Justice

by Karen Robards

  No answer except for more curious looks.

  Unmoving except for her turning head, Jess gave up on calling and instead did her best to see into the closest of the lighted storefronts, hoping to discover Tiffany inside. Catching a glimmer of blond hair through the plate-glass window that fronted the Library Bar, she hurried toward it. The inside of the bar was only a little brighter than the shadowy expanse of sidewalk she was crossing. Just a few barely glowing overhead lights provided illumination for the bar’s interior. The artful dimness prevented her from seeing anything besides the color of the woman’s hair. A moment later Jess came close enough to discern that the blonde inside was plump and wearing jeans. Definitely not Tiffany.

  Stymied, she stopped some twenty feet short of the bar’s deep red door and once again looked anxiously around.

  “Tiffany?” she called.

  Where could they have gone?

  When a hand clamped around her own arm, Jess jumped a foot in the air.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  It was Mark. Of course it was Mark. Even as her heart had begun its instinctive leap into her throat she’d realized it was him. He’d parked the SUV and followed her. Since she didn’t hear any honking horns, she assumed he’d found a halfway legal spot. Or at least one that didn’t impede the flow of traffic.

  “Jeez, you scared me to death.” Her voice was breathless from her run and recent fright. “I think I saw Tiffany Higgs. Here. With a man.”

  His brow knit. “What, so you just thought you’d hop out of the car and run right on over to say hello?”

  Shrugging an impatient shoulder at him, she pulled free of his grip and returned to scanning the area. The stoplight was red now, tinting everything within its orbit with a hellish glow. There were people everywhere, lots of people, of practically every size and shape and description. None of them was Tiffany.

  “She looked like she was in trouble. This man came up behind her and grabbed her arm and wouldn’t let go. She seemed scared of him. He was wearing a dark suit.”

  “You ever think you might be developing an unhealthy phobia about men in dark suits?”

  Despite the dryness of his tone, that was so absolutely spot-on that she turned narrowing eyes on him. Damn Mark anyway, he knew her too well.

  “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong about what I saw.”

  “You’re not paranoid if they’re really after you, hmm?”

  “That’s right.” She frowned as the traffic that had been waiting at the light surged forward. “Could they have gotten into a car? If they’d headed back toward the metro I’m sure I would have seen them.”

  “Maybe. But the point is, why do you care?”

  “I told you, she looked like she was in trouble.”

  “You’re not even sure it was her.”

  He had her there. “I’m almost sure.” Honesty compelled her to add, “As sure as it’s possible to be without seeing her up close.”

  His mouth twisted. “Whatever, she’s gone now. And if you can’t find her, there’s nothing we can do. Let’s go, I’m parked illegally.” Clamping a hand around her wrist, he started walking back the way they had come, pulling her with him. Typical high-handed Mark. “All things being equal, I’d rather not get towed.”

  “So if the tow truck shows up, flash your badge.”

  Yanking her wrist free, she nonetheless kept pace with him, although she didn’t stop looking around. The alarm she’d felt upon catching sight of Tiffany—and she really was all but positive it was Tiffany—was still there, vibrating across her nerve endings like a shiver of unease, a disconcerting feeling that she couldn’t quite shake. It was possible that Tiffany had disappeared inside another of the nearby buildings, but searching all of the mix of bars and shops and private residences that lined the triangular conjunction of streets was clearly too big a task to undertake with any degree of thoroughness. Besides, the more she thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed that Tiffany and her companion could have reached any of them before Jess had rounded the newsstand and spotted them. It was, therefore, far likelier that they had gotten into a car. And if that was the case, they were long gone.

  All of a sudden Mark stopped.

  “Tell me that’s not your shoe.”

  Stopping too, Jess followed his gaze to discover one of her pumps lying on its side on the pavement. People were sidestepping around it. Casting a condemning glance at her bare feet, which it was obvious he had just noticed, he moved to scoop the shoe up, clearly not needing to hear her answer to know the truth.

