Judith McNaught (76 page)

"Who said you're crazy, Dad? And why are you afraid?" she asked patiently, as if she were addressing a

confused, befuddled octogenarian.

"Austin said I was crazy the night I killed him."

"Zachary Benedict killed Tony Austin," she said firmly. "Everyone thinks so."

His eyes turned wild with fear and he tossed down the rest of his drink. "Everyone doesn't think so!" he cried, slamming his glass on the desk. "Men—

private investigators—have come to talk to me twice since

that night. They want me to account for where I was when it happened. They're working for somebody, they have to be, but they won't tell me who it is.

Someone suspects me, honey, don't you see? They've figured out Austin was blackmailing me, and pretty soon they'll figure out why he was, and then they'll know I killed Rachel and Austin."

Trying to sound skeptical when every fiber of her body was vibrating with wild alarm, Emily said,

"Why

would you kill Rachel?"

He raked his hands through his hair. "Don't be dense

—I meant to kill Austin! I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to die, but that stupid Benedict changed his mind about who should fire the first shot—

Austin

or Rachel,"

Emily dragged air through her constricted lungs.

"Why did you want to kill Tony?"

"You know why!" he said, collapsing in his chair with tears beginning to drip from his eyes. "He gave my

316

baby girl drugs and he got her pregnant. You thought I didn't know, but I did," he grated, closing his eyes. "You'd been getting sick in the mornings, and I called that doctor's office in Dallas to find out what was wrong, and the nurse told me. She thought I was your husband when she heard my name." Rubbing his hand over his eyes, he said on a sob, "You were only sixteen years old, and he got you pregnant and let you go all by yourself to have an abortion. And all the while, he was carrying on with that slut—Rachel—and they were laughing behind your back. Ever since you got married, Austin's been threatening to tell your husband that he got you pregnant … and about what you did."

Emily lifted her hands from the arms of her chair and her damp palms left twin imprints on the leather.

She had to clear her throat twice before she could speak, and the words she said had nothing to do with the raging furor in her mind. "Dick knows what happened to me all those years ago. A few weeks ago, I

even told him it was Tony. I kept it a secret from you all those years ago because I didn't want to hurt you or make you ashamed of me."

"Somebody knows what I've done," he said, putting his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs. "I'll kill him when I find out who it is—" he said, lifting his head, then his eyes riveted on the doorway and his hand slid to his desk drawer.

"Then you'd better start with me," her husband said from the doorway, walking into the room and pulling a quaking Emily out of her chair, "because I know, too."

Instead of reacting with terror, George McDaniels looked at his daughter and said in a conspiratorial whisper, "He's right, Emily. I'm afraid we're going to have to kill your husband." He stood up and Emily saw the lamplight gleaming on the gun in his hand.

"No!" she screamed, trying to shield her husband with her body while he tried to move her aside.

"Move away, honey," her father ordered. "This won't hurt him. He won't feel a thing. He'll be dead before he hits the floor."

"Daddy!" she cried, shoving Dick backward toward the door, her arms outstretched, "you'll have to shoot through me to hit him. You—you don't want to do that, do you?"

Dick's voice was strangely calm, even though his fingers were biting into her arms, forcing her to safety.

"Put the gun down, George. If you kill me, you'll have to kill Emily to stop her from telling the police, and

I know you could never harm her. You've only been trying to protect her."

The man with the gun faltered, and Dick continued gently. "Put the gun down. We'll help you explain to people that you were only trying to protect her."

"I'm tired of being scared," he whined as Emily slipped out the doorway and raced into his bedroom, grabbing the phone and dialing 911. "I can't sleep."

Walking slowly forward, his hand outstretched, Dick said, "You won't have to be scared anymore.

Doctors will give you pills to help you sleep."

"You're trying to trick me, you bastard!" McDaniels shouted, and Dick lunged for the gun just as McDaniels leveled it at his chest.

