I suddenly had the urgency to go and see the two of them. Hold them, make sure that they were safe. But I had to ask Christina the questions that I was going to ask her.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I have to make a phone call.”
At that, I called Axel. “Yeah, Harper, what’s up?” he asked me.
“Are you in the middle of something?”
“Not really. I mean, I’m kinda always in the middle of something, but I’m not more than usual right now. What do you need?”
“Please go to my house and check on Rina and Abby. Sophia is there, with them, but I’m kinda freaked out right now. I’ll be home, too, as soon as I can, but…”
“I’ll be at your house in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you.”
I hung up and looked at Christina, who was now hanging her head like really drunk people do. “You have a good guy there,” she said. “If he’s going to go and look after your kids right now, he’s a good guy. Good guys are hard to find. You need to make sure that you don’t do something to drive him away.”
“I won’t. Now, Christina, about the questions that I need to ask you. Michael told me something that I wanted to clear with you.”
“Oh? What was that question?”
I cleared my throat and fidgeted. I didn’t want to ask her this question. It was a sickening question, but I needed to get to the bottom of it. “He told me that your father is the father of your oldest child, Lindsay.”
She rolled her eyes, which was the last reaction I was anticipating. “Oh, brother, this again. He’s never going to get off of that, is he? Well, okay, here’s the deal. As I told you, my father did rape me when I was 15 years old, but it was only the one time, and it was only because he was drunk. Okay? Okay? That wasn’t an on-going thing. Anita told you it was, though, didn’t she? And my husband? He told you that too?”
I nodded. “Yes. They both told me that.”
“Well, don’t believe either of them. They both want me to fry for the murder of my father, so they’re all about making me look guilty. And that’s the best way to make me look guilty, isn’t it? By telling you that my daddy was raping me all the time? That’s the best way to throw my skinny ass under the bus and drag it fifty miles over dirt roads.”
She shook her head rapidly. “That damned Anita. I never did trust her. I always knew that she had it bad for Michael. Why anybody finds that man attractive, I’ll never know, but women do. They do. You’ve seen Kayla Stone. She’s a knock-out. So is Willow Cass. So is Ariel Winthrop. So is…” She hung her head. “Oh, I could sit here all day long and recount his mistresses to you, but we don’t have all night. We both need to get home to our kids. But suffice to say that women find Michael catnip. I can’t understand that, and I’m married to the guy.”
I had to get her back on track. “So it’s not true? Your father is not the father of Lindsay?”
She gave me a look. “Oh, Hell no. Hell no. But I’ll be goddamned if that Judge Perez didn’t go and make a finding that way. That made me sick, too.”
What? Judge Perez made a finding that way? What in the Hell did that mean? “Wait, wait, wait, whoa. Back up. Judge Perez made a finding of what? That your father was the father of Lindsay?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying. But I’m here to tell you that my father did not father Lindsay. Period, end of story.”
At that, she picked up my trash-can and threw up in it. “Oh, God, I need to go home,” she said. “I mean, really. I have to go home.”
“No, wait. Wait. You can’t just leave and not tell me the entire story.”
“I’m sick. I mean, I’m really sick. I need to go home.”
“You can’t drive.”
“Oh, yes I can. I mean, no I can’t. I mean, I have a cab waiting outside for me with his meter running. I’m quite sure I owe him a shit-ton, but that’s okay. It’s better than me getting a DWI. Of course.”
“No, wait. You have to answer me. What did you mean, Judge Perez made a finding that way? What did you mean?”
She just shook her head. “I’ll have to answer your questions later. Right now, I can’t do anything. I think that I’ve said too much as it is. Today, it’s Elise who is being threatened. Tomorrow it might be Tommy. The next day it’s going to be Maddy. It’s never going to stop. That’s the whole problem with having five kids. You have five targets. Five targets of some very powerful people. You do the math.”
