Hidden Summit (23 page)

“There’s more than one way to play that hand, Leslie. I don’t have any idea what the D.A.’s strategy is, but you can believe if he didn’t want to hear what Mathis has to say to the press, he’d find a way to gag him. You probably just heard part of his defense—old blood, forensic errors, maybe it was someone else driving his car, et cetera. That’s not to say there won’t be surprises, but…” The color wasn’t coming into her cheeks, so Brie said, “Jack, give her a drink.”

“Coming up.”

“Don’t panic yet,” Brie said.

Leslie took a sip of her wine. “When can I go ahead and panic?”

“I’ll give you a call when it’s time,” Brie said.

“Paul,” Leslie said. “I think I might have to take tomorrow off. Hang around the TV.”

“Want to watch at my house?” Brie asked. “I have good satellite reception.”

“I’d rather be home, near the phone, but my TV reception is iffy.”

“Call him tonight,” Brie said. “Tell him where you’ll be. Court doesn’t convene until 9:00 a.m., so don’t rush. Come when you can.”

“I’ll be there by nine.”

“Understandable,” Brie said.

Several hours later, when it was late, Leslie called Conner’s cell phone. He answered, “Hey, baby.”

“Conner, I can’t get you off my mind. And you didn’t call.”

He sighed. “I thought maybe I shouldn’t tonight. I’m testifying tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, Conner, why couldn’t you call? Did they ask you not to?”

“No, but I didn’t want to drag you into this drama. Les, I’m not coming back this weekend. I’m not going anyplace I can be followed until it’s all over. Until there’s no chance I’ll be recalled.”

“I understand. Conner, I saw him on TV. The man you’re testifying against. Talking to reporters.”

“I saw it, too,” he said. “Apparently I’m testifying against a sainted soul whom the police have been trying to trap for one reason or another for years....”

“Oh, Conner…”

“He’s convincing before he even opens his mouth,” Conner said. “And then he’s even more convincing. Max says we have to trust the system. He says there’s good, solid evidence. But they’re going to claim I couldn’t have seen his face.”

“But you did....”

“I did. He looked rumpled and messed up that night. He didn’t have that classy, sophisticated, starched look to him. He looked like a furious guy who didn’t have an ounce of guilt about what he’d done. He was covered with blood from moving the body. I’ll never forget it. And when he was walking back to his car…he moved slowly. Leisurely. Like the whole thing had been just another chore, like he was completely justified.”

“Conner…”

“He’s got a good game face,” Conner said. “I’m working on mine.”

“I hate that you’re going through this alone,” she said.

“Alone is the only way I want to get it done. I don’t want anyone I love even close to this mess. And it is a mess.”

“I’m staying home from work tomorrow, watching the news from Brie’s house because she has better reception than I do. So if you’re looking for me, that’s where I’ll be. And, well, if it means anything, I’m really proud of you.”

“It means everything, Les.” He paused. “I want you to get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow after it’s over.”

After Conner called Max and told him about Samantha’s veiled threat, the D.A. said that he’d already heard from the police officer escort, and, unfortunately, she was going to be taken into custody. “I just want to make it clear, Max, I’m sure she wasn’t acting on the behalf of the defense team. I’m sure that was meant to manipulate me. She’s been trying to reconcile with me for two years and I’ve been ignoring her.”

“Sadly for her, her motive isn’t an issue,” Max said.

Conner was told exactly what to wear to court—a light blue oxford button-down without a tie, and tan pants, pressed with a sharp crease. Brown shoes. Ordinary clothes on an ordinary guy. The irony was—he already had those clothes, and it was exactly what he would’ve chosen. Max, who was very well turned out, wanted him to look like a blue-collar kind of guy whom the jury would believe and empathize with.

Conner
was
a blue-collar guy. Since the crime and the fire, he’d had occasion to look over his net worth, trying to figure out what to do next, and while he had quite the nice nest egg to start over with, it wasn’t as though he had brilliantly built a fortune. He’d worked a business he’d inherited and had a pot of money from insurance—not his first choice of how to become financially sound. The sale of the lot and two houses would put him in a higher category, even after splitting it with Katie—but he couldn’t claim much of that came from his business prowess.

He did have some business savvy, however. He was giving more and more thought to a small hardware store in the area between Virgin River and the coast. He could get Paul and his subs anything they needed; he could provide building and repair items for the town and outlying areas. He might buy a motorcycle to take Leslie for long rides in spring and summer.

