by Nancy Grace
The elevator doors swished open and Hailey stepped out into the huge lobby. She kept walking straight ahead, clutching the notes she’d brought with her. She didn’t stop to look either way, to the left or the right, her eyes locked on the huge plate-glass doors ahead of her and out onto the street.
Just before she pushed the doors open in front of her, she stopped. There was clapping. From a single pair of hands.
Hailey turned around toward the lobby. There, off to the side of the large, marble expanse, beside an indoor stand of perfectly manicured trees, was a cleaning lady. She was actually only a few feet away from Hailey. She was dressed in a light blue, short-sleeved dress with her name, Lorraina, embroidered across the left shoulder in deep navy blue thread. Under the dress, which came to a few inches below her knees, she wore a pair of black pants and tennis shoes. The woman, slightly built and barely topping five feet, rolled her plastic bucket and mop toward the front door where Hailey stood.
“They murdered my son. He was only seventeen. Nobody saw anything. Nothing ever happened. We’ve only been here in the U.S. a few years. I know who you are. I see you in the paper. I saw what you did to Mr. Todd. I’m glad.”
Outside, the sun was shining and a huge fountain in front of GNE was shooting gusts of water up into the air. It caught the light as it hung there, just before it fell back into the fountain.
Sucking in a lungful of air, Hailey walked right past a long, black limo with her name written on a white placard in the window. She went to the corner, cars, trucks, buses, all whizzing by.
Holding her left hand high over her head, arm straight up in the air, she looked uptown. Within seconds, a cab swerved in dangerously close to her shins. Opening the door, she got in. Some type of canned music was blaring, repeating the same verse over and over and over, and the cab reeked of incense.
It was good to be back in New York.
“Fifty-fourth and York.”
He didn’t reply, just gunned the motor, and they were off.
Chapter 10
THE CABBIE RACED ACROSS TOWN BACK TO THE EAST SIDE, WEAVING DANGEROUSLY through parked and moving cars, catching lights just as they changed from yellow to red and growling out his open window at any pedestrian who dared to slow down in a crosswalk. Hailey paid cash through the plastic window partition between seats, opened the car door, and stepped up on the street’s curb headed toward the front steps of her building.
Pushing through the heavy revolving door, she saw Ricky smiling at her behind the lobby desk, still here these hours later. It made her smile back. “How are you?” Hailey called out as she stepped in from the cold.
“Same as ever. Happy to be alive. How about you, Sunshine?”
“Good. Thanks, dear.” She said it with warmth. It was nice to see a friendly face.
“Need help with the box and the bag?”
Hailey was suddenly reminded of the flight up from Atlanta, the luggage she’d dragged up the front steps, and the box wrapped in plain brown paper with Kolker’s handwriting on the front.
“Nope, I’ll manage. Thanks.”
Heading toward the elevator, Hailey balanced the box on top of her rolling bag while keeping her purse on her shoulder and her notepad clasped in her left hand. Once off the elevator and standing at her own front door, she instinctively glanced over her shoulder before setting her purse and pad down on the carpeted floor beside her. She’d already pulled the apartment keys from her bag so she wouldn’t have to fish. Sliding the key into the top deadbolt lock, she turned it to the right, and it slid to the side. She mechanically went through the same process with two lower locks and pushed the door gently open, scooping up the purse and pad, and rolling the bag over the threshold in one fluid movement.
The apartment was silent. Silent in an inviting, quiet way. The shades were up and from the entrance area, she could see the city lying beneath her. Hailey turned and locked all three locks and slid the door chain lock into place. Leaving the bag where it stood upright, she carried the box into her kitchen, glancing around her little apartment as she strode across the rosewood den floor and onto the smooth, green slate floor of the kitchen.
She automatically turned on her gas stove for tea, filled the copper kettle that was always there, and sat it on the stove’s eye, now burning blue. Pulling a pair of scissors from the spoon and fork drawer, she slid them down the middle of the box, slicing it open neatly. Though she knew she’d return whatever he’d sent as an apology for her arrest the year before, she always looked to see if there was a note included. Something that would somehow explain what Kolker had done . . . something to make things right.
