Authors: Daphna Edwards Ziman
But they had a core difference in outlook, and inevitably their career paths had diverged. Porter relished the logic of the legal system, believed in its overall fairness and overlooked its flaws in favor of the good it did. Politics for him was a perfect fit, and once he had started running for office, he had never lost. His popularity in the House of Representatives had gotten national attention, and he’d been tapped to run for the Senate, with the implication that he was being groomed for the White House. The campaign was in its final weeks, and Porter had been making impressive gains against his opponent—a crusty old incumbent named Theodore Henckle, who—conventional wisdom had it—was unbeatable.
While Porter had grown more idealistic over the years, however, Jake had grown more cynical. Both men took to victory like a shark to the smell of blood, but after a while Jake had stopped seeing the difference between the criminals he put behind bars and the people whose vast fortunes supported the system he was sworn to protect. Too many times Jake found himself seeing things from the defendant’s point of view, understanding the complicated circumstances that led a person to commit a crime—in some cases, a very serious crime. The more he saw of the justice system in action—outside the sterile classrooms of Harvard Law—the more Jake saw the subtleties and started losing his faith.
So he had abruptly given up his practice as a prosecutor in Las Vegas one summer and moved to Los Angeles to become a defense attorney. “A
high-priced
defense attorney,” Porter always pointed out, never passing up a chance to tease his friend. It was a testimony to the character and intelligence of both men that they had remained close. The transition had not dented his friendship with Porter Garrett; it had, however, earned him the hatred of just about every cop on the Las Vegas force. The moment he’d seen Cooper at this scene, bringing back the memory of their scorn and derision, Jake had known he would not be welcomed any further into this investigation.
He turned toward the window, away from Porter’s horrific body, and fought the urge to throw up. Jake knew one thing for sure: He had to get out of there right away.
* * *
Kelly’s eyelids were growing heavy in the overcast, shadowed morning as the headlights of the oncoming cars flickered in a hypnotic dance that threw her back to another ride, another vehicle, back to her teen years.
She forced her mind to focus on the reflection of the beam of headlights passing by as they created a light show on the ceiling of the limousine. They helped to drown out his voice violently pounding in her ear, “You’re my wife! You are mine! I can do whatever I want with you!” as he forced himself into her, over and over again. The car lights, dancing to a frantic rhythm, drowned his presence, her cries of pain.
She felt nothing.
Somewhere in her mind, his voice echoed, mashed in with the voices of many other men who had hurt her. A revolving
door of strangers, all paid to be there as caregivers in the broken foster care system.
Her present reality awakened her to the fact that she was once again entering the unknown, a zone of comfort where nothing was familiar, and nothing was anticipated, where no emotions were put on the line. Acutely aware of how dangerous love could be, Kelly was certain that leaving Porter had been a must, and that escaping now into the unknown was her only way out.
* * *
Jake found Cassie with her phone to her ear, pacing by the elevators near some local agents wearing Nevada FBI Windbreakers. It reminded him to turn his ringer back on. The phone rang immediately, just as Cassie was finishing up her own conversation.
“Brooks,” he uttered, and paused, listening. “Howard,” he said firmly into the phone, “we’ll do a statement. In about an hour. We’ll call you.”
He felt a movement by his elbow and turned in time to catch Cassie as she fell forward into his shoulder. They hugged awkwardly. She was trying to speak but managing only to force out little sobs of air. Finally she cried hoarsely, “I found him. I had to get security to open the suite, and I saw him …”
Jake gripped her shoulders. As Suzanne Garrett’s assistant, Cassie was called on to lead a life that revolved entirely around protocol. Unfortunately, and especially in such grim circumstances, she was the quintessential overeducated, under-experienced recent Ivy League graduate who hadn’t a clue how to behave. Smart and beautiful, with a childhood as sheltered as a Ferrari in a garage, Cassie was brilliant when things went according to her script; when she had to improvise, she fell apart.
Jake reminded himself that she was young, that he needed to help her pull herself together, back into one piece. And he needed her to be discreet.
