Desperate Girls

24

ERIK’S MOOD the next morning was extra-grim, and Brynn picked up on the tension as they rode the elevator down together. He and Hayes hustled her into the Tahoe at warp speed and then took a strangely circuitous route to the courthouse. Neither said a word the entire way.

Brynn didn’t mind. She used the drive to calm her nerves and get in the zone. It was going to be lonely at the defense table without Ross. He was her support, her ally, always there to whisper a question or jot a note to help her through a cross-examination when she got stuck. The prospect of moving forward without him was more daunting than she’d admitted to Reggie, and she had hardly slept last night, tossing and turning with nightmares about her very first witness stumbling on the stand.

The nightmares didn’t come close to reality. Perez crashed and burned.

He muddled through her questions with incomplete answers and inconsistencies, completely forgetting all the straightforward responses they’d painstakingly rehearsed together the day before. His testimony about his activities on the night of Seth Moore’s murder was shaky at best, and Brynn knew that when Conlon got ahold of him, it was going to be a bloodbath.

It was. By the time the prosecutor finished his cross-examination, it had come out that although Perez had spent much of his evening at his girlfriend’s apartment, he hadn’t been alone. Perez revealed—to Brynn’s utter surprise—that a female “friend” had shown up while he and Justin were watching basketball, and Perez had been with her in the bedroom for the second half of the Spurs game.

Justin’s alibi was shredded.

When Perez finally finished his testimony and slunk out of the courtroom, Conlon looked triumphant, Brynn was reeling, and the jurors were eyeing her with suspicion, no doubt wondering what had possessed her to put Perez on the stand to kick off her case.

The jury was disappointed in her, Brynn could tell. One witness in, and already she’d broken a commandment. Linden smacked his gavel for the lunch break, and Brynn watched the jurors file from the courtroom with a knot of dread in her stomach. The bailiff led Justin out, and Brynn suppressed the urge to scream.

Her client had held out on her. It had happened before, and she should be used to it by now. But she felt gut-punched.

She grabbed her attaché case. For the first time all day, she was grateful to be alone at the defense table so that none of her colleagues could witness the disaster. She left the courtroom trailed by Hayes and saw Conlon duck into the men’s room.

Brynn followed him. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed Hayes’s worried frown as she pushed open the door.

Conlon stood at a urinal. The man beside him took one look at Brynn, then quickly zipped up and scuttled away.

“Counselor.”

The prosecutor looked over his shoulder and scowled. “Well, well. You must really be desperate if you’re looking for deals in the john.”

“I’m not here for a deal.”

“Oh, yeah?” He zipped up and turned around. “You sure? I’ve got an alphabet soup of evidence—GSR, DNA, the list goes on.”

She smiled. “I’m here with a little reminder that witness tampering is a felony. My investigator knows about that plane ticket and the suite at the Bellagio.”

He tipped his head to the side. “Damn, you are delusional, aren’t you?”

“And if I can prove you knew about it, you will be disbarred. Oh, and sent off to prison, too, with some of the people you helped put away.”

He shook his head.

“Have a nice day,” she said, and walked out.

Erik surveyed the street from his lofty perch, searching for any sign of Corby or one of his known vehicles. The military-grade binoculars brought everything into razor-sharp focus as he monitored traffic and pedestrians a thousand feet below. No one looked up—not once—but Erik wasn’t surprised. People never seemed concerned about or even aware of the possibility of being observed from above.

Erik’s phone buzzed, and he dug it from his pocket.

“Hey, what’s your twenty?” Jeremy asked.

“I’m on the roof of the courthouse.”

“We just got a lead.”

Erik’s pulse picked up, and he waited, still peering through the glass.

“There’s an Ann K. Johnson living in Fort Worth. Husband, Gary. He’s got a black Honda Civic registered to his name. And get this—he’s dead.”

“The husband?”

“Yeah, Gary Johnson. Died a year ago. So maybe his wife’s using his car.”

“Or lending it out.”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds promising,” Erik said. “The marshals finally got something.”

“This came from Leary. She called me five minutes ago.”

“Figures. That detective’s sharper than all those marshals put together.” Erik lowered the binoculars and skimmed the street in front of the courthouse. The sun blazed down on him, roasting him through his starched dress shirt.

“They’re going to swing by the address,” Jeremy said, “see if anything raises a flag. I’m planning to go, if you want to come.”

“I’ll stay here with Brynn.”

“You sure? Isn’t she in court?”

She was, along with two dedicated agents and a sheriff’s deputy, but Erik wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m sure.”

“Okay. How’s it going there?”

“Quiet.”

Too quiet.

Erik lifted the binoculars again, unsure why he felt that way, but he did. Something was wrong. The air was too hot, too still, too saturated with sunlight. The conditions felt ripe for . . . something. He didn’t know.

Jeremy picked up on his tension.

“Stay alert,” he told Erik.

“Roger that.”