The flowers, the treats . . . It was almost as if he were courting a girlfriend. But what had passed between them, the murders of Hailey’s two friends, the suspicion cast on her, her arrest, the night she’d almost lost her own life and ended up taking the life of her attacker . . . When she’d come to . . . his was one of the first faces she remembered seeing. She distinctly remembered the look on Kolker’s face, the realization hitting him hard that Hailey was innocent and had nearly lost her own life while he pursued her instead of the real killer.
There was some sort of bond between Hailey and Kolker . . . something she couldn’t quite identify, nothing as trite as a flirtation. Hailey remembered motioning Kolker down, to where she was lying alongside Matt Leonard’s dead body. The others standing around had all parted, stepping aside for Kolker to kneel down beside her. Hailey remembered her throat ached so badly from Leonard’s attempted strangulation, she couldn’t speak. But Kolker had . . . He’d said exactly three words as Hailey recalled, whispering the words against her hair, “Hailey . . . I’m sorry . . .”
The kettle whistled and Hailey moved it over to a cold burner. The box was full. She picked up each item . . . mostly CDs. The first was The Otis Redding Anthology, including “The Dock of the Bay.” Redding was born in Georgia and grew up in Macon. Then there was Forever Ray Charles. Charles, also from Hailey’s home state of Georgia, sang one of her favorites, “Georgia on My Mind.”
The last CD in the cardboard box was by Johnny Mercer, the genius from Savannah who composed “Moon River.” The lyrics and the haunting tune never failed to bring tears to her eyes . . . to make her heart ache for something she’d never had . . . a lifetime with her true love.
How did Kolker know such personal details? They certainly didn’t come up that night in the police interrogation room. Hailey bristled at the vivid . . . and painful . . . memory.
At the very bottom of the cardboard box were two smaller boxes wrapped separately. Tearing at the same brown paper wrapping, she opened the larger one, obviously a book. She looked down at it in surprised silence. It was a hardback copy of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. When she was just a little girl, Hailey checked the book out from the bookmobile, a library van that routinely traveled to visit poor and rural areas in the South. The librarian had warned her she was too young, that the book was for more advanced readers, but she let Hailey take it home anyway.
When Hailey turned to the first page, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The book was signed by the great author and recluse, Harper Lee. A note fluttered down when Hailey opened the book. Leaning down toward the kitchen floor, Hailey unfolded the note and read it. It was Kolker’s handwriting in blue ink and read simply “I understand Atticus Finch was the first lawyer you ever met. That explains a lot. Kolker.”
Then it dawned on her exactly how he knew so much about her. She’d agreed to a profile piece in the Atlanta paper several years ago when she won her hundredth jury trial. While the article focused mostly on her courtroom victories and various killers, dope dealers, and thugs she put behind bars, it also included a few personal details she allowed them to know. They were printed in a thin panel to the side of the article, including her favorite music and books.
Kolker had done his research.
The last item in the cardboard box was a longer, thin container. When she removed the brown
paper, she immediately saw it was a trademark eggshell blue box from Tiffany’s. Of course she wouldn’t accept jewelry from Kolker. But true to her inquisitive nature, she at least wanted to look inside the box.
When Hailey gently lifted the lid, her lips involuntarily parted open in surprise. There, inside on its black silk cord, lay a small, silver necklace, a tiny Tiffany’s ink pen. It wasn’t new . . . It was hers . . . Hailey’s . . . from long ago and another life she once had.
Hailey didn’t have to look closer to know what was engraved on the pen . . . It had hung lightly from its silken cord around her neck for nearly ten years. It was a gift from Katrine Dumont, whose fiancé, Phil Eastwood, was murdered. It was one of Hailey’s first murder cases as a young prosecutor.
A newly engaged young couple with their whole lives ahead of them had stepped out onto their patio to toast their new engagement. Two new parolees with long rap sheets ambushed them from behind a thick hedge surrounding the patio. Phil fought back and was immediately gunned down at point-blank range. His fiancée was dragged into the apartment and repeatedly assaulted.
