Emotion clogged Taylor's throat. "Will they be upset that I don't ski?" she asked faintly.
"They'll be thrilled that we're crazy about each other. Any more questions?"
"I'm sure there will be. For now, I'm just overwhelmed. Good overwhelmed," she clarified. "Happy overwhelmed." A sigh. "God, that feels good for a change." Decisively, she put down her mug. "It
also makes me twice as eager to defuse the bombs we're each sitting on. Your bomb is what I wanted
to talk about this morning."
His brows drew together. "You lost me."
"Jonathan Mallory. The mountain you have to climb to win this case. Look, Reed, I'm not a lawyer,
but I'm smart enough to know I'll probably be called as a witness for the prosecution. My testimony
won't have as much punch as it would have if I still believed Jonathan was my stalker. But I'm sure the ADA will figure I can contribute to the ugly picture of your client he plans to paint. I can describe my encounters with him, say how unnerved he made me, how suggestive and delusional he seemed about having a relationship with me—the works. I'm sure you've thought of all this."
"That's my job. So, yes, I've thought of it." Reed looked a bit surprised—and perplexed. "Although I must admit I hadn't expected you to be thinking about it."
"Well, I am. And what I want to know is, is there anything I can do to offset the impact of my testimony?" A flicker of dry amusement. "Before you tear me apart on cross-examination, that is."
Reed's mug struck the counter with a thud. "Are you saying you want to help me? Even though it's Jonathan I'm representing?"
Taylor blew out her breath. "I'm saying I have a great deal of faith in your instincts. I don't want
your client punished for crimes he didn't commit."
"You're amazing," Reed said, cupping her face and leaning forward to give her a deep, heartfelt kiss. "You're willing to do this, despite all your misgivings about Jonathan?"
"Yes." A flicker of realization crossed her face, and she voiced that realization aloud. "You wanted
my trust. Well, it seems you've got it."
This time his kiss was tender, his thumbs gentle as they brushed her cheekbones. "I'll take wonderful
care of it. I promise."
"I know you will." She captured his fingers in hers. "Now tell me, what can I do to help?"
Reed's wheels were already spinning at supersonic speed. Taylor could see it.
"You have something in mind," she deduced.
"Yeah, I do. But it's not the something you're expecting." Reed hunched forward, concentration
furrowing his brow. "You mentioned your qualms about Jonathan. If you agree to what I'm about to propose, I think it'll put some of those qualms to rest. It'll also serve a couple of very important purposes—some emotional, some legal."
"Now you've lost me."
A pause. "Let's just say that Jonathan needs to get a few things off his chest. They relate to you, and
yet they don't. They clarify who he is and why. You're a family counselor. You could listen and understand. It would help Jonathan, and I think it would give you some peace of mind. That's the emotional part. The legal part's a little dicier." Reed took another absent sip of coffee. "The way I see
it, the only conceivable way Jonathan is guilty of committing these crimes is if he blocked it all out. He took a polygraph. The results concurred with my instincts: he's not guilty. Which means that at the very worst, Jonathan's guilty but believes he's innocent. For that to be true, he'd have to have been a hell of
a lot more than just drunk or pumped up with some vague delusions of self-importance. He'd have to
be severely psychologically ill. Wouldn't you agree?"
Taylor nodded.
"I'm still determined to go for a not-guilty verdict, because I believe that's what Jonathan is. However,
I need a backup plan. Mental incompetence or insanity or long-range scars from emotional abuse. Something. Believe me, his history warrants it. You'll understand once you've spoken to him. The problem is, I'd need expert testimony corroborating his precarious mental state from someone trained
to formulate that opinion."
His meaning sank in, and Taylor's eyes widened. "Me ?"
"You've got the degree and the experience."
"Not really. I'm a family counselor, not a criminal psychiatrist. My training and expertise—"
"—enable you to deal with a lot of screwed-up teens and their reasons for becoming that way," Reed interrupted. "In this case, that's a perfect fit. It goes without saying that it would be incredibly beneficial for Jonathan—on many levels."
Taylor digested all that, then nodded. "All right. I'll think about it."
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20
11:17 P.M.
The telephone in Palm Beach just rang and rang.
Still no answer. And no voice mail.
On top of that, her cell phone was turned off. It had been for days.
Goddammit.
He threw his own cell phone onto the bed, then picked up a lamp and hurled it across the room, not
even noticing as it crashed against the wall and shattered into pieces.
How dare she pretend he didn't exist?
His fingers interlocked, clenched together, tightening until he could actually feel her neck between his hands, his thumbs pressing down on her windpipe, squeezing the life out of her.
She wasn't different.
She was just like the rest. Snotty. Manipulative. He'd planned to make the sex good for her. It would have been a final explosion of sheer, perfect pleasure before eternal oblivion. No more. Now the bitch would pay in full.
