All of Me (2 page)

“Will the defendant please rise?” Atwood handed the verdict back to the bailiff, who gave it to the jury foreman to read aloud.

Head held high, Petry got to his feet. The man was a scumbag, but Jillian had to admire his defiance.

“Randal LeRoy Petry, on the count of armed robbery, you are found guilty as charged,” the foreman announced. As the foreman
kept reading the verdicts on the other charges leveled against Petry, Jillian waited for the victorious wash of relief she
always experienced when the word
guilty
was spoken. Waited for the happy sag to her shoulders, the warm satisfaction in her belly, the skip of victory in her pulse.

But the triumph did not come.

Instead, she felt numb, lifeless, and very detached as if she were standing at the far end of some distant tunnel.

Waiting … waiting …

For what, she didn’t know.

People in the gallery were getting up, heading for the door. The court-appointed defense attorney collected his papers and
stuffed them into his scuffed briefcase. The guards were hauling Petry off to jail. Judge Atwood left the bench.

And Jillian just kept standing.

Waiting.

It scared her. This nonfeeling. This emptiness. Her fingernails bit into the flesh of her palms, but she couldn’t feel that
either.

“You gonna stand there all day, Samuels, or what? You won. Go knock back a shot of Jose Cuervo.”

Jillian jerked her head around. Saw Keith Whippet, the prosecutor on the next case, waiting to take his place at her table.
Whippet was as lean as his name, with mean eyes and a cheap suit.

“Chop, chop.” He slammed his briefcase down on the desk. “I got people to fry.”

“Yes,” Jillian said, but she could barely hear herself. She was a bright kite who’d broken loose from its tether, flying high
into a cloudless blue sky. Up, up, and away, higher and higher, smaller and smaller. Soon she would disappear, a speck in
the air.

What was happening to her?

She looked at Whippet, a weasly guy who’d asked her out on numerous occasions, and she’d shattered his hopes every single
time until he’d finally given up. Now he was just rude. Whippet made shooing motions.

Jillian blinked, grabbed her briefcase, and darted from the courtroom.

Blake.

She had to talk to her mentor, District Attorney Blake Townsend. He would know what to do. He’d tell her this feeling was
completely normal. That it was okay if the joy was gone. She would survive.

Except it wasn’t okay, because her job was the only thing that gave her joy. If she’d lost the ability to derive pleasure
from putting the bad guys behind bars, what did that leave her?

The thing was, she couldn’t feel happy about jailing Petry, because she knew there were thousands more like him. She knew
the prisons were overcrowded, and they would let Petry out of jail on good behavior after he’d served only a fraction of his
sentence to make room for a new batch of Petrys.

The realization wasn’t new. What was startlingly fresh was the idea that her work didn’t matter. She was insignificant. The
justice system was a turnstile, and her arms were growing weary of holding open the revolving door.

She was so unsettled by the thought that she found it difficult to catch her breath.

Blake. She needed to speak to Blake.

Anxiety rushed her from the courthouse to the district attorney’s office across the street, her heels clicking a rapid rhythm
against the sidewalk that matched the elevated tempo of her pulse.

By the time she stepped into the DA’s office, she was breathing hard and sweating. She caught a glimpse of her reflection
in a window and saw that her sleek dark hair, usually pulled back in a loose chignon, had slumped from the clasp and was tumbling
about her shoulders.

What was happening to her?

The whole room went suddenly silent, and everyone stared in her direction.

“Is Blake in his office?” she asked the DA’s executive assistant, Francine Weathers.

Francine blinked, and it was only then that Jillian noticed her reddened eyes. The woman had been crying. She stepped closer,
the anxiety she’d been feeling morphed into real fear.

She stood there for a moment, panting, terrified, heart rapidly pounding, staring at Francine’s round, middle-aged face. She
knew something bad had happened before she ever asked the question.

“What’s wrong?”

The secretary dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex. “You haven’t heard?”

A hot rush of apprehension raised the hairs on the nape of her neck. “Heard what? I’ve been in court. The Petry case.”

