It had been . . . cathartic.
‘Where do you want them dumped?’
‘Over the side is fine. They’re fairly tenderized, but you should cut them up a bit more. Don’t want any identifiable parts washing up on shore.’
‘Of course not. May I go now?’ Patton asked.
‘Please. Have a good afternoon, Mr Patton.’
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 3.50 P.M.
Frederick Dawson rubbed his forehead with a sigh. He’d hoped that the files he needed to read would take his mind off the fact that he was sitting in a hospital, but no such luck. He really hated hospitals, but he was pretty sure nobody gathered here in the waiting room liked them either. Yet more than a dozen people waited for news on Thomas Thorne, the atmosphere tense and disbelieving.
It didn’t look good. Thorne had been unresponsive when he’d been brought into the hospital that morning. That would be bad enough, but the circumstances under which he’d been found . . .
None of the people waiting for news believed Thorne had killed the woman discovered in his bed. Frederick had heard the shocked words ‘He wouldn’t do that’ so many times.
But these were Thorne’s friends. His employees and co-workers. Of course they’d say that. Most of them even believed it.
Frederick wanted so badly to believe along with them. He didn’t want to think Thorne could commit such a heinous crime, but he no longer trusted his own judgment in such matters. He’d believed the liar he’d called his wife for years, after all. Not once had she set off his bullshit detector.
Still, he desperately wanted to believe in Thorne’s innocence, because he truly liked the man. He’d only known him for ten months, but he’d been impressed with Thorne’s ethics and his dedication to getting justice, especially for clients nobody else would touch. Not because they were guilty – many of them were guilty as sin – but because they couldn’t afford private counsel. Given representation by the public defender, they’d probably do far more time than was fair. Or, in the rare case of a truly innocent client, they’d get railroaded because they had no advocate.
Many of them had found an advocate in Thomas Thorne, and Frederick respected that. Thorne was the kind of attorney Frederick himself had once been, before he’d been forced to leave his practice and go into hiding to protect his adopted daughter, Taylor, from the biological father they’d believed would harm her. That belief had been rooted in the lies that Frederick’s wife, Taylor’s mother, had told him for years. Lies that hadn’t been revealed until after her death.
Frederick had given up his practice, his home and ten years of his life based on an unforgivable lie. Worse, he’d forced his family into hiding, stolen years of freedom from his daughters. The cost of his choices had been . . . immeasurably high. To his daughters and to the man he’d hidden Taylor from. A good man, who’d been innocent of any wrongdoing. All those years.
I judged him, found him guilty, hid his daughter away from him. And I was wrong. A year later, this remained a hard truth to swallow.
That same biological father was now lowering himself into the chair next to Frederick with a weary sigh and two cups of coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby.
Clay Maynard was not the monster Frederick had been led to believe. Now, unbelievably, he counted Taylor’s biological father as a friend. Unbelievably because Clay had forgiven him. Now, if Frederick could only forgive himself . . .
‘Hey,’ Clay murmured quietly, offering him one of the coffees.
Closing the file he’d been reading, Frederick took the coffee gratefully because it wasn’t the sludge he’d been drinking from the pot in the waiting room. ‘Thanks. Any news?’
‘Nope. I checked at the nurses’ desk on my way back in, but his status is unchanged. I really just needed to take a walk. The quiet here was getting to me.’ Clay grimaced. ‘But the zoo outside changed my mind.’
‘How many news vans?’
‘I saw at least six before I hightailed it back in here. Vultures,’ he snarled.
Frederick lifted his eyes to the TV mounted on the wall, its screen set to a cartoon channel even though there were no kids in the room. ‘We had to change the channel. The media have already declared him guilty.’
‘Vultures,’ Clay snarled again, then drew a breath to calm himself. He cast a look at the file. ‘I don’t mean to bother you. Keep reading if you need to.’
‘Nah. I wasn’t absorbing any of it. Just trying to stay busy. I met Anne in the office and we pulled the files as soon as I heard what had happened.’ Anne Poulin, Thorne’s receptionist and paralegal, was one of the most steadfast voices in his defense. ‘Whatever happens to Thorne, we have to protect the privacy of our clients.’
