Desperate Girls

by Laura Griffin

  His gaze narrowed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I have an early start tomorrow, so . . . thanks for talking.”

  He nodded.

  She turned and walked away, leaving him alone with the TV until one of his teammates came to relieve him at twelve—which thankfully meant she wouldn’t be bumping into him in the middle of the night.

  “Brynn.”

  She turned around.

  “I’ve been following the trial, and you’re right about what you told Reggie.”

  She arched her eyebrows.

  “The jury isn’t buying what Conlon’s selling. They want to hear your case. So good luck with Perez tomorrow.”

  Good luck? Wasn’t he taking her to the courthouse?

  “Aren’t you driving me?” she asked.

  “Yeah. I just mean good luck, you know, in case I don’t get a chance to tell you tomorrow.”

  “You mean tell me something personal in front of Hayes.”

  He nodded, and for no logical reason, that hurt her feelings.

  “I realize it’s late in the game,” he said, “but I’m trying to keep this aboveboard.”

  The game. Ouch.

  “Hey, no worries, I understand.” She forced a smile. “Good night.”

  Erik felt itchy. Edgy. The constant low-grade tension he’d been feeling for days had ramped up tonight, and he couldn’t shake it.

  He didn’t want to. The feeling was useful because it was instinctive. Erik had long ago learned to use his instincts, especially when they were trying to warn him.

  Erik had given up on sleep at his hotel and returned to Brynn’s apartment. Now he paused in the dim stairwell and listened.

  No footsteps above or below. No groan of an elevator. At 0300, most of the building was asleep, and the hum of the AC duct overhead was the only sound.

  He took the flights quickly. Reaching the bottom, he aimed his penlight at the recently installed surveillance cam. Everything looked in order. Erik slipped through the door and crossed the Atrium’s deserted lobby, where the silence was broken by the gurgling fountain. He took the back exit near the parking garage and stepped into the muggy night, scanning the alley behind Brynn’s building.

  The alley had been a thorn in his side for days. The narrow strip of pavement had countless entry points, and short of setting up roadblocks, it was impossible to control traffic in and out, which created a security weakness. To make up for it, Skyler’s team had installed half a dozen extra cameras at various corners, but Erik still wasn’t satisfied.

  Sticking to the shadows, Erik passed the entrance to the Atrium’s parking garage. He made his way down the alley soundlessly, searching for threats. He passed Dumpsters and stacks of pallets where the air smelled of rotting garbage. He moved along the building adjacent to the Atrium’s garage and emerged onto Commerce Street.

  A small black four-door caught his eye. Engine off, no lights. It was parked at an empty meter a block from the Atrium, and a lone male sat behind the wheel. He wasn’t moving or looking at a cell phone, just sitting there with his gaze trained on the building.

  Erik approached from behind, careful to avoid his mirrors. He ducked low behind the car and waited. A minute ticked by. Two. He clenched his hand into a fist and made his move.

  Erik pounded on the glass, and the man jumped.

  “What the fuck?” he said, pushing open the door.

  “You need to watch your mirrors.”

  Keith glared up at him. “Shit, Morgan. I could have shot you.”

  “First you’d have to notice me. Which you didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “What’s up, man? Everybody’s asleep, right?”

  Erik nodded, scanning the street in both directions. “Anything since midnight?” By “anything,” he meant a black Honda or a white pickup truck.

  “Caldwell made a pass around two, but other than that, nothing.”

  “Caldwell himself?”

  “Yeah.”

  Erik was impressed. He would have expected the marshal to be tucked into bed next to his wife about now. Erik tapped on the top of the door.

  “Stay awake,” he said, and walked away.

  Erik circled the block and approached the Atrium from the north this time. Traffic was light, but he could hear the distance whir of cars on a nearby overpass. Erik reached the six-story parking garage behind Brynn’s building. He had been keeping an eye on it. The garage wasn’t associated with the Atrium, and his team had no control over who came and went, so it was another source of concern. He checked the new security cams and looked around before taking the stairs to level two. He emerged from the stairwell and halted. Something was off. He stood motionless until he identified the issue. The light fixture near the elevator was out.

