The Triple Threat Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  Kids winced, and a couple of them felt the backs of their heads, as if in sympathy.

  “Finally, the neighborhood boys took off. Luckily, the lost boys survived the beating and the other boys were arrested.” She paused. “Are you with me so far?”

  “But why did they beat them up?” asked a girl with huge dark eyes. “Why did the boys do that to them?”

  She reminded Allison of Estella, a little Mexican American girl whose family she tried to help.

  “Maybe they were afraid of the other boys. Maybe they came from families where the parents beat them, so they felt it was okay to beat others.” Allison raised one shoulder. “Maybe they just did it because they could.”

  The girl pressed her fingers to her lips before asking her next question. “Was it because they were a different color?”

  It hurt Allison’s heart to think that the child might have experienced something similar herself.

  “That was the theory of the case,” she admitted. “The lost boys were black, and the neighborhood boys were white. But in this country, you can’t treat people differently because of the color of their skin, or where they’re from or what church they go to.” She took a deep breath. “So, in Chicago, there was a federal prosecutor who does the same job that I do. And he got a call about what happened. He started working with an FBI agent. And the FBI agent and the prosecutor talked to the parents of the neighborhood boys, went to their school to talk to their teachers, and talked to witnesses.”

  Allison held up two fingers. “They were looking for two kinds of evidence.” She switched to her index finger. “Direct evidence is information from a witness—or even a security camera—that sees or hears the crime. In this case, the direct evidence was the lost boys saying the neighborhood boys beat them up for no reason. There was also a four-year-old girl who saw the whole thing from her grandmother’s window.”

  She added a second finger to the first. “The second kind of evidence is circumstantial. It’s not based on firsthand experience. For example, say your mom comes home and finds cookies missing from the cookie jar. And there’s a trail of crumbs leading to your bedroom.” She tilted her head to one side. “But that does not definitely mean that you took them. Even if you are the only person in the house. In fact, it could mean that you have . . . mice.”

  Several of the kids giggled.

  “In this case, the neighborhood boys were charged with a hate crime. They were the defendants. They were told they could either hire a lawyer or get a free one—a public defender—provided by the government.”

  A girl wearing worn boots and a sundress that didn’t seem warm enough for a cool spring day observed, “That’s not fair. Why should they get a lawyer for free? They’re the ones who did something wrong.”

  “Yes, but the government needed to prove it. In this country you can’t just accuse someone of doing something bad. You have to provide evidence. That’s why we say ‘innocent until proven guilty.’” As she spoke, Allison wondered how many people had judged this girl solely on her worn clothes and tangled hair. The law was far more black-and-white than the real world.

  “After someone is charged, there’s a trial.” She was simplifying things. In reality, eight out of ten of criminal defendants pled guilty and never stood trial. “At the trial, it’s like there are two teams.” She held out her left hand. “As the prosecutor, I’m on one team, and my goal is to have the defendant found guilty.” She lifted her right hand. “And the defense’s goal is to have the defendant found not guilty.” She brought both hands together in the middle. “And the judge is like the referee. But before the trial can begin, the prosecutor has to do homework. He or she has to study the evidence, understand all the facts, and talk to three kinds of witnesses. A lay witness is a person who just watched what happened. An expert witness is a specialist. Like the prosecutor in this case called a fingerprint expert to testify that the prints on the bat matched the prints from the neighborhood boys.”

  “Like on CSI!” a boy wearing a red baseball cap said.

  Allison winced. In her opinion, CSI was far too graphic for an eleven-year-old to watch. And the show sometimes led to unrealistic expectations. Leif Larson, who headed up the Portland FBI’s Evidence Recovery Team, had recently complained to Allison that jurors now expected him to be able to pull a fingerprint off running water.

  Allison settled for a simple nod. “Like CSI, yes. And then a character witness is someone who knows someone involved in the case. They can say good or bad things. In this case, the prosecutor talked to people who said the neighborhood boys were known to be bullies. The federal prosecutor had to prove that the defendants, the neighborhood boys, committed the crime. And in this case, the neighborhood boys were found guilty.”

