CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
PART 3 UNDER THE RADAR
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
PART 4 WRONG TURN
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
PART 5 POINT OF NO RETURN
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13
CHAPTER 69
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am constantly amazed at how willing and patient people are in sharing their experiences and expertise with me. They contribute not only interesting tidbits to my novels, but a wealth of flavor and color and knowledge and credibility that could never come from any other source. Special thanks to:
Amy Moore-Benson, my editor and friend, for once again getting me through my own twists and turns and helping me make sense of it all. Your contribution, your dedication and your expertise constantly challenge me and always improve my books.
Patricia Sierra—fellow author, friend extraordinaire and Emily Dickinson scholar—for being my sounding board, my bearer of logic and my peace of mind. And for this particular novel, thank you for providing an inspiring interpretation of Emily’s “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.”
Leigh Ann Retelsdorf, Deputy County Attorney and friend, for sharing your stories and experiences with me. You are amazing and a true inspiration.
Detective Sergeant Bill Jadlowski of the Omaha Police Department for showing me that a homicide detective is so much more than the literary caricature we suspense writers tend to portray.
C. L. Retelsdorf, Douglas County Crime Scene Investigator, for describing piece by piece the painstaking process a crime scene investigator goes through. Also for taking me through the Norfolk bank robbery crime scene.
Tammy Partsch, now a reporter for KNCY-radio in Nebraska City, for giving me a reporter’s account of what it was like to cover the Norfolk bank robbery for KUSO-radio in Norfolk, Nebraska.
John Keenan, Omaha World Herald columnist, for sharing your personal trials and tribulations of dealing with a broken collarbone.
The fantastic crew at MIRA Books: Dianne Moggy, Craig Swinwood, Stacy Widdrington, Tania Charzewski, Loriana Sacilotto and Krystyna de Duleba, along with your amazing teams. Special thanks to Christine Langone, Pat Muir-Rand and Mike Smith and his incredible staff for rearranging your busy schedules to accommodate my book. And once again, a humble thank-you to Alex Osuszek and the best sales force in the publishing business.
Maureen Stead, at MIRA Books, for your amazing patience and for always taking such good care of me.
Megan Underwood and Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Inc., for your continued enthusiasm and dedication.
Patricia Kava, my mom, for being one of my biggest fans despite my use of blood and violence (and the “F-word”) in my books.
Sharon Car, fellow writer and friend, for always encouraging and listening.
Mary Means and Tammy Hall for taking care of my two most valuable possessions while I’m on the road.
Walter, Emilie and Patti Carlin for all the delicious meals and for taking such good care of me while I hid out to write a chunk of this novel in the comfortable confines of your beautiful home.
Also very special thanks to Kenny and Connie Kava, Patti El-Kachouti, Marlene Haney, Sandy Rockwood, Jeanie Shoemaker Mezger and John Mezger, Annie Belatti, Nicole and Tony Friend, Gene Egnoski and Rich Kava for your love and support, your friendship and your patience in putting up with my long absences.
Once again a humble and sincere thank-you to:
The many book buyers, booksellers and librarians for selling and recommending my books.
And to the readers—you inspire and challenge me, and I thank all of you for allowing me to continue doing what I love.
Lastly, this past year my books have managed to make the bestseller lists not only here in the United States but in Australia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and Poland. I want to thank the publishing teams in each of these countries for doing such a fantastic job and for literally taking me places I never dreamed of going.
PART 1
Blind Man’s Bluff
Friday, August 27
PROLOGUE
1:13 p.m.
Nebraska State Penitentiary—Lincoln, Nebraska
Max Kramer wore his lucky red tie with his blue power suit. While he waited for the guard to unlock the door, he admired his reflection in the glass security window behind them. That Grecian hair formula really worked. He could barely see any of the gray. His wife kept telling him the salt and pepper made him look more distinguished. Of course she would say that. She always said stuff like that when she was suspicious, when she knew he was hunting for someone new. God, she knew him well, better than she realized.
“Big day,” the hulk of a guard said to him. But he was scowling instead of smiling.
