But after one second and then two, miraculously he didn’t turn. After a third moment, my paralysis lessened, and I was suddenly able to move. I mustered up the last iota of my will to live. I backpedaled, turned, and squeezed into a place along the crowded bar.
“So you’re still trying to pull some tricks up in Boca,” Peter said to Charlie at my back, as I eavesdropped. “I mean, you seem like a decent lush, Baylor. Why represent a piece of garbage like Harris? Controversial client like that is bound to stir up people’s emotions. I’d hate to see you become a victim of a violent crime.”
“Is that a threat?” Charlie said.
“Just some friendly advice,” Peter said. “Your own personal public service announcement from Key West’s chief of police.”
“Don’t you have any drunks to beat up?” Charlie said.
“Fresh out,” Peter said. “But if you’re free, we could head outside.”
“Be happy to,” Charlie said. “You keep the badge, I get the gun.”
“You’re real funny, Counselor, but what’s not funny is that you’re trying to protect the man who killed my wife from his just reward.”
I swallowed. Peter was referring to me, I realized.
“It doesn’t matter,” Peter said. “No matter what you do, Friday night, your precious client is walking into that chamber, and they’re going to carry him out in a bag.”
“We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Charlie said calmly.
“Yes, we certainly will,” Peter said.
I heard Peter stand. Would he come to the bar and order a drink? Was he behind me? Before I could muster up the courage to turn around, I felt a hand at my back.
“There you are,” Charlie said.
I couldn’t have been more relieved.
“Who was that cop?” I managed to spit out.
“Chief of Police Peter Fournier. Must have heard it through the grapevine that we were looking at Tara Foster’s file.”
I blinked down at the floor, trying to absorb that.
“Some people say he’s dirty, but whenever any complaints arise, he always ends up smelling like a rose. You have to see him, with his perfect Barbie doll wife and two perfect little Stepford kids, like he’s Mr. All-American Dad. Then he comes in here just now with that high-wattage Tom Cruise smile of his and threatens me. Sick puppy.”
Peter had a wife and kids now?! I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I’d be sure to go over it when my heart started beating again.
“You want another beer?” Charlie said.
“Yes,” I said. “And a shot of whiskey.”
“There you go, Nina. Get into that Key West vibe. I didn’t know you had it in you,” Charlie said with a wink. “But then I call us a taxi. We need to rest up for tomorrow. We have only another three days. I have a feeling this one is going to be a race to the finish line, don’t you?”
Chapter 86
I IMMEDIATELY HIT THE SHOWER when I got back to my hotel room. With my hands flat against the glass tile wall, I stood directly under the spray in the suite’s spa-like bathroom for almost an hour, my eyes closed as the hot needles pinged off my face and skin.
I was hoping the heat and the rush of the water might clear my mind, deliver some much-needed calm, but as the minutes passed, I knew it was fruitless.
I couldn’t stop thinking about how dangerously close I’d come to Peter, but after a while, I realized there actually were some positives. One, Peter was back in Key West, away from Emma. Two, if Peter didn’t ask Charlie about me that meant Peter didn’t seem to know that I wasn’t in New York. And three, he didn’t know that I was helping Charlie.
But I had to keep things that way. Going out for dinner and drinks on Duval Street was about as reckless a move as I could have made. All Peter had to do was turn, give the slightest of glances over his shoulder, and he would have seen me again.
Freeing Justin was my priority, but I had to be smarter. I also needed to wrap this up as soon as possible. Every moment I stayed down here, I was playing with my life.
Finally, reluctantly, I squeaked off the faucet and squeezed out my hair. After I dried and wrapped myself in a couple of fresh towels, I pulled on the fluffy bathrobe that was hanging on the inside of the bathroom door. I went into the bedroom and set the alarm clock for five so I could get up early to do my hair.
I was going to call Emma back in New York, but then I realized how late it was and decided to just text my daughter good-night instead. Too exhausted to get into my pj’s, I sat for a moment on the side of the bed.
Beyond the open doorway of the bedroom, the living room curtains were wafting gently in the breeze from the rooftop patio slider. Between them a slight sliver of the moon glowed over the still silver plain of the water.
Could Charlie see it, too? I wondered. I couldn’t deny how I was starting to feel about him. He was funny, intelligent, not hard to look at, though the breakfast beers would have to go.
I turned off the light and lay back on the pillows, already half asleep, when I had a much less romantic thought. Without turning, I glanced over at the billowing living room curtains, furling now in the dark like a full sail.
But how could the curtains be blowing in the breeze? I thought.
When I’d locked my balcony door before my shower?
Chapter 87
FOR THE NEXT two solid minutes, I lay there in the dark, my heart rapping like a set of brass knuckles at the inside of my chest, silence sizzling in my ears.
But there has to be a good reason was the thought that scrolled through my unraveling mind like a continuous news crawl.
Then my molars clicked together involuntarily as a faint scraping sound came from just beyond the open bedroom door.
Something in my chest started to flutter when I heard it again. It came from the left, as if someone standing in the suite’s kitchen had shifted his weight.
Not just any someone either, I suddenly thought.
I guess Peter hadn’t missed seeing me at the bar after all.
