by James Dobson
“Do you have a lawyer?” Tyler asked.
Matthew wiped his face, then looked up self-consciously. “Not really. Just my uncle Ben. He handles my mom’s estate. We don’t get along.”
“You’ll need a good defense lawyer,” Tyler said while rummaging through his backpack. He pulled out a pad and pen, then jotted down a name and number. “Call this guy,” he said.
Matthew read the scribbling. “A friend of yours?”
“More like an enemy,” Tyler replied. “But he’s good at his job. Got several guys off I tried to put behind bars. You’ll need someone like him. Expensive. But effective.”
“I can’t afford expensive.” He looked Tyler in the eyes. “I guess I’m sunk.”
Tyler shrugged. “Maybe not. They’ll go easier on you if you come clean. You never know. You might even get a good plea bargain.”
“What’s that?”
“They’ll charge you with plotting to assassinate a federal judge. A conviction would carry a long minimum sentence. If you admit to something less, perhaps violation of federal postal regulations, the judge could be much more lenient.”
“I see,” Matthew said into the air.
Tyler suddenly realized he had no script for the next scene of this drama. He had been 100 percent focused on finding and confronting Judge Santiago’s potential assassin. It hadn’t occurred to him what to do if the threat proved innocuous. Should he offer to drive Matthew to the station and hand him off to Smitty for questioning? Or should he show compassion? Let him go home to wrap up details of a life that was certain to change for the worse?
He decided to pull out his phone and point it at Matthew’s face. Matthew frowned in reaction.
“I need to know where you’ll be and how to reach you,” Tyler said. “I’ll send the information with this picture to a friend on the force. They’ll want to talk to you. Tell them what you’ve admitted to me and you’ll be OK.”
Matthew gave the information. “Do you really think they might go easy on me?”
“I do.”
But he didn’t. Courts weren’t likely to show much mercy to a guy who had threatened to murder a sitting judge. They might go light on someone who had threatened a congressman or senator. Possibly even the president. But a fellow judge? Not a chance.
“Go home, Mr. Adams,” Tyler said. “Call a lawyer and wait for the police.”
* * *
He had probably made the wrong decision. Smitty would have told Tyler to bring in the suspect personally. Immediately. “Don’t let him out of your sight!” he’d have ordered. But Tyler wanted to give Matthew time and space to think through a plausible excuse for his folly. Which is exactly what Tyler knew it had been, a series of idiotic decisions by a desperate fool. Still, to be safe, Tyler shadowed Matthew’s car from a discreet distance. He followed him to the house, then parked several hundred yards away to observe. The same routine he had used in countless stakeouts for jealous clients. As an added precaution he also placed a tiny observation camera on the rear porch. He could watch both through his car’s windshield and tablet’s screen.
Several hours of inaction gave Tyler time to think. Part of him rested comfortably in the knowledge that he had found the culprit, solved the case. But another part of him felt uneasy, as if one or two pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit. The look on Matthew’s face, for one, when Tyler showed him the final letter. He appeared genuinely surprised, as if he had no recollection of writing it. And the handwriting. There were differences, no matter how slight. Was it possible Matthew hadn’t sent the final note after all?
No. Not possible. Who else would have sent it? Matthew must have intentionally altered the script. That’s why he had been so eager to draw attention to the differences.
Tyler tapped an image on the dash menu. Three rings later he heard Smitty’s voice message accept the call.
“Hi Smitty, it’s Tyler. Great news. I found the guy who wrote the letters to Judge Santiago.” Hearing the words prompted a swell of self-congratulation. He had solved the case. He had saved the judge from possible assassination. A job well done. “He’s no real threat. I’m sending you the suspect’s picture and the information on where you can have him picked up for questioning. I would keep the security detail at the judge’s home for a few days to play it safe, but I think we can rest easy on this one.”
He ended the call. No need to mention any doubts. Smitty would trust Tyler’s assessment that it had been a one-man operation. The same man who had driven home in the still-parked car and entered the still-closed front door Tyler had grown tired of watching.
His stomach rumbled as Tyler eased away from the curb. He frowned, then smiled at the thought of rewarding his investigative genius with a double cheeseburger and a chocolate shake. A few minutes later he pulled up to the drive-through window of the only burger joint still open. He ordered value meal number six. Then he imagined Renee’s disapproving gaze.
Renee!
In all the excitement over finding and confronting Matthew Adams he had forgotten to call her to say he wouldn’t make it home in time for dinner. He quickly tapped her image on the dash.
“Tyler Cain, I’m very upset with you!” A recording made for his specific number for this specific occasion. “I don’t ask for much. Just a bit of courtesy. I made a very special meal tonight. I also bought a new nightgown. But you won’t be enjoying either. There’s a pillow and blanket in the den. I hope you get a major crick in your neck!”
The message ended abruptly. He imagined her slamming a vintage phone receiver onto the cradle in a huff.
Banished to the sofa! So much for celebrating success with his gal, his first meaningful accomplishment since, well, since too long ago to remember.
