Kelsi blushed. “It’s going good. He’s sweet, and he doesn’t play games. I’m tired of games. I swear, I think that’s all law students know how to do.”
McDonald smiled. “The law school always did strike me as an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210.”
“What’s that?”
“I guess I’m showing my age. It was a teen soap opera that was all the rage when I was in high school. The characters seemed to be playing musical chairs with their relationships in every episode. Dylan and Brenda. Dylan and Kelly. Kelly and Brandon. Brandon and—”
“—Brenda?”
“No. That would’ve been illegal. Brandon and Brenda were brother and sister.”
McDonald and Kelsi laughed. They enjoyed more wine, chili, and each other’s company. They were friends now. Nothing more.
McDonald had suspected when Kelsi was working as his research assistant that she had a crush on him. That happened occasionally. After all, he was smart, good-looking, and kind. But he had also known that Kelsi was too sensible of a young woman to act on her feelings. That said, he was delighted that she was dating Agent Neal. It took the pressure off.
Kelsi thanked McDonald for the wonderful evening, scrounged through her purse for her keys, and pulled out of the driveway.
She switched on her headlights and navigated the twists and turns of the dark country road. She smiled. It had taken a while—four months to be precise—but she was starting to feel normal again. She had Brian Neal’s love to thank for that, in addition to small gestures of kindness such as being invited to dinner at Justice McDonald’s house.
Kelsi was smart enough to know that she should have told McDonald about her most recent encounter with Clay Smith, but she just wanted to forget about it for a while. A desire to forget also explained why she had changed her mind about visiting McDonald in chambers during her recent trip to the Supreme Court. Besides, she said to herself as she popped a favorite CD into the car stereo, she never expected to see Clay again. The police had told her that he had left the state and was nowhere to be found.
CHAPTER 86
The police were wrong: Clay Smith was waiting for Kelsi Shelton when she arrived at her apartment. He had climbed through her bedroom window and was hiding in the closet. He knew the place well. He had been there before.
“Why are you doing this to me again?” Kelsi cried, while she struggled to free herself from Clay’s powerful grasp.
Clay placed his hand over Kelsi’s mouth and clung tightly to her waist with his other arm. He said, “I’m sorry. I have no choice.”
Of course he had a choice. Everyone had choices … even young men who belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. But human nature was such that most people tried to deny moral responsibility for the problematic choices they sometimes made. Clay Smith was one of those people.
He spotted a gym bag on the floor near Kelsi’s desk. He snagged it by the strap and instructed Kelsi to fill it with clothes.
Kelsi said, “W … why? W … where are we going? I thought you felt bad about what you did before?”
“I did feel bad, and I still do. But like I said, I’ve got no choice. I’ll let you know the ‘where’ part when we get there.”
Actually, Clay didn’t know the answer to Kelsi’s question about where they were headed. He had a pocketful of possibilities—a stack of MapQuest printouts—but that was about it. He was playing it by ear. He had been taught at UVA that a good lawyer always knew where he was going with his case. He could only hope that another law school lesson—there was an exception to every rule—proved true instead.
Brian Neal tried to distract himself by watching ESPN’s Sunday night baseball. He was addicted to ESPN—twenty-four-hour TV sports was a weekend warrior’s wet dream—and he was nuts about baseball. But he cared more about Kelsi Shelton, and he knew how fond Kelsi was of Justice McDonald. The green-eyed monster frequently made appearances in new relationships, and it was rearing its ugly head at the moment in Neal’s relationship with Kelsi.
Neal popped open a beer in the hopes of calming his nerves. Secret Service agents were schooled about the pitfalls of alcohol, and Neal rarely drank, but tonight he was making an exception. He knew that he didn’t stand a chance in a head-to-head competition with McDonald—a glorified police officer versus a Supreme Court justice was like comparing a Division III swimmer to Michael Phelps—and he needed to try something to distract himself from that cold, hard fact.