  “Channeling Cinderella today?” He turned back to her, shoe in hand. Like the rest of her, her feet were small, and her shoe looked absurdly feminine dangling from his long fingers.

  “They’re too big,” Jess explained. “Christine—the jury consultant—picked them out. To go with this awful suit.”

  “What’s awful about it? Like I said, you look good in pink.” He started humming the theme to The Pink Panther.

  It took her a moment to recognize it. Then she made a face at him. He grinned, and for a moment, as their eyes met, her heart gave a weird little flutter. God, she was crazy about him. No, had been crazy about him. Past tense, although her body couldn’t seem to get with the program. That he should be so staggeringly handsome just wasn’t fair; it was what had gotten her in trouble the first time, when, as special agent in charge of the First Lady’s Secret Service security detail, he’d started accompanying Annette Cooper to the law office where Jess, fresh out of law school, had worked. She’d fallen hard at first sight. He hadn’t known she’d been alive until he’d had to start saving her life. Now, jerking her eyes away from his face in an effort to combat the attraction that was proving as hard to kill as crabgrass, she started walking again, determinedly not looking at him even when he fell in beside her. A couple of steps further on they came across her other shoe. Mark picked it up, too, then handed them both to her. She stopped to put them on. He stopped beside her, but at least this time he showed no disposition to help.

  “Tell me something: if that was Tiffany Higgs,” he said as she stepped into her shoes, “and you had caught up to her and the guy she was with, what were you going to say to her?” His voice took on a sardonic edge. “Beware of men in suits?”

  “Ha ha.”

  “You can’t imagine she wants to talk to you. I doubt you’re her favorite person in the world right now. I hear the DA’s thinking about filing charges against her, for one thing. Maybe you might want to leave her alone for the foreseeable future.”

  “She looked like she was in trouble. I was going to ask her if she needed help.”

  His mouth tightened. “You’re not responsible for everybody in the whole wide world, you know.”

  She flashed a look at him and started walking again in the direction they’d been heading, where, presumably, they would find the Suburban. They’d had that discussion before, once upon a time, and she wasn’t going there now. Bottom line was, how she interacted with the world was no longer any of Mark Ryan’s business. And that, she assured herself, was just the way she wanted it.

  “Tiffany had no reason to recant,” she told him as he caught up to her. “The prosecution was in a good position to win. They knew it. She must have known it. So why, just like that, did she admit that the sex was consensual?”

  “Because it was the truth?”

  Jess snorted.

  “I take it you don’t think so?”

  “I think if it was the truth and she was going to admit it, she would have done so a heck of a lot earlier. Like, before the trial. Having gone so far, why give up when she did, the way she did? She must have known Olderman and the rest of the prosecution would blow a gasket. She must have known she was going to get in trouble.”

  “Maybe you scared her.”

  Jess snorted again.

  “Good point.” He went silent for a moment, thinking it over. “You think somebody got to her.”

  It wasn’t a questio
n. Jess nodded.

  “So welcome to the real world. It happens all the time. Rich guys have been buying wronged women’s silence since the earth began. In this case, the only thing to do is be glad it worked out for you.”

  Jess knew he was right, but she still worried. Tiffany’s demeanor at the end of the trial, coupled with what she had seen tonight, did not add up to avarice appeased, in her opinion. What it added up to was fear. Besides, if all Tiffany had wanted was money, winning the case would have opened the door to a huge payout via civil lawsuit.

  “Maybe she wasn’t bought off,” Jess said slowly. “Maybe she was threatened.”

  “Let it go.” Mark’s tone was abrupt. “She has her own lawyers, her own people to look after her. This is not your problem.”

  “That’s your solution to everything, isn’t it? Just let it go.”

  “At least I don’t go around wearing myself to a frazzle trying to clean up everybody else’s messes.”

  “No, you don’t, do you? You just shrug your shoulders and walk away and leave them to wallow in it—unless it’s Taylor, when you threaten to ship her off to boarding school.”

