Wild Justice (23 page)

“There’s no right way to handle this,” Jack said. “Just your way. If you
aren’t
handling it? Acting out of character? Having nightmares? Losing sleep? I’ll notice. I’ll call you on it. You know that.”

I nodded.

We lapsed into silence. I was still stressing, of course, and trying hard not to show it and failing miserably. So I started making a move to get up, but Jack motioned me back down.

“About what Quinn said . . .” he began.

I looked up.

“Yeah. Change of subject.”

“Distraction technique, you mean.”

“Yep. So. Let’s talk. What Quinn said. What I’d do. What I’ve done.”

It took a moment for me to understand what he was talking about.

“Right,” I said. “The innocent bystander issue. I don’t know why he was pulling that.”

“Fucking obvious why. Doesn’t want an answer for himself. Wants it for you. Push me into saying something you won’t like.”

I shifted. “Obviously Quinn and I still have issues. It’s spilling out onto the job. I’m sorry about that.”

“Not you. You can keep separate. He can’t. He wants you back. You working with me? Rooming with me? Blocking him. He’s trying to cause trouble. Between us.”

“If so, then he’s failing miserably. I don’t need you to answer that question because the answer wouldn’t change anything. I know you wouldn’t kill an innocent bystander if you could avoid it. If you couldn’t?” I shrugged. “I’m not going to presume to know how you’d react, but either way, I’m okay with it.”

“Don’t want an answer? Or you’d rather not know?”

I met his gaze. “No, Jack. Anything you want to tell me, I want to know. But I’m never going to push you for anything. I respect your boundaries and your privacy—”

“Fuck that.”

I stared at him.

“Fuck my boundaries. Fuck my privacy. Doesn’t apply to you. I don’t want to answer? Won’t. Won’t be pissed at you for asking. Quinn? Hell, yeah. You? Never.” He eased back in the chair, legs still against mine. “So I’m gonna answer. You want me to stop? Rather not hear it? Say so.”

I nodded.

“Have I intentionally killed a bystander? No. Would I if they witnessed something? Fifteen years ago? Yeah. Today? If the only person at risk is me? No. I fuck up? That’s what I get. If it was bigger? Other people at risk? Depends. Gotta weigh all factors. Not saying I would. Not saying I
never
would.”

“Fair enough.”

“Now the rest. Stuff you’ve never asked. Stuff you wouldn’t ask. But Quinn’s not going to drop this. Fact is? I’d rather you knew. Get it out in the open. This is the part where you might want to stop me. What
have
I done? How bad?”

He moved back in his seat, putting a little more distance between us, only our knees brushing now. “Killing children? Fuck, no. But that’s the norm. You want a hit with kids? You gotta go deep to find someone who’ll do it. Killing family members to send a message? Never, but that’s not ethics. That’s personal. I went through it. Won’t do it to someone else. Other than that . . .”

He paused and reached for his jacket pocket. Then he patted it. “Fuck.”

“You left your cigarettes in the car. And you really don’t want to smoke in a hotel room. It’ll set off the smoke detector.”

“Yeah.”

“If you don’t want to do this . . .”

He looked at me. “You’ve heard of it? I’ve done it. Mob hits, yeah. Drug hits, yeah. Plenty of lowlife A wanting lowlife B dead. But there’s more, too. Killed people who did nothing to deserve it. Spouse for insurance money. For custody. For screwing around. For freedom to screw around. Business partner. Business rival. Lots of business shit. Lots of bullshit. Innocent people. Couple of bystanders once. Not intentionally. Car bomb. Furious with myself. Fucked up. Only problem . . .”

His hand twitched as if he was ready to reach for a cigarette again. I tried to say something, but he continued before I could.

“The problem? That’s
all
I thought. All I felt. That I’d fucked up. I was pissed off at the mistake. Those bystanders? Couple college guys. Never thought about them. Their parents, friends, girlfriends. Just a mistake. Like smashing up my car. That’s when I realized how bad it’d gotten. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing penetrated. Like a fucking robot. So I got my shit together. Still? Not like you and Quinn. Some shit I do? You wouldn’t touch. Lowlife A calling a hit on lowlife B. But different scale. Not always ‘bastard deserved it.’ More like: you wallow in mud, expect to get dirty.”