In the bedroom, Emily heard the muted explosion of a gunshot, the heavy thud of something hitting the floor, and she dropped the phone, whirled, and collided with her husband's chest as she ran from the
317

room. "Don't go in there!" he warned, dragging her into his arms and back into the bedroom, reaching for

the phone.

"Daddy!" she screamed.

"He'll be all right!" Dick said, trying to control her and order an ambulance at the same time. "He hit his head on the desk when he fell and he's bleeding like a stuck pig!"

Three lawyers stood up from the conference table.

The one closest to Emily reached out, taking her clammy hand in his own, squeezing it. "I know how hard this has been for you, Miss McDaniels, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate the trouble you went to this morning in order to find out that we're representing Zack Benedict and to come to us without delay.

"It was no trouble," she said, her voice taut with stress and anguish. "I remembered what law firm used

to represent him, and when I called them this morning, they referred me to you."

"When Mr. Benedict was charged with murdering Tony Austin, a close friend of Mr. Benedict's decided

he would be better represented this time around by us."

Pulling her hand free of his grasp, Emily squeezed her palms together. "Can you get him out of prison today?"

"I'm afraid not. However, if you're willing to accompany me to the police department this morning and

give them the same statement you just gave us, that will go a long way toward hastening his release."

Emily nodded, but her tormented mind was on the old films she'd seen of Zack being taken away from his trial in handcuffs and the new one she'd seen repeatedly during the last few weeks of him being beaten

in Mexico … all for a crime he'd never committed

… a crime she was indirectly responsible for. "I don't

see why they can't let him out of jail today," she said, fighting to keep herself from crying out with guilt and shame. "We'll wait in the reception room."

When she left with her husband, John Seiling looked around at his grinning law partners and reached for the telephone. "Susan," he said to his secretary, "Get Captain Jorgen on the phone, then put a call in to Matthew Farrell in Chicago and tell his secretary it's an

emergency. After that, get ahold of William Wesley in the prosecuting attorney's office in Amarillo, Texas. Next, get all three of us reservations on a flight to Amarillo in the morning."

Five minutes later, his secretary buzzed the conference room. "Captain Jorgen is on line one."

"Thank you," he said, then he pressed the button for line one. "Captain Jorgen," he said jovially, "how would you like to clinch your chances to become our next police commissioner and at the same time become a hero in the media?" He listened, his smile widening. "All I need is someone there who can take a statement regarding the death of Tony Austin and Rachel Evans and keep their mouth shut about what they hear until I give you the word in a day or two."

He listened again and said, "I thought you'd be able to handle that. We'll be there in forty-five minutes."

Two more lights were already lit on the telephone when he hung up, and his secretary's voice came over

the intercom. "Mr. Farrell is on line two, and William Wesley, the prosecutor in Amarillo, is on line three."

318

Seiling took the call on line two, and when he spoke, his voice lost its impersonal note. "Mr. Farrell," he said in a respectful voice, "you asked us to keep you informed of any progress, and I'm calling you to report we've had an unexpected breakthrough in Zack Benedict's case this morning."

In his Chicago office, Matt turned his back on the meeting of Intercorp's executive committee taking place around his desk and said, "What sort of breakthrough?"

"Emily McDaniels. Last night, her father admitted killing Rachel Evans and Tony Austin. He's in a local

hospital right now, undergoing a mental evaluation, but he's confessing to everything. Emily herself has given us a statement as well as the murder weapon used on Austin."

"You can give me the details later. How soon can you get Zack released?"

"We'll go to the prosecutor in Texas tomorrow, show him Emily McDaniels's statement, and hand him a writ of habeas corpus, which we will then convince him to take before a trial judge without delay. With luck, the judge will agree to sign it, then it will go to the state capital in Austin to be signed by an Appeals Court judge, and Mr. Benedict should then be released on bail."

"Bail," Matt repeated in a low, scathing voice, "for what?"

