Desperate Girls

10

BRYNN OVERSLEPT.

Of course. Because after flailing restlessly for hours, it was just her luck to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep that even her cell-phone alarm couldn’t penetrate.

She awoke with a jolt at 7:45 and spent fifteen minutes throwing on clothes and racing around the apartment, jamming files into her attaché case. She checked her watch as she hurried into the bathroom and surveyed her cosmetics on the counter. She had time for makeup or coffee but not both.

“Shit!”

“Help you with anything?” Hayes called from the hallway.

“No, thanks! Wait, yes.” She opened the bedroom door and poked her head out. “Can you make the coffee?”

His eyebrows shot up.

“Four scoops, eight cups of water.” She closed the door before he could refuse. The man had made it through the FBI Academy. Surely he could figure out a coffeepot.

Brynn did minimal makeup and ran the straightening iron through her hair, trying not to singe it. She gave it a few spritzes of hairspray. She grabbed some earrings—understated gold studs today. Then she slipped her feet into slingbacks and checked the mirror.

“Ready!” she called, rushing into the hallway.

Ross stood at the door, looking dashing and impatient in his navy Hugo Boss suit.

“We’re late, Brynn. What’s the holdup?”

“Nothing, I’m ready.”

She spied her travel mug on the bar beside Hayes.

“Bless you,” she told him, grabbing it on the way out the door. Skyler was already waiting at the elevator with the doors open.

“Wait, my briefcase!” Brynn glanced back at her apartment. “Brynn, seriously.” Ross looked exasperated.

“You guys go. I’m right behind you.”

She hurried back to her place with Hayes at her heels. She retrieved her briefcase and relocked the door.

“Is the car ready?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Meaning Erik was waiting. Brynn’s pulse skittered at the thought of seeing him, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as they raced for the elevator.

On the ride down, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady her nerves. She felt totally discombobulated starting the morning this way. The elevator slid open, and there was the Tahoe.

Erik stood by the driver’s-side door dressed in a dark suit. He wore his mirrored aviators, and she couldn’t read his expression as Hayes stepped ahead and opened the back door.

“Thank you.”

She climbed inside, and Hayes took the shotgun seat. Erik was driving this morning, no doubt to prevent her from staging another impromptu press conference on the courthouse steps.

“You’re late,” Erik said to Hayes.

“It’s my fault. I overslept.” Brynn glanced at her watch as they got moving. “We’ll be fine.”

Erik pulled into traffic, which was unusually heavy today, of course. Hayes muttered a curse.

They stopped at a red light, and Brynn took out her compact. Despite her makeup efforts, she still had shadows under her eyes. She dug a lipstick from her bag and carefully painted her mouth.

She glanced up, and Erik was watching her in the rearview mirror. He looked freshly showered and shaved and infuriatingly well rested.

This won’t happen again.

She couldn’t believe he’d said that. Why the hell shouldn’t it happen again? And why did he get to decide?

He looked away. Then he made a call on speakerphone. The man who answered sounded like Jeremy.

“Hey, it’s me,” Erik said. “We hit some traffic. Should be ten minutes behind schedule.”

“Roger that. We’re just pulling into the prisoner bay.”

“You talk to Joe?”

“Yeah, a minute ago. All three mags are up and running.”

“Okay, see you in ten.”

Erik ended the call, and Brynn kept her gaze focused on her compact so she wouldn’t have to look at him.

“What’s a mag?” she asked.

“A magnetometer. They’ve got one at each entrance. And everyone’s under orders not to wave anybody through today.”

She glanced up at the edge in his voice.

“That includes you and Conlon,” he said. “No one gets special treatment.”

She pointedly looked at her watch.

“The line at the back checkpoint is short,” he assured her.

Pop.

“Get down!” Erik yelled, reaching back and yanking Brynn’s jacket. “Get her down!”

Her chin hit the console as both Erik and Hayes forced her head down. Tires squealed. The SUV rocketed backward onto a median.

“What the—”

“Keep your head down! Hayes, get on her!”

And then Hayes was in the back seat, pushing her down onto the floor as the SUV surged forward. Coffee scalded her knee, and tires shrieked as they took a corner. Hayes’s weight smothered her, and she couldn’t see anything with her face against the floor.

“Erik!”

“What was that?” Hayes asked.

“Gunshot,” Erik said.

“I didn’t hear it.”

“Call 911.”

Hayes shifted his weight, and Brynn leaned away from him, struggling for air.

“What the hell was that? What is happening?” she screamed.

But Erik was on the phone with Jeremy. “Gunshot fired at Commerce and South Streets,” he said. “I repeat, Commerce and South. Clear the bay. We’re coming in hot.”

Brynn got to her knees and tried to sit up.

“Down!” Erik yelled, reaching back to push her head down.

The SUV veered left, then right. Horns blared. Erik jabbed the brakes, swerved again, and Brynn’s stomach lurched. She glanced through the tinted window and saw that they were speeding the wrong way down a one-way street.

They took another corner, and she braced herself against the door.

“Almost there.” Erik’s voice was tense but calm. “Brynn?”

“What?”

“You okay?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She could hardly breathe. She swept her hair out of her face and looked over at Hayes kneeling on the floor beside her. He was juggling his pistol in one hand and his phone in the other as he talked to the 911 operator.

They whipped into a parking garage, and everything went dim. Another sharp corner, and the squeal of their brakes echoed off concrete. They skidded to a halt.

“Where are we?”

Erik jumped out without answering. Then Brynn’s door jerked open, and four big arms reached in to pull her out. Erik and Jeremy. Skyler stood beside the entrance, along with a sheriff’s deputy, and both of them had guns drawn. Brynn’s feet barely touched the ground as Erik and Jeremy took her by the arms and hauled her up several steps and through a door. And then she was in a gray cinder-block hallway, surrounded by cops in uniform.

