He stopped walking and pivoted toward her, removing his arm from her grasp. “It’s ridiculous, Anna. Davenport files a bullshit motion smearing me, and I just withdraw?”
“It looks like you’re taking the high road. If you stayed on the case, the attacks weren’t going to stop.”
“They’re still not gonna stop. You think Davenport’s gonna give you a pass? He’ll pull the same crap with you that he’s pulling with me. This just encourages him.”
“I’ll handle it.”
Their voices echoed off the cavernous stone walls of the Great Hall.
“I see.” Jack put his hands on his hips. “This works out perfectly for you, doesn’t it? You’ve got your big case. Now you can go ‘prove yourself.’”
“That’s not what this is about, and you know it. If you stayed on, it would have hurt the case. It would have hurt you in the end. I was trying to protect you.”
“By stabbing me in the back?” Jack’s green eyes glowed with anger. “You basically told them that even my teammates don’t believe in me.”
“I thought I was the B team,” Anna snapped. “Come on, you know I believe in you. But it looks like you have a conflict. It’s a problem, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“If you thought there was a problem, you should have told me, not Tommy McIntyre.”
“I did tell you! You ignored me. Dammit, Jack, if Tommy McIntyre asks for my legal opinion, I’m gonna give it.”
“I’m not talking about your legal opinion. He asked your opinion of me. If somebody asks me, ‘Is Anna the best lawyer for this case?,’ I don’t say, ‘No, I’ve got more experienced prosecutors, but I love her and want to work with her.’ I say, ‘Yes, she’s the best.’ Because I’m loyal.”
Anna cringed. It was what she’d feared from the beginning. He’d put her on the case because of their relationship, not because he thought she was a good lawyer.
“That’s why you didn’t take my opinion seriously,” Anna said. “Because you don’t really respect it.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about loyalty. I agreed to pretend that we’re not together, but the fact is, we are together. If you love somebody, you support them.”
“I was supporting you.”
“The hell you were. You were showing off. You saw which way the room was going, and you jumped on board.”
“You’re so wrong. It’s like we were in different meetings.”
A couple of lawyers came into the room and looked at them curiously. Jack turned and walked out of the Great Hall; Anna followed. They went down the last flight of stairs and out of the building onto the sidewalk in front of the Justice Department. The traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue was heavy, the tail end of the morning rush. The air was so muggy that the honking of horns seemed to reverberate, held aloft by the humidity.
He faced her on the sidewalk, seeming to wait for something. She held out her hands—what?
“I don’t know what you want me to say, Jack.”
“How about ‘sorry’ for stabbing me in the back?”
“I didn’t stab you in the back. I wasn’t being disloyal, just honest. Loyalty doesn’t mean you always agree with somebody.”
“Oh yeah? What do you think loyalty means?” His voice was low and furious.
“It means I tell you what you need to hear, not only what you want to hear.”
“Well, that’s big of you. Thanks for those words I needed to hear. You know what you need to hear? Fuck you.”
“Oh, that’s a brilliant argument,” she said. “Well put, Clarence Darrow.”
As she said it, she realized this was more than an argument. He had never spoken to her that way. Jack’s BlackBerry rang, but he ignored it.
“No, you know what?” he said. “I should be the one apologizing to you. I’m sorry that I thought you knew how to have a real relationship. I should’ve known you weren’t ready for a commitment when you wouldn’t admit that we were dating. That should’ve been clue number one.”
“Jack, let’s talk about this when we both calm down.” Anna nodded at the buttoned-down men and women passing them to go into the Justice Building. “Later tonight.”
“No, let’s not. We’ve talked enough. I think it’s best if you don’t come by tonight.” He took a deep breath. “Or any night.”
She blinked with surprise. He was breaking up with her? “All my clothes are at your house,” she said.
“I’ll have them shipped.”
“What about my cat?”
