Don't Turn Around

by Hunter Morgan

  “Some time?”

  “To find out the timeline. You need to write down for me exactly where you were at what time last night. Where Gaitlin was. Exactly. We may be fine. You may have come in before or after the fact. The girlfriend could just have the times wrong. The cop I spoke to was at the scene last night. He said Angel’s friend was out of her mind, screaming. She’d been drinking. They had to have a patrol car take her and the kids home.”

  “That’s where Angel’s little boy is? With the girlfriend?”

  “That’s what I heard.” He stopped, settling his hands on the back of the chair. “We’re not doing anything illegal here. You’re just waiting to answer the questions when they’re asked.”

  “But you shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  “I shouldn’t be here.”

  “You haven’t told me anything I won’t be able to find out myself if I go down to the ER,” she assured him. “And you know I would never tell anyone anything you had told me.”

  “Okay, so for now, you say nothing. To anyone.”

  “Meaning”—she nodded her head—“Lincoln. Right. Of course. I don’t want to screw up his law firm’s defense if Gaitlin really is innocent.”

  “Exactly. That and…” Adam hesitated.

  Casey looked up at him. “That and what?”

  He was silent for a moment. “I shouldn’t tell you this.”

  “Tell me what?”

  He held out his hand, looking immensely guilty. “I shouldn’t even have brought it up.”

  “You have to tell me now,” she insisted.

  He was still hesitating.

  “Adam, please.”

  “I’m embarrassed to admit to you that I even looked up his record, but…”

  “You looked up whose record?”

  “Lincoln’s.”

  She stared at him.

  “Casey, I really don’t think your problems had anything to do with him, but…”

  She waited, holding her breath.

  “Lincoln was accused of stalking a girlfriend. The charges were eventually dropped.” He held up his hands. “But there were definitely accusations.”

  Casey sat back in her chair, taking a shuddering breath.

  “As I said, it’s probably nothing.”

  “But if Gaitlin wasn’t the one sending those drawings, if he wasn’t the one looking in my windows?” She looked away, then stared at her desk, her eyes losing focus. The idea was preposterous.

  “But, I saw Gaitlin’s blue car,” she rationalized. “It had to be him. I ran into him and his brother in the grocery store. They were obviously following me.”

  “This is why this kind of thing is so hard to prove, Casey, just as the police explained to you,” he said gently. “Coincidences can be combined with events that are, well, not quite so coincidental.”

  Casey thought out loud, “I followed Gaitlin for a week and he never went by my house, near a post office, near my office or the senior center.” She paused. “And whoever’s been harassing me made no attempt to contact me all week. I just assumed Gaitlin was on to me, but what if Lincoln knew I was following Gaitlin? A couple of times this week he asked me where I was going, what I was doing.”

  “Casey, I’m not saying it was Lincoln. It wasn’t. He’s a member of the bar, for God’s sake. I know him. He’s a good guy. A stand-up guy. I’m just saying, give me a day or two. We wouldn’t want to screw up his firm’s case. If Gaitlin didn’t do this, he’s going to need those attorneys to defend him, because my office, considering the circumstances, will be going for the death penalty. I can guarantee it.”

  Casey just sat there. She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what she thought.

  “Casey,” Adam said gently, “I really need to get to my office.”

  “I shouldn’t tell Lincoln,” she said softly.

  “You can do what you think is right, but I’d hold off.”

  “You’ll call me?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Thank you.” She looked up. She didn’t feel steady enough to walk him to the door. She didn’t want him to think that she couldn’t handle this, that she was some kind of emotional basket case.

  “I’ll call you later, to check on you.” He stopped at the door. “You going to be okay?”

  She exhaled. “I’ll be fine.”

  She waited until he was gone and then got up and closed the door. It wasn’t until she heard the click of the knob that heat rushed to her face and her knees went weak. A sob rose in her throat as she slowly slid to the floor, resting her back against the office door.

  The memories came in flashes. The white car. Billy cajoling her. The rain. Her getting into the car.

  She had trusted him. Maybe loved him.

  She thought she was in love with Lincoln. Had she chosen the wrong man again?

  Chapter 32

  When Casey picked up her cell phone off the car seat and saw that it was Lincoln, she was tempted not to answer. They’d had a very brief, tense phone conversation when she’d called him back after her little breakdown in her office. He didn’t meet her for lunch. He’d called twice later in the day, but she hadn’t called him back or listened to his messages.

  Now he was calling again. Was it to apologize for his tone of voice earlier? Or was it for his questions about why Adam was there this morning, why he hadn’t just picked up the phone? They hadn’t really discussed Angel’s death or Gaitlin’s arrest. The conversation had been of a purely personal nature.

  All day she’d been going over in her head the details of the contact she’d had with whoever was stalking her. Not once could she disprove the theory that it could be Lincoln. Of course it didn’t work that way. There were 200,000 people in the county, but since it could only be one of them, it could still be him.

  She just couldn’t believe Lincoln could do something like this. And why would he? Adam hadn’t given her any details of what Lincoln had done in the past, or exactly what the circumstances of the charges had been, or why they had been dropped. It might not even be true.

