She lay there for another few minutes before slipping out of bed. She got her shoes and walked barefoot up the hall. Her mother sat watching the local news about the bombing, her own bare feet propped on the coffee table.
“How is he really?” her mom asked.
“He’s in jail. Unless I can figure out something, he may be there for a long time.”
“You have to get him out!”
“I know.” Jamie sat on the arm of a chair. “Did you tell Pat?”
“She called me. She said the police came by to question her about him. Of course she didn’t know anything about it.”
“How was she?”
“Upset, of course.”
“Upset about how it might make her look when the press finds out? Or upset about what Dustin’s going through?”
“I don’t know. I can’t speculate on that.”
“I know. She’s your friend.” Jamie got her bag and kissed her mother on the cheek. “Guess I have to go. I’ll try to pick her up after school tomorrow.”
“Stay in touch.”
Jamie went back out to her car and checked her watch. It was ten o’clock. She still had to take care of Dustin’s dog, and then she had a ton of research to do on his case. She was going to be up all night.
08
Jamie turned onto the gravel driveway next to the mailbox with Dustin’s number on it, put her headlights on bright, and made her way toward the house. It was set in a cluster of trees. That was good, she thought. It was hard to see it from the street. Maybe that would keep the press at bay when they started hearing about Dustin.
She got a flashlight out of her glove box and slipped out of her car. She could hear barking inside the house. She shone her flashlight beam along a small ledge over the garage door and found the key exactly where Dustin had told her it would be. As she tried to unlock the front door, she could hear the dog going nuts on the other side. She hoped he was friendly and that he wouldn’t attack her the moment she opened the door. She hadn’t even asked Dustin what kind of dog it was, or even his name.
When she got the deadbolt unlocked, she decided to give the dog a little heads-up before she opened the door. “Good doggie,” she said, and the barking only intensified. “I’m Dustin’s friend and I’m gonna feed you. Are you hungry?”
She took a deep breath and opened the door. She heard his panting and his claws sliding on the hardwood floor as he backed away. She turned on the light and slowly moved inside. The dog lunged at her and she let out a choked scream as he took a running start and jumped up on her, his front paws pushing her shoulders. The force knocked her back, and she landed on the floor.
She didn’t know whether to run or play with him, but when he started licking her face, she couldn’t help laughing. “You’re very enthusiastic! And huge. How old are you?”
He moved off her, picked up a ball, and brought it to her.
“Wow, okay,” she said. “We can play ball a little later.” She scratched him behind his ear, and his eyes squinted in obvious enjoyment. “Look at you,” she said. “A black Lab. I used to have a black Lab. His name was Coco.”
The dog had a collar with a little silver nameplate. His name was Dude. She laughed. That sounded like something Dustin would name his dog. “Hey, Dude,” she said. “I bet you need to go outside, don’t you?”
He bounded away from her now, toward a room at the back of the house. She followed him through the living room, which surprised her with its clean decor in masculine earth tones and expensive accessories that indicated success and pride. Dustin had come a long way. And now he even had the dog he had longed for as a kid.
She followed the dog into the great room that was combined with the kitchen. He was panting near his leash, which hung on a hook by the back door. “Thanks, Dude,” she said, and she got the leash and hooked it to his collar, then stepped out the door. There wasn’t a fence, so she couldn’t let him go free. She turned her flashlight back on and trailed him through the yard and let him do his business.
She shone the light around the yard and admired Dustin’s manicured lawn, trees, and shrubbery. Her beam hit a doghouse on the side of the yard, and she led the dog there to see where Dude hung out. It looked like a little oasis with a pergola-type porch in miniature. Had Dustin built it himself? The thought that he could have done that made her chuckle. Not just any ordinary doghouse for Dustin’s dog. Nope. Dustin had too much empathy not to put extra into it.
When Dude was finished, she asked him, “Want to eat? Are you hungry?”
He ran back to the door, his tail wagging and tongue hanging out. She let him in, freed him from the leash, and looked around for dog food.
She had never really seen Dustin in his own environment before. He was always at Pat’s house, following her rules and molding to her expectations as much as he could. The homey look of his house filled her with warmth, and she felt a surge of emotion and homesickness for him that she hadn’t let herself feel in years.
She looked in his pantry and saw a big bag of dog food on the bottom shelf. Dude’s bowl was on the floor in the kitchen, so she filled it up and gave him water, and the dog went right to it, gulping the food down as if he was starving to death. While he ate, she sat down on Dustin’s plush couch, kicked off her shoes, and pulled up her feet. The dog would have to go out again after he ate and drank. She should probably stay here until then.
When the dog finished eating, he jumped up on the couch and cuddled up next to her, urging her to scratch his head. “You are a sweet boy,” she said. “Your daddy’s not gonna be home tonight, but he’ll be back tomorrow, I hope. I’m trying my best.” She stopped scratching, and the dog nuzzled her hand again.