  Erik surveyed the parked cars as he moved toward the shadowy alcove. He passed a row of steel cages where renters stored bikes, camping equipment, and other crap they didn’t have room for in their apartments. When he reached the dim alcove, he took out his flashlight and crouched below the light fixture, noting the shards of glass on the concrete.

  Thud.

  Erik stood and turned, drawing his weapon. The noise had come from a nearby row of cars. Erik moved toward it, hyperalert for any sound or movement. No lights, no people. He reached the row and swept his flashlight beam between the cars. Beside the one on the end, he spied something small and white. A flattened cigarette butt. Erik knelt and touched the blackened end. Still warm.

  An engine roared on the level below him. Tires shrieked. Erik ran to the wall and peered over as a black car sped down the side street and hooked a right onto Commerce. It was a Honda.

  “Fuck!”

  Erik made a call as he raced downstairs.

  “Caldwell.”

  “I’ve got a black Honda on Commerce. It just exited a garage near the Atrium, and it’s moving west. Where’s your nearest unit?”

  “Morgan?”

  “Yes! I need a unit.”

  “Roger that. We’ve got someone on Pearl.” Commotion on the other end as Caldwell talked to someone on a radio. “You said westbound?”

  “Affirmative. Call me back.”

  Erik reached the sidewalk and ran for Keith’s car. He pounded on the trunk before jumping into the passenger seat.

  “Drive!”

  “What? Where—”

  “Pull a U-turn here.”

  Keith complied, pointing them westbound, and hit the gas. Erik quickly saw the problem. They were coming up on an interstate, which was near a major interchange. The only taillights in sight were a gray pickup and a white SUV. Had he turned off somewhere?

  “Is it him? You saw him?” Keith was alert now, gripping the wheel.

  “I saw a black Honda Civic.”

  The traffic light ahead went yellow.

  “You’re clear,” Erik said. “Punch it.”

  Keith sailed through the intersection, glancing at Erik. They were almost to the interstate, which meant three choices.

  “Hang a right,” Erik ordered as Caldwell called back. “You have him?”

  “No. We’ve got two units in the area, but they don’t see him.”

  Erik scanned the cars ahead as they entered the freeway. Traffic was light, but there was no black Honda in sight. Keith pressed the gas, but Erik could already tell he’d made the wrong call. A major interchange came into view, and the choices multiplied.

  “That interchange is a spaghetti bowl,” Caldwell said. “He could be anywhere by now. Did you see the driver?”

  “No, but there was someone staked out in the garage, having a smoke, with a clear view of the Atrium’s north exit, the one facing the parking garage.”

  “You think it was Corby.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  “That would be pretty ballsy, him getting so close after what went down Friday.”

  Which was exactly how Erik knew it was Corby. Everything he’d done till now had been a big fuck-you to law
enforcement.

  He heard Caldwell’s muffled voice as he gave orders over the radio. After an endless wait, he came back on. “Morgan, I think we lost him. I’ve got two units there, and they’re both saying it’s a no-go. Wherever he was, he’s gone.”

  “Head back,” Erik told Keith. “We’ll run the surveillance footage, see what we get.”

  “Why would Corby be there now?” Caldwell asked. “At three in the goddamn morning?”

  “Maybe he’s waiting.”

  Setting up an ambush, in other words.

  “Shit. Who’s taking Brynn Holloran to court tomorrow?”

  “I am. Eight sharp.”

  “Okay, keep your eyes peeled,” Caldwell said. “We’ll be around.”

  So would Erik.

  And his gut told him Corby would, too.

  ERIK’S MOOD the next morning was extra-grim, and Brynn picked up on the tension as they rode the elevator down together. He and Hayes hustled her into the Tahoe at warp speed and then took a strangely circuitous route to the courthouse. Neither said a word the entire way.