  “So what happened to them?” asked the boy in the red cap. “The neighborhood boys?”

  “They were sent to a juvenile detention facility for several years.”

  “You mean like a jail?” He looked startled. “For kids?”

  Allison nodded. “Just for kids, not adults.”

  The girl with the leg brace asked, “Why didn’t they go real jail? They did something really bad.”

  It was the age-old debate about what the justice system was really about: punishing the perpetrators, deterring would-be criminals, rehabilitating lawbreakers, or protecting future victims.

  “Well, our justice system believes that juveniles—children—can be rehabilitated.”

  Blank faces looked up at her.

  “You know, that by sending them to these places, which are like special schools, they can learn how to be better people. That they can be fixed.”

  At the word fixed, the girl in the leg brace let out a soft snort.

  Allison finished the tour by taking the kids to the sculpture garden off the ninth floor. The metal sculptures were whimsical or nonsensical, depending on your point of view. One showed an owl sitting atop a tree. Allison knew the owl was supposed to be wisdom, but she wasn’t sure what the rest of it meant. A snake crept up the tree, while a beaver gnawed through the trunk. The snake probably represented sin or the devil. But the beaver? Maybe that was the sculptor’s nod to Oregon, which was officially “The Beaver State.” But then what was the meaning of the piece of paper and the computer—both portrayed with faces— fleeing the scene?

  The kids didn’t seem to care, though. They crowded around the sculptures or pointed out landmarks as they took in the panoramic view of the city, with the snowcapped peak of Mt. Hood in the distance. Below them the steel gray artery of the Willamette River cut through the city’s heart. And they especially liked the ice-cream sandwiches Allison and their teacher handed out.

  If Allison hadn’t turned her head at just the right moment, she might not have seen it. The boy in the red cap snatched the ice-cream sandwich from the girl in the leg brace. Allison opened her mouth to call him on it, but before she could say a word, the girl met her eyes and gave her head one swift shake.

  CHAPTER 6

  Portland Fitness Center

  Elizabeth stood in front of the mirror in the women’s locker room and wished for the thousandth time that she were not merely pretty, but beautiful. Life would be so much easier.

  She was only thirty-two, but she looked much younger. Her skin still looked good. No lines yet. Her arms were a little pale. Summer was just round the corner. She made a mental note to start hitting the tanning bed.

  Leaning closer to the mirror, she brushed on another coat of mascara. It paid to look her best for Ian. Even seen from an inch away, her eyes were unshadowed. Since Joey had torched Sara’s house, Elizabeth had been sleeping like a baby.

  When she walked into the weight room, Ian was already there. His eyes were closed as he did a lat pulldown, the weight set at 140 pounds. Elizabeth’s gaze roamed over the V of his shoulders, his strong arms, his black hair silvering at the temples. Yum.

  He started when Elizabeth put her hands on his shoulders. “Open up your chest a little
bit,” she said, pretending to correct his form.

  He turned his head to grin back at her. “You’re a pleasant distraction for a Thursday.” As he stood up, he let the weights stack back into place.

  Elizabeth bit the tip of her index finger and gave him a naughty smile. Even though no one was close enough to hear, she lowered her voice. “Want to go someplace where you can be even more distracted?”

  Last Monday they had ended up in the pool supply closet. Ian was clearly charmed by her impulsiveness and turned on by her firm body.

  His expression turned serious. “I wish I could, but I need to cut my workout short. Our new house burned down Monday night.”

  Elizabeth put a hand to her chest and let her lips part. She had a whole repertoire of gestures, gleaned from careful observation and practiced in front of the mirror. “Are your ex-wife and Noah okay?”

  Noah was Ian and Sara’s five-year-old son.

