A Raging Dawn (13 page)

There had to be a way to stop them.

My hand twitched. Pins and needles shot through my thighs, put to sleep by the hard tile floor. I opened my eyes and slowly stretched my cramped muscles as the fugue released its grip on my body. I glanced at my watch. Twelve minutes had passed. In my mind, it felt like seconds.

To my body, it felt like days.

I grabbed on to the edge of the sink and hauled myself up. Leaning against the wall, I waited for my legs to stop shaking. I risked a glance into the mirror.

My face looked normal. How could that be? It felt like everything behind the face was so alien, so out of control. Yet, there I was, same as always.

Maybe it was good to have a reliable mask, to be able to fool the world, just like I’d fooled everyone in the courtroom this morning. Let them all think I was the same old, capable, dependable Angela, the woman with all the answers who never stopped fighting for her patients.

Fool them all into thinking I actually had a future.

JACOB VOORSANGER COULDN’T
pinpoint the exact moment he had sold his soul. That bothered him.

If his father could talk, could form a cogent thought inside the shriveled shell of a body that refused to release its stranglehold on life, he’d be delighted to point out the moment when Jacob fell from grace and ruined everything.

For Abraham Voorsanger, that moment would probably have been the instant Jacob left his rabbinical studies and decided to practice law. Or when Jacob fell in love with Angela Rossi and asked her to marry him.

A marriage that took place inside this very courthouse before a judge in the presence of two witnesses: Angie’s sister Eve and Jacob’s roommate from college. The disapproving older generations from both sides had been conspicuously absent in silent protest.

Jacob paused his pacing, ignoring the late-afternoon traffic-court penitents who streamed through the courthouse’s large oak doors and passed him on their way through security. If he hadn’t become a lawyer, hadn’t fallen in love, he wouldn’t be in this situation now. He tried to follow the permutations of choice back to their roots, only to get lost in the maze of logic.

Footsteps echoed around him. Someone’s heels—a woman, delicately built, he guessed from the sound—struck a perfect cadence. She laughed, short and sweet, the sound echoing against the marble floor, a tone that swirled through Jacob like rays of sunshine, making him lift his face and listen until it faded into obscurity, drowned out by the dull thuds of the rest of the crowd.

Meeting Angie, being with her, was like that sound. Pure, light, effortless.

Maybe that was where he went wrong. He should have put more effort into them, less into himself and his career. He’d let her do too much of the heavy lifting.

Idiot. Fool. Blind, stupid, fool. He shook his head, scanned the crowd. Still no sign of Angie. He resumed his pacing across the courthouse rotunda.

He may not have gone to
shul
for years, but he still studied the Talmud each week, especially the Nezikin. As well as the Christian Bible and the Quran. Often, he learned as much from the religious texts and commentaries as he did from the
Law Review
and judicial proceedings.

Long ago, Jacob had given up any hope of being a great man, or even a good man. Now, he was merely trying his best to be a just man.

Looked like he’d failed at that as well. He could almost hear Abraham’s disapproval ring through his mind despite the fact that the old man hadn’t spoken a coherent word in the year since the Alzheimer’s swallowed him whole.

A woman’s voice sang through the noise surrounding him. Angie. He spotted her at the security desk, returning her visitor’s pass. She shrugged the strap of her bag onto her shoulder, one hand gripping the handle as if fearful of theft, even here in this bastion of law and order.

Her footsteps dragged. She looked tired, weary even. But despite that, she gave off an indefinable energy, a vibe that to him translated into passion, the passion she threw into everything. The passion she’d once shared with him.

He blew out his breath. It fogged in the chill, pine-scented, almost-Christmas air before drifting away. He jogged over to join her. “How’d it go?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her skin was flushed, and she was sweating despite the draft in the rotunda. She turned to take a deep drink from the water fountain, and for an instant, he wondered if his actions earlier had worse consequences than he’d imagined. Had he lost her for good? But she tilted her face up to meet his gaze, and he was reassured.

“Well?” Nervous energy propelled him to take three steps and stand on her other side, where he had more room to fidget. “Did he give it up?”

“He refused to name names.”

He slumped against the wall, his eyes sliding shut for a brief moment. “Damn.”

“Littleton’s going to walk. Time served.”

“Manny let him plead out?” His sacrifice had been for nothing.

“Yes.” She pursed her lips, as if holding back a secret.

He had a sinking feeling he knew what that secret was: She was disappointed in him, that he who’d lectured her so often and so freely on ethics had turned his back on his own.

She surprised him with a question rather than a recrimination. “If you can try a case without the victim, you could do it without a witness, right?”

“Depends. On the other evidence, the other witnesses, circumstances as to why they can’t appear.” He squinted at her. “You know all this. Why are you asking?”

“Nothing.” She walked past him toward the doors.

“I’ll walk you to your car.”

“Didn’t drive.”

“Then you walk me to my car. I’ll give you a lift.” He was beside her, reaching for her satchel. She considered, then slipped her head free from the strap of the battered old messenger bag. He’d found it for her in a secondhand shop near their first apartment. He loved the thick leather, impervious to time or weather. Unlike their marriage.

He pulled the courthouse door open for her. Together they walked toward the attorneys’ parking lot. The sun was already setting, casting a sliver of gold and red beneath the steel-gray clouds that pushed it down into the horizon.

“I was thinking, this was a rough case for everyone. Maybe I should come by tonight?” Unlike his usual careful cadence, his words emerged in the anxiety-driven rush of a schoolboy asking for a prom date. But that didn’t stop him. “It’s been a while.” He brushed her arm with his.

“Not tonight, Jacob.” Probably not ever again, her tone implied. “I have plans.”