Max had heard the nicknames the guards had given him in the last several weeks. He knew he wasn’t a popular guy here on death row. But that was to the guards. To the inmates he had reached hero status. And they were the ones he cared about; they were the ones who counted. They needed him to right their wrongs, to tell their stories, or rather their versions of their stories. Yes, they were the ones who mattered, but not because he was a bleeding-heart liberal like the Omaha World Herald or the Lincoln Journal Star seemed pleased to label him. It was nothing quite as admirable as all that. Quite simply, all his hard work, all his efforts were for a day like today. A day when he could watch a client of his walk out of this concrete hellhole. A day when he could save his client from the electric chair and walk alongside him out the front doors and into the sunlight. The sunlight and the spotlight of about two dozen TV cameras from across the country. CNN’s Larry King had already booked Max and Jared on his show for tomorrow night. And his red tie would show up wonderfully tonight when NBC aired his interview with Brian Williams.
Yes, this was what he had waited for his entire career. All the shitty pay and long hours would be worth it, and the local media attacks would come to an end.
He stopped at the doorway to the holding room, pretending to show some respect for his client’s privacy. Pretending. He didn’t want to spend any more time alone with Jared Barnett than necessary. So he watched from the doorway. Barnett was wearing the same faded jeans and red T-shirt he had surrendered that first day at the penitentiary five years ago, only now the T-shirt bulged from the muscles Barnett had built up during his days of incarceration. Since Barnett had traded in his orange jumpsuit for street clothes, Max couldn’t help thinking how ordinary the man looked. Even his short dark hair had that disheveled but cool look, that just-got-out-of-bed look that Max could never pull off, but that Barnett would probably make trendy after his media appearances.
Max had already made his client out to be the poor misundersto
od bad boy who had been framed and then abused by a justice system that had stolen five years of his life. Now Barnett just needed to play the role. He certainly looked it.
The guard at the door stepped aside.
“Paperwork’s coming,” he said. “You want, you can wait inside.”
Max nodded as if grateful for the invitation—for what the guard seemed to consider a courtesy—even though Max preferred that the asshole let him wait in the hall. Too late. Jared saw him and waved him into the holding room. He stood up when Max entered, another courtesy. Jesus! What was this world coming to when convicted murderers started being courteous?
“Relax. Take a load off.” Max shoved one of the metal folding chairs in Barnett’s direction, scraping it against the floor, the noise grating on his nerves. Only now did he realize he was nervous, nervous that Barnett would screw this up for him.
“Man, I never thought you’d actually be able to pull this off,” Barnett said, taking the seat, seemingly not bothered that Max remained standing. It was a trick Max had learned long ago in his early years as a defense attorney. Get the client to sit down while you stand over him, instant authority. At five feet seven inches Max Kramer had to use every trick he could.
“So how does this work?” Barnett asked, even though Max had explained it several times during the appeal. His client sounded as if he believed there was still a catch. “I’m really free to go?”
“Without Danny Ramerez as a witness the prosecution has no case. The rest of the evidence was all circumstantial. As long as there’s no eyewitness testimony from Ramerez, there’s nothing to connect you to Rebecca Moore.” Max watched Barnett, measuring his response, or rather his lack of one. “It was quite admirable of Mr. Ramerez to come forward and finally tell the truth, that he wasn’t even there that afternoon.”
Barnett smiled up at him, but there was something about his smile that creeped Max out. Never once during the appeal process had he asked how Barnett had managed to get Ramerez to recant his original testimony, but he suspected Barnett had, indeed, made it happen, despite being locked up.
“What about the others?” Barnett asked.
“Excuse me?”
Max waited, but Barnett sat cleaning his fingernails, using his teeth to scrape them out and then bite off the cuticles. He had seen him do this in court—a nervous habit, probably an unconscious one. And now Max wondered if he had heard him correctly. Jesus! What others was he talking about?
Max hadn’t handled Barnett’s original case, only the appeal. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew there had been others. Other women, all murdered with the same M.O. and the signature gunshot wound up through the jaw as if the killer had hoped to remove the victim’s identity by shattering her teeth. It didn’t matter. Barnett had only been charged with Rebecca Moore’s murder. Why the hell would Barnett even be asking about the others?
“What others?” Max finally asked, though he didn’t want to know.
“Never mind,” Barnett said as he spat out a piece of fingernail then crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. “You know I don’t have a fucking dime to my name, man,” he said, changing the subject. “I know you said I don’t have to pay you anything, but I feel like I owe you.”
