The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series (41 page)

“I’m not,” Lester interrupted, and I wanted to punch him to shut him up. “I was doing what I thought was best for the company…. ”

“Spare me the moral high-ground,” Walker said, his voice dangerous. “I think you’ve been disingenuous enough for one lifetime.”

Lester sighed, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. “I thought you were losing your edge,” he said. “I wanted to salvage the relationship that we had. I didn’t want to lose everything that we’d worked so hard to build.”

“You wanted the most money. You wanted the most control. You wanted the most power,” Walker said, and he sounded very, very tired all of a sudden. “You’ve never had those things and you never will. Not even now. There’s a reason for that.”

“What’s that?” Lester asked. He’d put his glasses back on and he was glaring at Walker. “You think you’re so much better than me?”

“No,” Walker said, and all the fight seemed to have gone out of him. “I know I’m not. But that’s the difference between you and me. Everything I’ve ever had, I knew I had to earn it. I never thought I deserved anything. You, on the other hand, are an entitled little shit. Harvard, fancy wives, fancy cars — you thought every one of those things was your right. And that, if you put them all together, it made you better. It gave you that patina of superiority.”

“Unlike you,” Lester practically spit, “who’s so good looking you’ve never had a bad day in your life? You think I feel sorry for you? Every woman you’ve ever met — including your lawyer, who threw her career away with her panties for you — has never said no to you.”

Walker glared at him.

“Do you know what that’s like, for a guy like me? To see you like that?” Lester asked. “You have every success
and
you’re so good-looking that pop stars and models and lawyers want to date you?”

“No one ever said life was fair,” Walker offered, but he was looking down now, picking at his cocktail napkin. I wondered if he was embarrassed.

“No shit,” Lester said, his face shining. “That’s why I do what I do. Life isn’t going to give me what I want. I have to take it.”

“You didn’t have to take it from me,” Walker said. “I was already giving you everything.”

“Sometimes, everything is not enough,” Lester said. “You know what I mean?”

Walker looked up at him, and then over at me. “Yes, Lester. I know exactly what you mean.”

I
n the end
, I couldn’t convince Walker that we should just have Lester arrested after we were through with him.

“It wouldn’t be fair,” Walker said. “We brought him here under one set of pretenses. I’ve asked him to do a job for us and I believe that he’ll do it. It’s not fair to change the terms after the fact, just because you think he’s an asshole.”

“He
is
an asshole,” I said, flopping down on the bed. We’d locked Lester and April into their respective bedrooms; I couldn’t bear the idea of letting them get up and roam the apartment during the night. I wouldn’t have slept a wink.

“He is,” Walker admitted, throwing off his T-shirt into a ball on the floor. I admired his abs as he stalked around the room, lost in his thoughts about Lester Max. He paused by the windows, looking out into the darkness.

“But what he can do for us is for the greater good,” he said, finally. “If he gets us the documentation we need to get David and Norris convicted, and at least implicate John Tobin and his role in all of this, it’ll be worth it to let him go.”

“Do you really believe that?” I asked. “Do you really think he should just go free — on your dime, no less — after what he’s done?”

“I think in this instance, sacrificing his punishment is the right move. It’s outweighed by what we would be able to achieve. I don’t want to see him go free,” Walker said, climbing onto the bed next to me. “But I think out of the people we have to deal with, he’s the lesser of the evils. I think he’s morally bankrupt, but I don’t think he’d kill anybody.”

“Walker,” I said, a bit incredulously, “he just admitted tonight that he was the one who tried to blow you up on your boat.”

“I know,” Walker said, waving his hand as if to dismiss it. “But he didn’t do it. I’m not saying he wouldn’t kill somebody — obviously, he tried to kill me. I guess what I’m saying is, he’d try to find another way first. Buy them off. Extort them. Something along those lines.” He ran his finger up and down my arm. “David Proctor and Norris Phaland went there right away. They wanted to protect themselves and they were merciless. They didn’t want to leave any stone unturned. They were going to kill you and act like nothing had ever happened, like it was all your fault, you were the guilty one. And they just would have kept going.” Walker looked past me, back out the window to the dark ocean.

“They wanted to kill you at the first sign of trouble, Nicole. You were completely expendable to them. The fact that they picked you because they thought that you were vulnerable — that means they’re sociopaths, at least in my book. Stepping on and manipulating those weaker than them, those with less power, so that they could rule their little empire. They make me sick,” he said, turning back to me. He tucked a tuft of my bleached hair behind my ears.

“And I will do anything I can to make them pay. Including pay off a very slimy, very unethical, very unpleasant Lester Max. Does that make sense to you?” he asked.

I nodded at him and threw my arms around his neck. “I would throw my panties and my legal career away for you anytime, babe,” I said, and grinned at him. “Lester was totally right, at least about that. Where you lead, I follow.”