“Did you want to add a hot cherry pie to that order?” the drive-through voice asked, short-circuiting Tyler’s pity party.
He looked at the clock. Much too late for a deep-fried indulgence sure to trigger middle-of-the-night heartburn.
Renee would definitely not approve.
“Sure!” he answered defiantly. “And top it with vanilla ice cream.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Julia snuggled in close to caress her husband’s chest while enjoying the gentle movement of his fingertips up and down her bare shoulder. Exactly what she needed after a long, eventful day. She had connected the dots between her sister’s mysterious suitor and Tyler Cain’s elusive suspect, helped orchestrate a seductive bait and switch where Maria was the bait, and then tried to calm her kid sister’s nerves while driving away from the scene. Maria had finally gone home with Jared after a very late dinner that included giving Troy a play-by-play description of the whole fiasco.
“Are you sure she’ll be OK?” Troy asked while staring up at the ceiling. “This Matthew guy won’t come after her, will he?”
“She’ll be fine,” Julia said. “Tyler told me he decided to follow the car home to keep an eye on the house until the police arrive. But he wasn’t concerned. He said the guy was no real danger to anyone but himself.”
“Good.”
A moment of tender silence passed.
“Kevin called this afternoon.”
“He did?” Julia said while sitting up to wrap herself in the disheveled sheet. The day’s adventure had dominated all conversation to the point that she had neglected to ask about Troy’s day.
“He told me to tell you he liked your first feature and that he’s eager to see the second.”
“Does he think they might help?”
“Can’t hurt.”
She waited for more. Nothing came. “Has he heard any more from Franklin?” she asked.
“He has. It seems the whole Dimitri thing blew over. Anderson said they managed to convince him I wasn’t behind whatever made him so mad.”
Julia remembered Brent Anderson’s earlier threat, “Back off with Dimitri.”
“If they don’t think it was you or Kevin, who do they think was behind it?”
“No
clue. Doesn’t matter. They’ve moved on to the next potential scandal and we’re back on their ‘useful’ list.”
Julia sighed. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Doesn’t what bother me?”
“The whole game. You know. They consider Kevin an asset one day and a liability the next. They call you a brilliant player on Monday but try to distance themselves from you on Friday. It’s not fair. It’s not right.”
Troy leaned on his side to mirror Julia’s posture. “No, it’s not right. But it is what it is. Neither Kevin nor I expected politics to smell pretty. Cleaning up a mess sometimes means working around garbage. But it’s part of the price you pay when trying to do something significant.”
“I’d call it a pretty big price.”
One shoulder gave a half shrug. “Maybe. But someone needs to be a voice for the weak and vulnerable. Might as well be us.”
“I guess. I just wish…” She stopped when she noticed Troy fiddling with the edge of the silk sheet she had turned into a toga. He lifted the edge, pretending to steal an indiscreet peek. Julia slapped his hand playfully. Then she smiled. “Again?”
“Aren’t you ovulating?” he asked with a wink. “How ’bout doubling our odds?”
Julia’s smile melted as the grief her sister’s adventure had interrupted mounted another invasion.
“What do ya say?” Troy began moving his lips toward hers.
Julia’s head slid slightly back before she could overrule the motion. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, she willed her arms around his torso to hold him tightly. But it was no good. She knew that he sensed something was wrong. She sat up again, revealing a single tear disobediently falling onto her cheek.
His finger touched the moist insurgent. “Hey there now. What’s this about?”
The sweet, clueless tone of Troy’s voice opened another breach in the dam. A second tear fell, then two more. She knew that if she spoke a river of sorrow would drown her explanation in a flood of misunderstood emotion.
Julia wanted to tell her husband how much she loved him, that she wished with all her heart a second round of intimacy could double their chances. But she knew what she couldn’t say. That their union would never conceive the blessing of a child. Never give Troy what he wanted more than anything in the world.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she finally managed. She kissed him gratefully, then inhaled a breath of composure. “I’m just tired. Do you mind waiting until morning?”
He appeared to believe her. “Of course,” he answered while grabbing a tissue to wipe final remnants of wetness from her face. “Let’s wait until morning.”
Troy kissed her forehead before rolling onto his side of the mattress.
Julia slipped into the bathroom to wash her face and find an oversized T-shirt to wear. That’s when she noticed a woman she barely recognized staring back at her from the mirror. Was this the same woman who had once celebrated the drop in global fertility? The girl who had disregarded marriage as an outdated institution and motherhood as the valley of the inept? The journalist who’d fed a mountain of myths to nine million approving readers? “The fewer carbon footprints polluting the planet the better!” she’d once scoffed. Now she would give anything to conceive, deliver, and nurture one into a son or daughter of her own. Troy would have wanted a boy. Or would he have? He loved hanging out with Tommy. But he seemed smitten with Joy and Leah. He might want a girl after all.
Julia let her imagination carry her into an alternate future. She envisioned dressing her toddler in frilly dresses. She saw herself shopping for a new outfit with a preteen daughter eager to look pretty when Daddy took her to the symphony or father-daughter dance. She pictured a cute, precocious girl as she had been herself during adolescence. Sort of like Amanda, Austin Tozer’s half sister. She and Julia had seemed to hit it off the way she might have with her own child.
