Shattered (26 page)

"I take that as a no."

"Yeah, it's a no. But I don't see why Scott being your boss matters particularly. What, were you planning to get hot and heavy with Joel in the middle of the dance floor? Wait till I tell him, he'll be thrilled." Nola stopped as she reached her white Lexus and pressed a button on her key ring to pop open the trunk.

"No, I wasn't. And don't you dare." Lisa knew that Nola and Joel frequently ran into each other in the course of their workdays. Knowing Nola, that was just the kind of thing she would say to him. "It's just awkward, is all."

Walking on to where the Jaguar practically sparkled in the sunlight, Lisa popped her trunk, too, to facilitate the handing over of the big brown cardboard boxes full of clothes, one of which Nola was already lifting from her trunk. It wasn't particularly heavy, Lisa discovered, as she took it from her and carefully put it in her own trunk on the opposite side from where Katrina lay, flat on her back, eyes closed, next to the pile of photo albums she had rescued. Glancing quickly away from the doll, which was taking on the uncanny ability to instantaneously creep her out, she was glad to be distracted by Nola's thrusting the second box into her arms. She was just putting it down beside the first when a voice behind her said, "Lisa?"

She knew that voice. Stiffening, she let go of the box as if it was suddenly filled with lead, and turned to find Barty, tall and craggily handsome, blue eyes sparkling, silver hair styled to shining perfection, smiling that big crocodile smile of his, as though he were actually glad to see her, when she knew perfectly well that he was secretly cursing the fate that had brought them to this same small parking lot at the same time, striding toward her. The sad thing was, he looked like a judge, distinguished, responsible, honorable, which just went to show how deceptive appearances could be. Her last contact with him had been a phone message he'd left for her, telling her to call him if she or her mother needed anything. It was so obviously a duty call that she hadn't even bothered to return it. Now everything about him, from his expensive suit to his carefully maintained tan to his aura of abundant good humor, set up her back. He looked a good decade younger than his sixty-eight years, too. Lisa thought of her mother and felt her hackles rise.

"Barty." Her voice was flat. As he reached her, he looked for a moment as if he was thinking about hugging her, but something in her expression must have dissuaded him, because he stopped short. "I thought you couldn't do lunch today because Todd had a track meet. Or--oh, wait--was it because your trial was running long? I never can keep your stories straight."

Beside her, she could feel Nola, who knew how she felt about her father, moving closer in support.

Barty's smile never faltered. He didn't even have the grace to blink. "The track meet finished up early. You know it was at Paul Dunbar"--one of Lexington's big public high schools--"so I was in town. Afterward, Jill and Todd headed on over to Danville to look at Centre College, so it just so happened I was free. Then Sanford called, and the long and short of it is we decided to stop in here for a quick bite before I headed home."

"I was sorry to hear about your fire, Lisa." Sanford Peyton nodded a greeting at her before transferring his attention to Nola. "Hello, Nola."

Until that moment, Lisa hadn't noticed him, but there he was, standing at Barty's shoulder like the perpetual wingman he was. Joel's father had none of his son's good looks, although he could be very charming when he chose. Balding, barrel-chested, and still powerful-looking at about Barty's age, with a fringe of short gray hair and some serious jowls, he had the look of a mafia enforcer gone to seed. As a longtime close friend and business associate of Barty's, he was someone Lisa had known all her life. As Joel's father, he was someone she saw with some frequency, certainly far more often than she saw her own father. Aside from his tendency to bully Joel, she actually knew nothing bad about him. But that and his friendship with Barty were more than enough to keep him off her favorite-persons list.

"Thanks," she said. Nola, whom Lisa was convinced could not help herself where single men--Sanford was a widower--were concerned, beamed at him as she said hi.

"Nola, that's right." Barty sounded delighted. It hadn't escaped Lisa that he'd been giving her bodacious friend a covert once-over, and her lip curled. "Nola Hampton. I remember now. Lord, I haven't seen you since you were in high school. I--"

"I hate to interrupt, but I have to get going. I have to be in court at one." Turning to close the trunk, Lisa cut Barty off without compunction. She glanced at Nola, whose legs were right up against the bumper. "Better move."