‘We’re going to clear him,’ Clay said, his jaw tight.
‘I know.’ Frederick wasn’t so sure about his own judgment anymore, but he’d bow to Clay’s any day of the week. ‘But in the meantime, his clients will still have trial dates. Jamie and I will figure out how to split Thorne’s caseload. It’ll be fine.’
Clay studied him, narrow-eyed. ‘You’re not sure, are you? If he’s innocent?’
‘I’m sure that you’re sure, and that’s good enough for me.’
Clay sighed. ‘Frederick. Dammit, man. How many times do I have to say this? Donna lied to us both. You’re gonna have to let all that shit go. I have, and so has Taylor. What does your gut tell you about Thorne?’
‘That he would never do anything so heinous.’
‘Then there you go. He’s being framed. That’s clear to me and . . .’ He sat up straighter, brightening at the sight of the daughter they shared coming through the waiting room door holding a red-headed toddler on her hip. ‘Taylor.’
Frederick smiled, because the joy on Clay’s face was infectious, just as it was every time Taylor walked into a room. Clay appeared to have truly put the pain of his and Taylor’s twenty-plus-year separation behind him. Every time Frederick saw the man’s face light up, he told himself that someday he might forgive himself.
‘Hey, baby,’ Frederick said, leaning his face up for a kiss. Taylor complied, kissing his cheek, then Clay’s.
‘Any word?’ she asked, sighing when both he and Clay shook their heads. ‘Well, Miss Wynnie here was missing her mama.’ She dropped a kiss on top of the baby’s head. ‘I texted JD and he said to bring her in, that Lucy could find a quiet room to nurse her. And before you ask, Pops, I left Ford on babysitting detail. Mason is in good hands.’
Ford Elkhart was Taylor’s fiancé and Frederick liked him very much. Mason was Clay and Stevie’s new son, already six weeks old. That Clay was getting to experience fatherhood from the beginning for the first time made Frederick very happy.
‘I never figured you’d leave him alone,’ Clay said mildly. ‘And don’t call me Pops.’
Taylor just grinned at him. ‘You know you love it.’ She sat down next to Frederick, settling the baby on her lap. ‘Oh, Dad, I heard from Daisy. She’s coming for Mason’s christening.’
Frederick raised his brows at this news. His middle daughter had been enjoying the new-found freedom that had come with Taylor and Clay’s reunion. No longer needing to stay in hiding, she’d been backpacking in Europe for the past four months. She wasn’t supposed to be back for another two months. ‘Is she okay?’
Taylor moved her shoulders in an uncertain shrug. ‘I don’t know. She said she was. But I worry about her.’
So did Frederick. Daisy’s sobriety had been only one of the casualties of their years of forced hiding. His twenty-five-year-old was now a recovering alcoholic because of the choices he’d made.
‘Dad, stop it,’ Taylor chided. ‘I can see you going into guilt mode.’
‘I keep telling him,’ Clay muttered.
The two of them huffed such similarly aggrieved sighs that Frederick found himself smilin
g. ‘Fine, fine. Is she planning on telling me, or am I supposed to act surprised?’
‘She said she was going to text you. I only know she’s coming because I went online about five a.m. and saw she’d posted new pics on Facebook. You don’t want to see them,’ she added quickly when Frederick started to look on his phone. ‘She met this guy. With a motorcycle. So . . . save your blood pressure and let those photos just pass right on by.’
Frederick only nodded. He’d look at the pictures later. And then he’d check out the guy to make sure he was legit. Nobody messed with his daughters.
‘Anyway,’ Taylor said, ‘I saw she was online, so I called her. Had a nice chat while I shoveled out horse stalls. Then I did a few therapy sessions at the farm.’
Taylor was an intern at Healing Hearts with Horses, an equine therapy center that provided services to child victims of traumatic violence. It was what she’d been born to do, and Frederick’s heart nearly burst with pride every time he thought about it.
‘Jazzie was one of my sessions,’ Taylor went on. ‘She’s doing really well. She’s gotten over her fear of riding and she smiles much more often. See?’ She took out her phone and showed them a photo of a smiling young girl astride one of the farm’s horses. ‘I thought if Thorne was awake, I could show him. She doesn’t know what he did for her, but . . . Well, he still asks about her.’
