Reasonable Doubt

by Carsen Taite

  Meg shook her head. “That’s a loaded question. I’m running searches on the documents we have just so we’re prepared for whatever the feds find. I can only pray there are no more surprises like this one, but you can bet there’s a lot more to this. The feds executed searches using this same warrant on Amir’s home and the mosque where WHI has their offices. I tried to call him to discuss it and he wouldn’t take my call. My guess is he’s moved on to other counsel since we’re under a microscope right now.”

  Her words were injected with a heavy dose of anger and Ellery ducked the weight of it. She had enough of her own stuff to be angry about, but she wasn’t going to vent here. She stood up. “I’d buy, but all my money’s frozen.” She patted her pocket. “Thanks for this. I’ll find out what I can and be in touch. You do the same.” She didn’t wait for a response before leaving. Meg would have to find someone else to share her pity party. Ellery was going to focus her efforts on finding the truth because the truth was the only thing that would set her free.

  *

  “Sure I can’t get you a real drink?”

  Sarah looked up from her watered down glass of tonic. The bartender was tall like Ellery and had the same color hair, but the likeness ended there. She looked at her watch. Twelve fifteen. It was time to face the fact Ellery wasn’t going to show up, but the question remained: had she ever intended to? She found it hard to believe Ellery would have stood her up on purpose, but it wasn’t like this was a date. Maybe her father had put a bug in her ear and convinced her a late night meeting with a federal agent was likely to do more harm than good. And he might’ve been right. Sarah found it difficult to resolve all of her personal observations of Ellery with her training to root out evil, but she could tell Ellery was hiding something. The question was whether that something had anything to do with the bombing, and it looked like that question was going to go unanswered tonight.

  She set her glass on the bar and asked for the check. When the bartender waved her off, she tossed a ten on the bar and made her way to the door. To her it was late, but judging by the line outside, this place was just starting to heat up for the night. She acknowledged a few appreciative glances with a nod, but nothing was more attractive right now than the thought of her bed and a good night’s sleep. She slid into her car, and raced the short distance home.

  She collected her mail from the box and slid her key into the door, but stopped before turning it as a slow sense of dread shuddered down her spine. The door was unlocked and no way had she left it like that. She leaned close and listened, hearing nothing but the light sound of the air conditioning whirring in the distance, but she knew without a doubt someone was inside. Inside, where her weapon was locked up in the safe in her study. How quickly she’d gone from the habit of carrying her trusty Glock everywhere to hardly ever carrying it when she was off duty. Unlike serial killers, con men didn’t usually pose the threat of serious bodily injury.

  She paused to think the situation through. The sound of her key in the door was enough to alert anyone inside that she was home. She could turn around and leave or burst through the door and hope she was fast enough to beat their obvious advantage. The decision only took a moment. She wasn’t about to abandon her home to an intruder. She calculated that if someone were waiting for her, they would be sitting in the living room that was situated directly in front of the entryway. If they were burglars, they were probably busy stuffing whatever they could find into bags. Either way, if she acted quickly, she might have a chance. In one solid movement, she twisted the doorknob and shouldered the door open, bending low to gain momentum as she dashed over her threshold and into the study to the right of the door.

  She’d barely made it to the safe, when she heard a familiar voice. “You run like you’re out of shape, kid. What the hell kind of work are you doing that you don’t have time to get to a gym?”

  Damn. Sarah bent over as the adrenaline coursed out of her body and all the exhaustion of the day came roaring back. When she finally got her breath, she stood up and faced her intruder. “What the fuck, Trip? A little warning would be nice.”

  “Just testing your skills. Making sure that desk job didn’t make you go all soft.”

  She punched him on the shoulder on her way to the kitchen. Time to have that drink she’d passed on at the bar. Head in the fridge, she called out, “Beer?”

  “Always.”

  She opened a bottle for him and fixed herself a stiff gin and tonic. As she handed him the bottle she said, “You don’t deserve this. Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?”

  He took a long pull off the beer and then settled into her favorite chair. “I was thinking you’d be happy to see me and glad I didn’t ask you to pick me up from the airport. What’re you all dressed up for?”

  She looked down at her dress. She felt foolish knowing she’d dressed up for a woman who was not only not interested in her, but was in the eye of a huge shit storm. “Drink your beer. I’ll be right back.”

  In her bedroom, she dug sweats out of her dresser drawer and tugged them on. She left her dress in a pile on the floor and stepped into the bathroom to scrub her face. Monday, she’d take the dress to the cleaners and then hang it back up in the closet where it would probably hang for months. Her brief dip into the Dallas scene was over for a while. Barefoot and comfortable, she joined Trip back in the living room.

  “Now, that’s the Flores I remember.”

  His words made her grimace. “Yep, the one who won’t be getting dates anytime soon. I’m guessing you didn’t fly all the way out here to toss me off this case.”

  “Not a chance. But you’ll need to work on the down low. I told the director you already have an in with the attorney and he wants you to do whatever you need to get as close as possible, but it’s important you don’t tip anyone off. Pretty sure the folks over at HSI would have a hissy if they knew we were stepping on their toes.”