  The phone continued to ring. She didn’t know what to say to him.

  She tapped her earpiece. “Hello.”

  “Freckles.”

  “Dad?” Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Dad, why are you using Lincoln’s cell phone?”

  “I’m calling on Lincoln’s phone.”

  She tried not to sound exasperated. “Why are you using Lincoln’s cell phone? I just left the office to pick you up. I’m only going to be a few minutes late.”

  “Lincoln picked me up. He called you to tell you. Left a message. You want pizza? We got pizza.”

  Casey was annoyed that Lincoln would pick her father up, but she had listed him, at his suggestion, as an emergency contact person or a person permitted to sign her dad out at the end of the day. It had seemed like a good idea at the time because Jayne and Joaquin were always so difficult to reach by phone.

  “I’m on my way home. I’ll see you at home. You’re going right home, right?” Her voice sounded shrill. She had no reason to doubt that Lincoln wouldn’t take him home.

  But she was full of nothing but doubt, and for the hundredth time she wished her therapist weren’t on maternity leave. She wished she could talk to someone. All these years, all this time she’d been working on trusting herself and her instincts, and in one day, it all seemed to be swirling in the toilet bowl. She couldn’t really have been this wrong about Lincoln, could she?

  “Dad?” she said.

  “Pepperoni,” he answered.

  Lincoln must have taken her father directly home after their pizza stop; his blue Mini Cooper was in the driveway when she pulled in. He had considerately parked to the side to allow her to enter the garage.

  She was hanging up her coat, stalling, when Lincoln walked into the laundry room.

  “Hey,” he said. He sounded contrite.

  Casey was so confused. Angel was dead. And she knew Charlie didn’t do it.
Now she was second-guessing herself on virtually every and any subject. She felt like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over her head.

  “Hey,” she said, not looking at Lincoln. She passed him in the hall.

  “I’m sorry about the phone call today,” he said, following her. “I brought you eggplant parmesan because I know you get sick of pizza. Ed wanted pizza.”

  She walked into the living room. Her father was seated on the couch, the TV on. Frazier was lying on the floor chewing on a piece of pizza crust trapped between his two front paws.

  “Dad,” she said.

  He lifted a Coke can in her general direction. She turned and walked into the kitchen.

  Lincoln followed. “Casey, what do you want me to say? I’m sorry. It was a bad day for all of us. I’m jealous of him. His friendship with you. I admit it.”

  She leaned against the kitchen counter, still not ready to speak.

  “Don’t you understand why I’m upset? It’s not about Gaitlin,” Lincoln continued. “It’s not about a case. It’s about you. About you and me. I don’t want him coming to your rescue. I don’t want him being there for you every time I turn around. I don’t want him calling you in the middle of the night when he has a family tragedy. I’m sorry, but that’s how I feel. I’m not saying he can’t; I’m just saying I wish he wouldn’t. I don’t want to share you with him. Is that so wrong?”

  “I don’t need anyone to come to my rescue,” she said, looking at the tile floor. It needed to be mopped. There were paw prints everywhere. “I can take care of myself.”

  “Of course you can. You know what I mean.” He stood there in front of her, one hand in his pocket.

  She finally lifted her gaze. Looked at him. He’d gotten a haircut last week, but his hair still managed to somehow appear shaggy. She loved his shaggy hair, his warm blue eyes and easy demeanor. He was certainly not as polished as Adam, maybe not as handsome, but he looked like a people’s attorney. He looked trustworthy. He didn’t look like a stalker. He didn’t look like he could harm a kitten.

  “Casey, what’s wrong?”

  “What’s wrong?” He reached for her but she batted his hand away. “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you tell me you were arrested for stalking?”

  She didn’t mean to say it. It just came out.

  “What?”

  “So you’re denying it?”

  “Whoa. Easy.” He reached for her again; she pulled away. “This is about my arrest over a decade ago? How did you even—” He halted before he finished his sentence, then said snidely, “That slick bastard.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I found out.” She leaned back, pushing the heels of her hands on the kitchen counter. “I want to know why you didn’t tell me.”

  He stared at her for a moment. “Because maybe I was embarrassed?” He tilted his head. “Because maybe it happened when I was a stupid kid who made a stupid mistake? And exactly what does this have to do with us, now? What does Adam—”

  “This has nothing to do with Adam. It’s about me and you and…and…” She groaned with exasperation. “Lincoln, you should have told me. You knew I had trust issues.”

  He ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. “You didn’t tell me why you had trust issues and I didn’t pry. It never occurred to me that something I did in college could come between you and me.”

  “Someone stalked me once,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow. “It turned…ugly.”

  “Ah, Casey.” He stepped toward her, wrapped his arms around her. She didn’t hug him back, but she didn’t push him away.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, then kissed the top of her head. “I should have told you. You’re right. But, honestly, I didn’t think it mattered that much. Not after all this time. Let me explain what happened.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do.” He rubbed her arm. “It’s really not that complicated. See, I went out with this girl, and I thought I loved her. She broke up with me and I went a little crazy. I sent her notes. Called her a lot, even when she asked me not to. I showed up at a party she was at—the wrong party—and she called an uncle who was a cop. He arrested me on harassment charges.”

