by Cara Putman
“As soon as I can.”
Hayden followed Maricel out of her office and stopped at Leigh’s desk and asked her assistant to request a certified copy of the death certificate. A new commitment to the case rose within her, accompanied by the desire to do everything possible to heal a mother’s broken heart. In her office doorway she paused, then headed to Gerard’s office. She knocked on his door and heard his muffled “Come in.”
He was on the phone, but motioned her to a chair with the look of a highly important partner who couldn’t be bothered on anything less than a serious request. Maybe coming to him about the disappearing death certificate was a waste of time.
Hayden had about talked herself out of staying when he hung up and glanced at his watch. “I’ve got five minutes. Will that be long enough?”
“Yes sir.” Hayden forged ahead. “This is about the Rodriguez case.”
“Hard to call it a case when you haven’t refiled the complaint yet.”
“We’ll get there. Mrs. Rodriguez just left my office.”
“You don’t have to meet with her if she hasn’t called ahead. Manage your clients.” A flash of impatience in his eyes warned her to hurry.
“She told me she brought you a death certificate when she first met with you.”
“Sure. Should be in the file.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Then it got lost. What’s the problem, McCarthy?”
“Has anyone been in the file other than you and Leigh?”
He leaned back in his chair, putting extra distance between them. “What kind of question is that? This is a law firm. Any associate or paralegal has access to it.”
Something was up. This wasn’t typical Gerard. His gaze wandered to his phone and then his computer. Hayden wanted to pursue the matter, but every signal said to leave it alone. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll have a certified copy shortly.”
“Then get the complaint ready to refile. This is a priority matter.”
“I need to go to Texas first.”
“Why would you do that when the client can’t front expenses?”
“You’re the one who told me to request an advance deposition of the center’s director before he conveniently forgets everything he knows.” She gritted her teeth against the terse words she wanted to say. “It’s a valid strategy.”
Gerard took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and then replaced the glasses before looking at her. “Hayden, you know I agree with you, but the others won’t front the expenses. My hands are tied. You’ll have to get the information another way. Understood?”
“No. I can’t just tell my client I can’t do what we need to win this case.”
“We don’t have a choice.”
Hayden could tell she wasn’t going to get anywhere so she stood, but as she left his office, she heard him pick up the phone. She slowed and then overheard him say, “We have a problem.”
CHAPTER 14
Hayden hurried down King Street to Il Porto, her favorite Italian restaurant, set on a corner of the historic district. She was more than ready to shake the trying day and relax with friends.
She glanced at her watch. Twenty minutes late. When she reached the entryway, Emilie waved at her from their usual table in the back corner. Hayden walked through the stucco-and-brick room, past tables covered in red- or green-checked tablecloths, her heels echoing against the red tile floor.
Emilie, Jaime, and Caroline had already ordered drinks and appetizers, and all three women greeted Hayden with wide smiles. Caroline jumped to her four-inch heels with a squeal and gave Hayden a hug. “It’s about time, girl. I thought you’d stood us up, but Emilie insisted you’d get here.”
With help from Savannah Daniels, the four young women had roomed together as they waded through more textbooks, legal briefs, and moot court experiences than Hayden had believed possible. The best part? They’d all graduated and still liked each other. Their dinners at Il Porto convened as often as the four could match their calendars—something that happened less and less frequently as the professional demands on their time escalated.
“She was ready to march to the office to get you.” Jaime grinned at Hayden as she swirled her straw through an iced tea. “Can’t you see Caroline teetering down the street in those stilts?”
“Might break an ankle.” Emilie grimaced.
“Nope, I am a pro at these. All those ridiculous pageants my mother put me through were good for balance.” Caroline wrinkled her nose and squeezed Hayden again. “It has been way too long, girl. Dish.”
Emilie laughed. “Let the lady order her drink.” She pulled Hayden to the empty chair. “Oh, wait. I already did that for her.”
Hayden could feel the tension melt as she laughed with her friends. These women were her lifeline. They had seen her through the hardest intellectual experience of her life, and they would be there when she needed it, just as she was for them.
Friendships like these were irreplaceable.
She looked up as Emilie suddenly waved frantically at someone, and Hayden turned to see Andrew Wesley waiting by the hostess stand. She began to smile until she noticed he had someone with him. Someone tall, with beautiful, perfect blond hair arranged in an elaborate messy bun and dressed like a Banana Republic model. Hayden slid lower in her seat, hoping he wouldn’t come by their table to say hi. Not when he had someone as perfect as that woman with him.
Andrew nodded to her, smiling, before turning back to his gorgeous date. Hayden sighed and turned her attention to her friends. These women would never make her feel less than.
She reprimanded herself. Where had that thought come from? Andrew hadn’t done anything more or less than meet her gaze. The man couldn’t help that he moved in an orbit completely separate from hers. He came from a family of financial and political privilege. She . . . didn’t.
The four friends were soon engrossed in catching up. Caroline was loving her life of research and writing, and was an adjunct instructor at George Mason.
