the Gap in there.

She climbed into the back of the Sebring and changed while Wellington kept his eyes glued straight ahead. She put on the hat and checked herself out in the windows again. The mike was invisible on the bill, and the battery pack was nestled under the hat.

Now her major concern was the petrified look on her partner’s face. “You can do this, Wellington,” she said, trying to sound confident. “A man’s life might depend on it.”

“I know,” Wellington said. But his words came out with more of a squeak than usual. “I’ll try.”