Prologue
She was a killer.
Jacob Kanular knew it, as soon as the girl put the gun to his head. It was the way she angled the barrel of the revolver: straight down from forehead to neck so that when she pulled the trigger, the bullet would pass cleanly through his brain to his spinal column. She wasn’t trying to scare him. Wasn’t messing around by putting the gun against his temple or his mouth. Whoever she was, she knew how to kill.
This was the only rational thought Jacob could manage. Everything else was just desperate internal screams. For himself. For his wife. For his baby.
There were five of them—three males, two females—and they were young and angry. They wanted to hurt, to destroy. There was at least one phone filming, a bright light too painful to look right at but illuminating snippets of what was happening next to him. Jacob was glad at least that they were binding his daughter, Beatrice, and wife, Neina, to chairs and not to the bed. Someone hacked Neina’s ponytail off with a pair of scissors. A Taser zapped, threateningly, in Beaty’s face. Jacob looked at the girl with the gun on him, and his thoughts focused on what he’d do to these people if he survived. But the duct tape across his mouth prevented him from speaking.
“I could kill you,” the girl said, as though she could read his thoughts. She seemed to really be weighing it up, tapping on the trigger so he could feel the vibration through the metal, through his electrified skin. An eighth of an inch from death. “But I’m a nice girl. So I’ll teach you a lesson instead.”
The others heard what she said and came for him. They pushed Jacob’s chair over, and he lay strapped to it in his boxer shorts, trying to fold himself in two to defend against the blows. The girl took a golf club from the bag in the hall and came back, showed it to him before she raised it over her shoulder with professional ease and smashed it into his ribs. He tried to focus on something, another cold, emotionless thought to get him through. He saw a single curl of blond hair poking out from beneath her hood. He squeezed his eyes shut and thought about that curl, that golden spiral, as they kicked him half to death.
Beyond the huge glass windows, the ocean off Palos Verdes was calm and gray and flat, sparkling with moonlight.
The girl with the curl grabbed a hank of his hair and lifted his head.
“You learned any manners yet?” she asked.
“Hey, Ash. Look,” someone said.
Ash, Jacob thought.
“Oh, man.” A boy’s voice. “She’s not breathing right.”
“Chill. She’s faking it.”
Through the pounding in his head Jacob strained to listen, and in the hot bedroom air he could pick out Beaty’s wheezes and coughs and groans. She hadn’t had an asthma attack since she was four years old. Six years since he’d heard that hellish noise. They didn’t even keep an inhaler in the house anymore.
The girl leader stepped on Jacob’s face. He felt the rubber grip of her boot tug down the corner of his eye.
“If she dies, it’s on you.”
Then they were gone, the sound of their running footsteps echoing off the high ceilings.
In the darkness of the car, Neina spoke for the first time, sitting in the back seat with their daughter in her lap. Jacob could hardly hear his wife’s voice over Beaty’s distraught, struggling breaths. The garage door seemed to take a year to slide up and let them free. There was still tape hanging from his left wrist as he gripped the wheel and floored it for the nearest hospital.
“Who the hell were they?” Neina cried.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
Chapter 1
“Your Honor,” I said. “My client is an artist.”
The courtroom had been rippling gently with the sounds of conversations between the clients waiting in the stalls and their defenders, and of family members moving in and out of the wide double doors. At my words, the room fell silent. Judge Mackavin rested his chin on his palm, a single bushy eyebrow raised.
“Get on with it, Rhonda,” the judge said as I soaked in the dramatic silence I’d created. Everyone was looking at me—for once a spectacle based on my words rather than my appearance.
As big as I am—260 pounds, some of it well-earned muscle and some of it long-maintained fat—there’s no point trying to fit in with the crowd. The pink hair was just the latest shade in a rotating kaleidoscope of colors I applied to my half shaved, wavy quiff, and I always wore rock band shirts in the courtroom under my blazer.
“Mr. Reece Donovan comes from a long line of artists,” I said, gesturing to my client, who slumped meekly in his chair. “His mother, Veronica, is a talented glass blower. His father sold portrait sketches on Main Street in Littleton as a youth. For the entirety of his sixteen years on Earth, this young man has been lectured by his parents on the importance of art as a commentary on the folly of humankind, and—”
“Counselor.” Judge Mackavin leaned forward in his big leather chair. “You’re not about to tell me that what young Mr. Donovan did was performance art, are you?”