  “Yes. Thank God Sara was visiting her parents, or it could have been a whole different story.” Ian shook his head, his eyes unfocused. “But the house is a total loss. It was our dream house, and now it’s nothing but ashes.”

  Ian’s marriage had broken up while the new house was under construction. Of course Sara had ended up with the dream house, leaving Ian with their old one. That woman did nothing but take and take from him.

  Elizabeth touched his arm and broke the spell. His eyes refocused on her.

  “So it was like an electrical fire or something?” she asked.

  “No. Arson. They didn’t make any attempt to hide it, either.”

  “Why would someone do that?” It gave Elizabeth a secret thrill to discuss something she already knew everything about.

  “Sara just broke up with her boyfriend a few weeks ago, although he really doesn’t seem like the type.” Ian’s mouth twisted. “If he did, I would never have let him near Noah. And she had kind of an ongoing argument with the neighbor, someone whose land is next to where we built the house. The police are looking at both of them.”

  Elizabeth had no idea the universe would supply such ready suspects. Things were looking up. Sara had been punished, and no one would ever be able to connect it to Elizabeth. And now Ian was letting his eyes run up and down her body, clearly thinking only of her again.

  He added, “They already know we were at the Ringside when the fire broke out. I don’t think anyone will talk to you, but you never know.”

  “I hope they catch whoever did it soon.” Elizabeth leaned closer and walked her fingers up his chest. “Are you sure you can’t spare a few minutes? I’ve missed you. It’s been nearly three days.”

  “Sorry. I promised Sara I would help with the insurance paperwork.”

  Fury stiffened Elizabeth’s spine and turned her fingers rigid as claws as she let her hand drop to her side. Would that woman ever stop thinking of excuses to try to get Ian back in her life? Taking a deep breath, she made herself relax and give him a playful smile. “Okay. But you owe me one.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Northeast Portland

  Nic was in the shower, humming an old Al Green song at the end of a long day, when her fingers found something in her left breast.

  A lump.

  Time seemed to stop. The inside of Nic’s head emptied out. Or maybe there was a lid, a lid on her thoughts. If she lifted it even a fraction of an inch, her sickening fear would come boiling out.

  The jets of water drummed against her back. She couldn’t think. Didn’t want to think.

  She felt like she was out of herself, above herself. Part of her was standing in the brown-tiled shower. Part of her denied that she was even in the shower. Maybe she was already in her warm bed, dreaming this moment, and she would soon open her eyes, sit up, and forget this terrible nightmare.

  She stood suspended, her fingers hovering just above the spot.

  Then she pressed in again, rolling her index and middle fingers back and forth. Still there.

  Some part of her brain must still be working, because Nic found herself cataloging what she found as if it were a piece of evidence, like a fingerprint or a blood spatter. Not perfectly round. Hard. Painless. She imagined laying one of the photo evidence rulers next to it. About a third of an inch across. The size of a large pea.

  It was a lump. There was no other word for it. A lump. In her breast.

  Could something so small kill her?

  Nic couldn’t move, couldn’t draw a breath. The shower beat down on her.

  Maybe it was a cyst.

  But maybe it wasn’t.

  It could be cancer. Breast cancer. Loretta, their old receptionist, had fought breast cancer for three years.

  Fought and lost. When Loretta finally died, she had been reduced to bones and slack skin. With her naked, drooping head and her unfocused eyes, she had looked like a broken baby bird.

  No. It was just a cyst. Nothing else. Certainly not cancer.

  Nic couldn’t die. Not now.

  She couldn’t leave Makayla alone.

  CHAPTER 8

  Portland Fitness Center

  Cassidy was changing into her workout clothes for spinning class. She had perfected a method of getting dressed and undressed that involved showing as little skin as possible. She wasn’t like some of the women at the gym who paraded to the shower wearing nothing but a pair of flip-flops and a towel thrown casually over a shoulder.

  A woman with short dark hair sat down at the end of the bench. With a moan, she reached forward to turn the dial for her locker. “I can barely move my fingers, I’m so worn out.”