“They’re all calling,” she whined. “The networks, CNN, the wires. K-LAS. They’re sniffing for blood—I don’t know what to say.”
“
You
say nothing. Where’s Alana?”
Cassie wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands.
“I think she’s on her way here.”
“Maybe stuck outside, like I was?”
Cassie’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit!”
“Pull yourself together,” Jake said gruffly. “Don’t open your mouth to anyone. Find Alana.” Alana Sutter was the political strategist—campaign manager—for Porter’s now-defunct campaign. Jake was surprised she wasn’t already on the scene. Cassie nodded at Jake through her tears as she punched the elevator button.
Jake’s phone rang again. He held it to his ear and heard Suzanne’s voice.
“It’s him?”
“Yes. God, I’m sorry, Suzanne.”
There was silence on the line. Jake tried to fill it.
“I’ll do a statement on behalf of the family, if you want. The FBI is sending backup this afternoon—a special team from DC. I’ll be at that meeting.” Jake paused. “I’m getting static from the LVPD. I may need your help.”
“What are those assholes doing? I’ll tell them where to get off.” Jake had always admired Suzanne’s way of handling hard situations by talking tough. He almost felt valiant, giving her this opportunity to excoriate the local police, so he swallowed his pride.
“That’d be a help, Suzanne. Thanks.”
“I won’t be at the press conference.”
“That’s okay. I’ll handle it.”
“Alana says it’s best.”
“She’s with you?”
“Yes.”
That made sense, but still Jake was surprised that Sutter hadn’t come to the crime scene.
“Put her on. I want to run the statement by her.”
* * *
An hour later, as Jake stood in front of the assembled news media in a hotel conference room, he spoke robotically.
“Congressman Porter Garrett of Nevada was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room early this morning. He appears to have been a victim of homicide. Congressman Garrett will be deeply missed by his family, his friends—and the American people.”
The lights seemed brighter than usual, the cackle of follow-up questions more cacophonous. Jake was more than accustomed to the media as a result of his highly visible—some might say sensational and glory-seeking—court cases. The TV cameras were sometimes his best allies in getting a case to go his way. He was unsentimental about it, having watched the innocent take the rap simply because they weren’t photogenic, having seen the guilty escape justice simply because they had star quality. He had long ago learned to view talk shows as pathetic arenas for egomaniacal know-it-alls, wasting a public resource to broadcast their opinions simply because their facial features happened to appeal to the cameras. Yet even as he regarded those cameras as the parasites of humanity, sucking the blood out of people in their most vulnerable moments, Jake knew how to manipulate each and every one he faced. And some part of him had always loved it.
But today was different. Jake realized that he had stood silently just a little too long. The questions were growing louder and louder.
Abruptly, he turned his back on the cameras and left the room. Several staffers tried to follow him, but he waved them off. “Five minutes,” he said.
As he stumbled down the hall, his gut balled up as though he’d been kicked. How could Porter’s life end so abruptly? Here today, then gone in an instant, a finger snap. And soon enough he would be replaced—erased from everyone’s mind. What was left behind? Speeches, important bills, a life of devotion to America? But who was going to remember? Even his children didn’t really know the battles their father had fought, the commitments he kept against all odds. How he was always struggling to do the right thing.
The pointlessness of a life taken, especially a life so well lived, made Jake want to punch a fist through the wall. Jake knew people who had touched futility and limped back with a vacant look in their eyes—the look of nothing more to lose. Porter had never been that way. Futility had never been a part of his outlook. But everything Porter had felt deeply about would be tinged with this—a gruesome end in a hotel suite. Porter would leave a dim memory behind—if he was lucky. And a sordid mess if he wasn’t.
Jake found an empty stall in the men’s room and locked the door. He sank onto the toilet seat and, holding his face in his hands, let the silent sobs pound through his body.
His world had become an instant vacuum. Porter was the brother he’d never had, his conscience, his idol. What was left now? Who could he talk to? Who would listen?
KELLY PASSED A BURGER KING AND TRIED TO HOLD her breath, but a whiff of cooking grease seeped in through the vents. With it came another flood of revolting memories.