There was a cough at the back of the crowded room. The only sound. Young Reece Donovan chewed his fingernails and looked like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him.
“Hear me out,” I said. “I’m just getting momentum.”
“From the brief of evidence I have here,” the judge said, lifting a page from those spread before him, “I’m to understand that Mr. Donovan was so upset by his mom’s plan to marry her boyfriend that he filled the sprinkler system at the Colorado National Golf Club with red paint and rigged it to go off in the middle of their ceremony on the ninth green. Is that right?”
“That’s correct, Your Honor,” I said.
“I see.” He nodded. “And his ingenious plan worked, it says here. He bathed the entire wedding party in paint, turning the ceremony into what visually resembled a violent bloodbath.”
The judge held a picture of the dripping, mortified wedding party, snapped by the photographer moments after the sprinkler system launched. It looked like a scene from a horror film.
“It’s a striking image, Judge,” I said. “Some would say bold. Some would say inspired.”
“He also managed to douse seventeen golfers standing at various stations on the course.”
“Mr. Donovan didn’t realize the whole sprinkler system was connected,” I said. “He thought he’d isolated the ninth green and the wedding party.”
The entire courtroom looked at my young client, who was wringing his long, slender fingers. In the front row of the audience, his mother and new stepfather looked exhausted. They’d forgiven him, but it had been hard work. I’d seen that expression on countless sets of parents over the course of my career.
“You know I support artistic expression in all its forms, Rhonda.” Mackavin looked pointedly at my flamingo-pink hair and Metallica shirt. “But you’re right out on the ledge here.”
“The kid was angry,” I said. “He wanted to make a statement. Yes, a lot of people got painted, but they were painted red, Your Honor. The color of passion. Of love! Of lifeblood, desire, longevity. An informed choice, I’m sure you’ll agree, and a visually spectacular execution. And, Judge, where would modern expressionism be without Jackson Pollock’s reckless determination to splash everything within ten feet of him with paint?”
The judge stifled a laugh, shook his head.
“Damages to the golf course, the sprinkler system, and the other golfers in attendance are into the tens of thousands of dollars,” the judge said, regaining his frown.
“We’re aware, Your Honor, and my client is very remorseful.”
The judge looked at me, thought for a moment. A small smile played about his lips.
“I’m willing to reward your creativity, Rhonda, in trying to pass Mr. Donovan’s actions off as anything more than pure idiocy here today,” Mackavin said, writing up his decision in the big book before him. “You’ve amused me, which is not an easy feat. Four hundred hours of community service.” The judge waved me away. “And tell the artist to keep it in the studio next time.”
I turned and smiled at my client, but like the judge’s, my humor was short-lived. Across the room I spied my next client, a handsome young man in an expensive blue suit, being led out from the holding rooms. Unlike the slouching, fidgeting juvenile offenders lined up on the bench behind the rail, Thad Forrester was cuffed. The bailiff escorted Thad Forrester to the end of the row and uncuffed him, and I felt the dread manifest at the center of my stomach as I headed over to greet the most dangerous kid on my list.
Chapter 2
Thad looked me over from head to foot as I approached, obviously skeptical, on the edge of disbelieving laughter. I get that look a lot, and not only from entitled frat boys up on rape charges. Thad would be just one in a crowd of people who’d underestimated me based on my appearance that morning.
“Mr. Forrester.” I offered my hand, injected as little warmth into my words as possible. “I’m Rhonda Bird, your public defender.”
“You can’t be serious.” He snorted. “Is this what passes for legal aid these days?”
“This is exactly what passes for legal aid these days,” I said. “Passes with summa cum laude and a fifty-thousand-dollar research grant.”
I hadn’t actually taken the research grant, or the PhD offer. I’d wanted to get out there, into the courtroom, among the young and vulnerable people who I felt so deserved my service. People like Reece Donovan. Not people like Thad Forrester.
He smirked. “You should have spent the grant money on a personal trainer. And what the hell are you wearing? You look like you just stepped out of some lame-ass rock concert.”
“You shouldn’t judge people by their appearance, Mr. Forrester,” I said. “The Metallica shirt doesn’t make me any less of a lawyer, just like your Hugo Boss one doesn’t make you any less of a rapist.” Thad shook his head ruefully. I checked off his attendance on my clipboard. “I assume, because you’re on my list, your expensive lawyer from New York hasn’t arrived yet.”
“That’s right,” he said. “So you need to get this thing canceled.”