“Hmmm. I heard rumors about you and Manny.” Jacob had never approved of Manny Cruz. He found the prosecutor’s principles conveniently self-serving. Hah. Like he was one to talk. A rapist would soon be free because of him.

“God, no. The man despises me. Ever since I forced him into taking this case to trial. He wanted to drop it even before Tymara was killed.”

“Then who?”

“What makes you think there’s anyone?”

He chuckled. “I know you, Angie. You might not be able to live with a man for the long term, but you can’t live without one, either.”

“What happened to the court stenographer you were seeing? I thought you two were getting serious.”

“So did I. Guess I was wrong.” He stopped, leveled a gaze at her. “Again.”

Once or twice a year, usually when the nights grew cold and long, he and Angie would reunite. More than casual sex, less than total commitment—on her side, at least. He hoped this time might be different. Last year they’d managed to make it until the day after Christmas. Angie hated the holidays, hated being alone even more.

This past Thanksgiving he’d thought, maybe…but that was the night they’d both almost died while saving Devon’s little girl. The night Matthew Ryder had saved Angie from a serial killer and gotten shot. Surely not she and Ryder? No, Ryder wasn’t her type.

At least he hoped not.

“Maybe I’ll just take a cab,” she said as the silence grew awkward. How strange. Used to be silence didn’t bother either of them. Now it was as if they barely knew each other. At least she hadn’t filled the time by talking about the weather.

“No. We’re here.” He keyed the remote, and the lights of his silver Volvo flicked on. He opened her door for her, handed over the bag once she was seated. “Where to?”

He was surprised by her hesitation. Angie always knew where she was going, what she was doing, what happened next. She could see the ending of a movie in the opening credits and be right every time. One of many things that once irritated the hell out of him.

“Home, I guess.”

Soon they were heading toward her uncle’s bar. After a lengthy silence, he dared to try to breach her defenses. Damn it, someone had to. Look after her. No matter how much she despised it. “Are you all right?”

“Just because I don’t want to see you tonight—”

“No. Not that. I mean really. Something seems off. Has been for a while now.”

“Off, how?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”

Silence.

“It’s not a crime to ask for help, Angie. To need someone. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing going on. Everything’s fine.”

“But quitting the ER…Is it true this was your last case for the Advocacy Center?”

“I may have found a better opportunity.”

“You’re moving? Where? When?” It was difficult to force the words past his tightened vocal cords.

She squeezed her bag to her chest and answered, “Not sure. Yet.”

He slanted a suspicious glance her way. “Sounds like—” He paused, unable to say the ugly words. Drugs. Alcohol. Addiction. It was a worry in her family, he knew. “This sabbatical—is it to rehab?”

“Rehab?” She sounded surprised. Or she was faking. At one time in his life, Jacob would have staked everything on Angie’s honesty. Now he wasn’t sure. That knowledge rattled him more than he cared to admit.

“Evie asked me. She was wondering if maybe something was going on. Something that made you quit the ER.”

“Damn Evie. My little sister never did understand the concept of privacy.”

“So is there?” He pressed. “Something wrong, I mean.”

She refused to look at him, staring fixedly out her window. Which meant he’d hit a sore spot. “You know you can trust me,” he tried again. “Or,” he added when she knifed him a glare, “if you need a place to stay—”

“Can you just give it a rest? Please? I’m so damn tired.”

That he believed. She looked a wreck. More exhausted than he’d ever seen her during the two years they were married, and that had been during her emergency medicine residency.

She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, cutting off further conversation. It was a relief when his cell phone rang. He snagged his Bluetooth ear bud. “Jacob Voorsanger.”

“It’s Ryder. Do you have any idea where Rossi is?” The detective’s voice was clipped, tight.

“She’s here with me.”

“Damn her, tell her to answer her cell. Where’s here?” Jacob winced as Ryder’s voice thundered through the earpiece. Angie straightened beside him, twisted in her seat, gestured for the phone. He ignored her.

“I’m driving her home. What happened?”

“Didn’t she tell you? Littleton threatened her. And your pal Gena Kravitz is getting him processed out tonight.”

“She’s no friend of mine.”

“I’m setting up surveillance on Littleton, see if he’ll led us to his friends, but—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll stay with her.” He hung up before the detective could protest or question his motives.

“What the hell was that all about?” she asked.

“You didn’t tell me Littleton threatened you. What was Ryder thinking, letting him anywhere near you?”

“It was the only way to get him to talk. Besides, it wasn’t really a threat—he was just trying to scare me. I can take care of myself.”

Of course she could. And wasn’t that the problem? Hadn’t it always been?

I WASN’T TOO
surprised when Jacob parked his car in one of the employee spots beside my uncle’s bar. Ever since we broke up and his father’s Alzheimer’s forced him into a care facility, Jacob spent most nights at Jimmy’s Place. He was lonely, and my family, once they got over their initial disapproval of our marriage outside the Church, had embraced him and his musical talents, rolling both effortlessly into the ceili band my father had founded years ago.

Together we picked our way through the alley behind the bar. I wasn’t about to go in through the front door and risk running into Jimmy for another uncomfortable chat. Usually, I avoided the alley. No matter how often Jimmy hosed it down, it always stank of stale beer, piss, and vomit. Plus, the past few days, a creepy homeless guy had been camped out there. But despite the shadows falling and the fact that Jimmy hadn’t turned the lights on yet—saving electricity and a few dollars—I wasn’t worried, not with Jacob at my side.

I opened the rear door and headed up the private staircase. To my surprise, Jacob followed. I stopped halfway up and turned to him. “Where do you think you’re going?”