Apex Predator (27 page)

Drew looked at the ceiling and chuckled, “Max Zeidler, the man himself. Yeah, still at the office, on my way out actually? You?”

Max chuckled himself, “You got me. Still at the office, but hey, I’m here because I’m avoiding my in-laws. They’re in town. As far as they know I’m in the middle of the biggest case of my career and stuck at the office. I have to say, though, I think my humble abode is a bit more comfortable than that old barber shop you do business in.”

Drew laughed, the guy was charismatic even over the phone, but he was tired and wanted to head home, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Max, in the middle of chewing on whatever it was he was eating, answered, “Have you thought about coming on board with us?”

Drew actually had given it some thought, some serious thought.

The long hours, dealing mostly with small-time criminals were definitely taking their toll, “Actually, Max, I have. I really have and I have to tell you, it’s tempting, but at the same time I’m thinking ‘Been there, done that.’ I can’t go back to being the lowly associate anymore. I may be working long hours for less pay, but I make my own rules, I’m not a slave to billing hours. You know what I’m saying, I don’t need to explain it to you.”

On his end Max smiled a sideways smile, “Yeah, that I do, that I do. I think you misunderstand. I wouldn’t bring you in as a lowly associate. I have plenty of Ivy League pricks doing that already. You wouldn’t come in as a partner, of course, but you’d definitely be a senior associate, and in this firm the only place for you to go from there is partner. I think we’ll start you at what all senior associates make.”

Max told him the figure. His monthly take-home pay would be roughly what three months from the firm would yield him, provided of course they were good months.

Zeidler went on, “You’d also participate in our profit sharing plan, of course, which can increase your salary by another 25 or 30 percent.” That meant another $100K to $120K per year.

Drew sat down on the couch in his office, he certainly hadn’t expected Zeidler to call him, especially at this hour and especially to make him this offer. “I’m not going to lie to you, Max, that does make a difference, a big one actually. I’ll tell you what, let me talk to my other associate here and to my paralegals and we can talk in a couple of days.”

Max, always on the make, asked, “Any of them any good? If they are, bring them with you, we’re always looking for good talent.”

Drew smiled, “There’s a couple of paralegals I would like to bring with me, but my associate and the rest of the paralegals and assistants would stay here and handle our current clients. If they want to grow it, it’s on them.”

Max responded, “Leaving yourself an out, are you?”

Drew, picking up his bags and starting to shut the lights off, answered the question, “Nope, if things don’t work out with you, I can always just hang my shingle again. I did it before and I don’t mind doing it again, if I have to, that is. I’ve built up a decent client list and I think a pretty good reputation as a criminal defense attorney.”

Max, also grabbing his coat and getting ready to leave, let Drew get off the phone, “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if you didn’t. I’ll wait to hear back from you. Get home and get some sleep, kid. You sound like you need it.”

Drew turned off the last light and left his office, “I’ll call you in a couple of days. Bye, Max.”

Steven was taking an early morning walk. Beautiful wooded paths surrounded his in-laws’ house. It was just a couple of degrees above freezing, as winter mornings in Vermont tended to be, but the sky was clear and Steven enjoyed the cold. After years in deserts across the Middle East, where the daytime temperature could hit 115 degrees in the shade, and humid, muggy jungles in Africa and South America, he enjoyed the change of seasons here and in New York, and winter was his favorite season.

The cold helped clear his head, helped him get focused again. The past couple of days had cleared his head and recharged him enough for him to figure out his next move. That first evening, after Beth and her mother had come home from shopping in town, they’d eaten dinner in an awkward silence at first, nobody wanting to say anything, maybe they’d all been lost in their own thoughts. It had been Bethany, his daughter, who had broken that awkward silence when she talked about something she had researched on the Internet about The Great Wall of China being a lot longer than what people had thought. As she explained that it had been satellite imagery that led experts to reconsider the length of the wall, she’d given her father a look that said ‘I told you I’d do what I could to help.’ Steven had smiled at her and nodded in recognition of the unsaid message and asked her about it. He loved her more in that moment than he’d ever remembered loving her before. Then her grandfather joined the conversation talking about why it had been built and her grandmother told her about her and Tom’s two trips to China.

