“Even if they were to arrest her, she didn’t plant the bomb, didn’t know what was going to happen. She only built a device. It’s not murder. The statute of limitations has probably run on whatever her crime was.”
“They’ll prosecute her for murder anyway.”
“The tape recording is exculpatory evidence.”
“That’s not what the US Attorney would say, probably not what a jury would say. You’re forgetting the earring. It has her fingerprint on it. No one would believe she didn’t plant the bomb. And whatever the outcome, the publicity would destroy her. You know that.”
He’s right. Despite the trappings of wealth and power, despite her demigod-like status, Harriet Stern remains a fragile soul.
“Still, to let an innocent man go to prison,” I say. “It goes against everything I’ve worked for as a lawyer. Everything that’s right.”
“I’m not an innocent man.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I set it all in motion, Parker. I built the bombs, I set them off, I pontificated about murder in the name of a cause. I brought a naïve young woman into it and taught her how to make a killing machine. Oh, I’m guilty. There’s nothing unjust about this.”
“Neither of you is responsible. O’Brien was.”
“She’s dead, and the System has to be fed. As between me and anyone else alive, I’m the one who should be its meal.” He stares down at the table for a long time. “There is something I’m going to ask of you. I’ve abandoned Emily like I abandoned you. Which means that you’ll understand how much she needs someone now. She’s only a kid.”
“She doesn’t feel abandoned. She thinks that the justice system failed you. And as you’ve always surmised, the feds were probably onto you anyway.”
“Someday, she’ll realize that I abandoned her. I turned myself in. After Dylan died, I played favorites, and my favorite was the dead child. But because of that I need you to . . . She’s almost eighteen, smart, ready for college, and after that you can—”
“She’ll need her brother after she turns eighteen and twenty-five and forty. And she’ll have him.”
He places his hand over mine. We speak not of terror and death but of life. We talk about his beloved wife, Jenny; of my brother, Dylan; of my sister, Emily, as a child; of his love of repairing cars; of my love for Lovely Diamond; of the exhilaration that comes from acting on a stage no matter how small the audience. When the guard says it’s time, I put my arms around my father and kiss him good-bye, though it’s against the rules.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Daco, Suzanne Ely, Allen Eskens, Karen Garver, Lynne Raimondo, Matthew Sharpe, John Whelpley, and Robert Wolff; Jill Marr, Sandra Dijkstra, Andrea Cavallaro, and Elise Capron of the Sandra Dijkstra Agency; and Dan Mayer, Jill Maxick, Cheryl Quimba, Jade Zora Scibilia, and Nicole Sommer-Lecht of Seventh Street Books.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Robert Rotstein, an entertainment attorney with over thirty years’ experience in the industry, is the author of Corrupt Practices and Reckless Disregard, the first and second Parker Stern novels. His novel Reckless Disregard was named one of Kirkus’s best thrillers of 2014. He has represented all of the major motion-picture studios and many well-known writers, producers, directors, and musicians. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Visit him at his website, robertrotstein.com; or on Facebook, facebook.com/RobertRotstein1; or on Twitter, @rrotstein1.
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