I wanted to put my head down on the desk and just cry. It seemed that, every time I turned around, there was something else that was thrown in front of me. Something else that was making me get twisted around like a pretzel. Some other squirrel to distract me.
As Christina stumbled out the door, I had the sudden feeling that I knew less today than I did yesterday. I was so sure yesterday that I was on the right track.
But somehow, someway, Christina put more doubt in my head.
Judge Perez made a finding that way.
What did that mean?
Twenty-Eight
I got home and, to my relief, Rina and Abby were there, playing cards with Axel on the floor. “Beautiful lass,” he said, coming up to me. “I’m showing your girls how to play three card Monte. It’s a well-known con game from the dawn of time. They’re really taking to it.”
I nodded my head and said nothing. I felt like the energy was finally draining away from me. Finally. I had had a super amount of energy for going on a week, and I was still not sleeping. I slept maybe two hours a night, every night, and it had been like that for going on a week. Now, after seeing Christina, right after seeing Michael, and having both of them confuse me, I felt like I just needed to go upstairs, hit the sack, and not wake up for a week.
“I’m kidding,” he said. “I’m actually teaching them hearts. They’re really liking it.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” I had no energy, zero energy, to try to pretend that I was interested in Axel teaching Rina and Abby cards. None at all.
He looked at me, and he immediately looked concerned. “Harper, what’s going on?”
“Nothing. I just haven’t gotten much sleep lately. And I think that it’s finally catching up with me.”
He grimaced and looked over at Rina and Abby, who were laying on the floor. They both looked up at me, concern in their eyes.
“Tell you what. Why don’t I call Grubhub, and they can bring us all some food. That way you don’t have to cook. I mean, I would cook a meal here, but I don’t think that you would like what I would serve. My skills in the kitchen pretty much are very limited to boiling hot dogs and maybe putting some sauerkraut over the hot dogs and warming up the buns.”
I smiled weakly. Axel was trying to cheer me up, but I was suddenly so damned tired and depressed, I couldn’t even engage him in his banter.
“That’s good. Just order me a hamburger from somewhere, and I’m good.” I was dying for a hamburger. I didn’t even know why. I only knew that a burger sounded amazing at that point.
“Okay. Let me go and get the orders from the girls, and I’ll call.”
He went over to Rina and Abby, who excitedly told him what they wanted, and from what restaurant they wanted it from. “PF Chang’s,” they both said. “And I want the orange chicken and Abby gets the sweet and sour chicken. And lettuce wraps. Yum, yum, yum,” Rina said, her little voice getting higher and higher pitched as she spoke.
“Harper wants a burger,” Axel said.
I shrugged. “I’m not married to the burger idea. Just get me some Sesame Chicken and we’ll call it good.”
At that, Axel called on the phone and I flopped down on the couch. I felt a blinding headache coming on. I didn’t usually get headaches, but when I did, they were doozies. This one felt no different.
“Okay,” Axel said. “They’ll be here in about a half hour.” He took off my shoes and started to rub my feet. “Do you want to tell me what is going on, lass?” he asked me as he slowly rubbed my heels, and then my soles, and finally wor
ked his way up to rubbing each of my toes.
“That feels amazing,” I said. “Just amazing. You should do this professionally. No joke.”
“I guess I missed my calling. But you haven’t answered my question. What happened today? You seem…out of sorts.”
“I am out of sorts. I am. I’m just confused. I mean, yesterday, I thought that I was going along on the right track. I thought that I knew what had happened in Judge Sanders’ murder. And now…” I shook my head. “To say that I’m not sure would be putting it mildly. I suddenly am questioning everything. Perhaps that was the plan all along. Throw up a million roadblocks, a million red herrings, so that I never really can figure out what happened. But I don’t know why Michael would do that. I mean, if I can’t figure out what end is up on this case, then how the Hell am I supposed to try it?”
“Wait,” Axel said. “Slow down. Now, what happened?”