He couldn’t stop thinking about it, though. He couldn’t stop his mind from racing … from cataloging every weakness he possessed and every attribute of Justice McDonald. He muted the television and retrieved his cell phone from his pocket. Still no voice mail. Still no message from Kelsi. She had promised to call as soon as she arrived home, and it was well past midnight. He decided to call her instead. He hit her entry on his speed dial but was immediately directed to her voice mail. It said, “Hi. This is Kelsi. I’m out saving the world right now. Please leave a message.”
Neal smiled at the “saving the world” remark. He always did. He often teased Kelsi about her unbridled ambition. He understood its origins, however. It had been like pulling teeth, but he had finally managed to pry the information out of her.
Kelsi Shelton was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, to a single mother who had to work two jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Kelsi had never met her father. All Kelsi’s mother would ever say when Kelsi asked about him was that he had left before Kelsi was born. She wouldn’t even tell Kelsi his name or where he lived. Kelsi had discovered that information on her own. She had been in the process of trying to learn more about her dad when Clay Smith had abducted her.
CHAPTER 87
Clay pushed his baseball cap down on his forehead so that his eyes were barely visible. He was finding it difficult to see, but he didn’t want to risk someone recognizing him. He had read in the local Charlottesville newspaper while he was waiting for Kelsi to come home that the police had given up almost all hope of finding him. Still, he needed to be careful. He glanced to his right. “How are you holding up?”
Kelsi said, “As if you care.”
“Believe it or not, I do.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“Like I said before, I’m sorry it has come to this. But I’ve got no choice.”
“You said that last time.”
“I meant it then, too.”
“I don’t believe you. You’ve said over and over that you care about me. If that were true, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Clay sat in silence, with no way to respond. What Kelsi said was true, and he knew it.
Clay turned onto State Road 250 and stepped on the accelerator. They were headed toward the Blue Ridge Mountains, about thirty miles outside of Charlottesville. They needed to find somewhere to spend the night, and Clay knew of a good camping site in the George Washington National Forest. He had spent several weekends there when he was in law school. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stack of MapQuest directions. He flipped through them. He couldn’t find the one for the camping site—it must have fallen out of his pocket somewhere—but he was pretty sure he remembered the way.
The George Washington National Forest extended from the entire length of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the North Carolina border. Seemingly every form of outdoor activity was available there: hiking, fishing, mountain biking, horseback riding, hawk watching, nature photography. Clay brought Kelsi to the Trout Pond Campground. Clay was a southern boy, and he loved to fish. But this particular campground was also a perfect hiding spot—remote, difficult to find, and rarely frequented.
Kelsi said, “It’s a bit chilly for camping, don’t you think?”
Clay said, “I’ve got plenty of blankets. We’ll be fine.” He unloaded the blankets from the backseat of his car. He pulled a tent from the trunk.
“One tent?” Kelsi asked.
“One tent,” Clay answered. “I’ll be on my best behavior. I
promise.”
“I don’t believe a word you say. I never will again. But there’s nothing I can do about it. You know it, and I know it.”
Clay didn’t reply. He set up the tent and unrolled the sleeping bags.
Kelsi stood and watched. She considered making a run for it, but she knew that Clay was a lot faster than she was. She also seemed resigned to her fate. Psychological studies revealed that was a common reaction for victims of kidnappings.
Clay removed a butane camping stove from his backpack. He opened a can of franks and beans with a Swiss army knife, poured the contents into a Sierra cup, and stirred the modest supper with the tiny spoon on his knife. He said, “Are you hungry?”
Kelsi said, “No.” She was starving, but she didn’t want to give Clay the satisfaction of thinking he was doing her a favor.
“Suit yourself.” Clay ate a spoonful. “It’s mighty tasty, though. Nothing beats franks and beans on a camping trip.”
“That’s what you’re calling this, ‘a camping trip’? I think the police will call it kidnapping.”
“Like I said four times already, I’ve got no choice. I know you’re upset, but I’m tired of your broken record.” There was an edge to Clay’s voice.