"Oh. Right." Nola took a couple of steps back out of the way, and Barty, who was just getting going again on how amazing he found it that the two of them were now all grown up, broke off in full spiel.

"My God, what's that?" he croaked. His tone was odd enough so that Lisa, who had a hand on the trunk just about to slam it closed, turned to frown at him instead. His eyes were fastened on Katrina. He wasn't moving, barely seemed to be breathing. In fact, the best word she could think of to describe his expression was
stunned.

19

Lisa watched him, riveted.
She was ready to swear that beneath his tan, Barty's face had paled.

"My old doll," she said slowly, never taking her eyes off his face. "One of the few things of mine that survived the fire."

"Oh. Oh." Barty wrenched his eyes away from Katrina, took a deep breath, and met Lisa's gaze. "Of course. Your doll. I don't know what I was thinking. It just--it's burned and . . ."

Sanford took his arm. If he'd noticed anything unusual in Barty's manner, his easy smile at Lisa didn't show it. "If Lisa has to be in court by one, we'd best be letting her get on her way."

Barty glanced at him. Then he looked back at Lisa.

"Of course we should." He seemed recovered now. At least--had there been beads of sweat on his upper lip before he saw Katrina? Lisa couldn't remember. But there definitely were now. "As I can tell you from personal experience, judges hate it when anyone's late to court." He glanced down at his watch. "It's already twelve-fifty, so--"

"I've got to go." She had no time to waste. Why Barty was behaving oddly was something to ponder later. For now, her job had to be her priority. She slammed the trunk closed and called hurried farewells as she jumped into her car. As she pulled out of the parking lot, she glanced into her rearview mirror. Nola was gone, but Barty and Sanford still stood in the parking lot exactly where she had left them, looking after her, deep in conversation.

What were they talking about? She couldn't be sure, but something about seeing Katrina had shaken Barty to the core.

The thought made Lisa feel cold all over.

Had Sanford seen Barty's reaction, too, and were they even now talking about it as they watched her drive away?

She thought the probability was strong, but there was no way to be sure, and in any case, she couldn't worry about it now. There was simply no time. She was on the verge of being late to court, and that just could not be allowed to happen, not twice in one week. Pulling into the courthouse parking lot, jamming the Jaguar into the sliver of space that remained between the yellow lines surrounding a dumpster and a poorly parked pickup, she snatched her newly purchased briefcase from the backseat and ran for the building and courtroom nine. The clock was just striking one as she slid into her seat at the prosecution table. Leroy Jones, the mercifully affable ADA who was the lead on the case, grinned at her.

"I knew you'd make it," he mouthed. Then the judge entered and the bailiff called, "All rise!" and they did.

It was an embezzlement trial in which a church secretary was accused of siphoning off more than a hundred thousand dollars from the parish's building fund. A plea bargain having been offered and refused, the Commonwealth was going for broke. It was a standard prosecution tactic, designed to scare the next defendant offered a plea bargain into accepting and thus saving everyone the time and expense of a trial. Lisa spent the next couple of hours whispering into Jones's ear explanations of relevant material in subpoenaed bank records, credit-card statements, e-mails, and telephone bills. The defendant had a gambling problem, and Lisa had checked every casino within a day's drive to find dates and amounts that corresponded roughly with the missing money. The upshot was that they had the woman cold. The plea bargain had included four months behind bars. A conviction would probably net the defendant three to five years. And they were going to get the conviction, Lisa was sure.

If so, it would be a harsh lesson aimed more at the public defender than the defendant.

