by Fenton, Liz
Chase nods slowly. “It would have made more sense for him to make sure the incident was documented. It would really help solidify the allegations against her.”
“Right. So what if he hid it for a different reason?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. But we need to find out before we go any further.” Sam’s face flashes in my head again. His anger toward me. “Because men like that, they have a way of making the world play in their favor.”
I grab my phone and text Detective Sully. We need to talk, ASAP. Stop ignoring me!
I send off the text and wonder why I haven’t heard from him, as he always gets back to me right away. I hope someone inside the force hasn’t swayed him against me. This latest win surely hasn’t sat well with the department. But no, he was loyal to me. Wasn’t he? I notice three missed calls from Carrie and several texts from Ethan, all asking how I’m doing and begging me to call. “I need to make a few calls,” I tell Chase. “Can you connect with Joe and see if he found anything out on Franklin yet?”
“Sure thing,” he says and shuts my door on the way out. I take a deep breath and text Ethan that I’m fine, just busy, and not to worry. Then I dial Carrie.
“Hey, there.” I try to sound peppy when she answers, not wanting to worry her.
“Oh my God, Lila! I’ve been freaking out all day because you haven’t called me back. I was so afraid something bad happened to you again. I had to call Ethan to make sure you were okay. He said you went to work. Why would you go in today?”
“I’m sorry I haven’t called you back,” I say, the sting of Sam’s words coming back at the sound of Carrie’s voice. “I had some things that couldn’t be rescheduled. And anyway, I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to do that with me, you know.”
“What?” I ask. “What am I doing?”
“Acting like what happened is nothing. Like this is another day at work. You were brutally attacked last night. You could have died!” She lowers her voice and says, “It’s okay to admit that. It’s okay to be scared.”
I don’t know if it’s what she says or the way her voice gentles, but I start to cry, tears I didn’t know I’d been holding inside escaping from my eyes and down my cheeks, sliding off my chin and onto Steve Greenwood’s file. Which only makes me cry harder. She’s right. I don’t want to admit how close I came to being kidnapped or killed. The scariest part is that I have no idea what the attacker intended to do to me. His only words to me indicated that whatever it was, he was going to take great pleasure in it. And he’s still out there. Is he watching? The back of my neck tingles at the thought.
Carrie politely waits for me to stop crying. “Feel better?” she asks after I blow my nose loudly.
“I do.” Admitting the fear has taken away a little bit of its power.
When I’ve caught my breath, Carrie peppers me with more questions about the attack. For every single detail I didn’t disclose previously. How exactly did he grab me? What did he say? Did he seem familiar at all? I answer all her questions but have to admit I’m relieved when Chase ducks his head in my doorway and gives me our signal for get off the phone, I need to tell you something important.
I sign off with Carrie, offering her lunch the next day when she says she has to see me in person to make sure I’m really okay.
“What’s up?” I ask Chase.
“Two things.”
“Is this a good news, bad news situation?”
“No, this is more like a bad news, really bad news thing. Which one do you want first?”
I rub my eyes. I have no doubt I look like hell at this point. “Surprise me.”
“This arrived for you via messenger. It’s from Stephanie.”
“What is it?”
Chase shakes his head. “I think you should open it.”
I pull out a stack of papers from a manila envelope and scan the top sheet. It’s a wrongful-death civil lawsuit that Stephanie has filed against Jeremiah. “Oh my God—she’s not letting this go.”
“That’s not the worst of it.”
“The fact that she is trying to pull an OJ on Jeremiah isn’t the worst of it?”
“There’s more. A smaller envelope. It must still be inside.”
I reach in and pull it out. On the outside is a note written to me:
Lila, I don’t know how you live with yourself after helping a murderer go free. Did you help him hide evidence? Is that how you two got away with it? Inside is a present from me. Consider it a reminder of what you’ve done. Of who you are.
I open the envelope and pull out a picture. I gasp.
I look up. “It’s his wife. It’s Vivian.” She’s smiling, looking at something just off camera.
“I know,” Chase says, giving me a sad smile.
“I thought I was done with her. With this case.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Please tell me this is the really bad news.”
Chase pauses. “It’s not. I also spoke with Joe. Franklin is missing.”
My head starts to spin. “What do you mean, he’s missing?”
“He’s completely off the grid. No credit card, cell phone, or social media activity for at least two weeks.”
I struggle to catch my breath. Did he go into hiding a few weeks ago, biding his time until he found the right window to assault me? But that couldn’t have been Franklin last night—the man I’d tussled with had been buff. Strong. Had Franklin recruited help?
“Maybe it’s a coincidence,” Chase offers weakly, as if he’s read my mind.
“Or maybe it’s not,” I say and reach up to touch the tender skin on my face, pushing it hard. It stings horribly at first, but eventually the pain becomes a part of me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WEDNESDAY
CAPTURED
Dear Janelle,
It’s been a long time. Too long, really. I’m reaching out now to apologize for a mistake I made a long time ago. It’s something I’ve thought about often, wondering if it could have caused a ripple effect on your life. On mine. Because I’m beginning to realize that at the end of the day, we are just a sum of the choices we make. And I’ve made a lot of bad ones.