Seiling flinched at the tone of voice that had reportedly reduced Farrell's business adversaries to a state

of sweating incoherence. "Whether he was innocent or not, when he escaped from prison, he broke Texas escape laws. Technically, he committed an offense against society. Unless we're very lucky and very persuasive, the county prosecutor in Amarillo can, and probably will, want to take some time to decide what to do about that problem. We'll point out that the well-publicized physical beating he took in Mexico City was more than punishment for that.

Depending upon the prosecutor's mood, he can either

agree and recommend the trial judge forego bail and dismiss the whole thing, or else he can dig in his heels."

"Then put him in a good mood or bring a shovel,"

Matt warned implacably.

"Right," Seiling said.

"If we don't get instant cooperation from the authorities, I want the media notified of everything.

They'll

get action."

"I agree. My partners and I are leaving for Amarillo tomorrow morning."

"Tonight, not tomorrow," Matt said. "I'll meet you there." He hung up before Seiling could list his objections and pressed the button on his intercom.

"Eleanor," he said to his secretary, "cancel all my appointments for tomorrow and the next day."

In Los Angeles, the lawyer dropped the phone in the cradle. Raising his brows, he told the other two men, "If you've ever wondered what Benedict and Farrell have in common, I just found it out—they are two cold customers."

"But they pay big retainers," one of the attorneys joked.

Seiling nodded, turning brisk. "Let's start earning ours, gentlemen," he said and pressed the button for line three. "Mr. Wesley," he said, modulating his voice so that it was both firm and pleasant. "I realize
319

your predecessor, Alton Peterson, prosecuted the Zachary Benedict case five years ago, and I understand none of this is your fault, however, there seems to have been a vast miscarriage of justice. I need your help to rectify it as quickly as possible. In return, I will be certain the media understands you yourself acted swiftly to right a wrong. Regardless of what you do, Zack Benedict is going to come out of

this as a martyr and hero. The media's going to want someone's blood for the injustice done to him, and I'd hate to see it be your blood." He paused, listening. "What the hell am I talking about? Why don't we

discuss that over dinner at seven o'clock tonight?"

Katherine slammed on her brakes and brought her car to a screeching stop in front of Julie's house, cursing when she saw a bicycle in the front yard, which meant Julie was tutoring. Leaving her purse in the

car, she ran up the sidewalk, opened the front door without knocking, and walked into the dining room where Julie was seated at the table with three little boys. "Julie, I have to talk to you," she said breathlessly, "in the living room."

Laying her reading primer aside, Julie smiled at her students and said, "Willie, keep reading aloud. I'll be right back." Sensing that something exciting was going on, Willie Jenkins read until she was out of hearing, then he grinned at his two companions.

"Something's up," he told them lowering his gravelly voice to a whisper, leaning sideways in his chair for a better view of the living room.

Johnny Everett looked over his shoulder as he turned his wheelchair sideways, peering in the same direction, Tim Wimple, whose right leg had been amputated at the knee, swiveled his own wheelchair into place and nodded. "Somethin' big, I'll bet."

Appointing himself as moderator and spy, Willie tiptoed to the doorway. "Miss Cahill's turning on the television set…" he told them over his shoulder, then he turned back to the living room.

"Katherine?" Julie said shakily, sensing that her friend's tense face and the way she was frantically searching for a particular television channel both had something to do with Zack. "Don't do this to me!

Tell me what's happened! It's Zack, isn't it? Is it bad?"

Shaking her head, Katherine stepped back from the set. "It's all over the newscasts. They're interrupting the regular programs to announce it. NBC said they'd have a videotape of it to show at four-thirty."

She

glanced at her watch. "That's right now."

"What is it!" Julie burst out.

"It's good news," Katherine said with an anguished laugh. "Or it's bad, depending on how you take it.

Julie, he's—"

She broke off and pointed to the set as the announcer said they were interrupting their regularly scheduled programming for a special news bulletin.

Tom Brokaw's face appeared on the screen.
"Good
afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,"
he said.
"One
hour ago, in Amarillo, Texas, Zachary Benedict
was released from Amarillo State Penitentiary,
where he was serving a forty-five-year sentence
for the murder of his wife, actress Rachel Evans.