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He kisses me again, a long, deep slide of tongue that I feel inside and out, that swell of my emotions expanding between us is now ours. He feels it, too. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t want it to end. Our drive, however, is short, and it’s not long before we are out of the car and walking into the lobby of his building with my bags in tow, to find Blake waiting on us at the security desk. “I’ll make this quick,” he says, glancing at my bags, a hint of a smile on his lips, before he refocuses on Reese. “The secretary had some interesting information.”
“I’m listening,” Reese says.
“Fits of jealousy from Kelli. She also says that she heard the Wards arguing over Jennifer’s call the night she died. Nelson didn’t take that call. His wife did.”
“She’s on my witness list,” Reese says. “Will she say all of this on the stand?”
“Only if you make it looked forced and spontaneous,” Blake says. “She wants to protect Ward, but he’s protective of Kelli. She doesn’t want to end up fired. And she doesn’t want to communicate with you directly and risk upsetting Ward.”
“And you feel good about her?”
“Fuck yes,” Blake says. “I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t.”
“The spontaneous thing is a piece of cake,” Reese says. “I’ll make it happen. I’ll make her feel attacked even though she expects my questions.”
“When should she expect to be called?” Blake asks.
“Friday. And Friday, this ends. I’ll call her and then the wife right before I rest my case.”
Blake hands him an envelope. “She doesn’t know it, but I recorded her. Just to make you feel good about her testimony. If you have questions, pick up the fucking phone.” He leaves, and Reese and I head onward to the elevator.
A few minutes later, we step in the elevator, and it’s not long before we are sitting in front of that view in the chair in Reese’s bedroom, listening to the tape with takeout containers on the floor. “She’s going to be a huge asset,” I say, after the tape ends. “She’s loyal to Ward. She really thinks he’s a good man and she’s got a sweet voice, which helps.”
“If she goes right before Kelli, it’s a brutal set up.”
“With Kelli outside the courtroom, I assume?”
“Oh yeah. She can’t hear Geneva’s testimony.”
“Do you want me to publish my column asking ‘Who Killed Jennifer Wright?’ or does that alert Kelli, that she’s a target? I think it does and I have something else in mind for tomorrow that I’m kind of loving anyway.”
“If you love it, then let’s go with the something else. Let’s keep her feeling protected by her husband. That way when I come at her on the stand, she’s taken off guard.”
“Something else it is,” I say. “What about timing? Why Friday for closing and not tomorrow? You wanted to wrap this trial up without diluting Dan’s poor performance.”
“Everyone wants to go home on a Friday. It’s my way of discouraging long deliberation.”
“Which is why you said it ends Friday.”
“Yes. And then we know the end of the story.”
The end of the story.
Because every story ends.
Chapter twenty-seven
Reese
Ikill it in court Tuesday and Wednesday. The medical professionals I call tear down the prosecution. The prosecution tears down the prosecution. It’s hard to believe they were this unprepared, but what’s fucked up is that they could still win. People want justice, even if it’s bad justice. It’s these thoughts that I wake up to Thursday with only one day left before my closing, if all goes as planned. If I were perfect, I could be sure it would.
Cat rolls over toward me and blinks awake, her eyes a perfect summer green. Perfect. That’s what she called me last night, and that word hits ten kinds of triggers for me, of which I normally only have a few. “Perfect is a really hard fucking thing to live up to,” I say. “You know that, right?” I don’t give her time to answer. I roll out of the bed, walk to the bathroom, open the shower, and turn on the water. I step inside and under the hot spray, pressing my hands on the glass wall. Fuck. I hate when I get like this. I hate that she called me perfect. I hate that it reminds me of my father. Of my many confrontations with that man when I was a teen and he was sneaking in the door at three a.m. instead of me.
“You have a wife,” I’d remind him.
“You think you’re fucking perfect, don’t you?” he’d growl back at me.
Even then, at such a young age, I was a hell of a lot more perfect than him. He just couldn’t stop fucking around on my mother—which is one of those perfect secrets I haven’t told Cat. How can I? My father is a cheater. Her past is all about cheaters and overbearing assholes. He was that, too. I’d rather Cat call me an asshole than perfect. That way, I never disappoint her the way my dad disappointed my mother.