I knew I couldn’t just stay there, that I needed to get up, hide, run, do something. But I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Animal fear pressed down on my chest like a lead blanket, making me weak, pinning me to the bed.
After a long, careful, silent breath, I lifted my hand as if to prove to myself that I could, in fact, move.
Good, I thought stupidly.
Now I needed to do the same thing with my feet.
I reached out as I slowly sat up, my right hand brushing along the top of the bedside radio alarm clock. I was standing, my eyes glued to the dark doorway, when I had an idea. I bent down slowly, unplugged the heavy clock, and brought it with me to the side of the open bedroom door.
As I arrived, a dark figure moved smoothly and silently through the bedroom doorway.
At first, I didn’t believe it.
This isn’t happening, I thought, suddenly frozen and senseless again. How could this be happening? I’m dreaming this.
Then a switch tripped somewhere in the primordial part of my brain, and I snapped out of my daze and swung the clunky alarm clock by its cord two-handed as hard as I could.
There was an unexpectedly loud shattering sound followed by a heavy thump as the figure immediately went down. I’d swung high and assumed I’d hit Peter in the head, but I didn’t stick around to find out. I dropped what was left of the clock and ran in a blind panic out of the bedroom.
In two strides, I was through the suite’s living room, my hand wrapped around the front doorknob, turning and pulling in one motion.
Then my arm almost came out of its socket as the door jerked to a stop only a quarter of the way open.
Hysterical, I tried the door two more times before I realized the slide lock was still engaged. Moaning and literally shaking with terror, I forced myself to methodically close the door, flip the lock free, and then try the knob again.
That did it. I ran out into the blindingly bright hallway and burst through the closest s
tairwell door to my left. My bare feet slapped painfully off the concrete as I half ran, half fell down the stairs.
As I made the next lower landing, I paused. Huffing and puffing, I tried to quell my rioting mind and figure out what to do next. Should I go into the hallway and knock on some doors? Go down to the lobby? That’s when the stairwell door above me blew open like it had been torn off its hinges.
Heavy footsteps began to hammer down the stairs as I turned and ripped open the lower floor’s door. Shedding towels, with my robe flying wide, I ran half-naked now down the new hallway. Every molecule of my being was focused on one thing: pumping my legs up and down as fast as they would go, moving away from the sound behind me.
As I turned the next corner, I spotted a red metal box on the wall. A loud clanging started immediately as I yanked the fire alarm on the run. Doors opened up and down the hallway. A groggy teenager’s eyes almost popped out of his head as he saw me streak past him at about thirty miles an hour.
I hit the next stairwell door and took this newest set of stairs two by two all the way to the ground floor. I crossed the empty lobby in nothing flat and headed for the hotel driveway. Standing in the drive’s turnaround, the night manager was on his cell phone and looking up at the building.
I thought about stopping and asking for his help, but even he would be no protection from Peter, I realized. I spotted a taxi stopped at the light on the corner and bolted for it.
The traffic light turned from red to green when I was still about twenty feet away.
I wasn’t going to make it, I thought as I ran barefoot, wheezing and covered in sweat, into the street. I winced, waiting for the feel of a bullet in my back, to fall sprawling on the asphalt. In my hysterical mind, it was already over. I could actually see Peter coming over and smiling his easy smile as he placed a gun to my forehead.
But instead, the cab suddenly stopped short and I jumped in. I broke a nail ripping open the handle of its rear door.
“In a rush, are we?” the young Asian wiseass of a driver said as I collapsed across the rear seat.
“Drive,” I gasped. “Drive, drive. Please just drive.”
Chapter 88
I MADE THE TAXI DRIVER PROMISE to wait for me as I pounded on Charlie’s front door.
He finally opened it, wearing a pair of Texas A&M boxer shorts.
“What the hell?” Charlie said. “Nina?”
I smoothed my still wet hair as I stood in my bathrobe, staring at him. I hadn’t thought this far in advance. What could I say? How could I explain what had just happened?
He reached out and grabbed my elbow, sudden concern in his eyes.
“Nina, are you OK? Are you hurt?”
I was about to tell him that there was a fire at the hotel. Why not? What was another lie on top of nearly two decades’ worth?
I was more surprised than anyone about what happened next. Maybe it was the fact that I’d come unglued with shock and wasn’t thinking straight. Or that I’d been working so hard over the last week under such enormous stress.
I stepped over the threshold and crashed into Charlie like he was a tackling sled. I wrapped my arms around him like he was my last hope. Probably because he was.
He seemed baffled, to put it mildly. But that shocker wasn’t anything compared to what came out of my mouth a second later.
“My name isn’t Nina,” I said in his ear. “Oh, Charlie. You have to help me. Please.”
Chapter 89
CHARLIE STARED AT ME, blown away, for a few moments before he brought me back into his office and sat me down. After he paid for the taxi, he put a half-full water glass of Johnnie Walker in my hand and one in his own, sat slowly himself, and let out a breath. After several more beats, he yelled, “What?!”
I stared at him for a few seconds, biting my lip. How could I do this? I thought. How could I open up after so many years, so many lies? I’d been keeping my secrets for too long. How could I reveal them now?