  “Wait, you’re telling me BAU is officially on this?”

  “‘Officially’ is not exactly the word I would use.”

  “What you mean is the director ordered it, but will deny he did if whoever is assigned to this little project gets caught.”

  “Exactly. But you’re too good to get caught. I’ve already got a call in to Robert Mason. When he calls me back, I’ll let him know that I need you to finish up some work you were doing on the Atlanta case. That’ll give you some autonomy in the office.”

  “Why don’t you just yank me out of my new job altogether?”

  “Too suspicious. I hear that attorney’s pretty smart. If you’re going to get close to her, you’ll need to be one step ahead.”

  “Hold it right there.” Sarah held up a hand. It was time for her to let Trip know she had no intention of working on his little scheme. “I left the unit for good reasons and those reasons haven’t changed. You’re going to need to find someone else to play spy.”

  He cocked his head. “You’re kidding, right?” He set his beer down. “Who else are we going to find? You know any other agents with your level of training who also happen to have access? Don’t think I don’t know where you were tonight. Look, we don’t know if she’s involved in the bombing or not, but we do know she was the lawyer for the folks that may have been behind it. People tell their lawyers things. Things they won’t tell anyone else. She may know something even if she doesn’t realize it. All you need to do is get close to her and find out what she knows or encourage her to find out what she doesn’t. Piece of cake.”

  Still angry that he’d had her followed, Sarah stifled the impulse to tell him off. Of course, he had eyes on her. It was part of his job and Trip was all about the job. She used to be too, but look where it had gotten her—mid thirties and single with no prospect of that changing in the foreseeable future. Besides, Ellery standing her up at the bar was a clear signal she wasn’t as good at this as she used to be. “If you know what I was doing tonight, then you also know Ellery promised to meet me after the event and s
he didn’t show.”

  He nodded. “Something happened. She was headed your way and then she turned the car around.” He showed her a picture on his phone. “She met with her old law partner at a place on lower Greenville. I hear they used to be a thing. Maybe it was a booty call.”

  Sarah tamped down the mental image of Ellery hooking up with the gorgeous redhead in the picture. Would Ellery really have abandoned the opportunity to learn more about the case against her for a late night rendezvous? Maybe celebrating a successful show had seemed more important than criminal charges. Sarah tried hard not to compare herself with the woman in the photo, but it was hard. “I guess whoever you had following her wasn’t good enough to find out if she blew me off for business or pleasure.”

  “She left alone, but she hasn’t gotten home yet. I called off the tail. Late night, not much traffic. No sense getting made. Besides, we have a tracker on her car.”

  Sarah wondered if they had a warrant for the tracker. She was definitely going soft. She wouldn’t have given the method a second thought when she was at BAU. Whatever it took to bring in the bad guy was the mantra there. As long as they had enough legally admissible evidence to make the case, a few cut corners here and there wouldn’t get in the way of a closed case.

  “Who knows? Maybe she blew off the redhead and doubled back to meet you.”

  Maybe she had, but it didn’t matter. Her attraction to Ellery was both strong and completely unsustainable. If she agreed to do what Trip wanted, it would have to be because of the job and not her attraction to Ellery. A good BAU agent had focus and objectivity. She had neither when it came to Ellery Durant, not to mention that diving completely into this project meant breaking the promise she’d made when she moved to Dallas.

  “Trip, I care about this case, I really do, but I’m not the one for this job. I left BAU for a reason. I need a life. Not a fake, string some woman along to get information to build a case against her life, but a real life. This job can’t be everything I have. I want a lover, a family, hobbies that don’t include going to the range and analyzing psychos. I’m never going to have that if I keep getting pulled back in.”

  His eyes were kind, but his expression was firm as he said, “If I was trying to trap you in your old life, I wouldn’t have let you leave Atlanta when you did. You can have all that sappy stuff, but I just need you to do this one thing.”

  He needn’t have begged. No matter how she tried to resist, the instinct to respond to the call of duty was in her DNA, and the desire to see Ellery again, under any circumstances, was unstoppable.

  Chapter Twelve

  Ellery rolled out of bed the moment she heard the rattle of pots and pans. She hadn’t slept, and it had taken every ounce of self-control she had not to wake her father in the middle of the night to demand answers. Now that he was up, she wasn’t going to wait any longer. She pulled on a pair of sweats and her running shoes and grabbed her keys.

  He was standing in the middle of kitchen with a carton of eggs in one hand and a frying pan in the other. “Good morning,” he said. “Please tell me you have bacon.”

  “Put all that away. We’re going out to eat.”

  “Not a chance. When’s the last time I made you one of my famous omelets? If you don’t have bacon, I can figure out a substitute.” He poked his head in the refrigerator. “Ham, or maybe—”

  She cut him off. “Dad, we’re going out. I have a very specific craving.” She jingled her keys. “Come on. My treat.”