Max almost let out a sigh of relief. This was a much safer topic. If there had been others, he didn’t want to know about them. As far as Max was concerned there had been only one case, one eyewitness. And now there was no eyewitness and no case. If Barnett wanted to get something off his chest he could find a fucking priest. Yes, he preferred that Barnett worry, instead, about paying his debt.
Max knew Jared Barnett was the kind of man who wouldn’t like feeling that he owed anyone. He also knew it was a big deal for Barnett to even admit that he might owe him. And that’s what he wanted his client to focus on. Max had heard rumors that, after Barnett had been read his sentence of death by the electric chair, he turned to his court-appointed attorney, poor James Pritchard, and told him that it appeared he didn’t owe him anything more for his help than a hole in the head. Max liked the idea that Barnett thought he might feel indebted to him. In fact, he was counting on it. “I think we can work something out,” he said.
“Sure. Whatever you decide.”
“But first I have to warn you. There’s a media circus outside waiting for us.”
“Cool,” Barnett said, standing up. And that’s exactly what he looked like—cool and collected, that same lack of emotion that had carried him through the trial and sentencing and every aspect of the appeal process. “So what’s the going rate?”
“Excuse me?”
“What are these media blood-suckers willing to pay for an interview?”
Max scratched his head, his own nervous habit which he immediately caught and turned into a smoothing of his hair. Though he wanted to rip his hair out, instead. Christ! He couldn’t believe this. The son of a bitch was going to fuck everything up. Money? He expected to be paid for being interviewed?
Max had to watch his temper. He couldn’t make it sound as if he even cared whether or not they did the interviews. He couldn’t make it seem as though Barnett was doing him a favor. He didn’t want Barnett thinking these interviews would be his payback. He needed to think quickly. He needed to appeal to Barnett’s core values, to those few essentials that made him tick. One of which, certainly, was not money.
“You’re going to be a celebrity overnight, my friend,” Max told him, smiling and shaking his head as if he could hardly believe it. “I’ve got messages from NBC News, 60 Minutes, Larry King and even Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor. You’re going to have something money can’t buy. But I can understand if you’d rather tell them all to go screw themselves. Whatever you want to do. It’s entirely up to you.”
He watched as Barnett thought it over, forcing himself to keep quiet, to pretend it didn’t matter. He concentrated on breathing, on not thinking about how much he wanted this, how much he needed this. He tried to keep his fists from balling up. And in his mind he couldn’t stop repeating, almost like a mantra, “Don’t you dare fuck it up.”
“Bill O’Reilly actually wants me on his show?”
Max swallowed another sigh and calmly managed to say, “Yep, tomorrow night. It’s up to you, though. I can tell him…hell, I can tell them all you don’t want to put up with the whole lot of them. Whatever you want to do.”
“That O’Reilly guy always thinks he’s so tough.” And now Barnett was smiling again. “I wouldn’t mind telling a few of those assholes what I think.”
This time Max smiled, too. Perhaps he could control Barnett, after all, but he’d need some sort of insurance. For the first time since he’d met Jared Barnett, Max allowed himself to look deep into those dark, vacant eyes, and now he allowed himself to admit the truth. He knew Jared Barnett had, indeed, killed that poor girl seven years ago. Not only did Max know it, he was counting on it.
Tuesday, September 7
CHAPTER 1
10:30 a.m.
Hall of Justice—Omaha, Nebraska
Grace Wenninghoff hated waiting. The air in courtroom number five felt like a hot, wet towel wrapped around her neck. There were too many people, jammed inside, generating too much heat. The squeaking of chairs as people shifted in their seats and an occasional cough interrupted the silence, but that was all. Judge Fielding’s presence kept the crowd agitated but quiet as he looked over the papers in front of him, taking his time, not a hint of sweat or discomfort on his face.
Grace reached for her water bottle, took a careful sip. Come on, let’s get this over with, she wanted to yell, but instead tapped her pen against her blank legal pad to keep her foot from doing the same. The judge scowled at her without raising his head, his eyes looking at her through his bushy gray eyebrows and over the wire-rim glasses hanging at the tip of his nose. Her pen stopped in midair. He went back to examining the papers.