Blood Money

Chapter Forty-Two

A chorus of jeers followed Jack and Hannah down the courthouse steps as they left the Justice Center. In two hours the defense had to be back in Judge Matthews’ chambers. The Shot Mom haters had been playing to cameras outside the courthouse since eight thirty A.M., and they would be there when Jack returned at one P.M., braving ninety-five-degree heat and ninety-percent humidity. The jury-tampering allegations had given the mob a shot in the arm, and their sheer stamina was astounding.

Jack rode shotgun on the way back to the office and made a phone call while Hannah drove. It was the first time a judge had ordered him to “bring your FBI agent with you.” Andie took the news better than Jack had expected.

“I’ll talk to my ASAC,” she said. “I’ll need his approval.”

“Remind him how cooperative I’ve been with law enforcement since Rene’s murder. I even let the FBI monitor my cell phone.”

“That will help.”

“Andie,” said Jack, using his I-need-this voice. “It’s important.”

“I get it,” she said.

They were on Main Highway, less than a quarter mile from Jack’s office. The sun glared on the windshield, flickering from light to dark as they cruised in the intermittent shadows of sprawling banyan limbs. They passed the gated entrance to Ransom Everglades Upper School, and Jack glanced uneasily at the stone wall along the jogging trail. Right behind that wall, near the large oak, he’d met a stranger he now knew as Merselus and received the threat against “someone you love.”

“Are you selling your office?” asked Hannah.

“No, why?”

She slowed the car as they approached the driveway. “Then why is there a For Sale sign out front?”

“Stop here,” he said as she turned into the driveway. Jack got out and checked the sign: JUSTICE FOR SALE, it read.

Jack looked farther down the jogging trail, a tree-lined stretch of rooted-up asphalt that ran from his driveway entrance to the T-shaped intersection at the end of Main Highway. There were more signs, one about every fifteen feet, each with the same message: JUSTICE FOR SALE. The anger rose up inside him. It was one of those watershed moments, a little thing that triggered much more of a reaction than it should have. Cumulatively, he’d had enough. Jack pulled the first one from the ground, yanked a second, then another. He gathered up about a dozen of them and walked back to the car, muttering under his breath.

“Jack, it’s no big deal,” said Hannah.

Jack opened the door, threw them into the backseat, and then slammed the door shut. Hannah parked the car and followed him up the steps and into the office. The screen door slapped shut behind them. Bonnie was at the reception desk, working the phone. She had the frazzled expression on her face that Jack was seeing far too much of lately. She slammed down the phone as he entered.

“I need that air horn,” she said.

“Not again,” he said.

“Nastier than ever,” said Bonnie. “All this ‘justice for sale’ nonsense. They’re picking that up from Faith Corso. That’s the running subtitle of her show. And you don’t even want to know what her fans are saying online about you.”

“Bloggers are back?”

“Oh, my Lord,” said Bonnie. “It’s insane. It’s ugly. It’s-”

“It’s thinkism,” said Hannah.

“It’s what?” said Jack.

“That’s the name Dad gave it. Thinkism.”

“And what exactly did Neil mean by that?”

“It’s the new ‘ism,’ said Hannah, “born of the Internet. Race and gender are less important in the virtual world. It’s more about what you think. But the way Dad saw it, some people will always need a reason to hate. If they can’t see you and hate you for how you look, all their hatred is aimed at what you say. Racists and sexists just aren’t cool anymore. But they can all be thinkists, spread the same kind of emotional and irrational hatred, and not only will they get away with it, but people will actually follow their Tweets. Before you know it, there’s a virtual lynch mob outside your door trying to hang you from a tree for thinking differently than they do. Thinkism.”

“Neil came up with that?” asked Jack.

“Yup.”

“One smart guy,” said Jack.

“He was definitely no thinkist.”

Hannah’s cell phone rang. She stepped into the hallway to take it. Jack followed up with Bonnie on the Internet postings.

“Is there anything that you think I should be concerned about?”

“Yeah, all of it.”

Hannah stepped back into the room, her face ashen.

“What’s wrong?” said Jack.

“It was him,” she said in a flat, serious tone. “The same voice I played in the courtroom today.”

Bonnie said, “Now he’s calling you?”

Jack said, “He probably figured out that my cell is monitored by the FBI. It’s the same reason Sydney has been calling me on Theo’s phone. What did he say?”

“It was short,” said Hannah. “I didn’t even have time to think. I should have recorded it.”

“It’s okay,” said Jack. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Tell your boss I watch BNN. Tell him I heard him say Sydney Bennett is afraid to come to court. Tell him if he mentions one word about me to the judge, it’s someone he loves all over again.”

She paused, and the reference to “someone you love” gave Jack chills.

“Did he say anything else?” asked Jack.

“Yeah,” said Hannah. “He said to check the signs.”

“The signs?” said Bonnie.

Jack knew immediately. “The For Sale signs.”

Jack hurried out the door and down the steps, his footfalls crunching in the pea-gravel driveway as he raced to the car and yanked open the door. The signs were piled loosely in the backseat where he had left them. He grabbed the one on top and checked it more carefully, but there was nothing of note-just the message, JUSTICE FOR SALE. He did the same with the second, the third, and three more. Finally, he checked the backside of the seventh sign and froze.

There was simply an address: 1800 Davis Road, Apartment 406.

“What is it?” asked Hannah.

Jack showed her and said, “My great-uncle’s address.”

“Your great-uncle?”

Jack’s throat tightened. “Abuela’s brother in Tampa. It’s where I sent my grandmother.”