Fast-food bags crumpled on the floor of the Cadillac. The pervasive smell of fried food. Knee socks, a tartan skirt, and girlish underpants around her ankles. Her hair in ponytails.
Kelly accelerated.
Her thighs spread open as she lay back on the seat. Faces in the window.
Kelly swerved around a pickup truck with a gun rack across the back window.
A cop tapping on the car window. “Alright, knock it off.”
Her husband’s grin. “But, officer, this is my wife.” Male laughter.
Kelly flicked on the radio, found a station playing gospel music. She willed the memory away.
“Mo-om, I’m hungry,” whined Kevin from the backseat. She’d been driving for nearly seven hours, stopping only once for gas. As far as she could tell, no one was following her.
“That’s why I got off the freeway, honey,” Kelly answered in a singsong voice, peering down the row of plastic fast-food signs as they passed by. Finally she found what she was looking for: a diner that held the promise of a burger made with actual meat and a real slice of pie from a tin pie plate. The kids scrambled into a booth, squirrelly and talkative. Kelly pulled crayons and paper out of her purse and hoped they wouldn’t get too rambunctious. She’d have to find a playground or park eventually, but first she needed to put more distance between them and Vegas.
While the kids drew, Kelly slipped her Sidekick into her lap. The tiny computer screen snapped into place and, using her thumbs, Kelly navigated through her e-mail. She checked some news sites. Satisfied, she clicked
OFF
and put the device back in her purse. Her eyes drifted to a television at the end of the counter, tuned to ESPN. A basketball player spoke into a microphone. The diner was close to the Mexican border and busy with breakfast customers, most of whom were Latino workers and truckers. The waitress—a skinny woman in her thirties, with a distinct smoker’s rasp—was friendly, smiling as she brought orange juice and coffee to the table. When Kelly’s ham-and-cheese omelet arrived, she took a bite and was shocked to realize she hadn’t eaten for almost eighteen hours.
“Are you hungry?”
She hadn’t eaten for a day and a half, unless you counted the paper cup of ice she’d managed to get from a McDonald’s. Chewing on it had made the hunger pangs subside, but she would have done just about anything for some real food.
She was fifteen—a runaway escaping from the cops, hiding in alleys, sleeping in backyards and in parks. She was used to being shunned or ignored, and she welcomed being invisible. She was not going back to the Gordons’ this time. If the cops or social workers caught her, she would refuse to go back to her foster parents. She hadn’t figured out how, but she would. When she had slipped out the bathroom window on that last night, she’d known Mr. Gordon’s fists would be more unforgiving than usual if he caught her. But he wasn’t going to catch her. She was determined to escape. If she stayed, he’d just keep terrorizing her, punching her, and humiliating her. The beatings had been getting worse and worse as it was. Even icing her stomach wasn’t helping anymore. She was sure that one of her ribs was broken. She dreaded one more night of such unbearable pain.
From the first day she had moved into the Gordons’ home, they had made it clear to her that she was disposable. She was told to expect to eat last, to shower last, to make herself invisible. She learned to look down at her plate during meals. Only once did she dare to ask to watch TV with them. That time, Mr. Gordon’s hand came across her face with such speed, she thought her jaw would fly off.
She was left to do the dishes, holding her jaw and crying silently to herself. From that day on, she found solace only when isolated in her bed, where she would pull the covers over her head and whisper to the memories of her mother. Under the covers, she created a world of make-believe people who loved her. She repeated the words “she loves me,” “he loves me,” “they love me,” concocting a family in her mind.
Every day she’d wake up early, eat her allotted breakfast, clean up, and rush out, almost always before Mr. Gordon’s alarm went off. School was a safe haven. There, no one beat
her. She always chose the last row of seats in the classroom, keeping to herself, yearning to disappear into the background, planning her escape.
During recess and lunch break she retreated to the far side of the football field, alone, thankful to be left to her own thoughts and dreading the bell that signaled the end of the day. She sat, looking out at the park across the street, where mothers pushed infants in swings and toddlers tumbled over the sand and down slides. In the safety of being a voyeur, she allowed herself to remember her own childhood.