Kelsi picked up on it and wisely decided to stop twisting the proverbial knife. She knew from personal experience that Clay was willing to kill her.
Several minutes passed with nothing but the sounds of a back-country night: rustling trees, a symphony of crickets, the occasional howling coyote.
Clay broke the silence: “At least drink some water.”
Kelsi did. In fact, she drank the entire bottle. She was parched. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “If I remember correctly, you’re from Charleston, right?”
“Right. Why?”
“My dad lives there. Or at least he used to. I’ve never met him, but I found out recently that he’s from there.”
Clay smiled. “A southern belle, eh?”
“No. Charlottesville is as far south as I’ve ever been. I’m from Wisconsin. My mom’s from Goose Creek, though. She met my dad during a high school football game. She was a cheerleader from the visiting team. He was the buddy of one of the players on the home team. There was a party afterwards. One thing led to another, and my mom got pregnant with me.”
“How’d you end up in Wisconsin?”
“My grandparents sent my mom to live with her grandparents. You know, to avoid the embarrassment of a high school pregnancy.”
“How old was she?”
“Fifteen.”
“How old was he?”
“Seventeen.”
“Is his name Shelton, like yours?”
“No. Shelton is my mom’s name. My father’s name was … is—I don’t know whether he’s alive or dead—Collier … Billy Joe Collier.”
Clay almost dropped his Sierra cup. He knew whether Kelsi’s father was dead or alive. He was the one who had killed him.
CHAPTER 88
Brian Neal jumped out of his car and hurdled up the stairs to Kelsi Shelton’s apartment. He pounded on the door. It was three o’clock in the morning, but he was desperate. He needed to know. Had Kelsi made her choice? He knew it was Kelsi’s choice. Beautiful women always got to choose. Beautiful women always had a parade of men chasing them… . Guys were almost never in control.
Neal continued to pound on the door. A light from the apartment next to Kelsi’s flickered on. A disheveled young man—a UVA student, almost certainly—opened his door and said, “What the hell, man? It’s … it’s, like, four o’clock in the morning.”
Neal said, “It’s three.”
The sleep-deprived student said, “And that’s supposed to make it OK to bang on my neighbor’s door in the middle of the night?” He slammed his door in Neal’s face.
Neal waited for the student to switch off the light. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a paperclip. He straightened one end, inserted it into the lock on Kelsi’s door, and jimmied his way into her apartment. He had learned how to do it while he was being trained to become a Secret Service agent. The bodies that agents were assigned to protect were sometimes the targets of kidnapping plots, and locked doors sometimes had to be accessed. But Neal never imagined that he would use what he had learned to try to track down a girlfriend who was suddenly incommunicado.
“Kelsi,” he said as he stepped over the threshold. “It’s me … Brian.”
Nothing. The apartment was as quiet as a morgue. Neal flipped on the lights. Still nothing. Still no sign of where Kelsi might be. He walked to her bedroom and pushed open the door. Kelsi wasn’t there, and her bed hadn’t been slept in. Neal’s mind raced through a series of possibilities: she was pulling an all-nighter at the law library … she was sleeping with Justice McDonald … she was spending the night at Sue Plant’s apartment… .
Neal quickly dismissed the first possibility because Kelsi had told him as recently as the day before that exams were more than a month away and that she was caught up on the work she had missed when she was in the hospital. The thought of the second possibility—that Kelsi was having sex with Justice McDonald—made him sick to his stomach. He prayed it was the third. He jumped back into his car to find out.
Sue Plant was more polite than Kelsi’s neighbor had been when Brian Neal appeared at her door in the wee hours of the morning. She was equally puzzled, though. “Is everything OK?”
Neal said, “Sorry to wake you, Sue. But is Kelsi here?”
Sue rubbed sleep from her eyes. “No. Why would she be?”
“I thought maybe you two were watching a movie or something. She said she’d call, but she never did… . She’s not at her apartment.”