I set the pen down and touch the wound on my arm, now wrapped in a bandage Q reluctantly removed from his backpack once blood had dripped on the letter, smearing the ink. I can’t have you bleeding out all over this, he hissed, then handed me a fresh piece of paper, where I began my mea culpa once again. I asked him for some privacy, insisting the words would be more natural if he weren’t hovering over me while I wrote them, but he refused. Although he turned his back to me.
But I knew the camera was still watching.
As I hold the pen above the paper, my hand is shaking, from both fear of what I’m about to admit and the reality of why I’m admitting it. The irony that Q is holding me captive, yet my character is being called into question, does not escape me. But it makes one thing very clear: This is not a random abduction. This is not about sex. Or a big payday.
This is about justice.
I look up at the camera. Whoever is behind that blinking red light wants me to pay for my sins. And it’s very possible I deserve to do just that.
I rest my hand on the paper and try to think of how to give Q what he wants without exposing myself. This information will ruin my reputation at the firm. Although considering the predicament I’m in, does it matter? Will I live to see the consequences of my confession? I swallow a sob as I realize the answer is no. There’s no reason for Q to keep me alive after he gets everything he wants. So if I’m going to die, Janelle deserves to know the truth. And I’m in desperate need of absolution.
You were a good friend to me. Remember when I came down with strep the night before my biggest final in my criminal procedure class, and you stayed up with me all night, making sure I was prepared? I’ve never forgotten the way you gave me a cold towel for the back of my neck, how you risked your own health to help mine. Do yo
u remember what you said when I thanked you? “You would have done the same for me, Lila.” I simply nodded.
Here’s my first confession—I wouldn’t have. I probably would have thrown some Advil at you and run away to the library to study. I would have lamented your bad luck, but it wouldn’t have crossed my mind that I should help you. That was always the difference between you and me. I pretended to be good, but you were actually good. Almost like there was no way either of us could avoid our destiny—you, the savior, me, the destroyer. And it’s not only you. I’ve developed a very nasty habit of hurting the people closest to me—saving my worst venom for the most loyal. I’ve had some alone time to wonder why. Why I build things up and then destroy them with my bare hands.
It would be so easy to blame this on my dad—I’d told you he passed away when I was twelve, but I left out that he’d been unfaithful to my mom while he was alive. Or maybe I could pin it on my mom for confessing the secret to me after he died, a few months before I met you in torts class. Because the truth is it did crack something open inside me. It changed the way I viewed love. Loyalty. It changed the way I viewed myself. If I was in court defending myself right now, I’d argue it was the basis for every bad decision I’ve made since. I’d ask for leniency.
But both those defenses are bullshit. No matter what happened to me, it still did not give me the right to betray others the way I have. It does not excuse what I did to you.
Tears stain the page as I write. Excavating a deep truth hurts. But I take a breath and keep going before I lose my nerve.
You’re probably shaking your head right now. Wondering why I’m being so hard on myself. I can hear you saying, “Nobody’s perfect!” in your throaty voice. You would want me to feel better. But I don’t deserve any sympathy from you.
I’m sure you recall Professor Callahan, our ethics professor. Remember how he’d let his eyes linger a little too long on his female students while he lectured? How he had a reputation for flirting during his office hours? We’d laughed and wondered which coed would be his next conquest.
I guess I was the lucky one. I slept with him the day before he chose the recipient of the internship at Douglas, Shirby, and Jones, the law firm that gave me the start to what has been an amazing career. I’ve told myself over and over that my desire to win the internship wasn’t the reason I slept with him, that the timing was simply a coincidence. But that is one of the many lies I’ve told myself.
When I was at his apartment, I saw his internship choice on a paper on his desk. It had your name on it. But the next day he called mine instead. I swear to you, Janelle, I never asked him to give it to me. To take it from you. But there is no denying that the intention was there. That I stole something that wasn’t mine.
I know it hurt you when I pulled away soon after that, and I’m sorry. You didn’t know it at the time, but I was doing you the biggest favor of your life. You are, quite simply, too good for me.
I’ve heard you’ve become a very successful prosecutor, and I’m happy for you. I will say this—the internship I hijacked that led to my high-profile job—it has a price. Sometimes the ambiguity of my client’s guilt or innocence weighs me down so hard I can barely breathe. It has broken me down piece by piece, until there is almost nothing left. And for that reason, there is a small part of me that hopes I saved you from such a fate. That my selfishness propelled you on the noble path for which you are meant.
I can’t change the past, but I can make one promise: I’ll never betray myself or anyone else that way ever again. I hope you can forgive me.
Lila Bennett
I fold the letter in half, not wanting to see the words, to relive my confession. I meant every single word, and it was shocking how much the truth hurt to write. I’m crying now and don’t look up when I hear Q’s heavy footsteps walking toward me. The paper crunches slightly when he picks it up. Silence invades the room for several minutes. I assume he’s reading my words, but I refuse to look up. To give him the pleasure of seeing that I give a shit what he thinks.