He turned and strode off. Broiling with anger herself, Anna made no attempt to go after him. It was ridiculous. He had such a need to be in control of everything that he couldn’t handle her speaking her own opinion. At that moment, she was glad to see his back.
Her BlackBerry rang. Anna brought the phone to her ear.
“Hey,” Samantha’s voice greeted her. “Why isn’t Jack picking up?”
“He just got taken off the case.”
“Jesus. Not now.”
“Would there be a better time?”
“Hard to imagine a worse one. Madeleine Connor is dead. She killed herself.”
32
Anna’s first instinct was to call out for Jack to come back. The Homicide chief was only half a block away, striding east on Pennsylvania Avenue. But he was off the case. And, apparently, out of her life. She watched him disappear into a crowd of pedestrians and brought her mind back to the phone call. She would have to handle this on her own.
“How did she do it?” Anna asked.
“Shot herself in the head,” Samantha said. “The cleaning lady found her this morning.”
Anna pictured Madeleine’s beautiful white suit spattered with crimson. “Oh, man.” She fought down a bubble of nausea. “Why? Did she leave a note?”
“No note. I guess she couldn’t face being a witness,” Sam said. “She didn’t want to have to turn over her books.”
Anna’s chest tightened with guilt—had she been too zealous in trying to get Madeleine’s records? Had she driven the woman to suicide? The traffic swooshed around her, oblivious to the fact that her case had just veered off a cliff. She’d come to the U.S. Attorney’s Office to save lives, not destroy them. Somewhere along the way, she must have taken a serious wrong turn.
Anna had never imagined that her witness would kill herself. She remembered the way Madeleine had brushed aside her own lawyer outside the courthouse, walking confidently up to the reporters’ microphones. The woman was a fighter.
In fact, Anna had never heard of a witness killing herself. What prosecutors worried about was a witness being killed by a defendant or his crew. Witness intimidation was a serious problem in D.C. Witnesses didn’t want to come forward, or they recanted their testimony, because they were afraid of being murdered.
Anna remembered Madeleine’s warning in the grand jury—that if she turned over her records, powerful men would lose their careers. She looked up. The Capitol loomed at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Heat radiating off the asphalt made the white dome seem to shimmer and wave.
“How confident are we that it was a suicide?” Anna asked.
“I’m told she was clutching the gun in her hand. I haven’t been to the scene yet.”
“When you get there, poke around a bit, will you? Look for signs of forced entry, that sort of thing. Don’t let the ME jump to any conclusions.”
“Will do,” Samantha said. Then she added with a tone of grudging respect, “I was thinking about that myself.”
They hung up. Anna plodded down Pennsylvania Avenue. She was reeling with the double whammy of Jack’s breakup and Madeleine Connor’s death. Madeleine had either killed herself or been killed because of the investigation. Either way, Anna carried the responsibility for the woman’s death. Meanwhile, she was seething at Jack, the one person from whom she’d normally seek comfort. She felt impotent and furious and sick.
Anna reached the brick patio outside the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Now, she realized, she had to face Carla, who’d walked in on her kissing Jack last night. Great.
Like taking off a Band-Aid, she should get it over with as quickly as possible. Anna went inside, took the elevator to the tenth floor, and knocked on her boss’s open door.
“Come in,” Carla said, turning from the computer. She acknowledged Anna with a nod, as if she had been expecting her.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Anna said. She sat in the chair across from Carla’s desk. A bright quilt hung on the wall next to the Sex Crimes chief; a candy bowl sat on the edge of her desk, brimming with miniature Snickers bars. Anna’s stomach roiled at the prospect of eating anything.
“I was surprised,” Carla said mildly.
“So was I. I thought no one was on the floor. Even so, it was stupid.”
Anna found it easier to talk about than she’d expected. What she’d considered a major catastrophe last night seemed pale and puny compared to everything that had happened this morning.
“Oh, Anna, I’m not worried about you sneaking a kiss in the office after hours. I’m worried for your sake. He’s going to break your heart.”
