Richard Montanari - The Devil_s Garden

“Was there media outside?”

“Oh yeah. Cameras got them hauling Ghegan away, screaming his ass off.”

Michael thought about this. It was never good. Even worse in this case. If Falynn saw the footage, she might disappear forever. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

He told Tommy about the text message from Falynn, as well as the conversation with Deena Trent. “See if you can find out where she might have gone.”

With any luck, Michael would complete his opening statement today, Feretti would open in the morning – and, if they found Falynn, and Michael could talk to her into it – she would be on the stand by eleven o’clock.

“You got it,” Tommy said.

“Thanks, man.”

When Tommy left, Michael stood, closed the door, took off his suit coat. He found that the tension of the day had settled into his shoulders. He did some of his stretching exercises, soon felt a little better.

He poured himself some coffee, paced his small office, trying to reengage the mindset. He had only been interrupted during an opening statement once in his career, and that had been in law school, as an exercise. He had not done well that time, but that was a long time ago. Before he was a prince at the Palace.

A few minutes later his cellphone rang. He looked at the screen.

Private number. He had to take it. It might have been Judge Gregg’s clerk telling him there was a delay, which would be the first good news he’d had all day. He flipped open the phone.

“This is Michael.”

“Mr Roman.”

A statement, not a question. It was a man’s voice. Foreign.

“Who is this?” Michael asked.

“I will tell you this soon. But first I want you to promise me that you will remain calm, no matter what occurs in the next few moments.”

Michael stood up. Something turned in his stomach, the way it used to when he had a witness on the stand, and the person’s story began to crack. Except at this moment he knew this was wrong, but he wasn’t sure how he knew.

“Who is this? What are you talking about?”

“Before I begin, I want your assurance that you will listen to what I have to say in its entirety.”

Michael would make no promises. “I’m listening.”

“My name is Aleksander,” the man said. “May I call you Michael?”

Michael remained silent.

“I will take that as a yes,” the man continued. He spoke with an accent, the unmistakable Estonian inflection Michael knew very well.

“By now I believe you have heard about the tragic murder of a man named Harkov. A lawyer like yourself.”

Michael’s stomach fell. This man was calling about Harkov. Was this a detective? No. A cop wouldn’t be playing games. A cop would be standing in this office with his handcuffs ready. Maybe this was a fed. No. Feds had an even lower tolerance for bullshit. “I heard.”

“I believe that at one time you retained his services. Am I correct in this knowledge?”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to answer my question. It is in your best interest to do so.”

Michael felt the old anger begin to boil. “What the fuck do you know about my best interest? Tell me what this is all about or I hang up the phone.”

“Ah,” the man said. “The temper.”

“The temper? What the fuck is this? Have we met?”

The man hesitated for a moment. “No, we have never met, but in the past few hours or so, I have learned a great deal about you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have faced death,” the man said. “You have looked into Satan’s face and lived to tell. As have I.”

The man continued, but the sounds seemed to drift away. Michael didn’t hear what the man was saying, until he said:

“I am in your home. Abigail and the girls are just fine, and they will remain so, as long as you follow my instructions.”

A deadening cold radiated through Michael’s limbs, as if he had suddenly been anesthetized. What had moments ago been a dark possibility – that this man somehow knew about the illegalities of the girls’ adoption – had now blossomed into a different, more terrifying reality.

The man continued. “Do not call the police, do not call the FBI, do not contact anyone,” he said. “If you do, it will be the mistake by which all other mistakes will be measured until your last breath. Do I have your attention and your belief?”

Michael began to pace again. “Yes.”

“Good. I want you to listen to me,” the man said. “My full name is Aleksander Savisaar. I want you to call me Aleks. I am telling you this because I know you are not going to contact the authorities.”

Up came the prosecutor in Michael. Up came the heat. Before he could stop himself he said, “How do you know what I will or won’t do?”

A moment. “I know.”

Michael stopped pacing, every muscle tightening. Every instinct within him told him to go to the police. This was his training, this was his belief, this was consistent with every case he had ever tried, everything he had come to believe. If this were happening to a friend or colleague, it would be the advice he would give them.

But now it was his life, his wife, his children.

Michael picked up his office phone. He dialed his home number. There were two house phones in the Eden Falls house, two extensions of the land line. One in the kitchen, one in the bedroom. For some reason he got a disconnect recording. The sound of the disembodied voice chilled him. He dialed Abby’s cellphone. After a second, he heard it ring in the background. It was Abby’s special ringtone. His heart froze. The man was in his house.

“And now you have proof,” Aleks said.

“Look” Michael began, his rage a gathering gale. “If anything happens to my family there is nowhere on earth you will able to hide. Nowhere. Do you hear me?”

For a moment Michael thought, and feared, that the man had hung up.

“There is no need for anyone to be hurt,” Aleks said. His calmness was as infuriating as it was chilling. “But this is entirely up to you.”

Michael remained silent as the clock passed four o’clock. Any second now his office phone would ring. They would be looking for him.

“I am looking at your schedule,” Aleks said. “You should be in court. Are there problems?”

“No.”

“Good. And I see that later today you are due to meet some tradesman on Newark Street.”

The cold began to spread. Michael found that he had not moved a muscle in minutes. This man knew his whole life.

“You are to go about the rest of your day as if everything were normal,” Aleks continued. “You will keep all of your appointments. You will not contact anyone about this, or send anyone to this house. You will not call this house for any reason. You will not come home.”

“Let me talk to my wife.”

The man ignored him, continued. “You are being watched, Michael Roman. If you do anything out of the ordinary, if you are seen talking to anyone in law enforcement, you will regret it.”

My God, Michael thought. It was all connected. The brutal murder of Viktor Harkov, the stealing of confidential files. And now a madman had his family.

But why? What did he want?

“When you step out of the office, one of the people you encounter will hold the lives of your wife and these little girls in their hands. You will not know who it is. Be wise, Michael. I will contact you soon.”

“You don’t understand. When I go into the courtroom there will be all kinds of police officers, detectives, marshals. I can’t -”

“No one.”

The line went dead.

What Michael had feared, just a few short moments ago – the possibility he might lose his daughters in a long, protracted legal battle – was nothing.