It had been enough; they talked about other interesting things Bethany had researched. Beth prompted her to talk about her research on the God Particle, a particle that scientists had been trying to find for years. Bethany lit up, she had been researching all about it before everything had happened and was only too happy to explain what it was and why it was so important that the scientists find it. She had never taken a course in physics, something she was unlikely to do until she got to middle school or high school, but she had done some reading and research on her own. Steven remembered walking into her bedroom and being surprised at finding books by prominent scientists. They weren’t textbooks or anything too advanced, more like books for the layman interested in the subject. Still, Steven doubted the authors of the books considered a 9-year-old girl their target audience.

After dessert, when both kids had gotten up from the table, Beth surprised Steven by bringing up the shooting at the courthouse, “Do you know any details about what happened at the courthouse today?”

Steven was taken by surprise. He hadn’t given much thought to what he would say to his family about what he had done…a big, if understandable, oversight.

He’d taken a sip of his wine and turned to answer, “No, honey, I don’t know any more than what they’ve been broadcasting since it happened. I was in a meeting when it happened.”

Beth had simply nodded.

Lucy had jumped in then, “Well, good riddance, God forgive me for saying it, but I am glad that monster is dead.”

Tom had also made a comment, “From what I’ve been hearing they have no idea who might have done it. There is a lot of speculation, as usual, from so-called experts, but none of the agencies involved have made any statement about anything other than to confirm the guy is dead. The NYPD has not said anything about it.”

Steven had just listened, nodding at the proper moments. It was a difficult situation and he simply did not want to utter a single word without any further thought. After a few more minutes of that conversation, with nothing of substance being said, and once Lucy had shooed everyone out of the dining room and she and Tom had started cleaning up, he and Beth had a chance to talk. They’d gone outside with a cup of coffee splashed with some Amaretto and watched the last of the sunset together.

At first Beth had simply leaned on him and put her head on his chest, something that made him feel much better. He’d put his arm around her and just held her and waited for her to talk, if she wanted to. And she did. They both did. They talked about everything, about what each of them had gone and was still going through. It was the best conversation they’d had since Tracy had gone missing. There was far more to be said, but that first night had been a good first step back.

As Steven walked through the wooded trails, he also thought about two very telling exchanges he’d had over the last couple of days, one with his wife and one with his father-in-law. The first had been with Beth and it had caught him completely by surprise.

They were driving back from town where they’d gone to pick up some groceries and some DVDs for the kids. They’d been making the 30-minute drive back in silence, both lost in their own thoughts, holding hands in simple reassurance, when Beth had turned to talk to him, “I know you know more about what happened at the courthouse.”

His first instinct was to deny it, but she hadn’t let him, “I know you’re going to deny it and I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, God knows I don’t know if I’d want to hear it anyway, but I wanted you to know that I’m here if you want to talk.”

Steven hadn’t said anything at first, he wanted to give some more thought to what he was ultimately going to say to his wife, but he also knew he couldn’t hide from her, he had never been able to. Even when he was a SEAL and had come back from difficult operations, she had always been able to tell when there was something there, something in him that he’d eventually need to let out.

He had never discussed the details of his operations, but he had talked about his own feelings, what was going on with him as a human being, and that’s what he’d done this time. “Beth, I don’t want to lie to you, you know that, but honey, I don’t know what my next move is going to be. You’re right, I do know more about what happened, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with what I know about. I don’t know the best way to move forward yet.”

Beth had listened and when he was finished she’d given him a small, warm smile, “I know, Steven, I understand how you work, remember? We’ve been together for more than half our lives and that counts for something, you know? I know you’ve never kept anything from me, just like I know that ultimately, there’s nothing I’d be able to keep from you.