I feel his foot nudge me. “You really mean this? Or is this more of your fake bullshit you do with all the people in your life?” His words are soft. Questioning. Skeptical of my capability to be introspective. But curious that I might not be as evil as he’d so clearly been told.
“Yes,” I whisper, forcing myself to look at him finally. “She deserved better.”
His shadowed eyes search mine. More silence.
“You bet your ass she did!” he eventually spouts, but his words sound a tiny bit hollow. Almost as if he doesn’t like this side of me. He doesn’t want me to care. To be remorseful. Human. He wants me to fight. It will make it easier for him to hate me. Hurt me. To kill me.
He leans down and recuffs my hands tightly. “I’m off to deliver this letter. Hope your hand isn’t cramping. I have a strong feeling you’ve got many more of these to get off your chest.”
“Right,” I affirm and turn away from him. My confession to Janelle has sucked the fight out of me.
Maybe I’m ready to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WEDNESDAY
FREE
When I finally get home, it’s 10:15 p.m. I flip the dead bolt and the second lock on the doorknob and lean against the door, feeling as if I’ve lived two full days in one, my head and heart playing tug-of-war about Jeremiah’s case all day. My head continually justified the acquittal. You were doing your job! There wasn’t any hard evidence! My heart shouted back immediately, But still. That feeling you had. Could you have missed something? Those conflicting thoughts battled it out inside me as I pored through the wrongful-death civil lawsuit Stephanie filed but finally agreed on one thing: regardless of Jeremiah’s guilt or innocence, karma has finally come knocking on my door.
I couldn’t push the thought aside as I’d stared at the photo of Vivian that Stephanie had included in the envelope. I studied Vivian’s wide smile, her oval chocolate eyes, her slightly crooked nose. Did he kill you? I whispered. Stephanie and her sister were only sixteen months apart in age and best friends. She testified in court that Vivian had told her that Jeremiah was controlling as well as abusive, verbally and physically. But she had no proof—had never witnessed it herself. It was hard to believe this woman in the picture was the same one in the crime scene photos. But still, I could not seem to put the photo back in the envelope. Instead, I got Jeremiah’s case file out and started to read through it. Chase popped his head in once or twice, arching his eyebrow at me. I waved him off, deep into the police report that was filed the night Vivian was killed. Had I overlooked something? But when I finished reading through it, I came to the same conclusion: there wasn’t enough evidence to support a guilty verdict. My head reminded me I simply did my job as a defense attorney; I gave my client what was promised by the US Constitution—representation. But my heart still layered doubt into every thought. What if Jeremiah lost his temper and killed his wife, then staged the scene to look like a burglary? Hid the murder weapon? It was all possible, but not provable. At least not in a criminal court.
And then Jeremiah called. He’d been served the lawsuit, and he was livid—freaking out over the fact that the standard of proof is lower in a civil case: the jury must decide that there is at least a 50.1 percent probability that Jeremiah is responsible. And the jurors wouldn’t have to come to a unanimous decision—only nine of the twelve would need to believe Jeremiah is guilty, whereas in his criminal case, the jurors had to unanimously believe that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Jeremiah would be forced to testify if he were called to the stand. When I defended him criminally, I strongly advised him not to testify, and he agreed that it was better to have the lack of evidence speak for itself. I was concerned that Jeremiah would come across too unemotional on the stand. It’s always a risk to do that, and I’ve had one time in my career where it backfired miserably. To this day, I wonder what would have happened if I had made a different choice. But I hadn’t felt like we’d had another
option in this case, and this time it had worked out.
“So they lose in court and now are trying to backdoor some sort of guilty verdict, in an attempt to ruin my life? This will bankrupt me if I lose. Not to mention my career as a surgeon will be over. My reputation. I already have backlash at the hospital, people not wanting me to operate on them,” he bellowed.
“There is still no evidence. With the lower threshold, I still don’t think they have enough to find you liable in a civil case.”
“They found OJ guilty!”
“Are you comparing yourself to OJ?” I asked, careful to keep my voice light, bothered slightly that he saw himself in the same light.
“Of course not!” He sighed into the phone. “But in OJ’s case, the Goldman and Brown families got a second chance for the verdict they wanted. And they won. And now Stephanie’s getting a second shot too. What if she somehow wins?”
I wanted to tell him they’d far from won—the people they loved had been brutally murdered. A $50 million settlement was never going to bring them back. But before I could say anything to that effect, he started spouting again.
“I was acquitted, dammit. Why isn’t that enough? She clearly wants to shame me. That’s all this is! A smear campaign!”
I rubbed my throbbing temples as he yelled so loudly into the phone I had to hold it away from my ear. Jeremiah had never shown any anger during the trial. In fact, he had displayed very little emotion at all. At the time I had chalked it up to his personality. But now I wondered if he’d ever gotten this angry at Vivian. Had she ever had to hold the phone away while he screamed? Even with all our issues, I tried to recall a time Ethan had ever raised his voice to me like this, but I couldn’t. I waited quietly for Jeremiah’s rage to run its course until the only sound was his rapid breathing. We sat like that for a few moments before he spoke again, his voice hoarse, asking if I’d be representing him again.