CHAPTER 30
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27
7:15 p.m.
WESTON & ASSOCIATES, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW
The murmur of voices drifted out from behind the closed doors of the firm's new law library and into
the reception area, where Reed was pacing.
The words were indistinguishable. The tone was not.
It was a taut, emotional session. Then again, it was a taut, emotional subject. Several times in the past few minutes, Reed had considered breaking his promise to Taylor and charging inside. But he had to respect her professional ethics just as she did his. Client privilege was client privilege. Besides, she'd
laid down the law in no uncertain terms.
"Alone," she'd stated flatly. "I said I'd talk to Jonathan, and I will. But it has to be alone."
Like Reed had much choice.
He was desperate. He'd come up with nothing but dead ends. No one with a vendetta against the Berkleys, personal or professional. No acquaintances of theirs with a history of violence. And no one
but Jonathan to benefit from their will. He was their only living relative, except Douglas's niece, who hadn't seen the Berkleys since she was a child and would therefore have no idea she was last in line
to inherit.
Things were looking grim for Jonathan.
Time was short.
Suspects were scarce.
Paul wandered down the stairs and glanced from the shut door to Reed. "They've been in there for
over an hour," he noted.
"An hour and six minutes. I know. I haven't done a stitch of work since the session started."
A strained smile. "What kind of outcome are you expecting?"
"The truth?" Reed met Paul's gaze. "I think Taylor's going to agree with us. I think the strategy of pleading either diminished capacity or temporary insanity is a long shot. I think Jonathan's innocent."
"Yeah." Paul sat down on the bottom step. "I assumed you'd feel that way." A weary sigh. "And, as
we both know, it's going to make our job that much harder."
"Tell me something I don't know." Reed paused, then shook his head. "Too much here doesn't fit. Jonathan's smart. He'd never leave his semen at the crime scene only to cooperate fully with the authorities by providing a DNA sample. And he'd know he
'd never inherit Douglas's fortune if he
was found guilty of murder.
"Then there's the polygraph. Even Willard, the ADA, was bothered by the results. He was also bothered when his evidentiary trap yielded nothing. He went to great lengths to divulge the details of the murders, purposely describing the bite marks on Adrienne as being on her right breast. It was her left."
"Obviously, Jonathan didn't take the bait," Paul clarified.
"Take the bait? He didn't bat a lash. He wasn't evasive; he was clueless. The only time he reacted was when Willard described the strangulation. And then, he gagged, remembering how red Adrienne's face
had been when he'd identified her body. Not exactly the reaction of a killer. In my book, that makes
way too many inconsistencies, with no explanations to go along with them." Reed frowned. "Willard's tough, but he's honest. He sees the same incongruities we do. And they're bugging him."
At that moment, the door to the law library opened, and Taylor stepped out. "We're finished."
Reed's head snapped up, and he scrutinized Taylor's face, trying to read her. She looked pensive, and very solemn. But that was all.
Paul facilitated things. "I want to speak with Jonathan about tomorrow's arraignment," he announced, coming to his feet and heading toward the library. "We'll be with you shortly."
Taylor gazed after him, and a corner of her mouth lifted in wry amusement as the door shut behind him. "Now that was subtle."
"We're not going for subtle. We're going for answers." Reed tipped up her chin. "First of all, are you okay? No adverse affects?"
"None. I'm fine. Your client's another story." Taylor gestured toward the coffee room Reed had set up across the hall. "Let's go talk."
They poured two cups of coffee and sank down into chairs.
"Okay, shoot," Reed prompted.
"To begin with, I understand why you wanted this session to happen, for my sake as well as Jonathan's. It's amazing what a difference having the full picture makes. I also see why it was so easy for you to convince Jonathan to talk to me."
"No convincing was necessary. He jumped at the chance."
"He wanted to confide in me. He figured if I was aware of everything he'd been through, it would elicit my compassion. He hoped those feelings would spark a relationship between us and that, eventually,
I'd come to care for him."
"I know."
"It worked. Not the relationship part, but the understanding and compassion. I now have a strong idea
of what makes Jonathan Mallory tick, and what motivates him—personally and professionally." Taylor took a sip of coffee. "We're pressed for time. So let's get to my assessment. For starters, I don't believe for one minute that Jonathan is delusional enough to have committed the heinous crimes he's being accused of and blocked it out. In my opinion, he's not only nonviolent, he's in mourning and in shock—both very normal reactions. Oh, he's got lots of baggage, thanks to not being formally acknowledged by his father, to his strained relationship with his brother, to feelings of inadequacy,
and most of all, to his predator of a stepmother. Adrienne Berkley definitely screwed up his
relationships with women."
"No question," Reed muttered.