Katrine was so traumatized, she was unable to testify at trial. In the end, Hailey found corroborating evidence, and even without an eyewitness, the jury convicted. After sentencing, Katrine came to see her and handed her a sky-blue velvet box. Inside was the pen, etched with the words, For Hailey, Seeking Justice, Katrine Dumont-Eastwood. For the next ten years, Hailey had worn the pen during every jury trial and often in between.
Then, as fate unfolded, Kolker discovered the silver pen years later . . . under the dead body of Hailey’s own patient here in New York. It had been planted underneath the body to incriminate Hailey and was a big part of why Kolker arrested her to start with.
How did he ever get it out of police property this soon? Usually it took years to retrieve evidence in criminal cases, much less a serial murder case. Kolker had to have broken rules to get it out of the evidence room for her.
Hailey took the box to her favorite chair by a window overlooking the city. Studying the CDs, the book, and the pen on its silky cord, she slowly stood and walked to the apartment’s front door, carrying the cardboard box they’d come in.
Padding down the carpeted hall in bare feet, she opened the door to the trash chute and threw the box to the foot of the tiny trash room. She wouldn’t be needing it anymore. There would be no return.
Chapter 11
CABLE COVERAGE WAS AWFUL IN RURAL DAVIDSON COUNTY. EVEN though the county seat was Nashville, Tennessee, a major hub for the music industry, you’d never know it from the cable service. The motel room he rented by the week advertised it came with free cable. What a joke. Clint Burrell Cruise leaned forward and stared at the TV set he’d propped on a folding metal TV tray table.
But even through the bad reception, he recognized her. It was Hailey Dean. Her blonde hair was a little longer, now falling down around her shoulders. She was discussing what goes on inside the mind of a killer with the same intense demeanor she had in the courtroom. Her green eyes stared directly into the camera and she never looked away. Cruise shifted in his seat . . . it appeared she was looking at him straight in the eyes. The camera sat on the shot of Hailey, then music played and her face dissolved into a commercial break.
Suddenly coming face to face with Hailey Dean again, even if it was through a TV screen, was more than a small shock. Cruise had tried his best to stop thinking about Hailey Dean. It always got him nothing but trouble. Hailey Dean at the jail with a subpoena, standing there watching as his blood was drawn into tiny thin vials, blood yielding DNA to convict him for murder. Hailey in court, Hailey’s shoulders and back as she argued to a jury, Hailey Dean reading his guilty verdict out loud in court, the moment he leaped across the defense counsel table and for an instant, just an instant, circled his hands around her neck until he was clubbed and dragged away by courtroom bailiffs.
He remembered the first time he ever laid eyes on her at the Fulton County Superior Courthouse. The courtroom was jammed that morning with attorneys, witnesses and inmates in prison garb, chained together by leg irons. Cruise was chained too, to a chair bolted onto the floor of the jury box.
When the clock hit nine o’clock exactly, double doors at the rear of the courtroom swung open, and Hailey Dean blew in. She wore a black dress just above the knees, her arms covered with long sleeves. He still remembered the blonde hair against the black of her dress. Nobody had to announce who she was, she strode straight to the State’s table to remain standing. The judge entered, took the bench and the calendar clerk called Cruise’s name and case number. Hailey Dean turned to look directly at him, shackled in his chair. Holding his gaze, Hailey announced in open court that the first arraignment of the morning was for him. He’d tried his best to stand, even chained. And then she said it . . . that she planned to try Cruise herself and that the State intended to seek the death penalty.
During months of court appearances, there were the constant TV shots of her, sound bites at local news pressers. He watched them all. She won the trial, of course. Then after the trial, she left him abruptly, dropping out of his life like he’d meant nothing.
Until he hopped a Greyhound bus straight out of Reidsville Penitentiary and headed to New York. When he’d landed that first blow to the side of her face it felt so good. Then at the end, he’d had to leave abruptly after his lawyer ended up going after Hailey himself. Cruise always hated Matt Leonard and oddly, hated him even more now. He was glad Leonard was dead. Good riddance.
