Taylor had suggested meeting here at the Lightning Ale House after his shift. She didn’t mind. It was just that she’d expected a breakfast meeting, not a talk over beers at nine in the morning.
Taylor’s eyes were red—though, in fairness, he was coming off an overnight shift. More surprising was that he wasn’t anything like Emily had expected. Both too young and too nervous, he didn’t seem like the stolid, steady Hanford veteran who’d been Kieran’s supervisor for nearly two years.
“I appreciate the meeting,” Emily said cautiously.
“Sure,” Taylor answered. She noticed his eyes do another sweep of the room from their corner table.
“I saw that Pauline Strand deposed you early on about LB5,” Emily went on. “I’m meeting with witnesses who we’ll need to testify at Kieran’s trial to see if they remember anything they didn’t say in their depositions.”
Emily felt a wave of discomfort as Taylor’s eyes looked her over like he was wondering if she was wearing a wire. “What kind of things?” he asked.
“Well, anything about the explosion that night. What you saw. What you know that might give a clue on how it started.”
Most of the men and women Emily represented at the Seattle Public Defender’s office were guilty. What distinguished them was how they covered that guilt—denials; occasional remorse; an acknowledgment of guilt, but with an explanation.
Taylor looked like the last of these. Either that or he was scared. Neither possibility made sense to Emily.
“You represent Kieran,” Taylor said—though she’d told him that in the phone call when she set up this meeting, and again only moments before.
“Yes.”
“So anything I say or show you, you’ll keep a secret,” Taylor said.
Emily shook her head carefully. “No. You’re not a client. I’ll have to reveal anything you share with me with the other side.”
Taylor’s eyes grew more veiled as he took another drink.
“But, depending on what it is,” Emily hastened to add, “I may be able to keep your identity to myself—if it’s evidence I can confirm from another source.”
That seemed more satisfying to Taylor. She could see him thinking. “Kieran’s a pretty good kid,” Taylor finally said. Emily thought there was a slight slur in his speech now. Two beers in a man of his size made that seem unlikely—but maybe he’d had more before she arrived.
The big man reached into his pocket and pulled out a double-folded piece of paper, handing it to Emily.
The document was a photocopy, slightly askew, with the title cropped. Made in haste, she thought. The left side of the page listed years stretching from 1990 to 2012, while the top was headed with columns numbered one to eighteen. The boxes created by this matrix each contained chemical symbols, alongside percentages.
The eighteen columns matched the number of vats in the LB5 mixing room, Emily thought. It looked like testing data for containers—identifying their chemical contents and the percentages of each chemical over time. She asked if that was what the paper showed. He nodded.
“Yeah. For room 365 in LB5.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get it?”
“From Covington headquarters. As a stabilizing tech, I had access to the sampling archives. I went right there from the hospital the morning after the explosion, before Covington’s inspectors came in. I wanted to see if could find anything about what caused the explosion.”
“Do they know you took it?”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so. My security clearance got me through the door into the archives, but I didn’t sign the log-in sheet. I was in a hurry, hadn’t even been home yet.”
Emily’s mind was racing, recalling Dr. Nadine’s comments to her father about this data.
“I don’t know if it’s helpful,” Taylor added. “But you can have it. Just keep my name out of it.”
“You didn’t mention this in your deposition,” she said.
“Yeah. I didn’t tell the investigators or Covington’s attorney about it either when they grilled me. I thought it might land me in trouble given the way Covington was circling the wagons about the explosion.”
“Why now?”
Taylor finished the bottle with a long final drink, his eyes growing hot. “Because I saw what they did to Kieran at the softball game.”
Emily saw Taylor turn and try to flag the waitress, who was hustling to deliver breakfast meals to the few patrons in the place. She wondered how long Taylor’s breakfasts had looked like this one.
“What do you mean, ‘circling the wagons’?” she asked.