“Oh, I know there are a lot of things about the things you did, that you had to do, that you can’t tell me about and I understand that. I signed on to be a Navy wife and I know what comes with that, but I’m talking about you as a human being, as a father and husband. I know that when it came to those things, you always shared whatever you had going on inside of you.”

Steven had nodded. He hadn’t known what it was that he was ultimately going to tell her, but he did know that whatever it was he would start with that, with his feelings and that’s what he’d done, “You’re right, I’ve always shared what I had going inside, deep inside. I’m sad, Beth, I’m going through this, or trying to anyway, as a father would, but I’m also angry and, honestly, confused. Not because I don’t know what I’m feeling or what is going on, but because I just don’t know how to handle what needs to come next.

“In the service and even at GIC, I never made a move, never, without having the endgame, the final outcome, figured out. This is different, I never had time to figure that endgame out, that final outcome. I did what I did because I saw the necessity to address something that needed to be done and I wasn’t sure somebody else would be able to do, but where I go from there, I don’t know.”

And there it was, he hadn’t told her what he had done, but he had told her enough that she
understood
what he had done. He’d done it because he’d known it was something that was inevitable, but he’d also done it because he understood that whatever he did next would depend on where his wife was, really was, and he wouldn’t know that until he shared with her what he had just shared with her.

Beth looked at him for what seemed like an eternity, obviously processing what he’d just told her and trying to figure out how to respond. She wasn’t a trained operative, she was just a grief-stricken mother and a wife, so her response had simply been a reflection of her feelings as both, “Well, you’re one of the best men that I know, you and my father. We made a vow a long time ago and it’s one that we’ve always been able to keep, and we’ve done it because of trust, ultimate trust, in each other.

“I guess what I am saying, Steven, is that I trust you; I trust that you did what you did because it was necessary, because it
had
to be done. I know how much your family, the kids, me, my parents, I know how much all of us mean to you, so I know that whatever it is that you did you didn’t just do out of anger or rage, that you thought about us.”

Steven’s face was streaked with tears. Listening to his wife, her own voice breaking, let him know that she would be there; whatever else was true, that would always be the case. She had also let him know she understood that whatever it was he’d done, he’d done because it was necessary and not out of a fit of rage or anger or a need for revenge.

“Again, you’re right. As always, you’re right. That’s exactly true, it had to be done, but do you now understand what I mean when I say to you that I don’t know, I’m not sure, where to go from here?”

She nodded, “I do. I do because I’ve also been thinking about where this goes from here.”

Surprised, he turned to face her and got another small, understanding smile, “I’ve known you for more than half of your life, sweetheart. I told you, I may be grieving but I’m not stupid, and I think I’ve known since the moment it happened, since I first heard it on the news. I knew you’d tell me in your own way, sooner or later, when you felt I was ready for it or when you thought you had no choice, but I knew we would have this conversation eventually.

“Do you think I didn’t think about doing the same thing? I wanted him dead, with every fiber of my being I wanted him dead, and I wanted to do it with my own two hands.

“I’m sorry I can’t go through this with you, because you know that if I could, if there was a way for us to stand together and go through it together, that’s exactly what I would do, I would try to own this along with you.”

Steven, face now dry, started to protest and again she’d beat him to it, “I know you are trying to protect us, all of us, from what you’ve done, the way you have over the years. But this isn’t something you
can
protect us from. We’re a part of it, like it or not. It’s not your fault, it’s just how things worked out.

“I think besides taking my little girl, that’s the worst thing that monster did, he pulled us, all of us, into a nightmare. And that, Steven, is never going to be something you can protect us from, because we are already here. I think that the best thing I can do for you, the only thing actually, is to let you know that I love you, that your family loves you and always will, and that we will always be with you, no matter what.”