“I don’t know. My client is trying to throw his wife under the bus. He started out telling me that he didn’t know who did it, and, now that I’m getting closer to who I thought really did it, he’s stepped up his efforts to throw Christina Sanders under the bus. But Christina is singing a different tune, and somehow, someway, she managed to drag Judge Perez into this mess.”
“Who is Judge Perez?”
“He’s a judge. He was a state court judge up until just recently, when he became a federal judge. He just got on the federal bench with our current Republican President.” My head hurt. “And now he’s the judge who is overseeing the Dowling Chemical case, and the parent company is Stone Enterprises. That was the direction I was going, that Gerald Stone was behind this murder, then Michael threw something up in front of me, and then Christina did, and now I’m just confused.”
“Well, let’s see. Let’s do this. Let’s have our dinner, and then, after dinner, I’ll watch the girls while you go upstairs in your office and try to figure out what’s going on. I know that you want to do that. Unless you’re not in the mood to do that.”
“Oh, I’m in the mood. I mean, I feel nauseated, my head is splitting open, and I have a big, empty pit right here.” I pointed to my stomach. “And a knot that won’t go away. But I do need to do some more research on this. I do. And I have to figure out exactly what happened, and I need to figure that out soon, because if I don’t, Rina and Abby might be in danger.”
Axel looked perplexed. “Why would they be in danger?”
“Because Christina Sanders’ child is in danger. She said that powerful people were behind Judge Sanders’ murder, and that these powerful people would stop at nothing to make sure that she takes the fall. I finally have gotten it through my head that Christina Sanders probably didn’t do it. I mean, I think that I can safely say that, after all that has been thrown up in front of me. I don’t think that she did it. But somebody did. Several somebodies did.”
“And how do you know that it was more than one person?”
“Because Christina kept saying ‘they.’ She kept saying that ‘they’ were threatening her and that ‘they’ were out to get her. I don’t know exactly who the ‘they’ are in this case, but I’m determined that I’m going to find out.”
The food came about a half hour later, and Axel paid and tipped the guy, even though I insisted that I was going to pay. “It’s my idea,” Axel said. “So I’m going to pay. I insist.”
I simply nodded, as I had no energy to fight. “I’ll get it next time. I insist.”
Axel just shrugged and brought the food to the table. “Now, let’s all eat this stuff family style, like you’re supposed to with Chinese food.” He spooned a little bit of everything on everybody’s dish and we all dug in.
The girls started in about their day, and I smiled and nodded along, even though I wasn’t hearing a word of it. Axel was right. I was going to have to go up in my office and try to figure out a few things. I was going to right this ship, and put it in a better direction, because if I didn’t, then I was going to lose.
By losing, it meant that Michael was possibly going to win. I was still determined that he was a part of the conspiracy.
But I also had to get to the bottom of everything that was going on in this case.
I ate everything on my plate and then I got up from the table. “I hope you guys don’t mind if I retire early.”
“Of course not,”Axel said. “I told you, you probably need to go upstairs to your office and try to sort things out. I’ll hang out here with the girls and make sure that they get to bed by a decent hour. By midnight at least.” He smiled and winked, to let me know that he was joking, and I smiled back.
“Thanks.” I hugged the two girls and went upstairs.
I got into my bedroom, intending to change in to my pajamas and then get on the computer, but I lay down on my bed and promptly fell asleep.
Twenty-Nine
The next day, I was refreshed, and, when I looked at my clock, I knew why. It was 10 AM.
I ran down the stairs, frantic that I overslept and that I needed to get the girls off to school. But they were nowhere to be found.
“Rina, Abby!” I called. I went into both of their rooms, and they weren’t there.
Oh, God. Where were they? Why didn’t they wake me up to take them to school? I couldn’t think straight. The stress was getting to me, yes, but I also was frantic because I remembered Christina Sanders’ warning. Powerful forces were behind the murder of her father, and these powerful forces would stop at nothing to intimidate me.