He shrugged, looking unconcerned in an unconvincing way. “Things are touchy out there. Covington’s lawyer interviewed me three times in the last nine months. He told me not to talk about LB5—but after the third time, did he think I’d need him to say that out loud? And then I got a call from some guy in the HR Department a little while ago reminding me of the same thing. He had the guts to hint that my hours might get cut in the future because of a slowdown out there. Who’d he think he was kidding? I got the warning.”
The waitress arrived with the third bottle. Anxious to call her father, Emily reached into her purse and put a twenty-dollar bill on the table.
“I’ll get breakf— this,” she said.
Taylor raised the new bottle in a salute as she stood to leave.
Ryan was seated on the couch, his cell phone in one hand, a legal pad in the other. Between calls, he was thinking of how weary he’d grown of his daily armistice with Emily. As she’d left this morning, he’d suggested she could have doubled for Taylor Swift in a Law and Order episode. The smile he’d hoped for had the half-life of a puff of smoke.
His respect for Emily’s capacity for work was growing: she was throwing herself into trial preparation like a gladiator. He might have admired her intensity more if he didn’t fear her zeal was proportionate to her growing feelings for Kieran. Emily spent most of her time with Kieran now. Ate most of her meals with him. It also hadn’t escaped Ryan’s attention that she took more care about clothes and makeup when Kieran was coming to help at the Annex.
Ryan returned to his task. Since the Princeton trip, Emily had left him to keep working on lining up expert testimony. The list on his legal pad was phone numbers culled from a copy of the nuclear registry Dr. Nadine had shown him. He’d started with forty-seven potential nuclear scientists—then shortened that list to twelve who lacked any obvious affiliations with the DOE, Covington, or other nuclear industry companies. Eight of those had already declined to help, based on the short notice. That left two men and one woman who’d promised to think it over and check their schedules—though only one had shown real interest. Dr. Virgil Strong of USC. The guy’s credentials were top notch; Ryan was keeping his fingers crossed.
He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the card nested there. And then there was Dr. Trân. Ryan had checked him on the Internet. Also great credentials. No known affiliations with industry. If anything, he was even more perfect than Strong.
Way too perfect. Even at Sherman Airport, what were the chances of literally running into a nuclear chemist. A man versed in the perfect discipline for their needs arriving just as they were desperate for a replacement scientist. It would be a serious stunt for King or Covington to thrust a decoy expert into their path. But after what he’d seen in Judge Renway’s courtroom, Ryan wasn’t sure what limits King or his masters would respect.
No. If there was any chance that Dr. Trân could be a plant, Ryan wasn’t desperate enough yet to take a chance that the man might drain his bank account and then produce a useless opinion—or worse, produce a great opinion, only to recant or collapse on the stand.
He glanced at the other notepad sitting on the coffee table, recording his Internet research on labs able to perform blood testing to detect radiation exposure. Ryan was waiting on half a dozen callbacks from that list with prices and availability. There had to be some alternative to Professor Nadine’s quote
of fifty thousand dollars.
His cell phone buzzed in his hand. It was Emily.
“Yes.”
“Dad,” Emily said, her voice keyed up. “Remember you told me that Dr. Nadine said he hadn’t seen any backup data from the other mixing room vats? Data that would show if they could have caused the second and third explosions?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’ve got something.” In a fast tempo, Emily described her meeting with Taylor Christensen. “I’m bringing the sheet home right now.”
Hard work made breaks, Ryan thought—and Emily was working like two lawyers now. “That’s great,” he said.
As soon as they ended the call, Ryan started to punch in Dr. Nadine’s number. He needed to get this to their expert immediately and schedule a conference call to discuss it.
“Hello?” a voice answered after several rings.
“Dr. Nadine? It’s Ryan Hart.”
“Oh. Mr. Hart.” The professor sounded surprised.
“Listen, I’m calling because we found a new document that might shed light on the contents of the other vats in the mixing room. You remember raising that issue in your office when I was there?”
