Compulsion (Max Revere Novels Book 2)

by Brennan, Allison

  She glanced at Bachman. Almost did a double take. He was looking at her.

  He gave her that half smile he’d worn during most of their interview.

  She refused to look away. He turned first. She breathed easier.

  “We will be calling to the stand Ava Raines,” Charlene said, “who was kidnapped, drugged, and locked in the trunk of her own car and, only through a chance accident on the Queensboro Bridge, was able to alert police. The police officer who arrested Mr. Bachman will tell you what he found in the trunk of Ava’s car. And the head of our criminal investigation unit will share what his team found in Mr. Bachman’s apartment—personal effects from each of the victims, including car keys from two of the victims.”

  That, too, was news to Max. The police had never revealed that detail. She needed to see those records. If Bachman was a trophy killer, he would have taken something from the Palazzolos. But if the police didn’t know what they were looking for, they might not recognize the “trophy.”

  After Charlene’s monologue, it was Warren’s turn.

  He began, “It is the obligation of the state to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that my client—who has never been in trouble with the police, who has a good job, and a college degree—is guilty. Beyond a reasonable doubt. What does that mean? It means that if you believe, based on the actual evidence presented and not what the A.D.A. says in her opening statement, that my client is guilty, you must convict. But if the state doesn’t have evidence, if they can’t prove to you, the distinguished jury, you must acquit. And I will show you, with each and every witness, that every piece of evidence against my client is circumstantial. There is no physical evidence linking Adam Bachman to any of these murders. No DNA evidence on the bodies or at the crime scene. No witness who can place Mr. Bachman at any of the crime scenes. In fact, the police don’t even know where these poor people were killed. Moreover, even the star witness for the prosecution, Ava Raines, could not pick Mr. Bachman out of a lineup. She doesn’t know how she got into the trunk of her car, and she doesn’t remember seeing Mr. Bachman the night she was abducted.

  “I must remind you—the state must prove its case. My client does not have to say a word; it is strictly up to Ms. Golden to produce solid evidence that Adam Bachman committed these crimes. And I will argue that the evidence is so weak, so circumstantial, that it means nothing. Once again, I will prove that the police rushed to judgment and didn’t consider other possible suspects. In fact, they had no suspects because there is no physical evidence against anyone—including my client.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the state will fail to prove—beyond a reasonable doubt—that Adam Bachman is guilty. And therefore, I am certain, when you see that the state has built a case on weak, circumstantial evidence, you will render a verdict of not guilty.”

  * * *

  Riley Butler’s earliest clear memory was at her first ballet recital when she was four.

  After having two boys, Riley’s mom wanted a girly girl. Her dad had won on the gender-neutral first name, but her mom painted her room pink, gave her dolls and tea sets, and started her in gymnastics and ballet from the minute she could walk.

  Riley loved gymnastics—who wouldn’t love jumping on the trampoline and doing somersaults across the floor?—but she hated ballet.

  Wearing tutus, dumb shoes they called slippers, and tights that made her legs itch was bad, but worse, it hurt her head to put her mass of curly hair up into a tight bun and the gunk on her lips tasted repulsive. And her brothers teased her all the time.

  But the hardest part for Riley was the waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for everyone else to have their turn. Waiting to go on stage. Whatever it was she was supposed to do, Riley did it wrong. Her teacher chastised her all the time.

  Riley, wait your turn.

  Riley, that’s not your cue.

  Riley, please wait.

  That recital when she was four, she’d lost out the privilege of performing the lead dance to a brat named Tiffany Dolan. Tiffany. What a stupid name. Riley was in the same preschool class as Tiffany and she was just as bratty at school as she was in ballet. Worse, teachers loved her. Tiffany could do no wrong. Tiffany got to hand out the cookies. Tiffany got to take the roll call to the office with whomever she chose, and she never chose Riley. And Tiffany got to be the lead in the recital even though Riley was better. Riley heard her teacher tell her mother, “Riley doesn’t take direction well.”