By the time the case had gone to the jury and Lisa was back in her cubicle, it was getting on toward five. Five o'clock on a Friday, and every single desk around her was still occupied. Casting a single wistful glance at the clock while the memory of her previous job with its five-o'clock quitting time danced in her head, she tuned out all the hustle and bustle of the grunt room where the research assistants and administrative assistants and paralegals labored in busy anonymity and got down to dotting her
i
's and crossing her
t
's for the next case on her agenda. She'd been working on it off and on for the past month, and basically what she was doing at the moment was double-checking what she'd already done. It involved putting everything else out of her mind and being very, very careful to make sure that every single fact was in order. The material was in the system, having been sent to the defense in a timely fashion as part of the discovery process, but the case went to trial on Monday and the ADA was Kane. In other words, no screwups would be tolerated.

"So, how'd the trial go?"

Scott's voice behind her made her start. Lisa looked around at him in surprise. He had never spoken to her or even so much as acknowledged her presence in this big common room before, yet now here he was, standing in the opening of her cubicle as casually as if he did this every day. With his suit jacket on, he was broad-shouldered enough to block her view of most of the rest of the room. Conscious that the eyes and ears of her fellow cubicle dwellers must be zeroing in like heat-seeking missiles on such a gossip-worthy occurrence as the boss stopping to chat with one he had heretofore treated as invisible, she squelched the urge to scowl at him and instead rolled her chair--it was on wheels--back a little so that she could look at him without breaking her neck.

"It went well. I'm very confident the jury will come back with a guilty verdict."

There you go: tone and expression both professional as hell. She was proud of herself.

"That's what Jones said."

Then why ask me?
is what she almost replied--and sharply, too--but remembered just in time that he was her boss and they were at work, with, quite possibly, many ears listening in.

"Did you want something?" she asked instead, still coolly professional. He smiled at her. With the bright overhead light casting his blunt features into harsh relief and emphasizing every tiny crinkle around his eyes, he shouldn't have looked handsome enough to make her stomach flutter. But he did.

"I can't find Nola's phone number."

It was all she could do to keep from stiffening in indignation.

"Are you
really
asking
me
for it?"

Okay, there was more than a hint of a snap in her voice. It was not something she wanted him to pick up on.
Dial it back.

"If you wouldn't mind."

Lisa sizzled inwardly and said, "814-9034."

This time her tone was as sweet as pie.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, repeating, "814-9034?" Tapping away, he entered the number into his phone's memory.

"That's right." Her smile felt as though it was hurting her face.

"Thank you." He put his phone away. "I saw your father today, by the way. At Fortuni's. He came in not long after you and Nola left."

Barty as a topic of conversation was only slightly more tolerable than Scott's upcoming date with Nola, she discovered.

"I saw him, too. In the parking lot." Her tone was not encouraging. She thought about telling him about Katrina, and Barty's reaction to the sight of the doll, but she didn't. The story was too complicated and there were too many ears to hear, and anyway, she didn't particularly feel like confiding in Scott at the moment. Although it was galling to face the reason why.

He studied her. "You know, I'm getting the feeling you're mad at me."

Ya think?
That's what trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. Instead she gave an elaborately indifferent little shrug and said, "Why would I be?"

"You tell me."

"I'm not, so I can't. Look, I have to get this finished. Do you mind?"

She ostentatiously turned back to her work, rolling her chair around so that she was once again foursquare and solid at her desk, looking at the computer in front of her without registering a thing that was on the screen. Boss or no boss, it was a gesture of obvious dismissal.

"I hear you went out to Grayson Springs yesterday."

So much for her attempt to get rid of him. He was inside her cubicle now, all the way inside--standing right behind her, in fact. Even though she wasn't looking at him, she could feel his presence with every nerve ending she possessed. Her fellow workers must be agog. She only hoped they didn't strain their ears too badly, trying to overhear. Once a visitor was actually inside a cubicle, the semiefficient soundproofing semi-kicked in.

Provoked, she rolled her chair around again so that she could see him. He had to step back out of the way, which still left him so close that she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. "So?"

"Watson says he's ninety percent sure it was arson."

That made her stomach clench. "When did you talk to him?"

"He called me about an hour ago."

"What, he's giving you personal updates now?"