  Brynn didn’t mind. She used the drive to calm her nerves and get in the zone. It was going to be lonely at the defense table without Ross. He was her support, her ally, always there to whisper a question or jot a note to help her through a cross-examination when she got stuck. The prospect of moving forward without him was more daunting than she’d admitted to Reggie, and she had hardly slept last night, tossing and turning with nightmares about her very first witness stumbling on the stand.

  The nightmares didn’t come close to reality. Perez crashed and burned.

  He muddled through her questions with incomplete answers and inconsistencies, completely forgetting all the straightforward responses they’d painstakingly rehearsed together the day before. His testimony about his activities on the night of Seth Moore’s murder was shaky at best, and Brynn knew that when Conlon got ahold of him, it was going to be a bloodbath.

  It was. By the time the prosecutor finished his cross-examination, it had come out that although Perez had spent much of his evening at his girlfriend’s apartment, he hadn’t been alone. Perez revealed—to Brynn’s utter surprise—that a female “friend” had shown up while he and Justin were watching basketball, and Perez had been with her in the bedroom for the second half of the Spurs game.

  Justin’s alibi was shredded.

  When Perez finally finished his testimony and slunk out of the courtroom, Conlon looked triumphant, Brynn was reeling, and the jurors were eyeing her with suspicion, no doubt wondering what had possessed her to put Perez on the stand to kick off her case.

  The jury was disappointed in her, Brynn could tell. One witness in, and already she’d broken a commandment. Linden smacked his gavel for the lunch break, and Brynn watched the jurors file from the courtroom with a knot of dread in her stomach. The bailiff led Justin out, and Brynn suppressed the urge to scream.

  Her client had held out on her. It had happened before, and she should be used to it by now. But she felt gut-punched.

  She grabbed her attaché case. For the first time all day, she was grateful to be alone at the defense table so that none of her colleagues could witness the disaster. She left the courtroom trailed by Hayes and saw Conlon duck into the men’s room.

  Brynn followed him. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed Hayes’s worried frown as she pushed open the door.

  Conlon stood at a urinal. The man beside him took one look at Brynn, then quickly zipped up and scuttled away.

  “Counselor.”

  The prosecutor looked over his shoulder and scowled. “Well, well. You must really be desperate if you’re looking for deals in the john.”

  “I’m not here for a deal.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He zipped up and turned around. “You sure? I’ve got an alphabet soup of evidence—GSR, DNA, the list goes on.”

  She smiled. “I’m here with a little reminder that witness tampering is a felony. My investigator knows about that plane ticket and the suite at the Bellagio.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “Damn, you are delusional, aren’t you?”

  “And if I can prove you knew about it, you will be disbarred. Oh, and sent off to prison, too, with some of the people you helped put away.”

  He shook his head.

  “Have a nice day,” she said, and walked out.

  Erik surveyed the street from his lofty perch, searching for any sign of Corby or one of his known vehicles. The military-grade binoculars brought everything into razor-sharp focus as he monitored traffic and pedestrians a thousand feet below. No one looked up—not once—but Erik wasn’t surprised. People never seemed concerned about or even aware of the possibility of being observed from above.

  Erik’s phone buzzed, and he dug it from his pocket.

  “Hey, what’s your twenty?” Jeremy asked.

  “I’m on the roof of the courthouse.”

  “We just got a lead.”

  Erik’s pulse picked up, and he waited, still peering through the glass.

  “There’s an Ann K. Johnson living in Fort Worth. Husband, Gary. He’s got a black Honda Civic registered to his name. And get this—he’s dead.”

  “The husband?”

  “Yeah, Gary Johnson. Died a year ago. So maybe his wife’s using his car.”

  “Or lending it out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Sounds promising,” Erik said. “The marshals finally got something.”

  “This came from Leary. She called me five minutes ago.”

  “Figures. That detective’s sharper than all those marshals put together.” Erik lowered the binoculars and skimmed the street in front of the courthouse. The sun blazed down on him, roasting him through his starched dress shirt.