He kissed me lightly on the lips and then laughed. “I’m actually following your lead, little does he know,” Walker said, and grinned back at me. “It was your idea to bring him here, remember? You and your fancy, designer drugs.”

I laughed. “Wait until you hear what I have planned for them next,” I said, rubbing my hands together conspiratorially.

“
Them
?” Walker asked.

“Lester and April,” I said, a bit defensively. “It’ll be the perfect alibi.”

Walker frowned at me. “I thought you were starting to like her,” he said.

I shrugged at him. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” I said, my voice upbeat. “And plus, you can’t please everybody,” I said, continuing down my litany of favorite phrases.

The older I got, the wiser the sayings seemed.

Walker bent over and kissed me, his lips firm and soft all at the same time, crushing mine. I moaned and pulled him closer.

“I like your evil genius side,” Walker said. “Maybe you can set up a law firm in the Bahamas, off the grid. You really were born to do this.”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em,” I said, and pulled him to me.

I
called
Alexa early the next morning, too early. But I had to know. “How’s Tammy?” I asked, breathlessly, as soon as Alexa answered the phone.

“She’s scared,” Alexa said, in an accusing tone. “She’s been through hell.”

“Can I talk to her?” I asked, my voice coming out all squeaky and wrong.

“I guess so,” Alexa sniffed. “But do you want to tell me what the hell I’m doing first?”

“The flash drives you bought,” I said, and even though I had just woken up and my head was still foggy, I felt adrenaline start to course through my body. This was going to be dangerous, if not downright stupid. At least no one would suspect Alexa. No one would think that she’d do something so dangerous for someone else — and especially not me. “I need you to bring them to work today. Look for anything on the server that’s coded with the name Advent. Copy the files to the flash drive and hide that sucker in your bra, or something.” She snorted and I continued. “Once you’ve done that, you need to get to David’s assistant, Linda’s, desk and pull up the docs that are just in
her
hard drive. I know I saw something on there before. It was in the trash, but there’s got to be more, somewhere.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get on Linda’s computer?” Alexa asked. Her tone was vicious. “Especially when she’s right outside of David Proctor’s office?”

“You’re used to getting what you want,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. “You’ll figure something out.” I knew what I was asking for was almost impossible — Linda rarely left her desk and David was always in his office, on the phone and stuffing food into his mouth. I also knew that I was asking Alexa to put herself in an insane amount of danger.

“Maybe you could volunteer to pick them up coffee, or something,” I offered, a bit lamely. “Get them to hang out in the common room.”

“And then go break into her freakin’ computer when they’re two feet away? With other people walking by? Awesome plan, Nicole. I’m really glad you’ve got this whole fugitive-vigilante thing figured out. Really.”

“Hey, Harvard,” I said, “you’re always telling me how brilliant you are. Now come up with a solution that proves that. And once you get the Advent files, run — run, do not walk — back to that apartment. Copy everything to your hard drive. Have Tammy email it to us. Then I want her to print out hard copies and put them aside, at least for now. I’ll probably have her send them to us in one big batch.”

“And then what the hell am I supposed to do?” Alexa screeched.

“Get back to work before anybody notices you’re gone. And await further instruction. Now, can I please talk to Tammy?”

I heard Alexa snort as she handed the phone off.

“How’s my favorite associate?” asked Tammy’s voice, warmly.

“Tammy!” I cried, so happy to actually hear her. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m better now,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “I’m so glad to be doing something. If David Proctor and Norris Phaland think that I’m gonna take what happened lying down…well let’s just say that, once I divorced that cockroach that I was married to, I don’t take shit like that anymore.”

“What was the deal you made with them?” I asked.

“Well, they fired me the day you quit. The day before the bomb,” she said. “So that at least was in my favor. If I’d been there that day, I don’t know what they would’ve done to me.” I shivered just thinking about it. “The day you left, they came to me and told me that even though I’d been with the firm for a long time — fifteen years, Nicole! — They were no longer in need of my services. That they’d started to doubt my loyalty and my discretion. That was Norris’s word — discretion.

“They said that because you were no longer with the firm, my services were no longer necessary. They didn’t want me to work anywhere else though, either. They had me sign a
Covenant Not to Compete
and a confidentiality agreement in exchange for a pretty decent separation package. They made it clear, though, that if I looked for another job at another firm or if I talked to anybody — the bar association, the police, the press — about you or Mr. Walker, they would yank the payments.”

She sighed. “When that poor girl died the next day, and I heard the way they were spinning it —- that you’d planned it, that you were trying to create a distraction so that you two could get away — my blood was boiling. But that’s when I also realized that I might find myself in a rock-and-a-hard-place type situation. If I went to anyone with my suspicions, not only would they take the money away, but they would…kill me. I didn’t realize how hard the hard ball was until then.”