Anna gave a short laugh. She had expected a lecture about professionalism or the dangers of dating a supervisor.
“He kind of already did. We broke up this morning.”
“Because of me?” Carla asked.
Anna couldn’t interpret the other woman’s expression. “No.” She told Carla about the DOJ meeting and its aftermath. “You must be wondering how I always get in these situations where my personal life and my work life are so intertwined, huh?”
“When you spend most of your waking hours in the office, your personal life is your professional life,” Carla said. “So, I’m supervising you on the Capitol case. How’s it going?”
“Not well,” Anna said. She told Carla about Madeleine’s death.
“Goodness, you’ve had quite a morning,” Carla said with real sympathy. “First, Anna, this woman’s death wasn’t your fault. There’s nothing you should have done differently. As for Jack—” She paused, carefully considering her words. “How much has he told you about his past relationships?”
Anna shook her head. “Remarkably little. I know he loved his wife. I know she was an MPD officer. I know she was killed in some random street crime.”
Carla let out a breath. “Jack is a good man, but he’s terrible at relationships. He doesn’t know what he wants, and he sure doesn’t know how to hold on when he’s got someone good. You’re better off without him.”
Anna studied Carla’s face while trying to keep her own blank. Carla knew something about Jack that she wasn’t revealing—about his relationship with his wife, perhaps, or the circumstances of her death. Anna remembered Jack’s statement that Carla was good at keeping secrets. What secret did he share with his fiercest rival in the office—but which he would never share with Anna?
Whatever it was, it didn’t concern Anna anymore—although it would take all her self-control not to speculate. For now she needed to get out of here. She thanked Carla and left the office.
33
The upstairs floors of the rowhouse were better than the basement where Nicole had been trapped. There was little clutter, at least not in the rooms used for business, and efforts had been made to keep the grime to a minimum. Still, the rooms had seen better days, and even those days hadn’t been so great. The furniture was cheap and old; the walls were scarred; the discolored carpet looked like it had a case of mange. The place smelled of fried food and cigarette smoke, poorly masked with passion-fruit air freshener.
Unlike the mattress in the basement, this one sat on a bed frame and wore a fraying olive-colored sheet. The single window was covered with a dark blanket tacked up around the frame. Day or night, the room was lit only by the floor lamp standing in the corner. A brown dresser with a large mirror next to a closet. The closet door had a dead bolt on the outside. Nicole tried not to think about why the lock was on that side of the door.
She lay on the mattress and watched her client get dressed. She hadn’t done much for him, just lay there, feeling the relief of the crack Pleazy had given her, letting this guy do what he wanted. Nothing more seemed to be expected of her.
This was her fourth incall of the day. Pleazy had set everything up. He’d come in here before the first client, put his arm around her shoulder, and given her another hit from the glass pipe. She’d allowed the comforting haze to envelop her as the series of tricks paraded through the bedroom, through the bed, and through her body.
They said 90 percent of success was showing up, right? For this gig, it was 100 percent. All she needed to do was lie here. There was nothing funny about it, but she giggled.
At the sound, her client turned around and glanced at her. He was pulling on a RadioShack shirt, probably here on his lunch break. His name was embroidered on his shirt: Armanio. He looked at her with sympathy as he tied his shoelaces.
What was he pitying her for? She was fine. Guy worked at RadioShack.
“Fuck you, Armanio.”
She turned to her side and studied her fingernails. Only fragments of the red polish remained. The nails themselves were torn and filthy. She closed her eyes until she heard the guy leave the room. Even then she didn’t move.
The first time she had sex, she was thirteen years old. It was after school, and she was watching TV in the rec room in the basement. A rerun of Saved by the Bell. Larry had come downstairs. He worked Thursday through Monday as the floor manager at Macy’s, so he was home every Tuesday and Wednesday. Her mother was at work. He sat next to Nicole on the couch. “Good show?” he asked.