Jaime, on the other hand, was restless. Hayden had wondered how her friend would handle providing a defense for clients who had probably done the crimes they were accused of committing. It was one thing to believe in a criminal justice system based upon “innocent until proven guilty,” and quite another to actively engage in the fight day after brutal day.
Jaime swirled her straw through her Coke. “If I have one more client who battered his wife or significant other, I’m going to run screaming from the courtroom.” She ran her fork through her food. “It’s like the judges look at me and think, ‘There’s the gal to get these guys off.’ Who are we kidding? I’m the last person to defend them.”
Caroline reached across the table and squeezed Jaime’s hand. “They can’t know.”
“That’s what I tell myself, because if they did . . .” Her words trailed off and her eyes brightened with suspicious moisture. Then she took a deep breath. Few people knew about her family’s tragedy.
“How can we help?” Hayden hated feeling helpless to aid her friend.
“Let me know if you hear of a job?” Jaime sniffed and then swiped a finger under each eye. “Some days are just too hard to stay there.”
Hayden nodded. Most jobs had those up-and-down moments. Still, Jaime’s carried more opportunities for challenging days than the average. “I’ll pray for you.”
“Don’t waste your time. I’ll be fine.” Jaime held up a hand as if shielding herself from Hayden’s offer. “But you can pray for my clients. They’re the ones who need it.”
Hayden nodded, even as she disagreed. But this wasn’t the time to push. Jaime knew that Hayden believed in a Savior who could carry you on your hardest days and bring hope into the darkest corners. Hayden would keep praying that someday her friend would know that reality for herself.
An hour later the group hugged their good-byes on the sidewalk. The time had given Hayden a chance to connect with people who really knew her and liked her anyway. That was a precious gift in a world that e
xisted on long-distance social media connections.
Caroline squeezed her an extra moment. “Don’t disappear on me again, girl.” Her southern accent warmed the words.
“Yes, Miss Caroline.” Hayden tightened her end of the hug, then stepped back. “Don’t let the judge take advantage of you. I guarantee the court will still run if you don’t work eighty hours.”
“Maybe.”
Caroline turned with a squeal to Jaime and repeated the ritual. Saying good-bye to Caroline wasn’t for those on a tight schedule.
CHAPTER 15
Andrew stared at the e-mail sitting in his in-box. All the lights turned on in his studio couldn’t push back the darkness the one message had abruptly ushered into his world.
You think you’re so clever, using a pseudonym. Surprise! It doesn’t take a good researcher long to untangle the truth.
That was it. The entire message. The blinking cursor at the end of the last sentence mocked him.
He stared at the illuminated screen and ran his fingers through his hair.
This was the last thing his dad needed right now. The news that his son, the one who refused to follow the party line and join the march to ever greater things in politics, was political cartoonist Roger Walters.
As far as his parents knew, his cartooning days had ended after college. He’d tried to quit since all eyes were on the rising congressman and his family.
Now Dad was one governor’s appointment away from the US Senate. From day one his mom had been an equal partner in the march to ever bigger and greater arenas. Ultimately, anything less than the White House would be falling short of the goal.
It was in the editorial cartoons that Andrew could say all the things he really felt about the crazy world of politics and its convoluted games. His audience had slowly expanded from the William and Mary student newspaper to the Richmond Dispatch and from there to syndication.
He had been so careful. From the very beginning he had worked under a pseudonym that couldn’t be traced. Yet one e-mail was all it took to threaten his sarcastic stabs at the political world.
He clicked on it again. A Hotmail address.
Doubtless a bogus account.
He sent a reply to confirm his instincts.
Within moments a ding alerted him to a failed delivery message.
Only a handful of people knew Roger Walters’s real identity. Maybe one of the guys thought it would be hilarious to give him a scare. Andrew grabbed his cell phone and called the most likely culprit, Luke Standish. A friend since prep school, Luke had an offbeat sense of humor and the technical skills to pull off this prank. And if he wasn’t behind it, he had the know-how to find whoever sent the e-mail.
Of course his editor, Michael Turner, knew his true identity, but most of their communication was done through an e-mail address in Roger’s name and a PO box Roger rented. He was even paid through a fake company. Before he alerted his editor to the problem, he’d have Luke check on the e-mail, using all his IT skills to track the sender.
“Andrew, what’s up?”
“Hey Luke, quick question. You told anyone about the cartoons?” It was blunt, but needed to be.
“Course not. Who would I tell? No one I know pays attention to the editorial page.”
“Ouch, I make my living there.”
“Sorry, man, but you know it’s truth.”
“You didn’t say anything somewhere someone could overhear?”
“Andrew . . .”
“I know.” Andrew sighed and leaned his stool back on two legs. “I got an e-mail.”
“I get five hundred a day.”
“Yeah, but this one claims to know I’m the cartoonist.”
“Man.” Luke huffed out a breath. “Forward it, and I’ll see what I can discover.”
“I don’t think there’s much. The address bounced when I tried to reply.”
“You’re an amateur. Leave it to me.”