  Taylor was his fifeen-year-old daughter. She mostly lived with Mark’s ex-wife, but Mark, who adored her without having a clue how to deal with her, got her on weekends and some holidays. Jess liked Taylor, Taylor liked Jess. Even after she and Mark had broken up, she and Taylor had kept in sporadic touch. And thanks to Facebook, Taylor and Maddie, Jess’s youngest sister, were fast friends.

  “Heard about that, did you?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “How?”

  “Jungle drums. I also heard that your daughter’s not talking to you now.”

  “Hey, I caught her boyfriend climbing in through her bedroom window at two a.m. Damn right I threatened to ship her off to boarding school. And it wasn’t an idle threat, either. One more incident like that, and I’ll do it.”

  “You think threatening her is the answer?”

  “It’s better than having her wind up like Maddie.”

  Jess sucked in air. Her voice sharpened dangerously. “Are you talking about my sister?”

  “No. No.” Mark backtracked quickly, looking harassed. “I love Maddie. You know I do. She’s beautiful. Bright. A sweetheart in every way. She’s also eighteen years old and pregnant.”

  The fact that everything he said was true in no way mitigated Jess’s wrath. The straight-A student who’d just missed being valedictorian of her high school class, which had graduated in June, was indeed seven months pregnant and, having broken up with her baby’s father around the same time Jess had broken up with Mark, determinedly bent on single motherhood. With her head, Jess could understand why having Taylor follow in Maddie’s footsteps might be Mark’s worst nightmare. But with her heart, although she might not agree with all of Maddie’s choices, she was still prepared to defend her little sister to the death.

  “Hey, pregnant happens.” Jess’s voice was brittle.

  “I know it does. Which is why I’m talking boarding school, if that’s what it takes to get Taylor away from that boy she’s seeing.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  “He’s after one thing.”

  “Recognized the trait right off, did you?”

  “Damn it, what you saw with MJ—it was just a kiss, okay? A damned kiss. She kissed me and—okay, I kissed her back. I admit it. But that’s all it was. One kiss. Nothing more.”

  At this reminder of what they’d once shared, Jess felt like someone was hacking at her heart with a dull knife.

  “You know what? At this point, I really don’t care.”

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Whether I do or not is immaterial.”

  “What do you mean, it’s immaterial? It’s material. It’s why we broke up.”

  “I refuse to have this conversation.”

  “Too bad, because we’re having it.”

  “No, you’re having it. Without me. Because I refuse to participate.”

  “You know what I think? I think you latched onto that kiss because it let you off the hook. You’re so damn afraid you’re going to get hurt that you won’t let yourself love anybody outside your damned family.”

  Jess stopped dead. “I think I’ll walk home.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake—” Mark broke off as he met her eyes. If how she felt was any indication, they blazed like twin howitzers at him. “Fine. You want to walk? Walk. Knock yourself out.”

  Jess turned on her heel and stalked away from him, feeling his eyes boring into her back with every step she took. Her apartment was only about five blocks away, on F street. It was a trip she made nearly every day without incident. She could certainly manage it one more time without Mark as an escort. He was out of her life, and she meant to keep it that way.

  It wasn’t until she reached the intersection of 23rd and H streets that she realized she’d forgotten all about Tiffany. Not that there was anything she could do at this point, and not that Tiffany was her problem, anyway.

  She could almost hear Mark saying it, which made her mad all over again.

  It was full dark now, but streetlights glowed on every corner and lots of people crowded the sidewalks. Traffic streamed continually past, so it wasn’t like she was alone on some moonlit moor or something. D.C. was many things, but eerie it wasn’t. Although she owned a car, usually the hassle and cost of finding parking made driving within the city not worth it, so she was accustomed to taking the metro just about anywhere she wanted to go. But she had to admit, tonight felt different. Maybe because of Mark, maybe because of the trial, maybe because she couldn’t get Tiffany and the man she’d disappeared with out of her head, she felt on edge. Anxious, even. Ready to jump at every too-loud sound. Spooked by anyone who brushed too close. Wary of shadows, suspicious of sideways glances, uncomfortable with the proximity of strangers.