  So she was fuming in the wings, watching Tiffany twirl and twirl, having to wait to go out with all the other butterflies.

  Riley moved out onto the stage before she was supposed to.

  “Wait, Riley!” her teacher said.

  Riley glared at her. She ran out onto the stage and did cartwheels around Tiffany. Literally. She got applause and laughs and she loved those three minutes of fame.

  Her brothers thought she was cool. Her father frowned disapprovingly, but his blue eyes sparkled. Her mother was mortified and stuttered when apologizing to the teacher.

  Riley never went back to ballet. She learned to follow the rules, she learned to listen to her elders, but the one thing she’d never learned to do well was wait.

  She did exactly what Max had told her to do, but that took all of eighteen minutes and Riley had dragged her feet. Then she sat on the bench with reporters and other people who hadn’t been granted access to the courtroom. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, if they talked at all.

  Riley sat. And paced. And waited. She used her phone to research the mental health facilities, and she had a couple of ideas on how to narrow it down, but it would be a lot easier if she had her computer. And the help of a certain Columbia grad school friend who was far better with computers than she was. Meaning, he knew how to hack without getting caught. But what she wanted to know might not even require breaking the law. Maybe just skirting it.

  The problem was, she couldn’t figure out how to identify disgruntled employees from eight years ago out of the dozens of facilities that Adam Bachman might have admitted himself to.

  And she really wanted to watch the trial.

  She wanted to be in the middle of the action. She didn’t know why Max had her waiting out here babysitting Ben Lawson. The producer was high-strung. He’d called her three times the first hour after the trial started, and she had nothing to tell him because there was no information coming from the courtroom.

  Riley had been curious since she was a little kid, she loved writing, and she’d first heard about Maxine Revere three years ago when she was a junior at Columbia. Maxine came to speak to her journalism seminar and then Riley knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to be an investigative reporter. This was before Max had the television show, and her third book had just been released. It was about human trafficking in Mexico and Max had been detained in a Mexican jail while researching the case. It had started as an investigation into kidnapped Americans held for ransom, but turned into a horrific human trafficking conspiracy. It was terrifying and exciting at the same time, Riley thought, and she wanted to do something equally important. She read everything Max had ever written and focused on improving her own skills.

  So when Riley had the opportunity to work for the Maxine Revere, she jumped. She wanted the job so bad she almost panicked. Then, after her interview with Ben Lawson, she knew she wouldn’t get the job. He hated her. She’d been overeager and talked too fast and came off as a hyperactive know-it-all. After a couple of drinks with her best friend, she convinced herself Ben Lawson was an idiot who was intimidated by smart, strong women.

  That she’d been called back for a second interview with Max herself had stunned her. It was clear Ben didn’t like her at first, but Max hired her, and Ben capitulated. And for a while she thought that her second assessment was accurate.

  Except, it was clear that Ben wasn’t intimidated by Max. They fought bitterly, but at the end of the day they were friends, on some level that Riley didn’t understand. Riley ha
d proven herself to Ben and now he seemed to like her.

  Then there was David Kane. He hated her, she saw it as clear as day. Hated her with a passion. As if he could be passionate about anything. Again, her gut assessment about him had been wrong. Initially she thought he was just dumb muscle—she’d met a lot of them who’d worked for her dad or were friends with her brothers, cops who had brawn but lacked it upstairs. She quickly learned—fortunately before she screwed it up with Max—that David was the only person Max deferred to. And he had a brain to go with all that muscle.

  Riley didn’t get it. She tried to figure out what it was between them, but couldn’t. She figured they were doing the horizontal bop, but she didn’t see even a hint of it when they were together—and she was looking hard. If they were having an affair, they were keeping it supersecret. And there was the cop in California that Max was seeing. Riley hadn’t met him, but Ben had mentioned it half a dozen times, usually in the context of Max, you’d better not even think of flying off to California until after this trial.

