At one fifteen A.M. Jack was in bed but still awake. He got up and made himself a cup of tea in the microwave, cleared away a place to sit on the couch, and watched about twenty minutes of a Friends rerun that he’d seen at least a half-dozen times before. Chamomile always worked for Andie when she had trouble sleeping. It just made Jack need to pee. When he came out of the bathroom, Max was waiting for him at the door.
“Sorry, boy. It’s not time to run.”
Max almost seemed relieved. He climbed up on the settee and went right back to doggy sleep. Jack looked at him with envy and crawled into bed. Then he reminded himself that he needed to follow up with the Kayal family about sending Max away for a while. One more thing to do.
Andie stirred on the other side of the mattress.
“What’s wrong, Jack?”
Wow. What a question. Jack answered it the best he could. “Nothing.”
She rolled toward him, draped her arm across his chest and her leg atop his thigh. “It’s going to get better,” she said.
“I know.”
“You have to believe that.”
“Optimism is my middle name. Jack Optimism Sly-teck.”
“You’re better than Faith Corso. Don’t let her keep you up at night.”
“It’s not her,” said Jack. “I’m just having trouble understanding how the hell I got here.”
Andie propped herself up on her elbow, looking him in the eye. “How do you think you got here?”
“Two years ago Neil Goderich called me, said he was sick, and asked me to do him and the Freedom Institute a favor. So I cover a hearing. Neil dies eight weeks before trial, and the judge says I’m the only living attorney of record, the case is going to trial, so I’m Sydney Bennett’s lawyer. Now everybody wants to hang Sydney and her lawyer for buying off a juror, my old girlfriend is dead, and I have until Tuesday to figure out how to keep hope alive for two devastated parents whose daughter is in a coma.”
Andie just looked at him, one of her patented expressions that said everything without saying a word.
“What?” said Jack.
“That’s how you think you got here? Really?”
“Obviously that’s the Reader’s Digest version.”
“No, that’s the Jack Swyteck version.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The left eyebrow arched, the telltale sign that she was about to unload exactly what was on her mind. Then she said it. “You got here because you love it.”
“I what?”
“Take Rene out of this. That’s a horrible tragedy, and we’ll catch the guy who did it. But the Sydney Bennett trial, where all this began. You got in it because you love this stuff.”
“That’s so not true.”
“It makes you feel better about yourself to say you didn’t want this case, that you did Neil a favor and got strong-armed by the judge into defending Sydney Bennett.”
“And how would that make me feel good about myself?”
“Because this is exactly the kind of case you would want. But you didn’t want to take it.”
“This is starting to sound like analysis.”
“In your mind, being ordered by the judge to defend Sydney Bennett makes it more acceptable to your fiancee. There, I pointed it out: the elephant in the room.”
“No, I think it’s Max. Those mangos are murder.”
“Don’t make jokes, damn it.” She came closer “Look. Jack. I love you so much, but there’s a reason we’re engaged and still haven’t set a wedding date. And it’s not because we’re too busy. It’s because we’re still. . negotiating.”
“Negotiating?”
“Yes. There’s no other word for it. I’m being very honest. I don’t want you to turn me into something I’m not, any more than I should turn you into something you’re not.”
Jack was silent, but he knew where the conversation was headed.
“I’m taking this undercover assignment,” she said. “I could be away for five months. For me, that’s not negotiable.”
“That’s fine. I want you to take it,” he said.
“And I love you for that. That’s not the problem. The problem is, I don’t want you to represent people like Sydney Bennett.”
“So for you, undercover work is nonnegotiable, but you want my selection of cases to be negotiable?”
“No, I want you to stop making yourself miserable, stop trying to be a pleaser. Stand up and say, This is me, this who I am, this is not negotiable. And I’m just going to have to find a way to get over that. . if we’re ever going to set a wedding date.”
He brought her closer.
“Weird,” said Jack.
“What is?”
“That actually made me feel better.”
She kissed him gently.
“And confused,” said Jack.
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Could it be because what you just said is completely unlike anything you’ve ever said to me before?”
“I’ve evolved.”
“More like transformed.”
“Let’s just say a little birdie sang in my ear.”
“A birdie, huh?”
She let out a little laugh, but it was cut short by Shorty Shitstain. Theo’s ringtone. Jack still had his friend’s cell phone, and it was vibrating on the nightstand. He reached over and grabbed it. This time there was no SQUEEZEPLAY or COOCHIE MONSTER in the caller ID. It was just a random number-at two o’clock in the morning.
“I’m going to take this,” he said, and he answered it: “This is Jack.”
“Oh, thank God! Jack, you have to help me!”
She was in a panic, but he immediately recognized the voice. “Sydney, calm down.”
“Calm down? I’m out here on my own, I can’t even close my eyes to go to sleep, and now I saw on TV that Judge Matthews expects me to show up in court on Monday.”
“He wants to know about the guy who met you at the airport.”
“He’s crazy, okay? Sick and crazy. He tried to choke me.”
“What?”
“He came to me like he was my friend, gonna sell my movie rights, gonna make me a million dollars. Then the first night we were alone together he turns into this crazy man.”
“You didn’t tell me this before.”
“I told you he was a creep, that I was going through hell. What is it about lawyers that they need to have everything spelled out from A to Z? Is that so you can give your client the big ‘I told you so’? I didn’t fire him, okay? I escaped! The guy is sick. I’m lucky to be alive!”
Jack sat up on the edge of the mattress. “Sydney, you have to listen to me. You’re in a lot of danger.”
“No shit!”
“What I’m trying to say is that you need more help than your lawyer can give you. Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone!”
“We need to get you protection.”
“Yeah, like the whole world wants to bend over backward to help me, Jack.”
“Listen to me. My fiancee is an FBI agent. She’s here with me. I can put her on the phone right now to talk if-”
“No! If you give her that phone, I’m hanging up.”
“All right, don’t hang up. But I want you to memorize her number,” he said, and then he gave it to her.
“I’m not calling the FBI. You’re my lawyer. You have to protect my not-guilty verdict. Please, please. I’m begging you. I can’t come back for another trial.”
“Maybe you can come back, if you call the FBI.” He blurted out Andie’s number again.
“I can’t! You have to do whatever it takes to stop that judge from throwing out the verdict. No way can I put myself in a courtroom or any other box where he can find me.”
“Who is this guy?”
“His name is Merselus.”
“Merciless?”
“Might as well be.” She spelled it.
“What’s his last name?”
“That is his last name. Or maybe not. I don’t know. He just goes by Merselus. He found me when I was in jail, said he was a Hollywood agent. When he actually followed through and got the money for the private airplane to my father, we figured he was legit. Or at least I thought my fucking dad would have checked him out to make sure he wasn’t just another crazy son of a bitch with a hard-on for Shot Mom.”
“Your father-”
“I gotta go. I gotta go right now!”
“Sydney, wait!”
“Just help me, okay? He tried to strangle me, Jack! Don’t you get it?”
Jack started to reply, but she was gone. He put the phone on the nightstand and glanced at Andie. She’d heard only one side of the conversation, and Jack wasn’t ready to share the other half. He was thinking of Celeste. And Rene. Then he touched his own neck, recalling his personal encounter with this Merselus.
Yeah, Sydney. I do get it.