“That might not be what I do, but I don’t disagree with it in principle.”

“You sure?” He’d shifted as he’d talked, moving his chair back, leaning forward in it, forearms on his legs now. His gaze lifted to mine. “You really okay with that?”

“I—”

“Don’t
need
to do that. Got enough money. Could be pickier.” His gaze locked with mine. “You want me to be pickier?”

My throat seized up and I could barely squeak out, “Wh-what?”

“I’m asking if you’d like me to be pickier, Nadia.”

I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but it was a stupid question. Jack was asking if I wanted him to change the type of work he did. If I wanted him to switch to jobs I’d be more comfortable with. I could tell myself that maybe this was his way of saying he wanted to team up more often. That he was getting older, and he could use a partner. But he was nowhere near the stage where he needed backup.

He was asking if I wanted him to change what he did. To become something else. Something I might prefer. You don’t ask that of a student. You don’t even ask it of a friend. You only ask it if . . .

I was missing something. Going from friendship to “I’d change my life for you” required a few steps in between, and unless I was doing a lot more than walking in my sleep, we’d skipped all of them.

“I . . .” I steeled myself and looked right at him. “I don’t want you to change anything, Jack. I am completely and absolutely fine with what you are and what you do. Nothing you’ve said, nothing you’ve done, nothing I could find out is going to change that.”

He studied my expression. I kept my gaze on his, letting him look. There was nothing to hide. I meant it.

“I could,” he said. “I would.”

“And I’d never ask it or expect it. You’re not me. I don’t want you to be. I want you exactly the way you are.”

Was it possible to be any clearer? Short of grabbing him by the jacket and pulling him onto the bed? But he just sat there, his face expressionless. Then, finally, he eased closer, his legs rubbing against mine, leaning over and . . .

And nothing. He stopped there, legs pushed against mine, hands on his knees, leaning forward as if he was going to . . .

Hell, I have no idea what he was going to do. Or if he was going to do anything at all. He was just there, so close I could feel the whisper of his breath, the weight of his gaze, and I had no fucking idea what he was planning to do or what he wanted me to do.

He was waiting for a sign and what I’d said wasn’t enough. He needed me to be absolutely clear.

I should do something. Lean forward. Reach out. Do something. Do
anything
.

That was the problem, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t make a move until he was sure. I couldn’t make one until I was. One of us had to take a chance, risk personal humiliation and a very awkward extrication if we’d misinterpreted—

Jack’s phone buzzed from his rear pocket.

“Probably Evelyn,” he said.

“Probably.”

“But maybe not. It’s my . . .”

“Your work phone. I know.” I paused. “You should check it.”

“Right.” He pulled the phone out and glanced at the screen. Then he looked at me. “Not Evelyn. Work.”

“Okay.”

“I should . . .” He glanced down but still made no attempt to answer.

He looked at me. The words died in my throat. He glanced away.

“Should get this,” he said and answered, rising and taking the call out of the room.

Well, if he’d wanted to distract me, he’d succeeded. I was no longer hopelessly confused over what happened twenty years ago. I was hopelessly confused over what was happening now.

I reached down and picked up my duffel. My laptop was inside. I got it out and started doing research on Aldrich’s trial.

I was immersed in an article when I felt a faint draft on my shoulder and looked up to see Jack in the doorway.

“Hey,” I said.

He only nodded and stayed there. I tried to read his face. Impossible, of course. If he didn’t want to show me anything, I didn’t see anything. Which was a big part of the problem, I guess.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Just work.”

“Do you need to take off?”

“Nah. Nothing like that.”

“So I should move my ass,” I said, closing the laptop. “We have a long drive.”

He shook his head. “No rush. Just didn’t want to interrupt.”

I closed the laptop and reached for the bag.

“Said no rush.” He moved into the room. “Something about Amy’s case?”

