Steven James - The Bishop

Up until then I hadn’t told Tessa about the meeting at 3:30, but now I explained that after we grabbed something to eat we were going to meet with the lawyer and then head over to a custody meeting with Paul Lansing’s lawyers.

She listened with uncharacteristic silence. When I was done and she finally spoke, her voice was edged with anger. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

I’d anticipated her question. “I knew that if I told you, you’d worry about it all morning. I couldn’t come up with any good reason to ruin your day, so I waited. Trust me, I wasn’t playing games with you, I was just trying to keep you from being upset.”

She was quiet. “But you actually want me to come along?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You deserve to be present. It’s your future we’re talking about.”

A pause. “It’s yours too.”

I wasn’t sure how to reply to that. “Yes. It is.”

It was a long time before she responded. “Thanks.” After a The Bishop moment she sighed. “This whole thing with Paul, I gotta say, I’m kind of annoyed at you.”

“Because I didn’t tell you?”

“No, because you took me to see him in Wyoming in the first place.”

“Hang on, you’re the one who wanted to meet him. I just agreed that you had a right to know who-”

“I know. I changed my mind. That’s why it’s your fault.”

“You changed your mind and that’s why it’s my fault.”

“Yes. It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind and then blame someone else if things don’t work out.” She’d lent a lightness to her tone that told me she wasn’t really angry after all.

“I don’t think that’s exactly how the saying goes.”

“It’s the twenty-first-century version.”

“You just made that up.”

“Maybe.”

A moment passed, and her tone turned serious again. “You’re a good dad, Patrick. Seriously. I mean that.”

“Don’t worry. Things will work out.”

“No, I mean, whatever happens-” she began, but I didn’t want to hear her say anything more.

“Don’t worry,” I repeated.

She didn’t reply.

We grabbed a quick, very late lunch, and headed to Missy Schuel’s office.

7 hours left…

2:29 p.m. She had no idea how long she’d been straining against her bonds, yanking, yanking, trying to get free, but slowly, over time, more and more dirt had tipped from her back and loosened around her limbs. And now, as she wrenched her arm to the side as hard as she could, Riah’s arm nudged a little bit to the left. She yanked again. It moved more. Then she jerked her whole body as hard as she could, back and forth, again and again, and all at once, with a thick, solid squish, Riah Everson’s rotting left arm broke free from her body. For a moment she lay in stunned disbelief. Maybe God had given her an answer after all. Maybe. Maybe. Awkwardly, frantically, she smacked the corpse’s limb against the ground until the horrible thing cracked at the wrist and fell from the leather strap. And her right arm was free. Though the angle was working against her, she grabbed the arm and tried to fling it to the side. It took three tries, but at last she got it out of the shallow grave, giving her own arm more room to move. Then she got rid of the corpse’s hand. From the position her betrayer had left her in, it wasn’t easy to undo the gag, but at last she managed. Immediately, she gulped in a mouthful of sour air. The Dotracaine had worn off, and she vomited as she gasped for breath, but still, with the gag gone, she felt a rush of hope. She twisted her arm toward her head, reaching for the strap around her neck.

We arrived at Missy’s office.

Considering her hesitancy to have me attend the custody meeting, I’d expected her to be reluctant to have Tessa there as well, but if she didn’t like the idea, she hid it well. As soon as I introduced Tessa to her, Missy returned the diary. “I can only imagine how special this must be to you.”

“Yes, it is,” Tessa replied.

Missy took some time explaining that reading the diary had helped her better formulate the things she wanted to emphasize in the meeting today.

“I’ll draw attention to the brief nature of Paul Lansing’s relationship with Christie,” she said. “It was a short-lived love affair that lasted less than a month.” She nodded toward me. “During the last few months of your wife’s life, and ever since then, you’ve been Tessa’s caregiver-that’s more than twenty times longer than Paul even knew her mother.”

“That’s a good point.” Tessa let her eyes bounce from me to Missy as if she were looking for support. “That’ll help.”

“Yes, I think it will,” Missy said. “Also, Paul corresponded with your mother long after their relationship ended, yet never mentioned you or tried to find out if you were alive, so I believe we can show that he-”

Tessa shook her head, the reassurance gone. “I already went through all this with him. He’ll just say he thought Mom went ahead with the abortion.”

“Perhaps, but we’ll show that if he could find her, he could certainly have found you, or at least found out that Christie had delivered her baby. She never took any steps to keep it a secret from people, did she? That you were her daughter?”

“No. Never.”

I felt a shot of optimism.

Missy was the real deal.

“All right.” She looked at her watch, then promptly rose. “Their office is across town. Let’s go. I don’t want to be late.”

Seated at her desk at the command post, Margaret Wellington clicked to Congressman Fischer’s website to read his issue statements.

Last night she’d reviewed his voting record, but today, in light of what Agent Bowers had told her-or at least insinuated by his lack of an answer-about the congressman influencing Rodale, she’d decided to study the man’s votes and platform more carefully.

From living in his district, she knew that he was for shrinking the military and FBI, decreasing the national debt, strengthening abortion rights, creating more green jobs, and expanding health care benefits to seniors, but she hadn’t been aware of how strongly he felt about justice reform until she saw his record of cast votes.

Among other things, Fischer was adamantly against the death penalty.

That one brought her pause.

The man who’d tried to kill his brother had been a pro-death penalty advocate. After the assassination attempt, public opinion had pendulumed the other direction toward the congressman’s position, and Director Rodale had been one of those swayed to change his mind.

During Richard Basque’s retrial, Margaret had gotten into a discussion with Rodale about the justice (or lack of justice) of the death penalty-something he’d grown to oppose but she supported. And, knowing she was for reducing the number of abortions, he’d challenged her: “How can you claim to be pro-life when you’re for the death penalty?”

“Greg, we’re talking about the death penalty, not about-”

“I’m only saying, Margaret, that your view is inconsistent.”

“Frankly, I’m not sure it’s appropriate to compare-”

“See?” He looked satisfied. “Your position is untenable.”

“I am for life,” she said, “as well as for justice. With all due respect, Greg, how can you claim to be for either when you support letting the guilty live and putting the innocent to death?”

Rodale had looked at her coldly. Had not replied.

Even at the time, the fact that he’d confronted her in such a way had seemed inexplicable to her. Why was he so emotionally invested in the issue as it pertained specifically to Basque’s case?

The computer screen stared at her and her thoughts switched from Rodale to Fischer.