  She had never before noticed just how long five blocks could be.

  “You’re so damn afraid you’re going to get hurt …”

  What bullshit, she told herself stoutly, even as a little voice inside her head whispered, You don’t really think he slept with Cates while you were together, do you?

  Maybe she didn’t, now that the blinding pain of discovering him kissing Cates had receded. But he had slept with Cates before. He’d admitted it. He’d also admitted to sleeping with his va-va-va-voom neighbor Lynn Bowling, who’d shown up with a box of doughnuts and obvious hopes for more than a shared breakfast early one Sunday morning while Jess had been staying over at his house. Also with his ex-wife on several occasions postdivorce, and, well, the list was long and she wasn’t going there. If he’d already been kissing Cates when things had still been hot and heavy between them, what were the chances that he’d give up the tomcattish habits and gorgeous partners of a lifetime to stay faithful to ordinary little her if she married him?

  Jess was many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. Looking at him and Cates entwined in Cates’s office, she’d known the answer in an instantaneous flash of bitter realization: slim and none.

  So she’d gone ahead and cut her losses.

  The pain was still there, as she’d discovered tonight, but most of the time she had it under control, and it was definitely lessening as time passed. The key was to keep on keeping away from Mark.

  Which as far as she was concerned wasn’t going to be a problem. She refused to even so much as think about him again.

  With that laudable goal in mind, she turned her focus to other matters. Happier matters. Like Pearse’s totally awesome offer to become a permanent part of his team. Like possible uses for the mouthwateringly large bonus she’d been promised. Like—why Tiffany had recanted. And what could have been going on with her and the guy who had hustled her away from the metro stop. Remembering Tiffany’s body language, Jess felt another little frisson of disquiet.

  Fear looked like nothing else.

  “… not your problem.” Mark’s
words. Mark’s voice.

  Arggh.

  The further she got from the metro stop, the fewer people were on the sidewalk and the lighter the vehicular traffic. The specter of a cadre of murderous spooks on her trail started to feel like an all-too-real possibility. Maybe—just maybe—she’d been too quick to walk away from Mark.

  Too late now.

  Streetlights came further apart, making long stretches in the middle of each block absolutely dark—dark enough to have her jumping like she’d been shot when a cat meowed at her suddenly from one of the tiny, fenced yards. By the time she was half a block away from her apartment, there was a couple ahead of her—far ahead, at the edge of the fuzzy white circle of light cast by the streetlight on the corner—and that was all. Her building, which was in the middle of the block, had only the tiny stars and sliver of moon floating high overhead to illuminate it, along with the occasional flash of passing headlights. There were undoubtedly people at home in the lineup of attached houses that crowded together shoulder to shoulder like a row of high-kicking Rockettes, but all she had as concrete evidence was the occasional light radiating through closed curtains.

  The couple ahead turned the corner and moments later disappeared from sight. The street was dark and silent except for the distant hum of traffic. All at once she felt horribly alone. And vulnerable.

  Is someone watching me?

  The back of her neck prickled. She glanced compulsively around: not a soul in sight. The parked cars crouching in a hump-backed line between her and the street were dark and empty, which, she reminded herself, was the important part. Just like the street was empty. Empty meant no one was there. It meant no one was lying in the gutter getting ready to spring out. It meant no one was behind her, sneaking after her through the dead of night. Of course no one was doing that. Who was she expecting, Jason Voorhees? Freddy Krueger?

  May-be.

  Okay, the truth was embarrassing. She was glad she didn’t have to admit it to anyone but herself. But the trade-off to being a size-challenged woman in a crime-ridden city was living with a niggling sense of insecurity that mainly manifested itself when she found herself alone. In the dark. On foot. On a deserted street. Like now.