  He started to say something, but she wagged a finger at him and he finally got the hint. He put the eggs back in the fridge. “Okay, out it is. Who am I to turn down a free meal?”

  When they walked out of the house, she motioned to Leo’s Plymouth and unlocked the doors. Leo, who was nursing an enormous mug of coffee, stuck his head out from behind his morning newspaper and said, “Use it for as long as you need. Lord knows she doesn’t get much action anymore.”

  Ellery smiled for the first time since the show last night, and the action provoked the memory of Sarah smiling at her from across the showroom floor, a smile that had almost allowed her to forget the horrible day she’d had leading up to the show. A smile that almost made her forget that she and Sarah were adversaries. She wondered what Sarah had thought when she hadn’t shown up at the bar last night. Had she waited long? When she figured out she’d been stood up, had she found someone there to occupy her time? In that sexy red dress she’d probably had to fight off candidates for that position.

  “Do you want me to drive?”

  Ellery looked up at her father who was standing by the car. Time to stop thinking about Sarah Flores and focus on herself. “No, I got it.”

  They were several blocks away from the house before her father spoke. “I get that you didn’t want to talk in the house, but I doubt anyone bugged your neighbor’s car on the off chance you might be driving it around.”

  His offhand tone burrowed under her skin. In a few days, or maybe even today if this talk didn’t go well, he would get on a plane and fly back to his carefree retirement spent regaling law students with tales of his glory days. She’d be left to face the fallout of whatever nightmare he’d created. That he could act as if she shouldn’t be totally and completely on guard was galling. “I don’t think you get how big of a deal this investigation is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve handled plenty of high profile cases in my life. More than you ever will. I know exactly what’s in store for you.”

  Ellery bristled at his condescending tone. “Is that supposed to be a jab? I made a choice to quit practicing. It was a personal choice and had nothing to do with you, so I don’t understand why you continue to act like it was a personal affront that I quit the practice.”

  “Because it was. I spent my life building that practice and you let it go after little more than a decade. It was our legacy.”

  “Correction,” she said. “It was your legacy.”

  “You were a brilliant lawyer.”

  Ellery sighed. “Funny, you never said that when we worked together.”

  “Maybe I was afraid to praise you too much for fear you’d quit striving to be better.”

  She could tell he was trying to buffer his remarks, but his words burrowed under her skin. “How can you still not get me? It’s not in me to quit striving to be better. I’ll always be a perfectionist, just like you and just like Mom, but if I choose to apply my energy in a different direction than you expect, suddenly I’m a quitter.”

  “There’s no doubt you have many talents, I just hate to see you waste this particular one. Not everyone has the gift of advocacy.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I’ve got it because it looks like I’m going to need it now more than ever.”

  “You’re not alone in this. I’m going to stick around, work on your case. I’ll call in some favors to make sure you have a legal defense dream team.”

  “No, you won’t. I’ll be dealing with this on my own.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Let me help you.”

  “It’s true I need help, but you’re the last person that can help me.” She pounded a fist on the steering wheel. “You’re probably the reason I’m in this mess in the first place.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ellery pulled into a parking lot at White Rock Lake, and motioned for her father to follow her out of the car. When they were about fifty feet from the car and well out of earshot of the cyclists and joggers who were making their way around the lake, she told him everything Meg had told her the night before. As she spoke, he started to pace and she recognized the familiar sign of increasing agitation. He barely waited for her to finish before saying, “And you seriously think I helped terrorists set up a funding channel for their enterprise?”

  “What am I supposed to think?” Ellery viewed it as an honest question rather than an accusation.

  “I should hope you know me better than that. I’ve known Amir Khan for years
. I’ve handled code violations for his businesses and petty crimes for various relatives, but never, not once, has he asked me to do anything illegal.”

  “Did you draft the filing for his charity?” His gaze was firmly fixed on the ground, and Ellery knew something was up. She pressed him again. “Dad, I need to know if you helped Amir set up Welcome Home International. Tell me.”

  He bowed his head for a moment and when he looked back up, she saw guilt reflected in his eyes. “You did, didn’t you?”

  He shook his head. “Yes, I mean no, not really. It’s complicated.”

  “I haven’t got anything better to do, so start explaining.” She motioned to a bench near the lake’s edge. They walked over and she sat down while he continued to pace, his furtive movements scattering the ducks that were hanging out near the shoreline. The pacing was one of his signature habits. When in trial, he always managed to cover the entire well of the courtroom when he was making arguments to a jury. She’d developed a different style, preferring to let the weight of her words speak on their own rather than reinforce them with exaggerated movements. They were so alike, yet so different in so many ways, and, although she knew he sometimes glossed over the finer points of things, she doubted he would ever purposefully do anything that placed others at risk.

  But was that even true? He’d worked hard to get not guilty verdicts for people he knew were dangerous. But so had she and every other criminal defense attorney who was any good at what they did. She’d been so good at arguing away the faults of others, her talent had come back to haunt her and was the primary reason she’d left the practice. But helping someone commit a crime was vastly different from holding the state accountable to their burden to prove guilt.