I nodded. He motioned for me to open the laptop up again and sat beside me on the bed. Sitting with a good foot between us. Keeping his distance. Ah, shit, now I was starting to sound like him, too.

I rubbed my palms over my eyes.

“Nadia?”

I feigned a yawn. “Sorry. Just hitting that midafternoon slump. Reading on-screen doesn’t help. We should hit the road—”

He opened the laptop and swiveled it to face me. “You were reading something interesting. Could see it. Keep going. I’ll grab coffee.”

He took off before I could protest.

“Caffeine and sugar,” Jack said ten minutes later, as he set two coffees and a bag of candy on the nightstand beside me.

I smiled and let that last bit of annoyance slide away. The moment had passed. It would come again and maybe we’d do better. For now, if he was bringing me candy, all was fine.

I grabbed my snack, and we went into the other room. I took up position on the sofa. He sat next to me, closer this time, though not as close as earlier. Which I wasn’t going to think about.

“I’m not ready for that file yet,” I said. “But I thought baby steps might help. I’m looking up references to the case. There’s not a lot because it happened pre-Internet. With Aldrich’s death and confession, there’s some regional media attention, but it doesn’t delve very far into Amy’s case. For that, what I’m finding is mostly secondary references. So I’m following this trail of bread crumbs, which lead me to . . .” I clicked a link, skimmed the first few lines, and grinned. “A primary source. Thanks to the library system and the power of technology.”

It was a series of scanned local articles from the time of the trial. I was still skimming them. There were pieces on Amy’s death, on the arrest, on the pretrial hearings, and then, finally, on the trial itself where—

I stopped. Stared.

“Fuck,” Jack murmured.

I glanced over. “So I’m not seeing things?”

“If you are? I am, too.” He glanced around. “Where’s your camera?”

I dug it out of the equipment bag, turned it on, and flipped through until the viewer showed the photo I wanted. The best shot of the guy who’d presumably killed Drew Aldrich. Then I turned back to my laptop. The black-and-white photo was grainy, the scanned resolution less than ideal, but there was little doubt of what we were seeing. A photograph of Aldrich’s killer . . . in an article on Aldrich’s court case.

It was a group shot. Three men, one woman. Two of the men strode along in front. Older men, in their forties or fifties. The other two—a guy and a woman—looked in their early twenties and hung back. All four were dressed in suits and carried briefcases.

My gaze dropped to the caption under the picture: “The defense team arrives at the courthouse.”

Aldrich’s killer had been part of his defense team. Did that make any sense? No. Add the fact that the guy had been driving a car rented by the Contrapasso Fellowship, and I was completely flummoxed.

“Makes no fucking sense,” Jack said. “Aldrich spots you. Calls his old lawyer. Could see that. Long time, but whatever. Except he’s not Drew Aldrich anymore. And this guy? A Canadian lawyer? Shows up within hours. Acts like they’re old friends. Kills him. Pins the crime on him. The crime he helped get him
off
of. What the fuck?”

“I can see some logic in the last part,” I said. “Maybe he felt guilty, having played a role in letting a killer walk?”

“Fucking lot to lose if he’s caught. Considering he killed him.”

“There’s the rub. And the Contrapasso connection doesn’t fit at all.”

“Unless Evelyn’s wrong about that.”

“Maybe.” I saved the photo from the article. “No sense trying to figure it out until we have more information.”

I searched for details on Aldrich’s defense. Finally, I discovered that he’d been represented by Ellis, Silva, and Webb, which surprised the hell out of me. It was one of the top defense firms in Toronto. How had a guy like Aldrich gotten them? I’d have to ask Neil about that.

Lawrence Webb had been Aldrich’s main lawyer—he was one of the older two guys in the photo. So not only had Aldrich hired a top firm, but a founding partner led his team. No wonder he’d gotten off.

I dug deeper for the names of the other attorneys. I got the second older guy—a partner. But even going over the firm’s website photos, I found no sign of the mystery man. He could have been an expert witness, a private eye, or just a guy in a suit walking near Aldrich’s lawyers.

“I’m going to send this to Neil, see if he remembers who he was.”