“I …” Francine sniffed. “He …”

Jillian stepped closer and awkwardly put a hand on the older woman’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Francine shook her head and burst into a fresh round of tears. Jillian dropped her hand. She’d never been very good at comforting
people. She was the pit bull who went after the accused. Gentleness was foreign.

“This morning, Blake … he …”

Jillian’s blood pumped faster. “Yes?”

“It’s terrible, unthinkable.”

“What?”

“Such a shame. He was only fifty-six.”

Jillian grit her teeth to keep from taking the woman by the shoulders and shaking her. “Just tell me. What’s happened?”

Francine hiccoughed, sniffled into a tissue, and then finally whispered,

“Blake dropped dead this morning in the middle of Starbucks while ordering a grande soy latte.”

T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS
passed in a fog. Jillian went about her work and attended her cases, but it felt as if someone else was in her body performing
the tasks while her mind shut down, disconnected from her emotions. She’d never experienced such hollow emptiness. But she
could not cry. The tears stuffed up her head, made her temples throb, but no matter how much she wanted to sob, she simply
could not.

Francine had learned from Blake’s doctor that he’d had an inoperable brain tumor he’d told no one about. That new knowledge
cut Jillian to the quick. He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her he was dying.

The morning of Blake’s memorial service dawned unseasonably cold for the end of September in Texas. Thick gray clouds matted
the sky, threatening rain. The wind gusted out of the north at twenty-five miles an hour, blowing shivers up Jillian’s black
wool skirt.

She still couldn’t believe Blake was gone. Speculation about who would be appointed to take his place swirled through the
office, but, grief-stricken, Jillian didn’t give the issue much consideration. Blake was gone, and no one could ever replace
him in her heart.

Learning of her mentor’s death compounded the feelings of edge-of-the-world desolation that had overcome her during Petry’s
trial. She’d met Blake when he’d been a guest lecturer in her summer-school class on criminal law at the University of Houston.
He’d found her questions insightful, and she’d thought he was one of the smartest men she’d ever met.

Their attraction was strictly mental. They admired each other’s brains. Plus, Jillian had lost a father, and Blake had let
a daughter slip away. When Blake had been elected district attorney about the same time Jillian graduated from law school,
his offer of a job in the DA’s office was automatic.

Jillian didn’t question if it was the right step for her. Blake was there. She went. Other than Delaney, Tish, and Rachael,
Blake was the closest thing to family she could claim.

The memorial service was held in an empty courtroom at the Harris County Courthouse. Law was Blake’s religion. Saying farewell
in a church didn’t seem fitting. Francine had made all the arrangements. The room was jam-packed with colleagues, opponents,
allies, and adversaries. But there was no family present. Blake had been as alone in the world as Jillian.

A poster-sized photograph of Blake sat perched on the judge’s bench. Beside it was the urn that held his ashes. The smell
of stargazer lilies and chrysanthemums permeated the courtroom. Jillian took a seat in the back row of the gallery. Her head
hurt from all the tears she’d been unable to shed. Her throat was tight. Her heart scraped the ground.

Suddenly a memory flashed into her head. One night, four months earlier, she’d gone over to Blake’s house for dinner to celebrate
putting a cop killer on death row. She’d expected Blake to be in a good mood. He was supposed to be cooking her favorite meal,
spaghetti and meatballs. She’d brought a bottle of Chianti for the occasion. Instead, after he’d invited her in, he told her
he’d ordered takeout Chinese and then he’d gone to sit in the bay window alcove overlooking the lake behind his property,
a wistful expression on his face.

She sat beside him, waiting for him to tell her what had happened, but he did not. Finally, after several minutes of watching
him watch the birds landing on the lake for the evening, she’d asked, “Blake? Is something wrong?”

He tilted his gray head at her. He looked so tired, and he gave her a slight smile. “You should get married,” he’d murmured.

“Huh?” She’d blinked.

“You shouldn’t be here hanging out with an old man. You should be dating, forming relationships, finding a good guy, getting
married.”

She hadn’t expected the hit to her gut that his words inflicted. “You know I’m not a big believer in marriage.”