“It’s an advisement hearing,” I said. “The judge is just going to tell you what you’re charged with.”
Thad’s charges were laid out vaguely on my list, but I’d heard the story from other lawyers in the courthouse halls. Thad’s arrest related to an incident six months earlier, in which a local college sophomore had been found lying half-naked in bushes outside a frat-house party in the early hours of the morning. The girl hadn’t reported a sexual assault, probably because she couldn’t remember it, but pictures of her involved in sexual activity while obviously unconscious had circulated on the phones of some young men on campus in the following weeks. The girl had made an attempt on her own life, which had brought the whole tragedy to the attention of the police. The police had acquired the photographs and identified a scar on the wrist of her assailant as identical to that on Thad Forrester.
“You don’t need a pricey lawyer for this stage of the legal process,” I told Thad. “No rulings will be made on your case today.”
“How about you let me decide what I need,” the kid snapped, with the practiced tone of someone used to giving commands. “I’ve had friends wrapped up in this kind of bullshit before. Every second I’m in the courtroom is being analyzed, and the last thing I want is to be associated with some freaky fat clown for my very first hearing.”
I smiled and leaned in. “Mr. Forrester, from the brief of evidence attached to your file, these charges don’t look like bullshit at all. That’s your wrist in those pictures. Even this ‘fat clown’ can see that.”
“It won’t matter,” he said with a smile. “We have a plan.”
I backed up. I could see the rest of the case playing out as others had so many times before. There would be a large financial offer from the Forrester family to the girl’s in exchange for a withdrawal of the charges. If her family didn’t bite, Thad’s expensive legal team would invade the girl’s life like a disease, going after her sexual history, her grades, her family life, and her friends. Every slipup she’d had since she was in grade school would be exposed and examined under hot lights.
I’d dealt with scumbags like Thad a hundred times across my career as a juvenile public defender. I had to defend them, but that didn’t mean I had to stop them from digging their own graves. I matched Thad’s smile with my own.
Because I also had a plan. I would have the advisement hearing postponed, as he’d demanded, then I’d bring him to an interview room at the back of the courthouse under the guise of having him sign some release papers. There, while he relaxed, already mentally detached from the fat clown with the pink hair and the threat she posed to his courtroom reputation, I’d get Thad chatting about the night he assaulted the girl at the frat party, challenge his manhood, poke and prod him until he snapped. Little boys with big mouths like Thad didn’t want to listen—especially to women. They wanted to talk. They wanted to be listened to. Obeyed. That’s why witnesses had heard him bragging, why he’d taken and shared the pictures of the girl’s assault. Boys like Thad couldn’t keep quiet, and I knew the recording light on the front of the camera in interview room 3 wasn’t working.
“Wait here while I go get a coffee, little boy,” I said as the next client and her defender shuffled their way up to the tables before the judge. I gave Thad one last look as I turned to walk out of the courtroom.
That’s when I saw his attacker approaching.
Chapter 3
I’d seen the brief of evidence against Thad Forrester, including the photographs of his victim he’d taken with his phone. Constance Jones’s wide mouth and heart-shaped face were obviously a product of her father, a man I recognized now striding toward me up the courtroom’s center aisle. At first I thought that, like the parents of so many victims over the years, he was coming for me. It’s not uncommon for me to get berated for providing assistance of counsel to the young killers, rapists, thugs, and creeps of the Watkins region outside Denver. But one look in Mr. Jones’s cold, hard eyes told me exactly where he was going. Constance’s father was heading for Thad, and as I let my eyes fall from his face, I noticed a bulge at his hip.
Most people think you can’t get a gun into a courtroom in the US unless you’re a cop, a bailiff, or a US Marshal. Anyone who’s spent enough time in courthouses, however, knows there are a thousand ways to do it if you’re determined enough, if something has inspired you with enough icy fury to get the job done. You could sneak the gun in through the air-conditioning vents on the rooftop or mix it with equipment used by the thousands of workers who service the building throughout the year—plumbers, electricians, cleaners, painters, audio technicians, and repair crews. Hell, you could send it in on a coffee-and-sandwich cart while the vendor is out taking a leak. However Mr. Jones had done it, I realized I was the only thing standing between him and his vengeance. He was about to barge past me, his shoulder connecting with mine, when—
Freeze-frame.
Time locked in place.
