“Sure, but don’t you need to get that waiver?”
“It’s done.”
The muscles in Blake’s stomach relaxed. She was reliable and quick and committed. She’d be able to take his case. He had the best on his side.
And he was going to be spending some of the darkest days he’d known with the best memory of his life.
“WAS THAT AUNT MARCIE? Why didn’t she call our number?” Mary Jane asked as Juliet came into the kitchen Tuesday morning.
Mary Jane’s skinny long longs swung back and forth beneath the table. In jeans, her white frilly blouse tucked in, the little girl was just finishing up the cereal Juliet had poured for her earlier.
“It wasn’t Aunt Marcie.”
“Who else calls us this early?”
Juliet checked the lunch she’d already packed for Mary Jane. Chips were there, on top, where they wouldn’t be crushed. Juice box in the bottom. “It was work.”
“Uncle Duane?”
Duane Wilson was one of the other partners in the criminal division at Truman and Associates, with whom Juliet often talked through her cases. He and his wife, Donna, had never been able to have children and, now in their mid-fifties, had “adopted” Mary Jane for their grandchild “fixes.”
“No.”
Mary Jane slid down, carried her bowl to the sink, turned on the water.
Juliet grabbed an orange for later. Looked in the freezer for dinner ideas and decided to just order pizza.
“Is it about that guy that died?” The little girl stood beside her at the freezer, her eyes full of that extraordinary mixture of empathy and childlike innocence.
God, how was she ever going to make this work?
Just as she didn’t ever want her daughter to keep secrets from her, she didn’t keep secrets from Mary Jane. But the little girl hadn’t been herself lately, refusing to go to Brownies until the father-daughter banquet was over and she didn’t have to hear about it anymore. And she’d brought home only an average grade on her math test the previous week.
Fine for many kids. A first for Mary Jane McNeil.
Any mention of her father—or any father—upset her. She was becoming obsessed with hanging on to the partnership she and Juliet had formed over the years.
She’d climbed into bed with Juliet twice in the past week.
“Yes,” she finally said when her daughter’s curlframed face started to pucker with worry. “It absolutely does have to do with all of that.” Completely true. If not complete.
The validation didn’t seem to reassure the little girl. At least not immediately. Mary Jane continued to study her for several more seconds. Juliet’s heart ached with the things she couldn’t change, a world that was going to hurt her little girl no matter how diligently she tried to prevent it. There were just some things a mother couldn’t do.
And she’d thought she’d already learned all the toughest lessons.
THERE WERE FOUR COUNTS of theft, four counts of fraud due to misrepresentation and one count of conspiracy—all class-two felonies. Maximum sentence fourteen years for each. And if the judge ruled that the sentences were to be served consecutively, that could mean one hundred and twenty-six years behind bars.
“I’m going to beat this.” Blake sat on the edge of the upholstered chair in front of Juliet’s desk in her office at Truman and Associates. Forearms on his knees, he looked down at his clasped hands. Looking for strength. He could do this. He just had to figure out how.
Juliet sat back opposite him, her olive green skirt and jacket a complement to the not-quite-pink chair.
Sliding the official notice into the back of a padded leather binder, she glanced over at him, pen poised above an empty legal pad. If not for her lipstick and skirt, she could have passed for the president of the United States, he thought, with that regal and confident bearing.
He was lucky to have her representing him.
“First things first,” she told him, her voice even, all business. “The arraignment Friday morning. How much do you know about the process?”
Blake missed the warmth, but calmed in the wake of her professionalism.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Okay.” She nodded, fire-lit curls falling over her shoulders. Blake would give almost anything to be back nine years, losing himself in those curls, instead of sitting there facing possible imprisonment. “It goes like this…”
Blake fought to remain calm and attentive as she spent the next ten minutes describing the actual procedure of the upcoming hearing. As each second passed, a sense of calm grew more elusive. More than anything, he needed to be out on the beach. Running. As fast and as far as he could.
“I’m assuming, from all you’ve said, that you intend to enter a not-guilty plea.”
“Absolutely.” There was a measure of peace in just saying the word. Of having even this minute bit of control—this one thing about which he was completely certain.
“And another thing.” He could be cutting his own throat, but there was no room for compromise on this one. “We do this honestly.”
Juliet’s face hardened. “I always tell the truth.”
Where were all the years’ worth of people skills he’d acquired when he needed them most?
“Listen,” he said, rubbing his hands together as he leaned forward. “I don’t mean to offend you at all. I just know one thing about my life and particularly now, it’s all I have to stand on. I am always honest. I don’t play with the truth, or tell parts of it. I can lose my business, my health, my loved ones. In the end, all I have is my integrity and if I waver now when I’m facing the biggest challenge ever, then whether I beat the charges or not, I’ve lost everything.”
The words renewed his strength. At least for the moment.
“I understand.” Juliet crossed one leg over the other. “And I feel just as strongly about integrity as you do. I also happen to know that there are many levels of truth and sometimes you have to look beyond the obvious to get to the part that counts.”
A logical justification for living life in shades of gray? Or one of those mysterious understandings that made life rich and full?
He had no idea. And a lot to think about.
Juliet spoke then about release conditions.
Blake’s skin grew cold. Clammy. After his meeting with her in his office, he’d immersed himself in work. He hadn’t given any more thought to what happened next. “What does that mean?” He’d assumed when they hadn’t already arrested him that he was free, at least until after the trial.
“The judge will determine at the arraignment whether or not you should be held on bond and, if so, how much it will be. With these charges, it could be as much as a million dollars. You’ll be taken into custody until the amount is paid.”
God in heaven, take me now. Even he couldn’t scrape up that amount all at once. He’d be arrested. Sent to jail.
A pen tapping lightly on his knee brought his mind back from the abyss he’d been repeatedly falling into since Schuster’s visit five days before. Juliet leaned down, bringing her face directly in front of his. “We don’t want that,” she said, her glossy lips giving him something to concentrate on. “The other option is to release you on your own recognizance. That’s what we want.”
His own recognizance. Blake liked the sound of that. He could handle that.
Still