“Jessica didn’t deserve to die for that money.”
“Maybe.” Frank sighed. “And now a second person is about to die for the money in that estate.”
“You don’t have to do this.” Harvey judged whether Frank looked like he was going to pull the trigger. Frank looked vulnerable and defeated, but he was showing no malice. That gave Harvey hope. He just had to keep him talking.
“I do have to do this.” Frank shook his head. “If anyone finds out that I wasn’t a veteran, then the charity folds. If it comes out that I’m a fraud, all that hard work is gone. All those people’s lives that I helped change, all that will be gone. If I give those men and women a reason to doubt me, then they will doubt themselves. I can’t let that happen. I can’t have that secret leave this room.”
“For the veterans, I’ll take your secret to the grave.”
“Yes, you will,” Frank stated as he stood.
He stood tall and proud, the gun pointed towards the lawyer’s forehead.
Harvey looked to the door, but Frank was standing between him and the only exit. Still sitting down, Harvey knew that he was in no position to attack Frank. He would have pulled the trigger before he could reach him.
“Close your eyes, Harvey,” Frank whispered as he gripped the gun. “I don’t want you to watch this.”
“No,” Harvey whispered. “No, Frank.”
“Please close your eyes. Please.”
Frank’s fingers wrapped tightly around the trigger. There was no shaking—he had a sense of complete calm.
Harvey’s thoughts weren’t about the revolver gripped in Frank’s hand. They weren’t about his aching head. Not even his escape plan.
Instead, as he faced death, his thoughts raced to his past—his memories, his family, his lost loves.
Kate…
“Don’t do it,” he whispered, closing his eyes.
The gun hovered only inches from his face.
This was it.
His last breath.
CHAPTER 26
Bill Harvey’s eyes squeezed shut as the shot fired.
The sound deafened him.
The noise rang in his ears.
His whole body clenched in fear.
But he didn’t feel pain.
He didn’t feel the sharp impact of a bullet entering his skin.
He felt nothing.
Slowly, he opened his eyes.
In front of him, lying on the floor, was Frank Matthews.
The moments of life slowly ticked past as he watched the motionless body.
With the caution of a man who had just faced death, he moved towards Frank.
Time was suspended as he kneels next to the man with a gun.
Frank Matthews’ face was empty.
Vacant.
Soulless.
A creeping red flow ran over the carpet. The gun was still lying in Frank’s loose right hand, lying on its side, pointed towards the door.
Under Frank’s chin was a hole large enough to fit two fingers. Harvey couldn’t bring his eyes to look at the wound. Instead, his vision was drawn to Frank Matthews’ eyes.
The eyes were wide open, lacking any movement, any sign of life.
Where there was once life, there was now nothing. There was no connection to the world. No depth. No emotion.
The overpowering smell of the gunshot filled the room, and it brought Harvey back to reality.
Still in shock, he pulled Frank’s left wrist towards him, checking for any sign of a pulse.
There was none.
Gently, he rested the wrist on the floor.
Leaning back on the heels of his feet, with his knees still on the ground, he stared at the figure in front of him.
His mind was empty.
Lost.
“Harvey?” A hand shook his shoulder. “Harvey?”
Looking up, he saw the figure of his friend, Jack Grayson, standing over him.
“Harvey, are you okay?!” Jack asked. “I heard the gunshot.”
Harvey nodded, bringing his eyes back to Frank Matthews.
He had seen death before, but never this personal.
Never this close.
“I’m not hurt,” he finally mumbled.
“When you didn’t answer your phone, I thought there might be trouble. I called the police, and they’re on their way. Did he say if he had anything to do with killing Jessica Lempare?”
“Yes.”
“Can you prove it?”
“The hidden camera is at his apartment. We can prove it, Jack.”
“Why did he do it?”
“It was to save the charity,” Harvey whispered. “To save the people he has helped. He didn’t want the world to know what he had done.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No one can ever know his true identity. Nobody can ever find out that he’s not the Frank Matthews that he said he was. Nobody can ever know that. That’s a secret that you and I need to take to our graves.”
“What?” Jack is confused.
“If his fraud is uncovered.” Harvey continued to stare down at the dead body in front of him. “Then the hard work of this charity will be for nothing. The charity will lose everything if he’s proved not to be the person he said he was. We cannot let that happen. Every person that he has helped will doubt themselves, and every person that they are helping will lose the support they so desperately need. Nobody is to ever know who he really was. Never. His secret died with him.”
“He shot himself so he could keep his secret?”
“He died for the greater good.”
“And if someone else finds out the truth about his identity?”
“We will deny that we ever knew about it.”
The two men stared at the body as the faint ring of police sirens came closer to them.
Jack nodded, resting his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “For the greater good, Harvey.”
“For the greater good.”