Skyler reached for her arm. “This way,” she said, towing her into a room.

“What—”

“In here.” Skyler pulled her into a corner.

Then Skyler walked out, and Erik was there.

“Are you all right?” He cupped his hand against the side of her face. His expression was alert and tense. And yet calm, which seemed totally out of place with all the yelling and chaos in the hallway.

“I’m . . . yes,” she managed. “What was that?”

“You didn’t hear it?”

“I heard something. I don’t know.”

“Stay here with Skyler.”

He ducked out the door, and Skyler came back into the room, gun still in hand as she looked Brynn over.

“Stay here.”

“Wait!” Brynn grabbed her arm. “Where is Ross?”

“Upstairs already.”

Skyler stepped out, closing the door behind her.

Brynn looked around. It was a small room, maybe five by eight. There was nothing in it besides a metal bench that was bolted to the floor. They’d stuck her in a holding cell for prisoners, she realized.

She sank onto the bench and leaned forward to put her head between her knees. She felt dizzy. Slightly nauseated, too. She stared at the pointy toes of her shoes. And she noticed the carpet burn on her knees. She sat up. Her thigh was scalded red from the coffee, and she tugged down the hem of her skirt.

Calm down, calm down, calm down. Deep breath.

She closed her eyes and counted to ten, trying to settle her nerves. She checked her watch: 8:35. She needed to call Ross. But her phone was back in the Tahoe, with her attaché case and everything else.

The door opened. She jumped to her feet as Hayes strode in, followed by Skyler.

“Here,” Hayes said, holding out her attaché case.

“Thank you.” Brynn looked from him to Skyler. “What is going on?”

“The sheriff’s deputies are searching for the shooter.”

“Shooter?”

“Erik said there was a shot fired. You didn’t hear it?”

“I don’t know.” She looked at Hayes. “It sounded like a car backfiring, maybe. Did you hear it?”

“I heard something. Not sure if it was a gunshot but something.”

Brynn’s phone beeped with an incoming text, and she pulled it from her bag. Ross: Where r u???

She glanced at her watch. “It’s eight forty. I have to get upstairs.”

“You want to go up?” Skyler looked surprised.

“Yes. I’m late for court!”

Skyler stared at her for a moment. Then she led Brynn out of the room and down the corridor crowded with cops. Above the din of voices, Brynn heard sirens outside.

Several prisoners in handcuffs stood against the wall. Brynn scanned the faces but didn’t see Justin, and her pulse picked up again as she checked the time.

They went to the front of the security line and stepped through the metal detector. Skyler stayed behind to talk to the guard manning the X-ray machine as Brynn and Hayes caught an elevator to the second floor. The doors to Linden’s courtroom were closed, and Brynn’s stomach clenched as she race-walked down the hallway, clutching her attaché case.

Hayes jogged ahead and reached for the door, and Brynn entered the packed courtroom. Every seat was taken except for the jury box. Brynn’s gaze zeroed in on the defense table, where Justin sat low in his chair.

Ross turned around. He looked distraught at the sight of her. Justin and his mother turned then, too, both looking distressed.

Brynn strode down the aisle, and the clack of her heels steadied her as she took in everything—the murmur of voices in the gallery, the polished wood of the witness box, the etching of Lady Justice with her scales, watching over it all.

“What the hell?” Ross whispered when Brynn reached the table.

“Ms. Holloran.” Judge Linden glared at her over the tops of his reading glasses. “Please approach the bench. Counselor?” He looked at Conlon.

She and Conlon approached.

“You’re late, Ms. Holloran. We have a full docket here, as I’m sure you are aware.”

“I apologize, Your Honor.” She stood ramrod-straight as she faced him. “There was . . . an incident outside the courthouse.”

Linden’s chin dropped, and he scrutinized her appearance. He glanced at Conlon. “Counselors, in my chambers.”

They walked to the door leading to his office. The bailiff stepped aside to let them pass.

“Not you.”

Everyone stopped, and Brynn turned around to see the bailiff blocking Hayes’s path.

“He’s my personal security guard,” she said. “Can he—”

“He can wait outside my chambers,” the judge said.

The bailiff moved aside. Hayes glanced at Brynn, then stepped into a narrow hallway outside the judge’s office. Once inside his chambers, Linden turned to face Brynn and Conlon, glaring up at Brynn now because she was a head taller.

“Does this incident have to do with the sirens I heard on my way in here?” he asked.

“Yes, Your Honor. There was a possible gunshot a few blocks away. Police are investigating, along with our security team.”

His bushy white eyebrows snapped together. “I heard about your security team. Am I to understand that this supposed gunshot is related to the murder of Jen Ballard?”

She cut a glance at Conlon. “Possibly.”

Linden crossed his arms and stared up at her, his expression hard. Several seconds ticked by as Brynn’s heart pounded and sweat pooled in the cups of her bra. She must look terrible. Disheveled. Out of sorts. She could feel Conlon beside her, sizing her up and sensing a weakness he couldn’t wait to exploit.

“In light of these events,” Linden said, “do you wish to take a brief recess?”

Her mouth dropped open. She’d been late, and now he was offering leniency? She tried to see through his steely gaze.

“Your Honor,” Conlon said, “the prosecution is ready. We’d prefer to move forward on schedule.”

“I’m asking Ms. Holloran.” The judge turned to Brynn, and it occurred to her that maybe he’d known Jen personally and that’s what this apparent sympathy was about. “Well?”

“We’re ready, too, Your Honor.” She looked at Conlon. “The defense would like to move forward also.”

“Very well, then.” Linden unfolded his arms and reached for the door. “Let’s not waste any more time.”