He hoped to God he’d get to the point of making some of those decisions soon. This hiatus for the sake of a testimony was getting old.

Today’s cop was Scott, a homicide detective getting a little overtime. They had room-service breakfast together in Conner’s room and made small talk. Scott was a sports nut, never missed a televised ball game. When breakfast was done, and it was time to head for the courthouse, Scott asked, “You doing okay, buddy?”

“Ready for this to be over,” Conner said. And then, for no particular reason, he said, “You know, I’ve been laying low in this small town, working construction, and after a lot of years of putting in too many hours, life slowed down a little. And I met someone. You married, Scott?”

“Eleven years,” he said. “Two kids.”

“I’m thirty-five,” Conner said. “I’d like to be able to say that someday.”

Scott clamped a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be over soon. Let’s get going.”

“Today I don’t feel like sneaking in the back door,” Conner said.

“Anything you want, bud. Just don’t get caught by the reporters. I don’t know what Mathis’s game is, but you’re not to talk to anyone.”

“I know. I understand. I don’t want to talk to them. Ever. But Mathis had me threatened and my store burned down. I’m tired of letting him think he worries me. He walks in the front door, head up, no problem looking me in the eye. Fine. Game on.”

Scott gave him a little smile. “Good for you, bud.”

It didn’t take them long to arrive at the courthouse and park the car. They walked around the block and headed for the glut of people and cars out front. Conner marveled at how quickly he’d come to recognize some of the featured players. It was barely eight-thirty, and there were lots of people showing up for many court cases in addition to this big trial, but still he managed to spot the lawyers—prosecution and defense—hurrying into the building with briefcases. People he remembered from the gallery were either hanging around outside or quickly going inside—the brassy-looking women, the priests, men in expensive suits. There were the reporters, of course, easy to spot by their cameramen and camcorders and microphones. And of course there were a lot of uniformed and plainclothes police around, but as Conner had already learned, cops testified every day. The courthouse and area surrounding was full of them, coming and going.

Then the car service pulled up. Of course Regis Mathis and his high-priced attorneys and family couldn’t be expected to drive themselves to court—they arrived in three Lincolns driven by uniformed drivers. In case anyone had forgotten these people were rich and influential. The doors opened on the first two in the line, emitting Mathis and lawyers from the first, and behind them, the family.

Conner stopped on the sidewalk with Scott beside him. “No scene,” Scott said into his ear.

“Of course not,” Conner said. “Just watching the parade.”

“Stay out of the way of the reporters,” Scott said.

Conner vaguely noticed a white SUV blocking the street on the other side of the Lincolns, letting someone out.

Mathis stepped out of the car like arriving royalty, lifting his hand in a wave to the press. He and one of his lawyers waited for the family to meet them before they all made a grand entrance into the courthouse.

But they didn’t make it that far. One of the women Conner recognized from the day before was suddenly standing in front of them. Her back being to Conner and Scott, he didn’t know anything was happening. In one split second he wondered if the woman wanted to talk to Mathis.

And then there was the sound of gunfire.
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
Mathis crumbled. His lawyer crumbled. One of his sons fell.

Scott pushed Conner to the ground and covered his body with his own, but Conner lifted his head to look out, to see what was happening. There was more gunfire and Conner wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Then next thing Conner knew, Scott moved enough for him to see the young woman was tackled by two very large, uniformed police officers, and immediately following that, there was a rush of people swarming the area. A couple of men ran to the SUV, but an officer, with gun extended toward the driver, blocked it from moving. That’s when he noticed that even though Scott was lying on top of him, he had his gun out, too, leveled in the direction of the shooting.

“Holy shit,” Scott muttered, pulling Conner roughly to his feet. While Conner instinctively started in the direction of the melee, Scott strong-armed him in the direction of the courthouse doors, wrestling him inside.

“What the hell?” Conner asked.

“Shooting,” he said. Scott pulled out his cell phone and plunked in some numbers. “415A in progress in front of the courthouse. Wounded. Looks like they might have one in custody. It’s a mess of people out there.” He leveled a steely gaze at Conner. “Do. Not. Move.”

Scott stepped out of the building, but only for a second. Then he was back. The sound of sirens seemed to accompany him.

“Did you get help?” Conner asked him.

He gave a nod. “There’s more help than we need out there. Every person with a cell phone on the courthouse steps or on the sidewalk called it in. Looks like they have the woman with the gun on the ground, disarmed. And there are a couple of guys who decided to get away, too, who are detained, but I have no idea if they’re part of this.”