CHAPTER 27
“I have a present for you.” Bill Harvey opened a file as Anna Lempare sat across from him in his office.
“What is it?”
With a smirk on his face, Harvey opened a large envelope, revealing Anna’s much loved, and very well-used, passport.
“Oh my gosh! Thank you, Bill! Thank you.” The tears began to well in her eyes. “This was the best present I could ever receive.” Anna gripped the passport tight in her hands, staring at it with the same combination of shock and glee that a child did to their dream present on their birthday. “This is my life’s work. It is everything to me. Everything.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Harvey said with another smile.
In a rare show of genuine emotion, Anna ran around Harvey’s large desk and gripped the man in a tight hug. After she had almost squashed Harvey with enthusiasm, she released her grip, before moving back around to the other side of the table.
“Sorry.” She giggled. “But… thank you. Really, thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”
“I’m just doing my job.”
“You did more than that,” Anna said. “What happens now?”
“The charges have been dropped against you after I detailed Frank’s confession to the police. They found the video evidence of Frank entering the apartment at the time of the murder. In the missing footage, you could even hear the moment the murder occurred. It was very compelling evidence.”
Anna shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“I would have done the same if I were the police. Most of them are good people. It’s a hard job, and they do the best they can. But, sometimes, things don’t quite fit, and that’s why we have a justice system. And that’s why people like me have jobs."
“You’re too positive about the world.”
“I’m a realist, nothing more,” Harvey replied. “What are you going to do now that you have the ten million dollars from the will?”
“The money arrived last week. Ten million dollars went to the charity, and
the other ten million came to me, just like the conditions noted. But after I made your payment, eighty percent of the remaining money is already gone.”
Harvey’s eyes almost fell out of his head. “What did you do?”
“I donated it.”
“Donated it?” Surprise sunk in for a second time. “To who?”
“Some of it to volunteer organizations and the rest to… the charity, Recovering Veterans. They’re good people, and they do good things. Now that Frank Matthews is gone, I have complete faith in that place. And despite what Frank did to my aunt, he did it for the charity. Bud is a good man, and he will help the people that need it. The charity supports people that need help. That’s important.”
“So even after all this, you still donated your inheritance?” Harvey shook his head.
“Maybe this experience has taught me something,” she stated. “I can see why the charity was so important to my grandfather now. They help the people that helped us. That means something. Something bigger than me.”
“And what about your distrust of the army?”
“It was never about the individuals. The individuals are great people. They need help. My anger was against the authority, and the politicians running the army. I want to help the people that helped us.”
With a touch of pride, Harvey smiled. “That’s nice to hear, Anna. Really nice.”
“And I don’t need the money,” she continued. “I want adventure in my life, not possessions. I have enough to support me, but I don’t want to use it. I want to work in remote parts of the world and struggle from time to time. That’s what life is about. It’s about adventure.”
“So where to next for Anna Lempare then?”
“Australia. I have never been there, and I’ve always wanted to cuddle a koala.” The smile on her face spread out into full blown joy. “And I hear that there’s a small little island called Tasmania that has the purest air on earth. After the threat of going to jail, that’s the air I want to breathe.”
“Well, Miss Lempare, I wish you the best of luck.”
“Thank you. For everything that you have done for me, thank you.” For the first time in months, Anna’s shoulders relaxed. She walked out of his office with her head held high; her confidence returned.
Leaning back in his chair, Harvey rested his feet on the desk.
He had an overwhelming sense of accomplishment, not just in winning the court case, but also in having an influence on a young woman’s life.
As Harvey was smiling smugly and staring at nothing, his assistant, Kate Spencer, knocked gently on his office door. “Anna looked very happy, but I suppose she would be if she just banked ten million dollars.”
“She didn’t bank it,” Harvey quipped. “She donated most of the money back to the charity, Recovering Veterans.”
“What? Are you serious?” Kate asked in surprise.
“I think that girl has learned a lot about life in the last few months. When faced with a life in prison, I think she began to understand what’s important in life. It was never about the money for her.”
“Then why dispute the will at all?”
“I think she felt obligated to dispute it. She was always fighting with her aunt, and if her aunt wanted one thing, then Anna would naturally dispute it.”
“So two people died for nothing?”
“None of the deaths were Anna’s fault. You must remember that.” Harvey replied. “And the money found its way to good use in the end. The money will be able to help so many people now.”
“Well, I must admit, I read her wrong,” Kate said, staring at Harvey. “But you didn’t. You knew it all along. You saw the good in her. All for the greater good, eh?”
“Yes, Kate.” Harvey smiled at his friend. “For the greater good.”
THE END
A TIME FOR
JUSTICE
BILL HARVEY
BOOK 4
PETER O’MAHONEY
This story is dedicated to all the wonderful and interesting people that provide the fuel for this work of fiction.