  Riley had impressed Ben with her dedication. She’d already pegged him as someone who would tolerate most anything if you did a good job. That meant meeting deadlines, doing grunt work, and getting information—especially if you went over and above in the information department. He’d even given her a couple of assignments and she made sure she did them not only well, but fast.

  But nothing Riley did made David Kane happy. The harder she tried, the more he hated her.

  Riley looked at the time again. Eleven forty-five. When were they going to break for lunch? Noon? One? Never? Riley felt like she’d been here for three days instead of three hours. She didn’t know how much work she’d have to do back at the office—her job seemed to change daily, which she liked. She typed a message to her computer guru friend, asking if he had time to see her.

  She hit send and accidentally brushed by someone in the hall. “Sorry,” she said, sheepish, glancing up at the person she’d run into.

  “Isn’t there a law against walking and texting?” the older guy in a suit said. At first she thought he was mad, but then he winked.

  “Should be.” She grinned. “Sorry.”

  He waved off her apology and went down the stairs. Her phone rang. David.

  “I’m here.” She added, “still waiting.”

  “Tell Max I’m in Queens. I’ll be back before the trial ends for the day, but if I’m not, I’ll send a car for her.”

  “I can grab her a taxi,” Riley began, though she suspected Max could get a taxi faster than anyone.

  “Relay my message, Riley.” He hung up.

  It wasn’t her imagination, he hated her.

  Spectators began to file out of the courtroom down the hall, where Bachman was on trial. Max was easy to spot—she was tall and wore heels and had dark red hair. Plus, she wore a colorful scarf that Riley had coveted from the minute she’d seen it. Tall women always looked good in scarves. They made Riley look more like a dwarf.

  Riley raised her hand and waved.

  * * *

  Max looked around for Riley, irritated that she wasn’t waiting right outside the courtroom doors. If she’d left the building, Max was going to flip.

  Then she saw Riley near the rotunda, and Max realized that she was overreacting. She’d let Adam Bachman get in her head during the interview and that made the entire three hours she’d sat in the courtroom excruciating. If he was giving her undue attention it was because he’d sat across from her for twenty minutes and believed he had some psychological connection with her. She’d seen that with others she’d interviewed, both perpetrators and victims. Like she was a lifeboat in an uncertain world.

  Max wove her way through the reporters and spectators to where Riley stood waiting. “Where are we running the interview?”

  “North entrance. Tommy staked out a place there, and Ace is doing his person on the street thing.”

  “Good. David here?”

  “He said he was stuck in Queens and will be back before the end of the day or he’d call you a car.”

  Why was David still in Queens? Had Sally tossed him some juicy tidbit? Why wouldn’t he tap her for input?

  She rubbed her temples. He’d tell her when he had something. Though she’d been working for Maximum Exposure for two years, and David had been with her almost that long, she was still used to working cases on her own. Having a team of people was great in many ways … except that she was used to being in control.

  “Are you okay?” Riley asked.

  “Fine. Just need to eat. You can watch the interview, get a better sense for how we do it, and then we’ll get a hot dog.”

  “Hot dog?”

  “The best hot dog cart in the city is on the corner. And he has sauerkraut.”

  They took the stairs instead of the crowded elevators. “Why is Ace interviewing you? Why don’t you just give a report?”

  “Because the report is for NET, not my show. I’m not a NET reporter, and I don’t want to be.” Though she was doing more and more for the station and had begun to wonder if that had been Ben’s plan all along. “I’m covering the trial because I’m doing a show on Bachman’s victims. Ace and I have done this before. Catherine and Rob like the format, it gives a different perspective, adds depth and continuity.”

  “What was sitting across from Bachman like? Did he give you anything?”

  “Not enough,” she said.

  You’ll never find them. How would he know unless he was the one who killed them?

  “Was it a waste of time?” Riley asked.

  “No.” She didn’t want to talk about it, not until she could listen to the tape again and fully process the interview.