“I haven’t heard from you since our meeting, Mr. Hart.”
“I know,” Ryan answered. “We’ve been very busy getting up to speed in the case. But about the other vats . . .”
“After our conversation, I assumed that you’d decided to get other assistance.”
Ryan squeezed the phone. “I never said that.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I thought you did. I’m afraid I’ve taken on a new engagement. I’m leaving for Berlin this evening and I’ll be gone for the rest of the summer. Perhaps I should have confirmed my impression from our meeting, but I was convinced you’d made up your mind to hire someone else.”
Ryan hadn’t let Nadine go yet to avoid this very possibility: getting caught without a new person to take this man’s place. “Professor, you can’t do that. We’ve got no replacement for you, and this new information could be helpful.”
Silence. “I’m very sorry.”
Ryan’s tone tightened. “We’ve got a contract. You’ve been paid for your—”
“Actually, Mr. Hart, if you’ll check with Ms. Strand, you’ll find that I haven’t been paid for my services, beyond an initial thousand dollar retainer last fall. Ms. Strand repeatedly pled poverty. Under the circumstances, I’ll have my department return the retainer. Good luck.”
The line went dead.
Emily was going to be sick about this, he thought. As sick as Ryan was feeling already.
He raised the phone again and pressed another number. Moments later he reached a voicemail. As he waited for the signal to leave his message, his eyes fell once again on Dr. Trân’s card. He picked it up just as the line beeped.
“Hello. Dr. Strong? Ryan Hart. I spoke with you earlier in the week about expert help in a case in Sherman, Washington. It’s become urgent that I get an immediate response. . . .”
Chapter 21
THIRTY-FIVE DAYS UNTIL TRIAL
“That doesn’t make any sense.” Kieran shook his head. “That’s not the Taylor Christensen I know.”
The swelling was nearly gone from Kieran’s nose and eyes, Emily saw. “No signs of nerves? That he’s been drinking too much?”
“You know I’m only working half time now,” Kieran said, shaking his head. “Maybe he’s a little short with me. More tense. But given how everybody else treats me, I assumed his silence was support.”
Emily held up the paper Taylor had given her. “Well, this would suggest it is.”
Kieran nodded. “Any hopeful word on the experts from your dad?”
“Nope,” Emily said. Kieran was watching her closely. When she didn’t say more, he leaned closer.
“You planning on giving your hotshot lawyer dad a break any time soon?” he asked.
“I am giving him a break,” she responded, looking away. “I’m giving him his wish. A little back-up work on your case and nothing more.”
Kieran nudged her gently. “He’s also writing a boatload of checks.”
“He’s got plenty,” she answered tersely.
“Yeah, but he’s still parting with them,” Kieran responded quickly.
“He didn’t want to take your case, remember?”
Kieran shrugged. “But he did. Look, Emily, you know how much I appreciate what you’re doing—and how much it means to me. But I also appreciate what he’s doing.”
Emily didn’t respond.
“How bad was he when your mother was sick?” Kieran pressed.
Emily stared at Kieran for a moment, as the question stirred coals of old fires in her. “Near the end of my first semester of law school,” she began, “the night before my first final, I was freaking out. I wanted to call my mother to talk, but with everything she was going through, I couldn’t trouble her with it. So I called my dad—something I never did. I reached him on his cell in Mexico. He’d taken Mom there. Hadn’t said a word to me; just wisked her off over the weekend.
“I asked him what he was doing. He was chasing after a miracle cure in Guadalupe or someplace like that. I don’t remember what. My dad, the sophisticated lawyer. Mom didn’t have the strength or heart to tell him that it was over. She was content and at peace. These trips he put her through, they weren’t about Mom. They were about what Dad couldn’t accept, what he wanted. Like always. I never did tell him why I’d called and he didn’t ask.”
Kieran lowered his voice, speaking softly. “Can you really blame him, Ems?” he said at last.