Chapter 1
Although it was only a single thin envelope, it sat in the hand of criminal defense attorney Bill Harvey like the heaviest stone he had ever held.
The pressure from the envelope was pulling on his shoulders, causing the muscles in his arm to strain, and forcing tension to race up his neck. The muscles pulled, tightened, almost as if they wanted to drag him into the ground.
Although it was only one thin piece of paper, it held his future.
It held everything that he had fought so hard to keep.
The envelope held a statement that he saw coming but never wanted to admit. For all the highs, for all the excitement, for all the good times—it could all end here.
Over the last five years, life had been good to Bill Harvey. He’d worked hard, he’d changed lives, he’d found his place in the world. He’d built a reputation, developed relationships, made a difference to the house of justice.
But none of that mattered now.
This time, he wouldn’t be defending the innocent or dealing with the guilty. This time, he wasn’t tracking down a killer.
This time, he had to fight for himself.
Prior to becoming a lawyer over a decade ago, he was a registered hypnotherapist helping others overcome their addictions to cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. His reputation grew far and wide, with people waiting months for an appointment, but he knew it wasn’t his calling. He knew it wasn’t how he wanted to spend his life.
Kevin Wu was the last client Harvey ever had as a hypnotherapist. He hadn’t practiced for five years when Kevin came to his door, pleading for help. An illegal brothel owner and alleged people smuggler, the Hong Kong-born L.A. resident had previously beaten a pimping and pandering charge with the help of Bill Harvey as his defense attorney.
But then death came knocking at Kevin’s door.
His business partner’s young daughter, only five-years-old, all innocent and sweet, found a bag full of cocaine at his house and unknowingly played with it. The kid was dead within an hour.
Only four weeks later, Kevin’s young daughter was dragged from her bedroom in the middle of the night, but despite the desperate searches, a body was never found.
They blamed the business partner, Monty Lee, but the evidence didn’t stick. ‘An eye for an eye,’ they said.
Kevin Wu came to his lawyer seeking help to get out of the criminal game. He had watched two families fall apart, and he couldn’t take it anymore. Kevin was convinced that hypnotherapy was the way to change his need for high-risk behavior, and for the good of society, Harvey agreed to assist him.
Against his better judgment, he sat with Kevin for many hours. Harvey’s need to help others outweighed his intuition that it was a bad idea.
But Kevin Wu was the most cunning and calculated man he had ever met.
After five hypnotherapy sessions, Kevin claimed his life was changed. He claimed that he was out of the drug game, out of the criminal world. He claimed that something switched in his mind, and he would never be involved in criminal activity again. He claimed that his attitude to life had changed, and he had developed empathy for the people that he previously took advantage of.
It was only days later when Tiffany Lee, the eldest of Monty’s three daughters, still just seven-years-old, went missing—also taken under the darkness of night.
Tiffany’s face became the centerpiece of a massive media scrum; the innocent girl in the middle of dueling Chinese-American fathers. The LAPD did everything in their power to find the girl, but just like Kevin’s daughter, the body of Tiffany Lee was never located.
The rumors that she was still alive kept the story in the media for well over a year.
Harvey didn’t hear from Kevin Wu again. Reports were that Kevin went off the rails and dived back into the drug game—set up another two illegal brothels and dealt enough drugs to sink a cargo ship.
Then, last month, the rumors star
ted.
Harvey heard the stories.
The police finally came hard at Kevin Wu’s brothel operations, arresting him for trafficking women from Hong Kong to sell to rich American businessmen. He beat the charges on a technicality, but his illegitimate businesses were destroyed. With the LAPD watching his every step, waiting for a mistake, he had no chance to re-establish his operations. With large debts to pay and no income to speak of, he became desperate.
Kevin began to claim that the hypnotherapy sessions changed his life for the worst. He claimed he was under the influence of the hypnotherapy sessions for the past five years. Everything he did during that time was a result of the influence that Harvey had exerted over him during the sessions. Kevin claimed that he had no conscious control over his actions, and Harvey had manipulated him into corrupt behavior. He lost millions of dollars through bad investments in small companies and millions more through a crypto-currency crash. Despite his skills in illegal brothel management, he had made bad investment decision after bad investment decision.
And now, he was blaming Bill Harvey for every one of those decisions.
Only yesterday, Harvey received a text message from Kevin’s wife, Eva Wu, apologizing for what was about to transpire. Her hatred for her husband was equal to most. Like her husband, she was born in Hong Kong but moved to California as a young adult, seeking adventure and a new life. For such a smart woman, she made such a bad choice in a partner.
Harvey peeled back the envelope, removed the piece of paper, and unfolded it to read the formal letter. His eyes scanned the page.
Bill Harvey Collection Page 45