  “Do you think I could go see a friend of mine this afternoon? While you’re in the courthouse? He’s a computer god, I think he can help me narrow down the list of facilities and—”

  “No. I need you here.” She stopped walking just inside the doors. “Look, Riley, being a reporter isn’t glamorous or fun. It’s often grueling work, a lot of waiting, a lot of boredom. But you still have to keep your eyes and ears open. You never know when something is important. It’s learning to put together all those disparate clues into a viable picture that separates you from everyone else. You need to learn that.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “And stop apologizing. I hired you because you’re eager, your writing is solid, and you have good instincts. But you don’t have experience, and if you’ll just watch and listen and learn, you’ll gain enough experience to land anywhere you want in two years. Got it?”

  Max didn’t wait for Riley to answer, because she’d spotted Ace on the other side of the door. He didn’t look happy.

  She left the building and approached Ace Burley, the lead reporter for NET who covered all things crime-related, except her show. She and Ace didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but they had a good working relationship—after the initial bumps. He looked good on camera, with a square jaw and gray eyes and chiseled cheekbones and impossibly straight, white teeth (which Catherine had once told her, after a few drinks, were all capped). He also had a great voice, and recorded a news summary podcast every evening that surpassed expectations. It was a subscription-based podcast, one of the first of its kind. But he had a temper and was cocky, and his wife Nadine was a bitch who Max avoided at all costs. Catherine often called them Ken and Barbie, if Ken had a mean streak and Barbie was a ball-breaker.

  Ace approached her as soon as he saw her emerge from the building. “You interviewed Bachman without telling me?”

  “It happened last minute. You knew I was pushing for it.”

  “My contacts said it would never happen.”

  He should have had more faith in her, but she didn’t say it. “Ben should have told you.”

  “He did—as I was leaving the studio to come here. I would have prepared. I’m going to look like a fool.”

  “You could never look like a fool, Ace.” Stroking his
ego usually calmed him. “And don’t ask me about it. I’m using it for my show.”

  “People know. It’s out there. Two stations said you were interviewing him.”

  “Why would they promote another program?”

  He sighed loudly. “It’s news. He hasn’t talked to anyone and he picks you?”

  “Is that an insult?”

  He looked perplexed. “No. No, of course not. It’s that you’re not exactly known for coddling killers. I have to ask you about it. NET gets the exclusive. You don’t have to give everything away, just a taste.”

  “There’s nothing to give away. He didn’t give me shit.” Nothing she could use to find the Palazzolos, at any rate. “But be general, and I’ll share a teaser. Fair?”

  Tommy was waving for them and tapping his watch.

  “It’ll have to be,” he said, still angry. “Let’s do this.”

  Tommy had set up two tall director’s chairs so they could sit—Max never thought the trick would work, but when she’d seen clips of similar shots, she liked how intimate and friendly the outdoor sit-down looked. They were running a live four-minute spot, then they’d tape an extended interview, which would be edited for the expanded Internet release and a special for NET News at Night.

  Ace led with a brief on Adam Bachman, then his “People on the Street” quotes—what the average person thought about the trial and if they felt safe in light of the murders.

  “You can watch the clips now on NET.” He smiled, turned to Max. “Our viewers are pleased that NET’s own Maxine Revere is sitting in the courtroom for the duration of the trial, one of fourteen reporters approved by Judge Tarkoff to claim a coveted spectator seat. Because the courtroom is closed to most of the public and all electronic devices banned, this report is the first coming from day one of the trial. Maxine, what was your first impression after listening to opening statements?”

  “Good question, Ace,” Max said, giving him the verbal pat on the back that his ego needed. “It’s the first impression that often sticks with the jury after a weeklong trial. What struck me is that the defense is relying on the tactic of attempting to prove that the evidence is wholly circumstantial and that, in fact, there is reasonable doubt as to Mr. Bachman’s guilt. The prosecution is focusing on evidence more than emotions. They told the jury what they would prove, claiming to have sufficient evidence to prove that no one except Mr. Bachman could have killed these five tourists.”