At first, I scrambled to think of a way to minimize the utter outrageousness of my insane life story. But after a minute, I realized how impossible that was.
Harris’s case file was sprawled out on Charlie’s desk. I stood and retrieved the sheet with the photographs of the suspected Jump Killer victims.
“Look, Charlie,” I said, tapping my high school yearbook picture twice. “This isn’t a young Renée Zellweger. It’s me. My name is Jeanine. Jeanine Fournier. I used to be married to Peter Fournier, the Key West chief of police.”
Then for the next half hour, as Charlie sat there blinking, I explained myself. Or at least tried to. When I got to the part about my faked abduction, he held up his hand.
“So you’re telling me that Fournier, the chief of police, is not only a bad cop, but, in fact, a psychopath?” Charlie said.
I nodded vigorously. “That’s why I faked my death. Peter’s first wife tried to leave him through regular channels. I didn’t feel like being stalked and gunned down.”
Then I told him the part about the Jump Killer and my new life and identity up in New York with Emma.
“When my firm volunteered me for the pro bono initiative, and I found out about Justin,” I explained, “I knew I had to come back down here to help. I knew Justin was innocent because the psycho who picked me up hitchhiking and tried to kill me the night I left was white.”
Charlie closed his eyes and began to rub them. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
“Are you really a lawyer at least?” he finally spat out.
“I went to Fordham Law at night. I even passed the bar. My plan here was to get Justin off, but keep my life secret and safe and intact. But that’s out the window now. Peter was in my room tonight. He must have seen me at the bar when he was talking to you. I’d call the cops, but Peter is the cops. What am I going to do?”
Charlie lifted his drink and stared at it, thinking. Then he finally finished it.
“Well, from one lawyer to another, here’s my best advice, off the top of my head,” he said. “You need to get on a plane and get as far away from Fournier as possible until we can figure out a way to deal with him. You need to go back to New York.”
Chapter 90
“GO BACK to New York?” I said. “What about Justin? I had contact with the real Jump Killer! That’s pertinent to Justin’s case, isn’t it? I’m probably the only person who’s ever seen the Jump Killer and lived. Don’t I need to testify?”
“It’s not that simple,” Charlie said. “In order to get a stay of execution with this little time left, you have to go through the Florida Office of Executive Clemency. We’re going to get only one shot at convincing the board to look at any new evidence. As it stands now, Justin’s fiancée recanting her damaging testimony is still the best possible scenario. She’s the only one who has vital exculpatory evidence that speaks directly to the case. The members on the board would be forced to consider it.”
“But—” I started.
Charlie silenced me with a palm. “Your, uh, new revelations, on the other hand, are essentially this: you came into contact with a white man who seemed to be the Jump Killer. It’s certainly thought-provoking, but there’s not enough legal red meat there. In fact, it might be seen as so fantastical that I wouldn’t be surprised if the governor dismissed it as a desperate stunt. Fabiana’s testimony is it, our only shot.”
“But we haven’t even found her yet,” I pointed out. “Let alone convinced her to tell the truth. And what if we don’t? Then what do we have? Nothing. Fantastical as it is, my testimony is at least something.”
“Maybe,” Charlie said. “But it’ll be really hard for you to testify if you’re dead. You’re not thinking straight. Didn’t you just say that Fournier was in your room? You getting out of Key West isn’t a choice.”
I sat there staring at him. He had a point. I definitely was in danger. Now more than ever. But after meeting Justin, I knew I couldn’t run again.
“I need to see this through
,” I finally said. “Whatever happens, I’m not leaving until I’ve done everything I can do for Justin. I’m staying.”
Charlie stared at me, exasperated. He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“Mission Exonerate? Mission Impossible is more like it,” he said. “Fine. I’m not going to deny that I do need your help. For Justin’s sake, I guess we don’t have a choice. But until this is over, we stick together. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said, letting out a breath.
I couldn’t believe it. I was still here. I had actually told someone my secrets, and I hadn’t burst into flames.
Not all of my secrets, I reminded myself. I had yet to mention Ramón Peña, but I guess it was a start.
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Charlie,” I said. “For me, for my daughter. I’ve been holding this inside for so long. I’ve never told anyone. I’m so sorry I lied to you.”
Charlie lifted the phone. “I should have known you were trouble the second you crushed your doughnuts in my door, Nina. Or do I have to call you Jeanine now? Never mind. What’s the number for your hotel? That bathrobe is probably too casual even by Miami standards. If we’re still going to go up there to find Justin’s ex-fiancée, I have a funny feeling you’re going to need your bags.”
Chapter 91
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Charlie and I were in Miami. It was around nine when we rolled up in front of the address Fabiana’s cousin gave us, a tiny stucco house in the northeast Miami neighborhood known as Little Haiti.
I looked anxiously down the block at the bars on all the neighboring windows, the chain-linked front yards cluttered with garbage and barking dogs. Loud Caribbean hip-hop blasted as a bunch of muscular kids in gangbanger do-rags sat on a battered gray leather sectional on the corner, giving new meaning to the word loitering.
“Wait in the car,” Charlie said, opening his door. “With the doors locked.”