  “Not stalking?”

  “No. We didn’t even have stalking laws in those days.”

  Tears burned the backs of Casey’s eyelids. Now she was even more confused. Adam had said stalking charges, hadn’t he?

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “And I’m sorry about Angel.” He stepped back, catching her hand in his. “And I wanted to tell you in person, but I’ve agreed to work on the team that will be defending Gaitlin on the new murder charge. Casey, I don’t know what’s going on, but something isn’t right this time.”

  She looked up at him. She was overwhelmed by emotion. She believed his story about stalking the girlfriend; it was too common for kids that age not to believe. As for Adam, he obviously wanted to go out with her. Maybe he had played up the story because he was jealous of Lincoln in the same way Lincoln was jealous of him.

  Casey didn’t know for sure, but what she did know was that Lincoln hadn’t been stalking her all these weeks. She didn’t know who it was, but she knew in her heart that it wasn’t Lincoln. It was only her lousy self-doubt that had made her suspect him. It was the craziness of the day.

  She studied his face; he was so earnest.

  She hesitated. Adam asked her not to tell Lincoln what she knew about Gaitlin. Adam worked in the district attorney’s office. He was a powerful man. Had he been using his power in a personal way to cause Casey to alienate Lincoln? To make her doubt Lincoln and herself and go running into his arms?

  Trust. It was about trust. And more about trusting herself than either of the men.

  “If we’re making confessions tonight, I might as well jump in.” She walked to the dinette table and sat down. The lamp over the table cast soft yellow light on the wood surface.

  Lincoln took the chair beside her. “Okay,” he said quietly. He waited for her to speak.

  Casey pressed her lips together as she looked down at her hands on the table. “When Adam was in my office today and he told me about Angel and about Gaitlin being arrested…”

  “Yes.”

  Casey heard tension in Lincoln’s voice.

  “We had a conversation about her murder and then Adam asked me to not tell you something.”

  “About him?”

  She shook her head, then made herself look up at him. “About Gaitlin. You see, I told Adam that I knew Gaitlin didn’t kill Angel because I was following him when the murder took place. During the hour the police say it took place.”

  “You were following him?”

  “In my car,” she explained. “Long story, but I thought he was harassing me. I was afraid he was stalking me, and the police couldn’t do anything about it, so I thought I would try to solve the problem myself.”

  “So you’re Charles Gaitlin’s alibi,” Lincoln said slowly, as if trying to process the information.

  “Yes. I followed him to his brother’s girlfriend’s place, where he sat in her empty driveway for a good hour. Waiting for her to get home, I guess.”

  “The same hour that Angel was apparently murdered?”

  She nodded.

  “And Adam didn’t want you to tell me because he wanted a head start on the case?”

  “No,” she defended. “Well, I’m not sure why. He thought maybe the time frame was off. Maybe—”

  “What an ass. Everyone says you need to keep an eye on the Prestons. I knew he had political aspirations, but it never occurred to me he’d purposely withhold evidence—”

  “He didn’t tell me I couldn’t tell you, Lincoln. It wasn’t like that. I just asked him what he thought I should do—”

  “About me,” he interrupted.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “No, not about you.” She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “I was worried about jeopardizing the case…the cases. Linda’s…Angel’s. Now I
’m afraid I might have”—her voice caught in her throat—“accused the wrong man. Charles Gaitlin didn’t kill Angel; I know that for a fact. What if he didn’t kill Linda, either?”

  He looked at her hand resting on his. “What a mess.”

  Casey laughed. She didn’t know why, but she did.

  “That funny?” He half smiled, not sure if he should be smiling.

  “No.” She laughed again. “Not even a little bit.”

  He took her hand in his and lifted it to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. He kissed her fingertips one at a time. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure this out.”

  “I know,” she said, once again close to tears. “But you have to swear to me you won’t tell anyone about Adam’s breach of confidentiality.”

  “He shouldn’t have run my record,” Lincoln said quietly.

  “No, he shouldn’t have,” she agreed. “But we’ve all done things we shouldn’t have based on emotion. No one was hurt here.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I guess you’re right. What’s most important right now is that you know I’m sincere when I tell you that I would never do anything to harm you. To scare you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you?” Now he was smiling. He looked at her with his big blue eyes, a twinkle of amusement in them. “Do you also know, Miss Know-It-All, that I’m in love with you?”

  Chapter 33

  I have taken a chance in coming, but I knew yesterday when Casey told me that she could vouch for Gaitlin what had to be done. It’s a shame, really. The relationship was developing nicely. She really cared for me.

  I have to admit she surprised me. Took me off guard for the briefest moment. It never occurred to me that she would have the balls to follow Gaitlin or that she would fight back the way she has. In a way, I am proud of her. Still, I can’t let her get in the way of my scapegoat. I must cover my tracks. I can’t jeopardize my own career, not even for sweet, tougher-than-I-expected Casey.

  I wait at the table that’s specifically set up for client/ attorney meetings. The room is small. Cold. Bare. I don’t mind. Tax dollars pay for it. It is not meant to be a Marriott meeting room.