Private: #1 Suspect

PART FOUR
DEAD END
CHAPTER 98

It was eight P.M.

I was standing just inside Private’s front entrance, saying good night to my friend and attorney Eric Caine. He hadn’t said so directly, but he had let me know that without new evidence, my defense in the case of California v. Jack Morgan was looking bad.

As I closed the door, a storm came up out of the blue. Rain slashed against the floor-to-ceiling windows of the building and haloed the headlights of the traffic streaming along Figueroa.

Caine ran to his car, and I headed up the winding staircase to my office, where I planned to put in another four or five hours of work on my own behalf.

As I climbed the quarter-turn span between the third and fourth floors, I saw Justine coming down.

She was still wearing the black dress she had worn to Piper Winnick’s memorial service, and seeing her sent a jolt to my heart, as it did every time.

I said, “Hey.”

Justine returned the hey and kept going down the stairs. I stopped and said, “Justine, did you eat? Let’s go out and celebrate your Koulos bust-”

“No, thanks anyway, Jack. I’m wiped out. I can’t wait to get home.”

“Are you sure linguini marinara and some good wine wouldn’t beat being home alone? I need to talk to you.”

“Not tonight, Jack. Ask Cody to fit me into your schedule tomorrow.”

She started to pass me on the stairs, and I didn’t like it. She wasn’t tired so much as she didn’t want to deal with me. As though I were a guy standing behind her in line at Starbucks, breathing down her neck and yakking into his phone at the same time.

I said, “Then spare me a couple of minutes now. Are you going to take that job offer? I have to know.”

Justine sighed, shifted her weight, adjusted the strap on her shoulder bag.

“They’re matching my compensation plus fifteen percent.”

“So you’ve made your decision?”

“I like Private. I like my job.”

“Stay, Justine. I’ll match their offer and more.”

“Thanks. Let me think about it overnight.”

“You’re mad at me, Justine. I understand. But will you please talk to me? I want to talk about…us.”

Justine gave me the subzero look that I remembered well from fights we’d had when we lived together.

“There is no ‘us,’” Jack,” she snapped, “and I’m not sure there ever was. But I still give a damn. So as your friend, I want to say don’t ever take your eyes off Tommy.”

After the memorial service, I’d tailed Tommy’s car from his office to his house, watched him tinker with a sprinkler and then go inside for his home-cooked meal.

His phone was tapped, his car was bugged, and right now, Mo-bot was monitoring the live feed from the “spy eyes” I’d personally trained on his home.

I said, “Short of implanting a device in his skull, there’s not much more I can do.”

“Tommy hit on me again, Jack. I don’t take him seriously, but you should.”

Again?

Tommy had hit on Justine again?

I felt a knife slide into my gut. Not just because Tommy was still trying to beat me at girls, but because Justine had filed the edge of this news so that it would really cut deep.

I said, “Did you go out with him?”

“When you were in prison. Strictly business. At least it was for me.”

“Nice one, Justine. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

Justine said, “See you tomorrow,” then she took the outside rail and walked past me.

I stood on the staircase until I could no longer hear the sound of her heels striking metal treads.

Point taken, Justine.

Parting shot duly noted.