She didn’t answer, just stared at the TV and waited for him to start touching her.
She knew what he did to her was wrong. He was a grown-up, her mother’s husband. He shouldn’t do this, and she shouldn’t let him. But she was supposed to do what he said. And he was nice to her. He was the only person who gave her gifts, who took her to the movies. She was grateful for the attention. He always gave her something afterward: the latest Britney Spears CD, candy, the new pair of Guess jeans she’d begged for. She didn’t know the term “grooming” then, but now she understood it. Getting her used to accepting rewards in return for letting him touch her, getting her ready for the next step.
She was too ashamed to tell her mother.
“The boys in your class are gonna want something from you,” Larry said as Mario Lopez flirted with Elizabeth Berkley on-screen. “You gotta learn what it is so you know what to stay away from.”
It didn’t make sense, did it? But she wanted him to be happy with her, to keep loving her. She let him do what he wanted.
It hurt, a bright searing pain that tore through the center of her body. He grunted in her ear and then lay on top of her, crushing the air from her chest. The sound of canned laughter filled her ears as the scent of Larry’s sour musk filled her nose. When he finally let her up, she went to the bathroom, cried, and cleaned up the blood. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said after she came out of the bathroom. “This is our special secret.” He gave her a pair of Ray-Bans. She didn’t tell her mother.
He kept doing it, most Tuesdays and Wednesdays. She got pregnant when she was fifteen. Looking back, it was a miracle it hadn’t happened sooner. She told her mother the pregnancy was from a boy in school. The abortion was more painful than she’d expected. She lay in agony afterward, her stomach cramping, wringing her out. She was sure she would die. She wished she would die.
A few weeks later, Larry came down to the rec room and put his hand on her thigh again. But she was done. She pushed his hand away and stood up. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said. She turned and went upstairs. He didn’t touch her again.
She didn’t tell anyone until a few years later, during her freshman year at college. In English class, she read The Color Purple. Celie’s experience with incest and sexual abuse resonated with her. Nicole walked into the Georgetown police station to make a
report. They sent her away. Since it had happened in Pittsburgh, they said, she had to report it to the Pittsburgh police.
Instead, she worked up the courage to tell her mother. Her mother said she didn’t believe her—and at the same time, that it was Nicole’s fault. That Nicole was a slut. Her mother loved Larry; she’d always had mixed feelings about her daughter. And Nicole knew her mother was right. It was her fault. She was a slut.
Nicole stopped talking to her mother and stepfather, and they stopped paying her tuition.
A friend had introduced her to Madeleine soon after the fight. Being an escort seemed like the answer to all of Nicole’s problems. Fun and harmless, and she made enough money to pay her tuition and then some. She could live like the Georgetown rich kids lived.
Now Nicole sat up in the olive-colored bed and looked around the dark bedroom. She was so thirsty. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything to eat or drink. She wondered if anyone would bring her something. Ridiculous. Where did she think she was, the Willard?
She put on the only clothing she had here, the zippered leather dress. It was starting to smell. She padded down the hall barefoot. The door to another bedroom was cracked open, and she could hear panting noises from within. Through the crack, Nicole could see a dark-haired woman sitting astride a man, both naked, rocking. Nicole kept walking.
She went downstairs and found the kitchen at the back of the house. There was nothing in the fridge but a couple of Coors Lights, some half-empty Styrofoam carry-out containers, and the sticky residue from past generations of takeout. Dirty dishes filled the sink and covered the counters. Those must be all of their dishes, Nicole thought when she opened the cabinets—the shelves inside were almost entirely empty. A large cup sat alone on the top shelf. It was a giant goblet made of thick green glass and encrusted with fake precious stones. “King Pleazy” scrolled across the rim in rhinestones and peeling fake gold.
Nicole took down the heavy goblet—it had to weigh at least three pounds—and filled it with water from the faucet. Holding it with two hands, she took a single blissful gulp.
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