It was only a fragment of a second, yet I spent incalculable moments suspended between two places. Was it ever all right to let violence go on unchecked, no matter who was committing the act or why? I knew Thad was guilty of inhumane acts. It hadn’t been art. It hadn’t been a protest. It hadn’t been youthful foolishness. In some ways there was only one true punishment for it, and if I just let events proceed, I would be allowing that punishment to take place.
I made my decision. I spun as Mr. Jones shoved past me and launched myself toward him, barreling into his back. He was a big man, but I was bigger. We slammed onto the courtroom carpet together. I heard a wave of gasps and yowls of surprise all around us. Mr. Jones reached for his gun, and I grabbed the hand that was reaching as he squeezed off a bullet, our fingers mutually scrabbling for the weapon, the shot smacking harmlessly into the ceiling above us.
I ripped the gun from his hand and threw it aside, then sucker punched him as he tried to roll underneath me. When he doubled over, I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.
“Bailiff!” I cried, looking up. Everyone in the big room had frozen, including a group of bailiffs near the row of defendants. “Little help here?”
They rushed to my assistance. I handed off to them a sweating, swearing Mr. Jones, protesting, “He raped my daughter! That boy raped my daughter!”
I stood watching as the courtroom guards dragged the furious father away. Someone handed me the gun I had gotten away from him, as though in confiscating it I had claimed responsibility for it.
Thad Forrester was laughing his head off. I realized my finger was resting gently on the weapon’s trigger. All I had to do to stop that evil laughter was point, aim, and shoot.
Instead I handed the gun to one of the bailiffs.
My phone rang in my pocket. I walked out, ignoring the uncomfortable congratulations I caught on my way. I waited until I was outside the courtroom to pull the device from the pocket of my torn blazer.
“Hello?”
“Uh, is this Rhonda Bird?”
“It is. What do you want?” I said more sharply than intended. I realized the hand holding my phone was shaking.
“I’m calling about your father, Ms. Bird,” the voice said, obviously cowed by my tone. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, but he’s dead.”
Chapter 4
He couldn’t look at her. That’s what scared him.
Jacob stood at the windows of his daughter’s hospital room and gazed out at the parking lot, watching nurses arriving for the morning shift, toting coffees and chattering happily as they exited their vehicles. He saw a man in a blue sedan skid to a halt in the emergency parking bay, leap out of the vehicle, and run to the passenger-side door to help his heavily pregnant wife waddle in to triage. Jacob tried to focus on the activity outside because he couldn’t look at his daughter, Beatrice, lying stiff in the bed behind him.
All her life, he’d spent every possible minute watching her. Those early days when she would sleep on his chest, her full lips moving in dream, her tiny hand gripping his shirt. Watching her had always been his greatest joy, but now he feared what he saw would be the last memory of her burned into his brain.
And it was all his fault.
The doctor and Neina were sitting on the edge of Beaty’s bed. They always sit with you when it’s bad news, Jacob thought. It was as if by sitting they were telling you they had an extra moment just for you, before some other crisis drew them away, because this patient was special. As though doctors didn’t deal in death the way garbage collectors deal with used kitty litter and bags of diapers.
“The severe asthma attack caused respiratory failure that starved Beatrice’s brain completely of oxygen for a very dangerous period,” the doctor was saying now behind Jacob. “Essentially, to protect itself, the organ shut down. We’re not getting any brain activity showing up on our scans. But that doesn’t mean—”
“She’s brain dead?” Neina’s voice was quivering. “Is that what you’re saying? How do you know that?”
“She’s not brain dead. We can’t rule that out, but we’re not ruling it in either. Not enough time has passed for us to…Look, Mr. and Mrs. Kanular, you need to maintain hope. The best think you can do for your daughter is to be here with her, talking to her, letting her know you are a united front.”
Jacob turned away from the window. He went and gathered his wife into his arms. He said words he didn’t believe. “We’re gonna get through this, Neina. All three of us. We’re going to be fine. She’ll come back to us, I promise.”
When Jacob had found Neina, when he’d decided to marry her and have a child, he’d wanted only the best for her and the baby. The big house. The fancy cars. Vacations in the Bahamas. It had all been for them. For years he’d traveled the world with only what he could carry in a bag. He’d done bad things in those years. Caused a lot of pain. A thought pushed at him, that the things he had done during those years had caused this. That this was his punishment.
But no. He gripped his wife tightly. Punishment was something you submitted to. He finally looked at Beaty in the bed. She was fighting her way back from the darkness. He knew it. He’d fight too.
Wh. . .
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