She looked away and picked up a stack of papers. “It’s not about blame,” she said. “It’s about choices. He always chose what he needed. And he chose not to be around.”
Until now, a voice inside her corrected. He’s here now. He hadn’t completely disappeared on her this time. Not yet.
It wasn’t a point she was willing to concede at the moment. She silenced the voice and looked back at Kieran. “Let’s get back to the case,” she said.
Poppy was up early, especially for a morning after a night shift. By noon he was dressed and ready to head out the door.
Three hours should be enough time for Michael and him to get down to their favorite hunting grounds south of Sherman for a short hike. The mule deer season wasn’t for months, but Michael had called the night before asking if he wanted to hike the area.
Poppy had jumped at the invitation. Not only did he need this kind of break, but it had been years since Michael’d had the time to hike or hunt with his old man. Poppy would do the hike, then truck over for a quick visit with his dad at the retirement home before tonight’s late shift. He went to his dresser and grabbed his keys and a bag of clothes he’d assembled for work.
As he lifted the bag, papers slid off the dresser from underneath, floating to the floor.
Poppy knelt and picked them up. They were his original statement and the replacement form from the HR guy—Adam Worth. Poppy stood for a moment looking at them in the late morning light coming through the bedroom window.
He’d told himself he’d take care of this, one way or the other. Still, here the papers sat. Weeks had passed, and he hadn’t even told Suzy yet about the whole mess.
He stared at the papers for a long moment. Then he folded the pages and slid them into his pocket.
Twenty minutes later, he was driving with Michael beside him, pulling onto Highway 16 heading south out of town. It was ten miles to the milestone of the Yellow River, then another twenty miles through dry country until the highway rose into hills covered with a patchwork of pine and larch.
All of this area was familiar to Poppy. He’d hiked and hunted it with his father, then with his own children. As they gained elevation, Poppy could see for miles to the south and east. The afternoon sun highlighted the stark contrasts in the surrounding landscape—green trees and brown hills; further east, the orange outcroppings of the desert.
They pull
ed over to park at the wayside rest that served as the trailhead and soon were hiking, with Poppy leading at a brisk pace. “See if you can keep up, Mike,” he called over his shoulder.
Michael had no trouble at all. Within twenty minutes, Poppy felt his chest growing thick and his pace slowing. Michael came up near his shoulder.
“You okay, Dad?”
Poppy nodded, hating the question. “Fine.”
The trail rose for a few miles until they reached a rock outcropping, like a finger pointed west toward the horizon. It was Poppy’s favorite place on the hike—and a welcome stop for a rest. Leaning against a pine, he surveyed the view in each direction, listening to a silence so deep his ears strained for a challenging sound.
A singular conviction passed through him: he loved this land. He would never leave it.
Poppy glanced to Michael, kneeling a few yards in front of him and taking in the same view. His son was starting a career at Hanford. Maybe he’d go to law school. Even if he did, there was a good chance that Sherman would be his eventual home. Last summer, Poppy was content and even proud that his boy’s upbringing might lead him to spend his own life here, raising his family where he’d been raised.
But now Poppy wondered if that was what he wanted for his only son—or his daughter. And Michael Junior. Everything had changed so quickly in the past nine months. Did he really want them to spend their lives in Sherman?
He thought about the papers back in the truck. Poppy hadn’t told his wife or the rest of the family what was going on because he had a good idea how they’d react. Suzy’d tell him to tell Covington to shove it. Michael would echo that, then insist his dad go to the guards’ union. Megan, his firebrand, would just threaten to torch the place herself.
Except it wasn’t as simple as any of those notions. Filing a grievance or telling the bow-tied HR guy at Covington that he wouldn’t change his statement could be satisfying for a day or two. Then it might cost Poppy his job, with the firepower Covington could bring to bear—just when they were helping Michael with some of his son’s medical issues and trying to save for retirement.
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