Blake had looked away from her then, his eyes back on the birds and the lake. “You deserve love, Jillian.”

She had no answer for that. “Marriage didn’t work out so well for you.”

“Because I screwed it up. God, if only I could go back in time …” He let his words trail off.

“Did something happen?”

He glanced at her again, and for just a second she saw the starkest regret in his eyes. Regret tinged with fear. The look
vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and she convinced herself she must have imagined it.

“Nah.” He waved a hand. “Just an old man getting maudlin.”

The doorbell had rang then. The delivery driver with their kung pao chicken and steamed pork dumplings. The rest of the evening
Blake had been his usual self, but now, looking back on the moment, Jillian couldn’t help wondering if that was the day he’d
been diagnosed with the brain tumor.

She blinked back the memory. Her nose burned.
Oh, Blake, why didn’t you tell me you were dying?
He’d worked up until the last minute of his life and then died so tritely in Starbucks.

Jillian’s heart lurched. She felt inadequate, useless. And guilty that she hadn’t seen the signs. She remembered how his vision
seemed to be getting worse. How lately he’d been making beginner mistakes when they played chess. She thought they were close
friends, and yet he hadn’t told her about his illness. Hell, she might as well admit it. She felt a little excluded. He hadn’t
trusted her with his darkest secret.

Just before the service began, the doors opened one last time and Mayor Newsom swept inside with Judge Alex Fredericks, followed
by Alex’s beautiful young wife with a towheaded toddler on her hip. The minute Jillian spied Alex and his family, she felt
the color drain from her face.

Nausea gripped her.

The last time she’d seen Mrs. Fredericks had been on Christmas Eve of the previous year. At the same time Randal Petry had
been shooting Gladys Webelow at the Dash and Go, Jillian had been ringing Alex Frederick’s doorbell in the Woodlands, dressed
only in a denim duster and knee-high cowboy boots. Learning for the first time that her new lover was married with a family.

Jillian sank down in her seat and prayed neither Alex nor his wife spied her. Newsom ushered them to the front of the room,
where they sat side by side in three empty folding chairs. The service lasted over an hour as one person after another took
the microphone to remember and honor Blake. Jillian had prepared a speech, but when the officiating minister asked for any
final farewell words, she stayed seated. She couldn’t bear standing up there in front of Alex.

He had been the biggest mistake of her life.

Her friends urged Jillian to open herself up to a relationship. They’d made her start to hope that she could find love, that
there
was
a man out there for her.

And hope was such a dangerous thing.

Alex was handsome and charming and at just thirty-six already a criminal court judge. They looked good together, both tall
and athletic. Her friends were all falling giggly in love, and Jillian dared to think,
Why not take a chance
? For the first time in her twenty-nine years on the planet, she’d put her fears aside, opened herself up, and let a man into
her heart.

And then she’d found out about Mrs. Fredericks.

Idiot.

She should have known better. No matter what anyone said, there was no such thing as magic. No happily-ever-after. Not for
her anyway.

“If there’s anyone else who’d like to say something about Blake, please come forward now,” the minister said. “If not, Mayor
Newsom has an announcement he would like to make, and then we’ll conclude the service with a closing prayer.”

The minister stepped away from the microphone and the mayor took his place. Newsom shuffled his notes, cleared his throat,
and then launched in.

“We’ve lost a great man in Blake Townsend. He’s irreplaceable. But life goes on, and Blake wouldn’t want us standing in the
way of justice,” Newsom said as if he had a clue what Blake wanted. “Since all his friends and colleagues are gathered here
in one place, it seems the best time to announce the appointment of our new DA before my formal press conference this afternoon.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

It was crass and inconsiderate, announcing Blake’s successor at his memorial service, but classic Mayor Newsom. The guy had
the class of a garden trowel. Jillian caught her breath and bit her bottom lip. She sensed what was coming and dreaded hearing
it.

“Judge Alex Fredericks will be the new Harris County district attorney.” Newsom turned to Fredericks. “Alex, would you like
to say a few words?”

Anger grabbed her throat and shook hard. No, no! It could not be true.