“I’m gonna have to leave you here tonight. But you’ll be okay until morning. I’ll take you out one more time, okay? And then tomorrow I’ll come and take you to your babysitter for a few days.” She felt terrible even saying that. The dog was so hungry for human touch. She could tell he was still a puppy, even as big as he was. He probably wasn’t yet full grown. And he probably sat near the door all day waiting for Dustin to come home. She hated the thought that he would do that again when she left.
Finally she got up. “You know what? I don’t think I can make myself leave you here.” She sighed. “Come on. We’re taking you to my house. You can hang with me tonight.”
She went to get the dog food and popped the leash on his collar. “Come on, Dude. We’re going to have a sleepover.” He bumped around and slid across the floor as she took him to the front. She kept the key in case she would have to get back in. She took Dude out to her car and put him in the back seat, but before she even started the car he was in the front seat, riding shotgun.
“All righty, then,” she said. He licked her face. “Hey, none of that while I’m driving. Listen to me. You stay, okay? You can’t ride in my lap. Stay.”
He looked as if he was smiling as he panted. She started the car and pulled out of the driveway.
It had been a heavy day and it was destined to get heavier before she slept, but somehow the dog had lightened it and made it a little easier to bear. Yes, she would still be up all night. But knowing she had Dustin’s dog with her somehow made her feel better about that.
09
Word about the dead came to St. Mary’s rec room around four in the morning. A preliminary list was brought in. At first there was a profound silence as the names were spread out on a table, then some went to look. Others who stood back, afraid to go, began sobbing as though they already knew the worst. Then almost at once, clusters of loved ones rushed forward, pushing and fighting their way through the crowded hedge around the list.
“I can’t do it,” Taylor muttered to Harper. “I can’t look.”
“Let’s just wait,” Harper said. “Their parents will find out.”
Taylor was cold. She’d been shivering all night, freezing as if she were having chills, and now that got even more intense. She sat with tears pooled in her eyes, her
mouth shaking, as she watched the crowd and tried to find Mara’s and Desiree’s parents, all of whom had come in during the night.
People screamed and collapsed as they saw their loved ones’ names. Taylor felt dizzy as dread washed over her.
Finally she saw Desiree’s parents come out of the glut of people. Her friend’s father was holding her mother, whose knees seemed unable to hold her up. A look of agony seemed frozen on her face.
Taylor bent forward, her hands over her head, unable to face what she knew. Her sister put her arms around her as if trying to hold her together.
“I left them,” Taylor said in a guttural whisper. “I didn’t even think about them.”
“Shhh,” her sister said. “Stop that. You did exactly what you had to do. You didn’t make the decision to leave them. You just followed your instincts. Mara and Desiree aren’t gone because of you.”
“But what if they just needed help? What if I could have helped them?”
“You could barely help yourself.”
Taylor looked up and saw Mara’s parents, divorced but together tonight, walking with looks of shock on their pale faces as they came out of the crowd. Mara’s mother met Taylor’s eyes and shook her head, then covered her mouth and buried her face in Mara’s dad’s chest.
Taylor pulled her feet up on her folding chair and pressed her face against her knees, in the tightest fetal position she could manage while still sitting. “I have to get out of here,” she said.
“Okay. Come on. Get up.”
Taylor unfolded and managed to get to her feet. Her legs were shaking as badly as her hands. She was suddenly so tired.
She let her sister walk her out, through the grieving crowd and into the parking lot illuminated only by streetlamps. Moths flew around the halo cast by the light, as if life were normal and nothing had changed.
Life went on. She just didn’t know how she could.
10
Jamie hadn’t slept well for days before her jury came back in the Ash case yesterday, but tonight she fueled herself with coffee and carbs to focus on the databases where she culled information about Dustin.
Dude had made himself at home on her couch, and every time she ate, he came to sit by her. Apparently Dustin had trained him not to beg, because he sat still, staring at her as she ate, until she tossed him something. Then he would attack it and swallow it in a gulp.
When he fell asleep on her couch, she dug into her work. She had to know everything about Dustin—more than the prosecutor would. But she found very little. Dustin hadn’t had more than a speeding ticket since leaving home. The army had served him well in the area of discipline and self-control. People like his aunt had probably placed odds that he would be in and out of jail all his life, since she believed his acting out was the sign of a character flaw. But Jamie knew his trouble in his teens had much more to do with his sense of belonging than it did with some dark spot in his heart.
When she finally turned out the light, Dude awoke and got up, wagging his tail. She opened the back door and let him into her yard, which was fenced in. Dude stopped when he realized it wasn’t his yard. Slowly he went out into the grass and sniffed around the swing set, explored the edges of the fence, then found a bush.
When he was finished, she took him back inside. “It’s bedtime now,” she said. “You stay right here. You can sleep on the couch.”
She started to go to her bedroom, but the dog followed her. She turned around. “Stay.”
He stayed, and she left him there and went to her bedroom. She pulled the covers back on her bed, then went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she came out, Dude was sprawled out on her bed.
“Come on, Dude,” she said. “Really?”