The commercial ended and The Harry Todd Show resumed. An argument seemed to ensue between Hailey and Harry Todd. From what Cruise could make of what they were saying, Hailey nailed him.
Watching her in action again, his chest tightened. Being in court with her was one of his worst recurring nightmares. And now, here she was again, gorgeous, her blonde hair framing her face, her skin perfect and her teeth naturally white and barely showing between her lips when she spoke. Cruise noticed she never cracked a smile. Some things never changed. As much as he hated Hailey Dean, he stayed glued to his seat a few feet away from the TV, until the next commercial.
The chatter in the commercial break suddenly annoyed him and he wanted to kick the screen in. In fact, he wanted to tear the whole room up, kick in the walls, lift up the furniture and send it crashing to the middle of the floor, tear down the curtains, and put his fists through the windows.
Cruise clicked the remote and the screen went black. Who the hell did she think she was? He was living in a fleabag flophouse and she was on TV. He wondered if her hair still smelled the same as it did in court. He’d gotten close enough to smell her only once.
The thought of her made his whole body tense. For the first time in months, the old feeling was back . . . His hands were starting to tingle. He was superhuman . . . again. He had the power. Cruise forced his hands into balls and stuffed them down the sides of the chair’s seat cushion. The electric sensation pulsed through his fingertips and into his palms . . . Even his wrists were on fire. In the dark of the penitentiary cell block, after lights out, he’d had plenty of time to think about Hailey Dean
Cruise walked to the front window of his room and looking out into the night, stood rooted at the curtain’s edge, trying to shake off the electric sensation now tripping through his arms and chest. To hell with her. He was sick of Tennessee and sick of hiding out in the middle of nowhere. Seeing her again made him realize . . . He had unfinished business. In New York.
Chapter 12
Two Weeks Later
Hell’s Kitchen, Manhattan
IF IT WEREN’T AT THE EDGE OF HELL’S KITCHEN, SHE’D NEVER HAVE FOUND A parking spot. Prentiss Love had just finished her “hot yoga” class and was headed for her shiny new, metallic sand-colored Mercedes SUV parked around back of the yoga studio. She needed to relax. The last season of her reality show Celebrity Closets had nearly killed her. The pressure, the fans, and of course the celebrities whose closets she was expected to m
agically organize and transform . . . It was all driving her crazy.
Couldn’t they see she was an artist? She needed space . . . space to promote artistic thinking and creativity. She hadn’t done anything really creative since she performed in a music video with an animated cartoon raccoon as a dance partner. Now that was something she was proud of.
She’d only recently discovered hot yoga, a series of intense yoga poses done in a room heated to temperatures of around 100 degrees. It was all about profuse sweating. It ridded the “bodily temple” of all the toxins introduced to it by consumption of toxic foods such as doughnuts, Twinkies, processed meats, and of course, Mexican food of any type.
Her instructor, Enrique, said the purpose was to make the body warm, and therefore more flexible. Prentiss was all about having a warmer, more flexible body.
This particular yoga studio was out of the way and word hadn’t yet seeped out about it. It was only a matter of time before every woman in New York heard about Enrique, or “Rick-ay” to Prentiss, and flocked to him, completely ruining the ambience for Prentiss.
Rick-ay had promised Prentiss private hot yogas if necessary. She could hardly wait. He’d actually studied under the greatest living yoga master of all times, the genius Bikram Padhoury. Padhoury pioneered hot yoga, including pranayama exercises. Screw pranayama, whatever the hell that was, as far as Prentiss was concerned. She just wanted to somehow do the poses well enough not to topple over facedown into her yoga mat in front of Rick-ay.
Much less in front of the others, who seemed to Prentiss to be way too serious about the whole thing. She got the feeling they looked down their snouts at her.
She actually overheard one of them after class whispering about her at the water jug, a clear glass receptacle displaying filtered spring water with lemons floating in it. The tall one said to the short mousy one that she, Prentiss Love, smelled like red meat. How in the hell can somebody smell like red meat? What . . . The scent of lamb just oozes from your pores?