Sue was Kelsi’s best friend, and she obviously knew that Kelsi had been having dinner with Justice McDonald earlier that evening. She also knew what sometimes came after dinner, and it wasn’t merely dessert. “I don’t know what to say.” She did, but she didn’t want to say it. She also didn’t need to say it. She patted Neal on the arm and watched him walk away.
Clay Smith waited until Kelsi Shelton was asleep and then quietly stepped away from the campsite. He didn’t stray far. He needed to keep an eye on her.
He punched the power button on his cell phone and hoped he got a signal. He did, albeit only two bars worth. One reason he had selected the Trout Pond Campground was that it was remote, but not so remote as to be completely outside the range of a cell phone tower. The other campgrounds at which he had stayed in the past were dead zones.
He retrieved the scrap of paper from his wallet on which he had scribbled the telephone number he was about to call. He entered the digits: 1-434-555-7094. He placed the phone to his ear. It rang and rang and rang … six times, seven times, eight times.
Finally: “H … hello.” The recipient clearly had been asleep.
Clay said, “Are you alone?”
“Wh … who is this?”
“Are you alone?”
“Ye … yes. But who is this? And wh … what time is it?”
“It’s three-thirty. It’s Clay Smith.”
“Clay! Where are you? What do you want? What are you doing?” So much for groggy …
“None of that matters at the moment. The only thing that does is that I’ve got Kelsi. If you want her returned safely, you’ll do what I say.”
“Whatever you want.”
“Good. I was hoping you would see it that way. I don’t wanna hurt her. I don’t. But I will if I have to. I think you know that.”
Peter McDonald said, “I know it. I watch the news. Now what do I have to do?”
“Rewrite your opinion.”
“What are you talking about? I haven’t written any opinions. I just joined the Court.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Professor.” McDonald was still Professor to Clay. “We both know that’s not true. We both know that I’m talking about your opinion in Tucker v. University of South Carolina.”
“The Court hasn’t released an
opinion in that case, let alone an opinion written by me.”
“I’m losing my patience. You’re making me angry. And I don’t wanna get angry. I might do something we’ll both regret if I get angry. I read the draft. I need for you to rewrite the draft. The case needs to come out the other way.”
“The draft? How did you get your hands on the draft? The courthouse is like Fort Knox.”
“Don’t worry about how. It’s the what that matters now … what you say in the opinion.”
“It’s not going to be as easy as you think, Clay.”
“Why not?”
“You need five votes. The vote at conference was six to three. If I switch my vote, it’ll still be five to four against Senator Burton’s family.”
An unanticipated obstacle had been placed in the way of Clay’s plan. He was silent for a moment. He glanced over at Kelsi. She was still sleeping. He finally said, “I guess you better bone up on your skills in the fine art of persuasion. Justice Brennan was a master at persuading his colleagues to see it his way. The legacy of the Warren Court depended on it. Kelsi’s life depends on it this time.”
CHAPTER 89
Peter McDonald took a quick shower, threw on a suit, and headed for Washington. His Charlottesville home faded into the horizon of his rearview mirror. He wondered whether he would ever see it again. His life was very different now from when he and Jenny had purchased the house shortly after he had received tenure at UVA. Now, there was no Jenny. Now, there was no Megan. Now, there was no UVA. Why should there be a dream house? His life was mostly nightmares now.
McDonald maneuvered his car through the early morning traffic and onto the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Bridge. He pondered the biographies of his eight Supreme Court colleagues. Of the five who had joined with him at the post-argument conference to vote against Senator Burton’s family, four were partisan Democrats. Although the canons of judicial ethics forbade federal judges from participating in political events, the four were frequently spotted at Democratic fundraisers. He knew he would be wasting his breath if he tried to persuade them to switch their votes. You can’t teach a yellow dog a new trick, he said to himself as he negotiated the well-planned streets of the nation’s capital. Affirmative action was the sacred cow of the Left. But Donald Lowry was a different story. Donald Lowry was worth a shot.
Mr. Justice Page 20