Stress Test (17 page)

“Just the usual this morning?” Elaine asked. “I had dinner last night with Charlie Greaver. That should entitle me to something fancier.”

Sandra sipped from her own cup and settled into the visitor’s chair across the desk from Elaine. “Maybe tomorrow. Depends on what you learned.”

“Mainly I learned that Charlie wanted to talk about Charlie—specifically, about what he’s going to do when he’s elected DA next year after Jack Tanner retires.” Elaine sampled her own coffee, frowned, and blew across the mouth of the cup. “Too hot to drink.”

“So let it cool. What about Matt’s case?”

“Charlie wants to get things sewed up before moving for an indictment, but Frank Everett is champing at the bit to go with the
case. Frank has ideas about moving into Charlie’s number two slot when Jack retires and Charlie’s the new DA.”

Sandra frowned. “So are they ready to move forward?”

“Not yet. But Everett told Charlie he’d have some new evidence soon. And when he’s got that, he wants to hotfoot it to the grand jury.”

New evidence? Where could they be digging that up? “Is Frank Everett still scheduled to prosecute?”

Elaine tried her coffee, found it to her liking, and drank deeply. “Not sure. Frank’s doing the work right now, but depending on how the case looks, Charlie may end up first chair.”

Not so good. Charlie is no pushover
. Sandra rose and headed for her office. “I have to make a phone call. Buzz me if you need me.”

Matt stood in the middle of the emergency room, surrounded by patients hooked up to every imaginable device and monitor. A harsh noise assaulted his ears—one of the devices sending out its electronic warning. He turned in a slow circle, letting his ears search for the source of the noise. Had an electrode from an EKG come loose? Was a patient’s oxygen saturation level dropping to dangerous levels? Had an IV being pumped into a patient’s system run dry? Or—most dangerous of all—had a patient’s heartbeat stilled?

Matt turned this way and that, but everything seemed to be in order. The noise stopped just as he opened his eyes. Then he heard his own voice. “
This is Dr. Matt Newman. I can’t take your call, but if you
leave a name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can
.”

“Matt, this is Sandra Murray—”

He snatched the phone off the bedside table and scrambled to turn off his answering machine. “Sandra, I’m here. Just give me a second.”

Matt put down the phone and hurried to the bathroom. He was
back in a moment, his face still wet from a dousing with cold water. “Sorry. What’s up?”

“We need to talk about your case,” Sandra said. “Can you come by my office before noon?”

Something about Sandra’s tone was different, and it worried Matt. “Is something wrong?”

“Maybe. We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

They settled on eleven o’clock. Matt hung up the phone, straightened his rumpled covers—what a nightmare that had been—and headed for the shower. He wondered what new development had prompted the call. Whatever it was, apparently his attorney didn’t like it.

He tested the water with his hand and adjusted the mix. As he stepped under the spray, he wondered if he was in hot water in more ways than one.

Jennifer’s fingers glided over the keyboard of her computer like those of a concert pianist, producing an accurate reproduction of the words she heard through her headset while her own thoughts flew in different directions.

The more time she spent with Frank, the more she seemed to think about Matt. All of the good qualities that had drawn her to him—the way he was willing to leave an established practice for a less-stressful position, just to please her—kept whirling through her mind. Why hadn’t she just told Jack Tanner from the get-go that Matt was her boyfriend? When had she gotten so career-focused that she was ready to give the first husband material she’d met in a long time, the boot? From what she’d heard, even though Frank Everett and Charlie Greaver seemed ready, even anxious, to pursue an indictment,
the case was built on circumstantial evidence. True, the police had found a dead woman in the trunk of Matt’s car, but if his kidnapping story held up, he had been the victim, not the perpetrator, and there was nothing of substance to support prosecution.

Then again, if that detective, whatever his name was, found anything more substantial, Matt would undoubtedly be arrested and tried. And she’d been around long enough to know that a not-guilty verdict didn’t always wash away the suspicion that surrounded being tried for murder. Did she really want to be the wife of a man who’d been called a murderer, even if he was acquitted? For that matter, could she afford to have her name associated with him and maintain the confidence of the DA and his associates?

Although Jennifer always considered herself levelheaded, making decisions on the basis of practicality instead of emotions, something about her actions continued to bother her. True, she was seeing someone else. But Matt at least deserved a proper good-bye.

Jennifer went back and forth until it seemed her head would explode. She needed to get out of here, take a break.

She grabbed her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk and hurried out of the office. Downstairs, Jennifer took a deep breath and plunged out the door and onto the sidewalk. Dallas might have an anti-smoking ordinance, but every day she and her fellow workers had to run a gauntlet of smokers who obeyed the letter, although not the spirit, of the law by taking up station a measured sixteen feet from the doorway of the Crowley Courts Building to get their nicotine fix.

