Brad Meltzer - Dead Even

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was completely my fault.”

“Don’t worry about it.” As Sara picked up her briefcase, she couldn’t help but notice how his sunken cheeks punctuated the edges of his face.

“I guess I was thinking about something else,” the man explained, taking a close look at Tiffany.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” Sara said. “No harm done.”

As she and Tiffany continued their walk toward the main part of campus, Tiffany said, “Freaky-looking guy, huh?”

“He was kind of weird,” Sara admitted. When she readjusted her purse on her shoulder, she realized something felt wrong. She looked down in her purse. “Son of a bitch!” she shouted, spinning around.

“What?” Tiffany asked.

“That guy just lifted my wallet.” Sara ran as fast as she could up Amsterdam Avenue and turned the corner on 117th Street. The stranger was gone.

CLIMBING THE STAIRS TO HIS APARTMENT, JARED NOTICED that the broken glass was completely cleaned up and the picture of the sunflowers had been reset in a new frame. The night of the break-in was now a two-day-old memory, but to Jared, the sound of crunching glass was still a raw wound. At the top of the stairs, he wondered why anyone would ever smash the hallway picture in the first place. It makes no sense, he thought. There’s no benefit – except for the joy of mindless violence. And then it all became clear. To Kozlow, it’s just a game.

Unable to shake the image of Kozlow smashing the original frame, Jared heard the entryway door on the first floor slam shut. Someone else was in the building. Was it Sara? No, the footsteps were too heavy. Refusing to look over the railing, Jared raced to find the key to his apartment. He dropped his briefcase to make it easier. Behind him, he could hear someone lumbering up the stairs. As he opened the top lock, his hands were shaking. Bottom lock, bottom lock, bottom lock, he thought, fishing for the key. When he finally put it in, he turned it toward the left. It was stuck. Damn it, not now! Open up, you prewar piece of – Suddenly, the lock clicked, the door flew open, and Jared stumbled inside. He slammed the door shut and looked through the peephole. The man on the stairs was Chris Guttman, their neighbor from the third floor.

Annoyed at his own paranoia, Jared headed for the bedroom. “Sara? You here?” There was no reply. He threw his briefcase down next to his nightstand and took a seat on the bed.

Take a breath, Jared told himself. Don’t let him have this one. He went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw something move in the shower. He quickly pulled open the curtain. It was nothing. Empty. He ran back to the bedroom and checked under the bed. Then his closet. Then Sara’s. Then the linen closet. Nothing in any of them. Empty. Empty. Empty. Without a doubt, there was no one else in the apartment. It didn’t make Jared feel any safer.

By eight-thirty, Jared was sitting in the living room, fighting with the New York Times crossword and anxiously awaiting the return of his wife. She’s fine, he told himself, glancing at his watch and then checking the clock on the VCR. It’s a long commute – that’s why she’s late. In the past half hour, he’d called Sara’s office three times. No answer. Determined to distract himself, Jared started wondering how she was going to react to two of her witnesses canceling on her. He imagined she’d first blame him, then start fishing for information. His analysis complete, he looked back at his watch. And the VCR clock. She’s fine, he repeated. Please, let her be fine.

Ten minutes later, Sara finally arrived home. The moment Jared heard her key in the door, he pulled the paper back onto his lap. “How was your day?” he called out.

“It was wonderful,” Sara said sarcastically. “First your client threatens two of my witnesses, then someone smashes into me and steals my wallet.”

Putting down the paper, he first thought of Kozlow. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Where did it happen?”

Sara entered the living room and quickly relayed the story. “The son of a bitch got everything – credit cards, my license…”

“I hate to say it, but I told you you should get a purse with a better clasp,” Jared said. Was it him? “Now tell me how my client threatened your witnesses.”

“C’mon, Jared, you know what hap-”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Sara approached Jared, leaned over, and stared straight into his eyes. “Say that again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jared repeated, carefully pronouncing every syllable. Don’t blink, he thought as he held his breath. Don’t blink or she’ll know.

Sara scrutinized her husband. If he was lying, he was getting better at it. Finally, she said, “I talked to both Ms. Doniger and Ms. Harrison after lunch and they both told me they didn’t want to testify. Harrison was so scared, I could hear her sniffling on the other end of the phone.”

“So you think Kozlow said something to them?”

“Who else?”

“There’s no one else,” Jared said firmly. “But I can tell you that Kozlow was with me all morning.”

“What about the rest of the afternoon?”

“I was working on a motion for Lubetsky all afternoon. We had to crank it out by five. Anyway, I thought you said you heard from them right after lunch.”

“I did,” Sara said. “I was just checking.”

“Well, you can stop with the accusations. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jared said. Realizing that the longer he stayed on the topic, the more likely she was going to find him out, Jared switched subjects. “Let’s get back to your wallet. How much money did we lose?”

“I don’t know and I don’t want to think about it,” Sara said, flopping on the sofa. “I’m exhausted.”

“Are you going in this weekend?” Jared asked anxiously.

“Yep. You?”

“Of course,” he said. “So what do you want to do tonight?”

“Honestly, I just want to sit here and veg for a few hours.”

“You in the mood to give a haircut?”

“Sure. Get the stuff.” Sara had first cut Jared’s hair during their second year of law school. When Jared came home butchered by the Columbia Barber Shop, Sara challenged that even she could do better. A month later, Jared gave her the chance. Since that day, he had never paid for another haircut.

After washing his hair in the shower, Jared entered the kitchen with a towel wrapped around his waist and took a seat at the table. Combing through his hair, Sara said, “It’s getting mighty thin up here, my man.”

“No doubt about that. When I’m outside, I can feel a cold breeze like never before. But if I’m meant to be bald, I’ll be bald.”

“Judging from the view, it’s already been decided.”

“That’s great,” he said. “Now, can I ask you another question about the case?”

“Fire away,” Sara said, holding a clump of hair between two fingers.

“How would you feel about a dismiss and seal?”

“A what?” Sara asked as she started clipping.

“Dismiss and seal,” Jared repeated, feeling the cut hair run down his shoulders. “It’s a settlement. You agree to wipe out and seal Kozlow’s file. There’s no record of it and Kozlow is out of your hair – no pun intended – forever.”

Sara stopped cutting, her brow furrowed. “And I benefit from this how ?”

“To put it bluntly, you don’t look like a fool. Instead of failing in the grand jury on Monday, or taking a loss at trial, you get to walk away before anything’s counted against you. That way you don’t start with a losing average.”