He lifted his head, then put it back down. Sighing, she crawled into bed, pulled up her covers, and felt his warmth next to her. He squirmed closer and she stroked his head. “You’re sweet, you know that? It’s hard to be mad at you.”
She had the sense that he knew.
She’d been asleep for only an hour or so when her phone vibrated at four o’clock. It was Zeke. She swiped it on. “Zeke, tell me you’ve got something.”
“You know I do,” he said with a chuckle.
“Really?”
“Yeah, several things, actually. I put five of my people on it, and we were able to confirm most of his alibi from CCTV footage. I’m sending the reports over right now. The security cameras at his home show his car was there when he said he was, and there’s no sign of his leaving with anyone else.”
“Perfect. What else?”
“The trunk of his car.”
“Yeah?”
“He spent about three hours at the hospital the night before last when his friend was admitted, and I was able to get their security video of the parking lot where his car sat. At one a.m., you can see two people pulling behind his car in a white van, and they opened his trunk and loaded something in.”
“Did you get their tag?”
“No, it wasn’t clear. But it was interesting that they didn’t have to break into the trunk. They opened it easily.”
“Did they have a key?”
“I wish I could tell, but the picture is grainy and it was dark except for the lights in the parking lot. But it looked like they did have one, yeah.”
“How many things did they load?”
“It looks like four.”
“Okay, send me a report with any details. I owe you big.”
“Oh, my bill will show you how big.”
“That’s fair.”
She got off the phone, found Zeke’s email, and quickly printed it out. He had also sent all the video footage he’d collected. She opened a computer folder, inserted all the files he’d sent, and watched them one after another, carefully logging the exact times Dustin came and went, how long he was at each place, whose cameras videotaped each file, and who signed off on turning it over to Zeke. The prosecutor would want to confirm all of it himself.
She spent the next couple of hours preparing what she would say to the prosecutor. It was critical that she make him doubt his case against Dustin and that she give him good reason not to recommend against bond.
Dustin had a few things going for him. They couldn’t yet charge him with terrorism, so the prosecutor couldn’t connect the dots in court between his having the explosives and the terrorist bombing. The media hadn’t yet gotten wind of his arrest for possession of the explosives. It was possible the judge wouldn’t yet know of the connection, though Jamie doubted it.
They would worry that he was a flight risk, or that, if he was involved in terrorism, he would proceed with other plots. Or they might think that, if he was out, they could put surveillance on him, hoping he’d lead them to others involved.
She would have to be ready for whatever came up in court.
Dude went to the door and sat down, letting her know he needed to go out. She pulled her robe tighter and stepped outside with him. As he ran around the yard, she went to the front gate and looked out toward the street, cast in a yellow glow from the streetlight near her driveway. Clutching her mug of coffee, she tried to anticipate what would happen when the media found out that an arrest had been made in connection with the bombing. There was no doubt they’d cluster in front of Dustin’s house, demonizing him and creating damaging narratives. But she and other attorneys in her firm had been through high-profile cases before, and in the last year or two there had been times when crowds of people with bullhorns had gathered with the media, threatening more than a negative story about the subject. They were there to intimidate the attorney into dropping the client.
She sipped her coffee and tried to imagine how it would be if they thought Dustin was responsible for all those deaths and injuries. He wouldn’t be able to go home when he got out of jail.
She finished off her coffee and went out to the garage and up the steps to the apartment she had been using for storage. She went inside and turned on the light. It was dusty in he
re, and the living area was filled with boxes of Christmas decorations and memories—Avery’s toys and baby clothes, her husband’s belongings that she was keeping for Avery, and other items she couldn’t part with. It wouldn’t take long to get it cleaned up. The apartment had a bathroom and a kitchenette, and it was air-conditioned.
Maybe she could get Dustin released by promising he would live on her premises, under her supervision.
But was that wise? Maybe they would need more security. When this story broke in the media, it might be dangerous for even her and Avery to live here, whether Dustin was here or not.
She turned off the light and went back into her house. She dragged herself into the shower to get ready to meet the prosecutor. She couldn’t drop the ball. It would be daylight soon.
She just hoped Dustin would go along with her plan to get him out of jail today. He wouldn’t like her making a promise that he had to keep.
11
“Please don’t wake her up.” Travis blocked the nurse’s aide from getting past the hospital room door with her rolling blood-pressure monitor. “She really needs to sleep,” he whispered.
“I have to log her blood pressure and temp.”
“Could you give her a little more time? Make her last on your rounds? Please. She went for days without sleeping.”
She sighed heavily, as if this was a huge imposition, but she left the room.
Travis turned back to his wife. She lay on the bed so still, her eyes sunken and her skin gray, as if she’d already surrendered. But the new medication they had started her on two days ago would turn things around. It had to. He went back to the recliner he had slept in and drank the coffee they’d brought her with her breakfast. She hadn’t been awake to eat it, but he’d refused to let them take her tray. The coffee was cold now, but he guzzled anyway. He had to stay alert.
He turned the TV on with the volume low and read the closed captioning on the screen.
Aftermath Page 5