Conner poked a finger in his chest. “You wearing a vest?”

“Not today. Not to court.”

“You covered me with your body!”

“Yeah, you lucky devil. It was instinct, that’s all. Let’s get you inside.” He pulled out his ID and escorted Conner through the metal detector. Scott showed his ID and badge and set off the alarms with his gun; the guards and marshals gave him a lot of attention before they passed him through. And then he took Conner not to the courtroom, but to the room where the A.D.A. met witnesses.

And there they sat.

Conner was in a state of shock for a good fifteen minutes before he finally said, “I thought if anyone got shot going up the courthouse steps, it would be me.”

Twenty

I
t was an hour before Scott was informed that court was canceled, and he relayed this message to Conner. “I’ll take you back to the hotel.”

“What happened?” Conner demanded.

“Details are fuzzy, but our defendant has been injured and is being treated. His injuries are serious. There were two other injuries, as well.”

“Can’t you get more information?”

“Eventually you’ll get information, but for right now court is canceled. Come on,” he said. “This time, the back door.”

“Yeah, you bet,” Conner said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“Me, either,” Scott said. “And I’ve seen stuff. The homicide unit usually shows up after, not during.”

“You going to wear a vest from now on?”

“I wear a vest when I’m on a case, but this is court. I go to court all the time. I usually wear a
tie!
”

They took the elevator down to the ground level, through a bunch of corridors to an exit manned by marshals and out into the sunlight. They drove back to the hotel without talking, and Scott left Conner in his hotel room.

“I’m sure you’ll hear from the D.A.,” he said. “Just lock up and don’t open for anyone but me or the D.A.”

“Sure,” Conner said. “Thanks. Really.”

“Anytime, Conner,” he said. Then he grinned. “All in a day’s work.”

Alone in the hotel room, Conner looked at his watch. Almost ten and about an hour and a half of excitement under his belt. He turned on the TV, and unsurprisingly, the shooting at the courthouse was all the news. He watched for a half hour. Details were still sketchy, but two of the shooting victims were in surgery, one of them being Regis Mathis, both in critical condition. The third victim, his son, was treated and released. The woman in custody was a former girlfriend and employee of Dickie Randolph. The two men trying to get away appeared to be former employees of Randolph who didn’t want to be caught up in the drama.

The whole thing was captured on film, which the networks played over and over again. Conner strained to catch himself on film, but he didn’t seem to be there.

He sat there for an hour, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for someone to tell him what the disposition of the trial was now that the defendant was shot. It occurred to him that, obviously, someone took their pound of flesh from Regis Mathis. The woman with the gun—young. Pretty, if you put her in classier clothing and scraped a few layers of makeup off her face. Maybe she knew about the young Mathis woman? Maybe she knew what Mathis had done to avenge his daughter?

Maybe a lot of things. But Conner was done with this, at least for now. He called the front desk and asked for a bellman with a cart and a cab. And he moved out of his hotel room. He took a cab to the mall parking lot where the truck sat, unloaded his duffels into the backseat and the bed and began to drive. He would have cell service most of the way, until he got into the mountains.

He didn’t call anyone. He was waiting for his cell to ring and for Max to tell him to get right back to Sacramento. But until that happened, he drove north.

Leslie had driven all the way to Fortuna to pick up sticky buns and coffee to take to Brie’s house. She didn’t get there until about ten after nine and by that time when Brie answered the door, she had a shocked look on her face. “Les,” she said solemnly.

“What?”

“Conner’s okay, but there’s been a shooting at the courthouse.”

Leslie dropped the coffees, and they splattered all over the front walk and her feet. “Oh, God,” she said, not even bending to wipe the hot coffee off her feet.

“Conner is okay,” Brie repeated. “Come in, just leave that mess and come in.” Brie grabbed her hand and pulled her inside. “Someone shot the defendant and a couple of the people with him. Three were wounded and two are in surgery.”

“What did your lawyer friend say?”

“He’s waiting for information himself. He said to sit tight. Obviously Conner won’t be in court today. I’m sure you’ll hear from him when he has more details. Come in and sit down—there’s news coverage.”

Leslie walked in on shaky legs, sitting in the great room in front of Brie’s big screen, clutching her paper bag of sticky buns. “Are you sure it’s not Conner?”

“Absolutely sure. Max said he told the police escort to take him back to his hotel and he’s waiting for more information. When a shooting victim goes into surgery, it could be something easily treated or it could be serious. Max has no idea at this point. Max said when he knows where they stand with the continuation of the trial, he’ll call. Obviously, he has a lot on his plate right now.”