She also warned me to make sure that Rina and Abby were safe.
My heart was pounding. I was still wearing the suit that I was wearing the day before, as I fell asleep on my bed, fully clothed. My head was pounding, my hands were shaking, and my mouth was dry.
With shaking hands, I called Axel, thinking that maybe he spent the night and took the girls into school. I got his voice-mail, and I left a frantic message. “Axel, this is Harper. I can’t find the girls. I hope that you know where they are.”
I hung up the phone, got my keys, started my car and drove off. I was going to go to the girls’ school and find out if they were there.
But, of course, the best laid plans…traffic was horrendous, and I hit every single red light. I hated hitting the red lights on the best of days, but on days like today, when I was experiencing sheer panic, the red lights seemed to just taunt me. You’re never going to see your girls again, the red lights seem to say to me. Never again.
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” I screamed at the lights. “I will see them again. I will. They’re safe and sound. They are. Safe and sound. Axel took them to school this morning, and he forgot to leave me a note. But he should have left me a note, the jerk. But he didn’t. He didn’t, and they’re in school, safe and sound. Safe and sound. Safe and sound.”
I finally made it to their school and I ran in there. “Hello,” I said to the headmaster, as I stormed into her office without even knocking. “Are Rina and Abby here today?” I was breathless, and, unfortunately, the headmaster had a mirror in her office. I looked in the mirror and saw a woman with wild red hair and streaked makeup.
She looked like a loon. A scary loon.
“Yes, of course,” she said. “They’re in their home room. Are you okay?”
“No. No, I’m not okay. I’m not. Okay. I haven’t been sleeping well, and I slept last night, but then I overslept. And, I don’t know…” The adrenaline that was coursing through my veins, as I panicked over whether or not Rina and Abby were kidnapped, drained away. All I could feel was a deep pool of sadness. That was how it felt. Like my entire body was made of a large pool of tears, and the tears ran infinitely deep.
I sat down on the chair across from Ms. Hayden, and I knew that I was on the verge of crying. She silently pushed the box of Kleenex my way and I took one out of the box and dabbed my right eye. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I must have scared the living daylights out of you. I look a fright, I know. I’m really not out of my mind. It’s just…”
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She nodded. “I know. Sometimes we all get to the end of our rope. I would imagine that it’s hard for you, having to juggle your job of defending criminals with having to care for two young girls. It’s hard enough to care for two young girls, even if you didn’t have a demanding job. So, you don’t have to explain to me how much stress you’re under. How you are feeling. I can just imagine it.”
“Yes, but it’s more than that. I can’t even explain it, except that my biological clock has been going haywire on me lately. It’s almost like…” I closed my eyes, getting the insight that I had been trying to avoid. Trying to avoid for way too long.
“It’s almost like I’ve been manic. Manic. Bi-polar disorder. That was what my Uncle Patrick had. I mean, I was very young when he was institutionalized, but my mother always talked about his symptoms, and his symptoms are my symptoms. I’ve had problems with depression my entire life, but I had never had a manic episode. I have never had one. But that’s it. That’s what’s been wrong with me this whole time.”
I opened my eyes. “But I can’t do anything about it right now. I need mental focus, and I have to admit, I’ve been focused like a laser beam this past week or so. Things have been coming to me, things that I never would have thought of before. I need to keep on this high, this rush, until the end of the trial. Now is not the time to try out new medicines, medicines that might dull my senses. I need to do something about this problem after the trial.”
Ms. Hayden sighed. “Harper, I know something about bi-polar disorder. My sister has had bi-polar disorder for most of her life. And you might think that you have amazing insight. Amazing clarity. But it’s most likely a delusion. Your mind is playing tricks on you. If I were you, I would see a doctor right away. Right away. Because you might end up thinking that you cracked your murder case, when, actually, you haven’t even come close.”
Justice Denied - A Harper Ross Legal Thriller Page 23