After they hung up, Andrew felt marginally okay. He had to decide whether to warn his dad that syndicated Congress-hating cartoonist Roger Walters was his son.
That conversation would be an easy one.
Sure. And Greenland wasn’t slowly melting away.
Hayden and Emilie walked home, enjoying the balmy evening. In a few days the Cherry Blossom Festival would open, and the trees were doing their best to show off. The dogwoods and cherry blossoms were on full display.
“You’ve been quiet, Hayden. Bad news?” Emilie’s words were soft, but Hayden knew her friend would probe until she answered.
“No. Not really.” She put away her phone as they went up the short walk to their front door. Hayden unlocked the door and tossed her jacket over the banister. “Just my mom checking on me. Always makes me nostalgic for how things were . . . before . . .”
Emilie leaned against the counter. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” What more could she say? Emilie was one of the few who knew about her family history. Life was good, and she had moved on, but some days the if-onlys pricked more. “Good night.”
Hayden needed to focus on something other than how she’d believed her dad was innocent. That he’d been framed by his financial manager for embezzlement that rocked the large Omaha-based company.
The prosecutor had considered it an open-and-shut case with no room for alternate theories and suspects. The jury had bought his presentation of the facts so wholeheartedly that deliberations had only lasted an hour.
And Hayden’s heart shattered when her daddy was placed in handcuffs and led from the courtroom, while her mother sat there without a tear or any sign of emotion. She believed he was innocent until she’d reviewed the case file when she’d finally had time after law school. He was not.
Hayden paused at the top of the stairs. A wall of white shelves filled with books lined the landing. The soft gray space usually filled her with peace. Tonight she just wanted to flee.
She grabbed a Colleen Coble novel from her stack of to-be-read books. Maybe she needed a simple escape into book world. She sank onto her desk chair, a white chair on wheels with a soft pillow to support her back, and opened the book, but an image of Miguel sprawled on the floor superimposed itself over the page. She tried to force the image from her mind, but couldn’t.
His story had been entrusted to her, and she wasn’t sure what to do with it.
Father, help me.
She believed God could hear and see her struggles from such a short request. At times she had deeply known that truth. Now she felt the loss of being pulled away by the rush and busyness of a full calendar. If she grabbed a devotional now, it would feel like a check-the-box motion, the exact opposite of what her faith should be.
Once her dad had seemed like such a good model for her heavenly Father. But if he could be accused of something so terrible, what did that mean about God? The God who had seemed closer than her daddy had seemed to move away across space. She had slowly made her way back to Him through the distractions of law school and starting a career, but it wasn’t the same. She knew that in the deepest part of her heart.
Hayden rubbed her tired eyes, then shoved away from her desk. Maybe a good night’s sleep would help her focus. But as she climbed into bed, the strange comment of Gerard’s that she had overheard came back to worry her. We have a problem. Was she the problem he referenced? What should she do about that?
APRIL 1
The cars multiplied as he neared the city. Frustration pooled in his veins as he slowed with the rest of traffic. He had always avoided large urban areas like Mexico City, preferring the family estate in the mountains. Clear air to smog. Trails traveled by the occasional donkey to packed highways.
He blew air slowly through his nose. Breathing in, then breathing out the anxiety building in him.
This American city might be big, but with the help of technology he would find the address. The question was what to do then. He had often overheard el jefe’s men talk about their missions and how they successfully eliminate
d problems. He had never thought he would find himself doing the same.
He couldn’t afford to get noticed. Yet he had to locate that flash drive.
Apparently the information on the device Miguel stole could destroy the empire. Miguel had been smart enough to realize that. Could Rafael do the same? Could he use the information to save himself?
He no longer heard from el jefe, but someone lower in the organization. The instructions arrived with a credit card and address, and it seemed a dark sedan was always behind him now.
El jefe was making his presence known. Rafael expected to meet him at any moment.
Receive his next instructions from the man himself.
Had he somehow overlooked the device in his adrenaline-laced horror after he killed Miguel? His hands trembled on the wheel as he tried to push the memory of those frantic moments from his mind.
He shook his head to clear his vision and focused on the highway.
Now to find someplace to hole up while he did reconnaissance. Maybe tonight he’d stay at a classy hotel. One last stab at the man who had sent him on this journey.
If he was successful, then what? The thought of claiming a place in the family no longer brought hope and pride to his heart. Instead, it felt like an unbearable weight. But perhaps here in the Estados Unidos he could disappear. He had new documents.
He took an off-ramp and turned onto a road named King. Shops bled into a high school and then homes to a modern office area. He found a hotel just a mile from his destination. Now to shift from transit to reconnaissance.
Future plans would have to wait.
CHAPTER 16
THURSDAY, APRIL 6
The next morning Hayden arrived at the office and found a steaming mug of tea and fresh coffee cake on her desk. It didn’t matter that it was seven thirty, somehow Leigh had beat her in, and with goodies.
The woman was a lifesaver.
As she settled her attaché case beneath her desk and shifted the tea so she could wake her computer, Hayden paused.
