Steven James - The Bishop

I was switching my phone to vibrate.

She paused. “Will you let me do the talking?”

“I’ll try.”

“Succeed,” she said, and we entered the conference room and I closed the door behind us.

Lansing and two additional lawyers were waiting for us at the far end of a sprawling steel and glass conference table. A south-facing window offered a spread of natural light to the otherwise institutional feel of the room. A pitcher of water sat on the table with seven glasses poised beside it. I assumed that the additional door on the other side of the room led to more offices.

Seven glasses on the table.

Perhaps they had been expecting Tessa.

Either that, or someone else.

Missy and I took seats facing Lansing and his lawyers. After introductions, Wilby thanked us for coming, which seemed a little disingenuous since he hadn’t done so in the reception area when we first arrived, and we’d already been here for nearly forty-five minutes.

“All right.” Missy gestured toward me. “Our agenda today is to find out what Mr. Lansing wants-”

“He wants custody of his biological daughter,” one of Wilby’s associates said tersely.

She looked at him with cool curiosity. “What was your name again?”

“Seth Breney.”

“Well, Mr. Breney, please refrain from interrupting me and this will no doubt be a much more productive meeting for all of us.” There was no question who was in control of this room.

Wilby cleared his throat. “Primarily, my client wants what is best for Tessa.”

“That’s good to hear.” Missy was writing something on her legal pad in that scribbly shorthand of hers.

In the momentary silence following her statement, Lansing spoke up, “Patrick, before we begin here, I’d like to tell you how thankful I am for all you’ve done for Tessa ever since Christie passed away.”

“It’s kind of you to say that.”

“Whatever the results of this custody case, I hope you will agree to stay involved in her life.”

Oh man, did I want to respond to that one, but I rounded a conversational corner instead. “You didn’t run for cover, did you, Paul?”

“Pardon me?”

“Six years ago. At the hotel.”

I watched his reaction.

Despite what you might see on TV, when detecting deception it isn’t so much what the subject does-looking into one corner of the room or the other, pushing up his glasses or peering over the top of them-but it’s that he does something different than when he’s telling the truth. There are always perceptible subconscious physiological changes that occur, even though they’re different for different people.

Now, as Paul looked at me, I could see his Secret Service training in the coolness of his eyes, but he was lightly tapping his right thumb and forefinger together, which he had not been doing a few moments earlier. “We can discuss this later, Patrick.”

“Yes,” Wilby agreed emphatically.

“No time like the present.” I shrugged. “We’re all friends here.”

Lansing said nothing.

“So, then…” Wilby said.

Lansing tapped his finger and thumb.

Thought so.

I jotted a note of my own on Missy’s legal pad.

She glanced down, read it. Nodded.

“Back to the matter at hand.” Wilby conferred with his stack of notes, although what he said afterwards didn’t seem all that difficult to remember. “My client is Tessa’s biological father. You do not dispute this, do you?”

“We’ll want another DNA test to be done by an agency of our choosing,” Missy said. “Just to make sure.”

Wilby glanced at Breney, obviously his subordinate, who made a note of it. The third lawyer who was sitting beside them said nothing, simply sat there looking clueless.

Wilby said, “When Agent Bowers and his stepdaughter showed up last month at my client’s home, they had a diary that contained a letter my client had written to Christie Ellis, the girl’s mother.”

“Tessa,” I corrected him. “The girl’s name is Tessa.” The whole letting-Missy-speak-thing wasn’t going so well.

“Yes,” Wilby said. “In the letter, my client stated that he wanted to play an active role in the upbringing of the as-of-yet unnamed child Christie was carrying. From the very beginning, even before she was born, Mr. Lansing willingly offered to care for both mother and child, both relationally and fiscally.”

“The letter only offers broad intention,” Missy responded, “not specific design. And he never made any efforts to follow up on those vague promises.”

“When Tessa’s mother left him, he searched for her, but seventeen years ago, without the Internet, it wasn’t easy to locate someone who didn’t want to be found. My client didn’t even know that the girl-Tessa-was alive.”

Missy waited, one eyebrow raised, and I could tell that her silence was a way of controlling the conversation. “Anything else?”

Wilby flipped through a stack of papers. “I have here a copy of Dr. Bowers’s work schedule for the first six months after his wife’s death.”

I felt a small quickening of my pulse.

How did he get that?

Then he addressed me directly, as if Missy were not in the room. “It looks like you spent quite a bit of time traveling, Dr. Bowers. Speaking at law enforcement and forensic science conferences.”

“I spoke some. Yes.”

“How many weekends did you leave Tessa with your parents while you went to consult on a case or speak at a conference?”

“This has nothing to do with-” Missy began.

“I traveled a couple weekends a month,” I said.

“Fourteen weekends,” Wilby pointed out. “Fourteen weekends in six months. That’s more than two weekends a month.”

“Which means,” Missy countered, “Dr. Bowers was home nearly 80 percent of the time. And whenever my client was gone, Tessa was well cared for.”

“I’m not here to argue about the competency of care that Dr. Bowers’s relatives are able to provide. That’s not the issue here.”

Okay, this guy was really starting to get on my nerves.

“Tessa needs a more stable and secure home life than an active FBI field agent can provide.” Wilby referred to his notes again. “According to police reports, last October she was almost killed by a serial killer whom Dr. Bowers was tracking in North Carolina.”

Anger rising.

“She was inside an FBI safe house when he attacked her.”

“And yet, this man, Sevren Adkins, was able to-”

“What is your point?” Missy said curtly.

“My client is concerned for the welfare of his daughter.” He was looking directly at Missy. “Dr. Bowers has a history of breaking FBI protocol-”

“This is outrageous,” she broke in. “At a press conference on Wednesday the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director called him one of the Bureau’s finest agents.”

Wilby folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Let me cut to the chase. If this case ends up going to court, we have a man who is willing to testify that Agent Bowers threatened his life.”

What?

“Agent Bowers would never threaten another person’s life,” Missy said.

Wilby wore that look again, the one that said he’d won a round, but it was Lansing who spoke up. “He’s here right now. We can end this discussion. Perhaps come to a-”

“I haven’t threatened anyone,” I stated unequivocally.

Missy read my eyes, saw truth in them. “If he’s here,” she was looking around the room, “let’s talk with him. Let’s settle this.”

Wilby rose and went to the door at the far end of the room. He swung it open and called, “Come on in.” Then he stepped back, and a man emerged.

Richard Devin Basque.