Jazzie had been one of Taylor’s first clients. A little girl who’d discovered her mother’s brutally beaten body, she’d lived in terror that the murderer would find out that she’d seen him leave the scene. When he had indeed come after her, Thorne had provided key evidence that enabled the police to bring the killer to justice, ensuring the little girl’s safety.
The memory of Thorne’s actions in that case dispelled the remaining doubt in Frederick’s mind. See? He’s a good guy. ‘Send me the photo,’ he told his daughter. ‘When he wakes up, I’ll make sure he sees it.’
Taylor smiled up at him. ‘Thank you.’ Then she twisted in her seat, because everyone around her had come to their feet.
Lucy and JD had entered the room, their expressions relieved. An audible sigh of relief rose from Thorne’s group of friends.
Lucy made a beeline for her daughter. ‘Thorne’s awake,’ she announced. ‘Ask JD for details. I’ve got a baby to feed.’ She took Wynnie from Taylor. ‘Thank you,’ she said fervently. ‘You’re a lifesaver. I was about to go pump or explode. This is so much nicer than either.’
Without another word, she hurried from the room with the baby, and Taylor sat back down with a slight grimace. ‘You know, I’ll sometimes start thinking about how sweet babies are. Then she reminds me about exploding . . . well, you know. I hate to break it to you dads, but it’ll be a while before you get any grandchildren out of me.’
‘Fine by me,’ Clay said. ‘You’re too young.’
‘Older than you were when I was born,’ she retorted.
‘Which was too young,’ Frederick echoed. ‘Live a little, baby. Go to Paris like Daisy. Have fun.’
Clay pushed to his feet. ‘What he said. Now excuse me while I go listen to what JD has to say.’
Taylor laid her head on Frederick’s shoulder once they were alone in their corner of the waiting room. ‘I’m not the Paris type. And I am having fun. My life is good, Dad. I promise. So no feeling guilty, okay?’
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. ‘Okay. Then I’ll go talk to JD too. You planning to stick around?’
‘Until Lucy’s done with the feeding, then I’ll take Wynnie back to the house.’ She tugged on his sleeve when he stood up. ‘Dad, let me know what I can do to help Thorne. Please? He’s a good guy. There’s no way he did this.’
‘I will,’ Frederick promised. ‘And I agree.’ He was happy to realize that he really did. His new boss was a good guy and he wasn’t going to allow his own ridiculous insecurities to convince him otherwise.
Three
Baltimore, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 3.50 P.M.
Gwyn closed her eyes against the heavy silence that descended on the room. ‘Who was she?’ she asked, her voice far less steady than she’d hoped it would be.
‘I don’t know.’ Thorne’s whisper was barely audible. ‘But I didn’t . . .’ His voice broke. ‘I didn’t kill her.’
Gwyn’s eyes flew open, stunned to see him looking defeated. ‘I know you didn’t, you asshole,’ she snapped.
He frowned. ‘Then what?’
‘Then what?’ she parroted, scowling at him. ‘There was a woman in your bed, Thorne.’ And after the initial shock had subsided, seeing her there had hurt.
From the corner of her eye she saw Jamie glance from her to Thorne. His grey brows rose. ‘Oh,’ he said in a way that told her he’d already jumped to the wrong conclusion.
Gwyn narrowed her eyes at the older man, her temper closer to boiling than it had been in years. ‘No. There is no “oh”. There is no anything. There is only a dead woman in his bed.’
Thorne was blinking at her, confusion clouding his handsome face. Why did he have to have such a handsome face? She wanted to smack it. She wanted to smack Lucy for getting her hopes up, for insinuating that Thorne had cancelled her dates because he might have feelings for her. She sneered as the word bounced around in her mind. Fucking feelings.
He’d had another woman in his bed. Naked in his bed. Tears stung her eyes, making her even angrier. Sucking in a breath, she concentrated on cutting the waterworks. She would not cry.
‘Gwyn?’ Thorne’s voice rumbled in the quiet of the room.