Jennifer held her breath until she was past them and then paused in the doorway of a clothing store that had gone out of business. She turned her back to the stream of people on the sidewalk and retrieved her phone from her purse. Matt’s cell number was still on her speed dial, and she stabbed the number before she could lose her nerve.
Jennifer waited through five rings before she heard a voice that tugged at her heart.
“This is Dr. Matt Newman. I can’t take your call, but if you
leave a name and number, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

It took all her strength not to hang up. She looked over her shoulder to confirm that no one was near, swallowed twice, and said, “Matt, this is Jennifer. I’m sorry I reacted the way I did. We need to talk. When you get this, call my cell.” She started to hang up, thought better of it, and added, “I promise I’ll answer your call this time.”

Sandra gestured to the chair in front of her desk. “Have a seat. Can we get you anything? Coffee? A Coke?”

“I’m fine,” Matt said.

She studied her client. There’d definitely been a subtle change in his attitude since she’d first met him. In the beginning, he’d seemed shell-shocked, unable to fully process what was happening to him. She’d had to prod him to start the process of getting his life together. Now he appeared more confident, more at ease. Was it surviving the second attack? Going back to work? Whatever the cause for the change, she was glad to see it. It was easier to defend a client who was emotionally prepared to help in the process and was determined to move on with their chin up. Besides, the difference pleased her from a personal standpoint.

“You’re looking better,” she said. “Your hair’s beginning to grow out.”

Matt ran his hand lightly over his scalp, but she noticed he was careful not to touch the surgical scar. “I guess I’m making progress. Now I look like a drill sergeant.”

“But you shaved the goatee,” she said.

“Couldn’t stand the itching,” Matt confessed. He looked around him. “I thought you’d have a big, fancy office—part of a large law firm. But you’re in solo practice, aren’t you?”

Sandra shrugged. “I started out with a big firm. They took me on right out of law school, promised to fast-track me to partner. But I left after a year, opened my own office.”

“Why?”

“I’m not just a lawyer. I’m a Christian who happens to practice law. Some of the partners in the firm thought my Christian principles were getting in the way. I disagreed.”

Matt leaned forward in his chair. “So they let you go?”

“No, I resigned, then opened my own office so I didn’t have to soft-pedal my Christianity to fit in. So far, it’s worked.” Sandra swiveled slightly in her chair and looked out the window behind her desk for a moment. She waited for him to respond, but there was only silence. Wasn’t this the perfect opening to ask Matt about his own relationship to God? She opened her mouth—closed it again. No, it wasn’t the time.

When she turned back to face Matt, she said, “I’ve had some disturbing news today.” He reacted with a slight lifting of his eyebrows. “My sources in the DA’s office—” Did she detect a flinch?
I’ll have to
follow up on that
. “My sources tell me they expect some new evidence that will allow them to take your case to a grand jury and ask for an indictment. Do you know what that might be?”

Matt shook his head. “If there’s something I haven’t told you, it’s because I don’t know it. I don’t know why I was kidnapped. I don’t know why someone would kill a woman and leave her body in the trunk of my car. I don’t know why someone broke into my house in the dead of night. All I know is that I’m obviously someone’s target.”

“That leads me to another question,” Sandra said. “Are you
ready for me to dispose of that handgun you bought? I can turn it over to the police and claim attorney-client privilege if they ask where I got it.”

“Not really. If those guys come back, I don’t want to be defenseless.”

“Matt, it’s possible the police will be back at your house soon with another search warrant. Especially if the DA thinks there’s some more evidence to be found. If they find the gun—well, it would be bad.”

“Why? We don’t have to register guns in Texas. As I read the law, I don’t need a license to have a handgun in my home—and probably in my car, so long as it’s in the glove compartment.”

Sandra had given this some thought. “Two reasons. First, they’re going to ask where you got it. A prosecutor could use the fact that you bought it from an unlicensed dealer in some sort of backstreet transaction to paint you as an undesirable character. And we don’t want to give them any ammunition, no pun intended.”

“I don’t know why I’d be worried about being thought an undesirable character. I mean, right now they seem to think I’m a murderer. I’m not sure how much more undesirable you can get.”

“Then consider my second argument. How do you know that your ‘acquaintance’ didn’t sell you a gun that’s been used in the commission of a felony? Maybe even a murder. All the police have to do is fire a test round and match the ballistics with a prior crime, and you’re toast.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“So will you let me get rid of the gun?” Sandra asked.

Matt hated to be unarmed again. Then again, he already had something that would give him protection, and no license was required. “Let me—”

A muted chime interrupted Matt. He drew his cell phone from his pocket, looked at the display, and frowned.

“Do you need to take that?”

Indecision clouded his features for a moment. Then, with a resolute shake of his head, he jammed the phone back into his pocket. “No. It’s just someone I used to know. I’ll check the message later.”