Another tear began to form at the thought of what a wonderful daddy Troy would have made. Unlike her own father, Troy would never have abandoned his family. He would have modeled loving strength and heroic sacrifice. He would have shown their little girl what a man could be. What a man should be.
But that day would never come. Troy couldn’t produce a child of his own. And the prospect of finding a baby to adopt was, at best, remote.
Julia wiped away the tear while turning off the bathroom light. She walked back to the bed and slid gently under the covers. Then she leaned in close to Troy’s ear. “Good night, darling,” she whispered.
His undecipherable grunt told her he was asleep. She smiled, patting his back while settling onto the billowy comfort of her pillow.
That’s when it struck her. Amanda! She sat up with a start.
If Troy could be such a wonderful adoptive uncle to the Tolbert kids, why couldn’t he be a wonderful adoptive father to a girl with no parents of her own, a girl who hated living with her self-centered half brother and embryo-selling wife?
“Troy,” Julia said, shaking her husband awake.
“What? What?” he said in dazed confusion while his hands felt around the bed as if swatting bugs.
Julia clicked on the lamp, causing Troy’s eyelids to scrunch tightly together at the sudden, blinding brightness. She bolstered her courage by lifting his hand to her lips for a reinforcing kiss.
“Troy, honey, we need to talk.”
Chapter Forty-Five
A sudden surge of fear forced Rebecca Santiago awake. When had she dozed off? She looked at the bedroom television screen. Credits were rolling from the movie she had hoped would help keep her awake until her husband got home. She looked at the clock. Half past midnight! Three hours earlier Victor had promised he should be home soon.
She felt herself breathing faster. It was the start of a panic attack like the one she had endured during the blizzard of 2037 when Victor decided to drive home instead of stay at the office as she’d asked him to. “The roads are too slick,” she had said. “You’ll slide into a ditch and freeze to death.” It took him more than an hour, but he made it home safe and sound. Her panic was for naught then. She tried to believe it was equally pointless now.
She got out of bed, clicked off the television, and found her gown before moving to the window to open the blinds. The police car was still parked out front. She squinted for a better look. It appeared the officer’s head was leaning against the glass in sound sleep. Not much comfort.
Rebecca opened the bedroom door and moved into the kitchen, where she hoped to find Victor sitting in front of a bowl of cereal enjoying a late-night snack after a longer-than-expected day in his chambers. But the room was dark. She rushed to the back door to check for Victor’s car in the garage. Empty!
She told herself to stay calm, that he was probably in his office sipping a cup of cold coffee while tweeking a written opinion on that big case. He had said it needed to be finished by morning. It wouldn’t be the first time he had burned the midnight oil to hit a deadline.
But he had never done so while a death threat hung over his head!
She tapped her husband’s image on the phone, then heard his recorded voice.
“Hi, Rebecca. There’s two things I want to do at this moment. First, answer your call. Second…”
“No!” she shouted at the phone.
She dialed again. The same result.
The phone fell to the floor as Rebecca raced toward the front door. Seconds later she was sitting in the passenger side of the police car pleading with an officer whose name she couldn’t recall to drive to the courthouse as fast as possible.
* * *
Rebecca felt both overwrought and foolish standing outside the courthouse. She hadn’t thought to grab the latest entry code. Victor always left it for her in an envelope sitting in his sock drawer. She rarely used it, relying on Jennifer or a guard to open the door whenever she came to meet Victor for lunch or surprise him with a fresh-baked afternoon snack. Of course, neither his assistant nor security was in the building at such a late hour. And since
her telephone lay on the floor back home she couldn’t call Jennifer for help. It took nearly fifteen minutes for the officer to track down someone who could help him gain access to the judge’s private chambers. The delay was agony for Rebecca, who spent every second imagining one awful scenario after another. The patient young officer tried comforting her by suggesting it would be even more difficult for a potential assassin to reach the judge than it had proven for them. That didn’t make her feel any better.
As soon as they reached the third-floor office wing Rebecca noticed the outer door was slightly ajar. Would Jennifer have left without locking the door behind her? No, not when Victor remained inside working. She was almost as protective of Victor as Rebecca. Something was wrong.
“Please, ma’am, let me go in first,” the officer insisted.
Rebecca ignored the suggestion, rushing through the door, past Jennifer’s desk, and into Victor’s now-dark office.
The light came on in reaction to the motion. She looked toward the chair where she had imagined finding Victor slumped over his desk in a pool of blood. It was empty. She rushed past a row of bookshelves to peer into his conference room, where she had imagined her husband dangling by the neck from a noose suspended from the ceiling. But the room was empty.
Rebecca heard the sound of the officer’s footsteps finally catching up with her frantic search.
“He’s not here!” she shouted while grasping both of the officer’s arms. “Where could he be? Dear God, where is my Victor?”
The officer gave her a blank gaze. “Perhaps he left before we arrived. He might be at the house looking for you right now.”