"Yes, but the result is that he's become insecure, not unfeeling. True, he hated Adrienne's guts. Rightly so, if you ask me. She used his father and his brother, threatened his mother, and spit in his face every chance she got. But Jonathan's agenda isn't about revenge. It's about proving himself. That applies to
his relationships with women, too. Which explains the two incidents in college and grad school."
A pause. "And his fixation on me. The last thing he wants to contend with is more rejection."
"Yeah." Reed looked grim. "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you about those two harassment incidents, but I'm glad he did. I think he views you as some kind of savior."
"Exactly." Taylor sighed. "What he really craves is normalcy, a real and stable relationship, a woman
who cares about him as much as he cares about her. His behavior is a little over the edge. But, under
the circumstances, that's understandable. So there's my assessment. And if you need me to serve as
your expert witness, I will."
Reed squeezed her hand. "Thanks."
"I really feel sorry for the guy," Taylor mused aloud. "But if you want to know the truth—and God
help me, I never thought I'd say this—the person I really feel sorry for is Gordon. He's the one who
went through the trauma of being blackmailed into bed with his stepmother. Who knows what kind of power trip she pulled on him? He was already a prime candidate. Cold. Egocentric. A use-and-abuse personality in the making. Adrienne just clinched things in a big way. No wonder he turned into such
a heartless, devious bastard."
Taylor stared broodingly into her coffee cup. "The ironic thing is that if anyone had the psychological composite and the motive to do what Jonathan's being accused of, it was Gordon. If he were alive, I'd
bet money on his guilt. As it is, he's probably getting a real charge out of all this— even if he is in hell."
There it was again. That flicker of an idea. Only this time, Reed saw the idea through to completion.
An impossibility.
Or was it?
"Talk to me about Gordon's personality type." Reed barked out the order like a drill sergeant.
His harsh tone caught Taylor off guard, as did the command itself. "There's nothing new to say," she replied. "Gordon was arrogant, manipulative, violent, and perverse."
"He was also calculating, self-obsessed, filled with delusions of grandeur, and totally without conscience or remorse. The psychologists I've heard testify in court cite traits like those when they're describing a megalomaniac and a psychopath."
A cold shiver ran up Taylor's spine. "Reed, why are you doing this?" she managed, pushing aside her coffee. "I don't want to discuss—"
"I know," Reed interrupted in a slightly gentler tone. "And I don't want you to have to discuss him. But Jonathan thinks he's being framed for murder. Mitch thinks Jonathan's being framed as your stalker. Maybe he's being framed for both. And I can only think of one person with the means and the motive
to do it."
Realization struck—hard.
"Gordon?" Taylor whispered.
"You yourself just said he had the psychological makeup for it."
"Except that he's dead."
"Yeah, he is, isn't he?" Reed's wheels were spinning wildly. "But let's pretend, for the moment, that he's alive. Wouldn't he see it as divine justice to rape and kill Adrienne and get away with it?" That triggered
a burst of insight and, abruptly, Reed bolted to his feet. "Jesus Christ." He stalked out of the room,
taking the stairs two at a time as he headed for his office. Reaching his desk, he began rummaging
through the files and papers. There. He grabbed the pile of DNA material he'd printed, tearing through pages until he found the section he was looking for.
He'd just zeroed in on what he needed when Taylor walked in.
"Reed, what is it? What's going on?"
He shoved the page at her, pointing at a specific section. "Read this."
Taylor complied, scanning the paragraph and reading it aloud. " 'Identical twins come from one fertilized egg that splits in two. This separation can occur up to the twelfth day of conception, around the time the egg is implanting in the uterus. The fertilized egg, and its single complete set of DNA, splits to form twin embryos, each with its own set of DNA that is identical to the other. As a result, identical twins share
the same sex and a hundred percent of their DNA.'" Taylor lowered the page, a guarded expression on her face. "Where are you going with this?"
"Toward a not-guilty verdict."
"Oh God." Taylor's hands shook as Reed's words sank in. "Identical twins have identical DNA." She dropped the page onto Reed's desk. "
If what you're suggesting is true, then Gordon Mallory is alive."
Reed looked as shaken as Taylor. "I realize how crazy this sounds. But it would certainly explain a lot. The DNA match. The fact that a homicidal rapist—one who was both proficient and meticulous—was careless enough to leave semen behind. The brutal way Adrienne was raped."
"And the way she was killed," Taylor found herself adding. "She was choked, Reed. So was I—by Gordon. He knew just when to stop so I'd live." Taylor's breath was coming in shallow pants.
"Jonathan mentioned that you were troubled by his propensity for redheads, and how that might relate
to me. Well, look at Gordon. Steph was a redhead. I'm a redhead. And, obviously, Adrienne was a redhead. Two of the three of us are dead. I'm being stalked."