She looked away. ‘What?’
‘Look at me. Please.’
Gritting her teeth, she dragged her gaze to his. ‘What?’ she repeated as coldly as she could muster. But it wasn’t nearly as cold as she wanted, because understanding filled his eyes. Understanding and something else that she was not going to allow herself to even consider.
‘I got a phone call last night,’ he murmured. ‘From Bernice Brown.’
Jamie rolled his chair closer to Thorne’s bed. ‘What time?’
‘Close to midnight.’ Thorne spoke to Jamie, but his stare remained fixed on Gwyn’s face. ‘It came through the answering service to my cell phone. There will be a record.’
Gwyn tried to draw a breath, then realized she had her arms clamped tight across her chest. She forced herself to relax her grip, closing her eyes to visualize her arms dropping to her sides, relieved when she felt it happen. It had been a useful takeaway from therapy, visualizing her body relaxing. If she could see it happen, she could make it happen.
‘Gwyn?’
His voice was deep and quiet and . . . calming. He’d always been able to do that. To calm me. You trust him, she told herself. You’ve always trusted him. He didn’t kill that woman. He’d been set up, that was already a fact in her mind. So maybe the woman was a setup too.
Opening her eyes, she watched his shoulders sag in relief as he correctly read her expression. Another thing he’d always been able to do. ‘Who is Bernice Brown?’ she asked.
‘A client. She’s been in hiding from her husband, who she’s in the process of divorcing.’
It was Gwyn’s turn to be confused. ‘You’re not a divorce attorney.’
‘No. She has one of those too.’ Blinking hard, Thorne rubbed his eyes. ‘What the fuck was I drugged with?’
‘They don’t know yet.’ The memory of him in his bed, so damn still . . . She shuddered. ‘Lucy asked your doctor to run all sorts of extra tests to try to figure that out. But whatever it was, they gave you a shitload of it.’ Because he was so big. So big that they’d had to extend the hospital bed to its full length and his feet still bumped against the footboard.
Gwyn had always thought Thorne was invincible. Indomitable. But this morning they’d nearly lost him.
‘Hey,’ he murmured, once again reading
her mood. ‘I’m here.’
Yes, he was. Here. Alive. She lowered herself to the chair beside his bed. ‘So why are you this woman’s attorney, and why did she call you?’
‘She’s accused of trying to kill her husband. She stabbed him. She says it was self-defense. I believe her. She was released on bail, but has been hiding because her husband was stalking her. He denies it. She called because someone had tried to run her off the road.’ He sucked in a sudden breath. ‘Describe the dead woman,’ he demanded.
‘Brunette, maybe five-nine.’ Gwyn grimaced, remembering. ‘Her features were unrecognizable. Whoever killed her didn’t want her visually identified.’
Thorne exhaled harshly. ‘Not Bernice Brown, then. She’s only five-two.’ He glanced at Jamie. ‘Check on her. I never made our meet. I hope she’s safe.’
‘Which bar?’ Jamie asked calmly.
‘Oh.’ Thorne rubbed his eyes again. ‘Dammit. My brain is all foggy. She called me from Barney’s. I told her to sit at the bar where lots of people could see her, and wait for me there. I got there about twelve fifteen, parked in the lot, and . . .’ He closed his eyes. ‘I can’t remember going into the bar, but I might have.’
‘We’ll check,’ Jamie promised. ‘And then?’
‘I woke up here.’
Jamie sighed. ‘Well, this is what we know. You were found by Gwyn in your bed at six thirty-five. You were unconscious, your blood pressure dangerously low. There was a knife that matches the set in your butcher’s block on the floor by your bed, where it would appear you’d dropped it.’
‘If I was guilty,’ Thorne said from behind clenched teeth.
Jamie nodded once. ‘The blood on the knife matches the victim’s type. Your fingerprints are on the handle.’
‘Of course they are,’ Thorne bit out. ‘It’s my fucking knife.’
‘Both under and on top of the blood,’ Jamie added, still calmly. ‘There was blood on your hands.’
‘Of course there was.’ Thorne stared up at the ceiling. ‘Hyatt’s going to arrest me, isn’t he?’