Authors: Daphna Edwards Ziman
He pulled out a pile of scarves that smelled like her—not of perfume, but of fresh, crisp air, like it came from near the sea or a mountain peak. A couple of hats. Three pairs of sunglasses in different styles. Assorted vials and compacts and tubes in a small makeup bag, along with Q-tips in a plastic pouch and a substance the texture and color of Silly Putty. A Ziploc held Band-Aids, tampons, dental floss, mouthwash, adhesive tape, an instant cold pack, a roll of quarters, and a Power Bar.
Jake ran his hand around the bottom of the bag and pulled out a bottle. Tums, half empty. On the bag’s exterior, one side pocket was stuffed with used Kleenex smeared with beige makeup and red lipstick. The other pocket held a cache of fresh packets of Kleenex. That was all.
Jake sat down on the bed and turned the duffel upside down, shaking it hard. He hefted it with two hands. Something didn’t seem right. He felt all the way around the inside again. Nothing. No lumps, no bulges. He felt all the seams, tapped on the hard bottom. Nothing. Jake looked up guiltily, expecting Kelly to walk in, but his apartment was silent.
The cops would have X-rayed her bag when she was arrested, so Jake wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He was about to give up when a white thread on the bottom corner caught his eye. He pulled it, and the bottom of the duffel opened. The thick cardboard base slid out easily, and he tossed it aside. Jake slipped his hand all the way around the thin space, feeling carefully in the corners. Nothing. With a frustrated shout, he hurled the bag to the floor. It landed half on top of the cardboard—and that’s when he saw it. The layers of cardboard were just slightly separated. They came apart easily in his fingers, and out fluttered a photograph.
Jake stared at it, curious. He spotted Kelly immediately. She was young, wearing a fake-looking smile. On either side of her were the Gordons, standing a little too close, pressing in on Kelly as if they thought she would fly away. The picture was a poignant reminder of Kelly’s tragic past. Jake wondered why she kept it with her. He glanced at the rest of the picture. Three other children stood on the other sides of the Gordons, presumably their other foster children.
Jake stared, frozen in disbelief. He looked harder, not able to comprehend what he was seeing. Could it be true? The other children were two boys and a girl. All three looked underfed and unhappy. But the girl looked out with a particular malevolence, and Jake found himself staring into the eyes of Stacy Steingart.
He exploded with rage, punching the wall. Kelly knew Stacy Steingart—Porter’s killer? They had been foster kids at the Gordons’ at the same time? He had been too quick to believe Kelly was innocent. He had fallen for her sob stories the same way Porter had. But the difference was, he had no excuse. Porter was the idealist, not him.
Not quite sure what he was doing, Jake carried the photo to the living room. His thinking up to this point had been smudged—he was aware of that now. Logic and strategy had been going up against compassion and attraction. He knew that the only sane thing to do at this moment was to take the photograph and everything he knew to the FBI and to Law Boy. He would let them take over, find Kelly, and do with her as they wanted.
Yet he stood in the living room deliberating. And as he opened
The Sibley Guide to Birds
and slipped the picture between pages eighty-nine and ninety, one thing was as clear as vodka: He was concealing evidence. He had just crossed the line from defense attorney to accessory.
Jake had spent the rest of the day and most of a restless night trying to track Kelly down. He was in too deep now. And to top it off,
she’d been entrusted to his recognizance—her disappearance could mean the end of his career. The minute she disappeared, he should’ve had the cops, the sheriffs, the SWAT teams after her. After all, she was a potential accessory to murder.
Joyce’s voice pulled Jake back to the reality of his office. “Still no answer,” she said from the doorway. “I’ve been trying every fifteen minutes.”
Jake let the blinds clatter against the window. “I don’t fucking believe it,” he muttered.
Perching on the edge of his sofa and lighting a cigarette, Joyce watched Jake lift a portable ironing board from behind the door and carefully balance it on two stacks of law books. Then he took off his shirt and stuffed it into a laundry bag labeled
DIRTY
.
Hanging next to this laundry bag was another, marked
CLEAN
. Jake pulled out a shirt and fussily fitted the yoke over the end of the ironing board. Ever since college, Jake had done his own shirts. “Keep your dirty laundry to yourself”—it was a priority in protecting his privacy.