“Can I try Conner’s phone?”

“I tried calling him, Les. It went straight to voice mail, but I didn’t leave a message. I’m not sure if he just has nothing to say or if he has the phone turned off from when he was going to the courthouse. Let’s try to stay cool. He’s not hurt. He wasn’t involved. Someone went after the bad guy.”

They watched the same coverage over and over for two hours with no new information. Finally, at noon, Leslie had had enough. “I’m going to shop for some groceries and go home,” she said. “If I can stay busy making soup or something I might not lose my mind. My TV reception is spotty, but I have a phone. If there’s any new development, will you call me?”

“Of course. Will you be all right?”

“I have to be all right,” she said. “He’ll call me the second he has something to tell me. I know he will.”

Leslie went to Fortuna, bought beef, barley, fresh vegetables, flour, yeast, apples, butter, a few other things and headed home. She got a soup going, a bread rising, an apple pie in the works. She didn’t cook and bake to eat but to keep her hands busy and her mind free and her body in the house where the phone was.

She knew she’d hear from him.

Conner drove around Clear Lake and up the highway toward Humboldt County. He’d been on the road for four hours. Before he headed into the mountains, he pulled off the road and placed a call to Max.

“Did you notice I’m missing?” he asked.

“Frankly, I’ve been too busy for that,” Max said. “Where are you?”

“Just about back in Virgin River,” Conner said. “Any new developments?”

“A significant one. It hasn’t been released to the press yet, so please give it a few hours before you throw your freedom party. Mathis didn’t make it out of surgery. The bullet went through his heart—impossible to repair. His lawyer will recover, his son is fine and the shooter is in custody. Randolph’s girlfriend. Or whatever. Apparently you weren’t the only one to worry he wouldn’t be convicted. And Randolph did in fact dope up Mathis’s daughter.”

“God,” Conner said, shock and relief flooding through him.

“That’s right, my man. No more trial.”

“You don’t sound that happy.”

“No, I am. There’s at least one bad guy off the streets. He looked real upstanding, but he was a bad guy, you can trust me. But what the hell,” Max said. “I wanted to get him!”

Conner actually chuckled. “You’ll get the next one.”

“Wanna bet I’ll never have a witness with a conscience and balls like yours?” Max asked.

“Nope. Don’t want to take that bet. Been fun, buddy. Good luck.” And he clicked off and got back on the road.

He might’ve driven a little fast on the road up the mountain to Virgin River. The clock on the truck console said almost five o’clock, but there was plenty of sunshine left on this day and he was so damn glad he’d made a decision to just
drive.
He was done with this nightmare. Right after he reassured Leslie, he’d call Katie and tell her.

When he pulled into town, it was with an entirely new appreciation for the way the sunlight sifted through the tall trees and cast late-afternoon shadows along the street. There were a few cars at Jack’s, but no throbbing music—folks would be having a quiet, friendly beer or early dinner. The streets were still; dinner was being fixed in these houses. Tomorrow was Saturday—kids would be anticipating soccer and softball.

He turned down Leslie’s street. She’d been such a rock through this. It reminded him yet again how like his sister she was—she was brave. Stalwart, a word he hadn’t heard or used since his long-past military days.

He pulled up to her house and saw her on the porch. The second she saw his truck, she stood up from her chair, and he jumped out of the truck, coming around to her side. For a moment, he just looked at her. She was so beautiful with a soft smile for him.

Then he said it. “He’s dead, Les. Mathis didn’t survive a gunshot wound.”

Her hand came up to her open mouth, and a little squeak escaped her. Then she ran down the porch steps and flung herself into his arms.

For a while all he could do was kiss her and kiss her, changing the angle of his mouth to get a deeper kiss. Finally he broke away enough to ask, “Did you know what was going on down there? That he was shot on the courthouse steps? I didn’t call you on purpose—there wasn’t any solid information and I kind of made a run for it.”

She nodded. “Brie called about fifteen minutes ago. But why, Conner? Who would shoot him?”

“The victim’s girlfriend, or a reasonable facsimile. I talked to the D.A. less than an hour ago—he’s dead. No more trial. No more villain.”

“God, Conner. The one thing I never dared imagine.”

“It’s over, Les,” he whispered. “Over.”

She shook her head. “No, Conner. This is just the beginning.”

“Right,” he said, giving her a kiss, longer, deeper than before. “
Our
beginning.”

* * * * *