  “They’re going to swing by the address,” Jeremy said, “see if anything raises a flag. I’m planning to go, if you want to come.”

  “I’ll stay here with Brynn.”

  “You sure? Isn’t she in court?”

  She was, along with two dedicated agents and a sheriff’s deputy, but Erik wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. How’s it going there?”

  “Quiet.”

  Too quiet.

  Erik lifted the binoculars again, unsure why he felt that way, but he did. Something was wrong. The air was too hot, too still, too saturated with sunlight. The conditions felt ripe for . . . something. He didn’t know.

  Jeremy picked up on his tension.

  “Stay alert,” he told Erik.

  “Roger that.”

  “THE DEFENSE calls Joseph Rivas.”

  Surprise flickered across Conlon’s face, but he quickly covered it. Brynn had done some haystacking of her own, and she could see the prosecutor hadn’t expected her to call one of Justin’s friends, who had at no time mentioned seeing Justin on the night of the murder.

  Joseph Rivas was sworn in. The lanky nineteen-year-old wore black jeans—no rips, per Brynn’s advice—and a belt to keep them from falling down his hips.

  “Mr. Rivas, could you please tell us where you were on the night of March fifth?”

  He cleared his throat and nodded. “I was at Justin Sebring’s house playing Call of Duty.”

  “And was Justin there with you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  It was the only time Brynn didn’t mind being called ma’am, because it made her witness seem respectful.

  “What time did you arrive at Justin’s house?”

  “Eight fifteen. I went over straight after work.”

  “I see. And who answered the door?”

  “No one. I just walked in. Aunt Sylvia leaves it open.”

  “Aunt Sylvia. Do you mean Sylvia Sebring, Justin’s mother? Is she your aunt?”

  “No, everyone just calls her that. She lets us hang there, eat, play games. Whatever. We come and go.”

  “Okay, so you arrived at the house, and did you see Justin’s mother, Sylvia?”

  �
�Yeah, she was in the kitchen.”

  “And where was Justin?”

  “She said he was out watching the ball game—”

  “Objection, hearsay.” Conlon stood up.

  Linden looked at Brynn. “Sustained.”

  “Was Justin there when you arrived?” Brynn asked.

  “No.”

  “Were you surprised not to see him there?”

  “No. I’d seen him earlier at work. He told me he was going to Perez’s girlfriend’s place to watch basketball that night.”

  “Mr. Rivas, where do you work?”

  “Over at Chicken Stop. The one on Bissell Street.”

  “And you’d seen Justin there earlier that day?”

  He nodded.

  Brynn smiled. “Could you please answer yes or no, for the court reporter?”

  He glanced at the judge. “Sorry. Yes. He came in at lunch, and we talked while I rang up his food.”

  “I see. And could you tell us what you wear to work, Mr. Rivas?”

  Conlon stood. “Objection, relevance.”

  “Your Honor, the relevance will become clear in a moment.”

  Linden nodded. “Overruled.”

  “Mr. Rivas? What do you wear to work?”

  “A red T-shirt with the Chicken Stop logo on the front. It’s a yellow chicken.”

  “Before you worked at Chicken Stop, did you work at any other fast-food restaurants?”

  “Burger Shack.”

  “And did you have a uniform there, too?”

  He nodded. “A blue T-shirt with—”

  “Objection, relevance.” Conlon sounded annoyed now.

  “Your Honor, as I said, the relevance will become clear momentarily.” She shot Conlon a look.

  “Soon, Ms. Holloran. Overruled.”

  “Thank you. Did either of your employers give you the shirt you’re required to wear at work?”

  “No, ma’am. I mean, they gave it to me, but they docked the money out of my first paycheck.”

  “And how many uniform shirts do you have for your current job?”

  “One.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yeah, I have to wash it at night if it gets dirty.”

  “And have you ever lost your work shirt?”

  “No. I keep up with it.”

  “If you ever did lose it, would your employer buy you a new one, or would the new shirt come out of your paycheck, too?”