Joyce took a long drag off her cigarette and rested her feet on a stack of legal papers. For as long as she had worked for Jake, she’d enjoyed this ironing routine. It had become a signal that he wanted her input. Today, however, her enjoyment was marred by his evident distress over this Kelly woman.
Joyce exhaled a plume of smoke from the corner of her mouth. “Look at the positive side: First loss is best loss. That girl was a disaster ready to happen. Now maybe she’s not your problem anymore.” She had taken an instant dislike to Kelly and now had trouble disguising the pleasure in her voice.
“She intrigued me,” Jake said simply. He slipped the shirt off the board and started on the collar. He said nothing, in violation of their
usual discussion rules. He was supposed to start thinking aloud, and Joyce would insert sage comments and advice. Joyce smoked silently, a little peeved. When she’d finished her cigarette and Jake still hadn’t spoken another word, she started to move toward the door.
“Well, you sure know how to pick them,” she said.
Jake looked up, iron in hand, and grinned. It was a hollow expression.
Joyce exhaled loudly. “You want me to keep trying?”
“Yes, every ten minutes.” Jake finished up the second sleeve and flipped the shirt to the back. “Thanks.”
He knew he had pissed off Joyce, but he couldn’t confide in her. He wasn’t even sure he could explain it to himself. Why was he continuing to protect Kelly? And risking his own career? To make up for the way the system had abused her and robbed her of her childhood? Why? Could he give her back her childhood or repay her somehow for what the justice system had stolen?
What justice? A child was torn away from her dead mother’s arms and thrown into a world of betrayals and abuse. The prisons were filled with Kellys—kids born into a world of little or no choice. Talked to mostly by cynics, among them Jake himself, these kids touched futility in every pathway of life and every encounter. But cynics made poor friends, as his ex-girlfriends would testify.
Jake felt a gnawing in the pit of his stomach—a sensation that had become so familiar to him since Kelly had entered his life. He tasted bile. Why was he choosing to walk her rocky road? Did it all come down to exploring his dark side? Was it that holding her hand through hell—what a clever wordsmith he was—would make her lean on him to the point of total dependency … maybe even make her love him? Or was it just his desire to become Jake the Explorer? Was capturing the intangible so exciting, or was it a mere obsession?
Jake was finishing the fourth shirt when Joyce burst into his office. He looked up eagerly. “Did you find her?”
Joyce shook her head, her lips pressed closed severely. “Your private line. It’s Todd Gillis.”
“I’VE INVITED YOU HERE …” GILLIS HESITATED, AS if selecting the wrong words would be the verbal equivalent of clipping the wrong wire to defuse a bomb. He steepled his fingers in front of his lips and glanced down at his desk. “I asked you here because I have information that I’d rather not spill to the cops or the feds.”
Although keyed up, Jake said nothing. He resisted leaning forward. After years in his profession, he’d learned just to let people talk. Everyone, except for a skillful few, revealed more during a simple period of his silence than they would under harsh lights or meticulous questioning. He could see Gillis trying to gauge any reactive signals from Jake, any emotional buttons he could push. Jake had been down this road more often than Gillis knew. The intelligence level of his opponents changed, but never the intent. Sociopaths were sociopaths.
Gillis’s LA office was dark and stern, even though one entire wall was glass and high enough above the surrounding buildings to let in the sun. Mahogany paneling dimmed two other walls. The
fourth contained floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books so nondescript they could have been multiple sets of encyclopedias. Centered between the bookshelves was a fireplace, unlit. Gillis’s enormous, dark, ornately carved wooden desk was positioned on a raised platform, and Gillis sat behind it with his back to the wall of windows so that he was perpetually backlit and visitors were blinded. It was an affectation designed to intimidate, like the Louis XVI antiques in the reception area and the Renoirs and Monets in the lobby. Jake wasn’t falling for any of it.
Gillis creaked forward in his high-backed antique leather chair. “I don’t quite know how to say this … I guess I’m a little embarrassed.” He rubbed his jaw roughly. “The truth is, Porter Garrett’s mistress, Kelly Jensen, is my wife.”
Jake squinted. Gillis was trying to feel out what he knew, of course. Jake rearranged himself in the low-slung leather guest chair and molded his face into a mask of boredom.
“Really.”