  Cassidy managed to pull on her sports bra at the same time as she took off her regular bra. “What class were you in?”

  “Boot camp. They’ve only had it about six or seven months. And the instructor is brutal.” The woman mopped her red face with one of the gym’s thin white towels.

  Cassidy remembered a quote, if not who said it: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

  “With boot camp, it’s kind of a toss-up which is going to happen first. But look.” The other woman hiked up her top to expose her midriff. “I’m starting to get a six-pack. I’ve never had one of those before.”

  Even though the woman was clearly sucking in her stomach— and Cassidy didn’t begrudge her that; Cassidy always sucked in her stomach in the changing room—she did have the beginnings of a sculpted abdomen.

  Cassidy poked her own stomach. “I’ve pretty much got a one-pack.”

  Thanks to the arch in her back, she had always had a shape like a jelly bean—perky butt, but a little bit of a belly—perched on slender legs. She had always wanted a six-pack. And fiercely muscled arms, the way all the celebrities had now. You wouldn’t want to meet Madonna in a dark alley. Cassidy wanted to look fantastic in a sleeveless shell.

  But she also knew she wasn’t capable of doing it on her own. She needed someone standing over her, yelling.

  The other woman ran her hand through her sweat-soaked hair, making it stand up in short spikes. “If you want to get in the best shape of your life, then you’ve got to take this class. But you won’t thank me for it. Not at first. A lot of people can’t hack it and drop out. But if you keep with it, Elizabeth will whip you into shape.”

  Cassidy thought of Jenna. Jenna Banks was her chief rival at Channel Four, as ridiculous as the thought would have been a few months earlier. And Jenna had an amazing body.

  “When is the class?”

  “Six a.m. on weekdays. But by seven fifteen you are done for the day.”

  When the alarm went off Monday morning, Cassidy hit the snooze button three times before she managed to pull herself out of bed. She yanked her hair back into a ponytail and pulled on some sweats, all the while cursing Jenna under her breath. Jenna, with her tiny skirts and her waterfall of blonde hair, so shiny it looked like it had been polished. Jenna, who sat on a blue exercise ball during story meetings to “exercise her core.” Like her core needed it. Jenna, who was supposed to be Channel Four’s
intern, but who had somehow managed to talk her way into a couple of actual assignments. Jenna, who pretty much sucked up all the male attention whenever she walked into the room.

  Jenna, who was only twenty-two years old.

  Eleven years ago, Cassidy had been a Jenna. Fresh out of college, eager to learn, eager to do whatever it took to get ahead. She had reported from state fairs and gruesome accident sites. Done her share of standing on icy overpasses while hyperventilating about a “winter storm watch.”

  She had paid her dues, and Jenna hadn’t. Yet Jenna was occasionally picked for stories that Cassidy wanted. Cassidy was determined to fight fire with fire. She knew how to turn a head or two. But she needed to kick it up a notch.

  It was 6:02 when she opened the door to the exercise studio. The room was completely full, intimidatingly full with women on their hands and knees kicking their bent right legs into the air like donkeys. The slender red-haired woman standing at the front of the class turned and looked at her. Really looked. It made Cassidy feel like she had never been looked at before.

  “There’s a spot right up in front,” the redhead said, pointing at a mat in front of her.

  Cassidy picked her way to it.

  “I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Avery,” the instructor said. Then she called out to the room, “Left leg now,” and the women switched obediently, like some kind of synchronized dance team dreamed up by a sadist.

  “I’m Cassidy.” She got down on her hands and knees, already counting the minutes until the class was over. Why had she ever thought this was a good idea?

  “Okay, Cassidy, do you have any back or shoulder problems I need to know about?”

  Cassidy briefly considered claiming a host of them. It would probably get her out of the worst of it. Then she thought of Jenna and her long, lean legs. Jenna was as single-minded as a shark. And what she was focused on was going right over Cassidy on her climb to the top. This was no time for shirking. “No.”