I let out a low exhale, picturing poor Tammy in her house, an afghan wrapped around her, watching the news. “I hope you’re safe now,” I said. “Levi chose the building because it’s safe. There’s security there, and I know he’s sneaking around somewhere, too.”

“Oh, Levi’s here with us,” she said and laughed. “We hit it off after he scared the bejeezus out of me back at my house. Now he’s just excited to be in a nice place, with a home-cooked meal. He’ll go on assignment from here. He says he’s staying with us until it’s over, and that he’ll shoot anybody who tries to mess with us. He’s good people,” she said.

I smiled and my heart felt better, knowing that Levi found Tammy as wonderful as I did. It made me feel better to know that he was there, protecting her. “I’m so glad,” I said. “Walker trusts him, so I do, too.”

“How
is
Mr. Hottie McTottie these days?” she asked.

“He’s good,” I said and smiled. “I don’t think he misses the rat race too much.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“It’s weird not being a lawyer,” I said, “but it’s not half as weird as being a vigilante fugitive.”

Tammy laughed. “How are things with you two?” she asked. “Serious?”

“Um…I think so…” I said, my voice trailing off.
He wants me to run away to the Caribbean with him and have his babies?
“He tattooed my name across his back. So I’m pretty sure he likes me.”

Tammy laughed some more. “Oh, this is getting
good
,” she said. “My little associate. All grown up, with a hot most-wanted billionaire who adores her.”

“He’s most wanted in more ways than one,” I lamented.

“I know,” she sighed. “But I know he’s innocent.”

“Thank you, Tammy,” I said. “That means a lot. I need to know something — how do you know he’s innocent, just besides your gut instinct? What happened…right before you gave me that note? What did you find out?” I asked her.

“Well, after Norris jumped out at you in the ladies’ room, I had a few concerns.” She paused for a beat and I tried not to remember his cold voice that day, the look of disgust in his eyes. “So I started poking around a little. And I found out that Norris and David had been meeting with Lester Max a couple of times a week. I was pretty sure you were never involved in those meetings — it would’ve been on my calendar. And then there was Norris’s schedule. I started checking it, back to when we got Mr. Walker’s case. He had regularly scheduled meetings set up with another man, a Mr. Tobin, and I didn’t recognize the name. So I cross-referenced it through all of Proctor & Buchanan’s files, and I came up with nothing. Then I started to wonder, is this guy a vendor? A therapist? Who the hell was he? Come to find out, he works for the United States Government, the Securities and Exchange Commission.”

“He was Walker’s main contact,” I said. “He’s involved in all this. I’m surprised Norris was so sloppy that he used his name.”

Tammy snorted. “Oh, honey, he didn’t. That man is slipperier than an eel dipped in olive oil.” She laughed and I cringed at the image. “He had it listed as a working lunch, no client reference number or anything. I had to get it out of Tina, his secretary — and that was only after a couple of Seven and Sevens.”

“Tina told you who he was?” I asked. This wasn’t good. If Norris knew that Tina had told Tammy….

“She only told me his name, and I didn’t ask until she had a couple of drinks. I said it was because David Proctor was planning a surprise party for Norris, to congratulate him on twenty years with the firm. I wanted to make sure that everyone who needed to know about it was notified, including any important clients who wanted to send Norris a card.”

“That’s pretty innocuous,” I said. Sometimes the simplest explanation, even when it was a bald-faced lie, was the best. “And she believed you?”

“When I told her I was leaving the firm she was all upset about it,” Tammy said. “She was like, ‘but who’s gonna plan Norris’s party?’, and I told her she was going to have to take over. That I’d send her a list of what I’d done so far.”

“When was this imaginary party going to take place?” I asked.

“I didn’t get that far,” Tammy said.

“Maybe we should work on it,” I said, staring out the window at the ocean. Today was overcast and gray, and the water looked steel instead of its normal turquoise. “Norris deserves a nice surprise, don’t you think?”

T
he next thing we did
, and it was with great difficulty on my part, was let Lester and April go.

“I have some directives for you,” Walker said. He’d sat them down on the couch next to each other. April was looking at him expectantly; Lester was looking at him like he wished he would disappear, and leave a big pile of money in his place.

“First of all, it’s back to business as usual. You tell everybody that Miami has been shut down, and that it’s no longer a concern. Tell them everything is going to be processed under the name Advent from now on, and that you’re certain it’s still secure.”

“Miami hasn’t been shut down, though,” Lester interrupted. “The sign is still up, the lease is still in place….”

“I’ll have my associate take care of it,” Walker said, and I pictured Louise prying out the nails that held up the sign with the back of a hammer. “So that’s no longer your concern. What
is
your concern,” he continued, “is getting me the evidence I need. We have some of the Advent documents, showing payments to the law firm and to you, Lester, but what I need now is proof of intent.” He turned to Lester. “I need you to tape your conversations with David and Norris — and John Tobin, if you can get that fucker to say anything helpful.