Gillis’s smile was warm, almost sheepish. “But you’ve known that for a while. Even before you risked your career and said you’d supervise her recognizance. I have friends at the courthouse. And I’m a friend of Shrake’s, you see. He mentioned you’d shown some interest in Kelly.”
Jake scowled. “That asshole suffers from a severe case of verbal diarrhea. Who wouldn’t be interested in a beautiful, talented singer?”
Gillis fiddled with a paperweight, a cube of shiny, bronze-colored metal, and smiled. “Take it easy. Shrake knew Kelly and I have a past. He was doing what comes naturally to people like him. Gossiping. You see, it was Kelly who left
me
…” Gillis paused and looked toward the dark fireplace. Jake watched him swallow a couple
of times, his Adam’s apple straight in its track. He was surprised to see Gillis allowing himself this vulnerability and was intrigued that the man was capable of it. If that’s what it was. Could this ice man have a melting point named Kelly Jensen? Or was he that good an actor?
“Almost two years ago,” Gillis continued. “She left
me
. I know she was young when we got married, but I gave her everything she ever dreamed of, everything she wanted. You ever been married, Brooks?”
Jake shook his head. He was surprised to see softness in someone so hard, but at the same time, he didn’t trust Gillis’s “I am human” epiphany.
“Well, I loved that girl.
Love
her. She took my kids, too. No note. No forwarding address. I wake up one morning and she’s gone, vanished.”
“Look—”
Gillis held up his hand. “It’s alright. The thing is, I searched everywhere for her—wouldn’t you? A shrink would say I was addicted to my own wife. Maybe even obsessed. That may be true, but I also didn’t want the police involved. A man in my position—the press would have had a field day. I also … If another man …” Gillis paused again, spinning the paperweight by quarter turns.
“I also didn’t want her to get in trouble. There are other things she did—things I could have come after her for.”
Jake leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. He had to mask his growing anxiety about Kelly—her safety, her trustworthiness.
“It’s alright, Brooks,” said Gillis. “I know a lot of what you know already. But think about it. Taking our kids across state lines without my consent? Kidnapping? Also, she …” Gillis jerked to his feet.
“Let’s take this outside. I need some air, and I have some things I want to tell you, more privately.”
Jake hesitated. What was Gillis worried about? He allowed himself to reveal a touch of sarcasm. “I’m all ears.”
Preceding Gillis out the door, Jake glanced at a photograph in a black frame on the wall. He moved closer, hearing Gillis make an impatient sound behind him. A school-age boy was standing next to a man who wore clothing in the style of the late 1960s. The boy’s face was open and shining, and he was smiling up at the man. The man’s face was cloudy, distracted, looking over the boy’s head to the left of the picture. The boy’s hand was outstretched to the man, as if inviting him to hold it, but the man’s arm remained stiffly by his side.
“Someone you know?” Jake asked.
Gillis muttered impatiently, “My father.” He took Jake’s elbow firmly and steered him to the door. “We’re going this way.”
They emerged from a staircase onto the roof of the building. Leaning against a railing, Jake pulled out a cigarette, promising himself again to quit, once this was over. He offered the box to Gillis, who shook his head and looked out over Los Angeles while Jake lit up. The sky was pure ozone—scoured of clouds. The breeze was so strong, they almost had to shout.
“Here’s the thing,” said Gillis. “I know you’ve been doing a little freelancing. About Kelly.”
Jake exhaled. The wind grabbed the smoke and shredded it over his ear as he processed what Gillis was saying. Gillis knew that Jake was withholding information about Kelly. Because Shrake had blabbed to Gillis about the night Jake came by the club to investigate Kelly, Gillis knew how long Jake had kept the relationship a secret, and he could pinpoint the time for the authorities. Any charges against Jake would be complicated by Jake’s testy dealings with
the FBI and the U.S attorney. He tried to take a steady breath. Gillis might be contemplating blackmail.
Gillis looked at Jake the way a cat looks at a wounded mouse—as if it wants to play with its prey for a while.
“She was a runaway when I met her,” he began. “Scrawny. Scrappy kid. Beat-up. She was in an abusive foster family that was pretty rough on her. This was in Houston. Somehow, she managed to survive. When I met her, she was using her looks for survival, if you know what I mean.”