James Grippando - Beyond Suspicion

“Are you okay?”

He turned and saw Cindy standing behind him. He’d tried not to wake her when he’d crawled out of the little bed they were sharing, but he’d obviously failed.

“Can’t sleep,” he said.

“Me neither. I thought I’d check the real estate section for rentals once more.”

“Good idea.”

As she searched through the recycle bin for yesterday’s newspaper, she looked up and asked, “Are you still thinking about that letter you wrote to the state attorney?”

“How did you know?”

“Because I know you.”

He lowered his eyes. “I feel like the teacher kept me after school to write five hundred times on the blackboard, ‘bullwinkle is a dope.’”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the smartest lawyer I know.”

“I did a pretty stupid thing.”

“You had no choice. Writing that letter is the only way to focus the state attorney’s attention where it belongs-on those investors who were threatening your client.”

“I didn’t mean writing the letter was stupid. I meant letting Jessie fool me in the first place.”

She quit searching for the newspaper and lowered herself into the chair beside her husband. The look in her eye told him that he was in for a reality check. “Jessie’s doctor was one of the most respected neurologists in Miami. How could you possibly have suspected that a man of his stature would falsify a diagnosis and defraud a group of viatical investors?”

“I deal with clever thieves all the time. I let my sympathy for Jessie get in the way.”

“Of course you did. Even I felt sorry for that woman. I’m the one who told you, ‘Go ahead and take the case, I don’t care if she’s your old girlfriend.’ Remember?”

“It still blows me away.”

“Me too. Especially the doctor. The more I think about this, the crazier it seems that Dr. Marsh would jeopardize his whole career that way.”

“Money,” he said, shaking his head. “I know a few doctors who love it.”

“There has to be something more at work. Something that we don’t understand.”

He could have detailed some of Jessie’s other persuasive powers, but that didn’t seem like a smart road to travel with his wife. “Let’s not worry about him,” he said. “How are you doing?”

“Okay.”

She’d averted her eyes when answering. He turned her chin gently. “What’s wrong?”

“I got my period,” she said quietly.

Jack tried not to show disappointment. “It’s okay. We’ll keep trying.”

“We’ve been trying for eleven months now.”

“Has it really been that long?”

“Yes. And I’m still not pregnant.”

“Maybe we should try doing it without our wedding rings. That never seems to fail.”

She almost smiled, but this was clearly weighing on her. “How worried are you, honey?” he asked.

“Very.”

“Maybe it’s me,” said Jack.

“It’s not you.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

He wasn’t sure how she knew, but debating it wasn’t going to cheer her up. “There are plenty of things we haven’t tried yet.”

“I know. And there’s always adoption, too. But I’m almost afraid to think about that.”

“Why?”

She paused and said, “Because of the relationship you had with your stepmother.”

“That’s totally different from adoption.”

“It’s not, at least from a bonding standpoint. You were just a newborn when your mother died. Agnes raised you from infancy.”

“The fact that my stepmother and I never bonded has nothing to do with the fact that she was not my biological mother. My father was so desperate to find me a new mother that he married a woman who turned out to be a drunk.”

She took his hand, lacing her fingers with his. “How often do you wonder about your real mother?”

“I go in spurts. Times when I’m really curious, other times when I don’t think about her at all. Fortunately, I have my abuela to tell me all about her.”

“Doesn’t that concern you, about adoption? The idea of this mysterious person becoming part of our lives?”

“Adoption isn’t like that. There’s no abuela around to tell stories about the biological mother.”

“I didn’t mean an actual living person. I meant more like the essence of the birth mother.”

“That doesn’t seem to bother the millions of other couples who adopt.”

“I don’t think other people are as in touch with that sort of thing as I am.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Feeling someone’s… presence.”

Jack knew that she was talking about her father, and he feared that Jessie’s death had triggered something. “Is that why you’re awake? Were you having that dream about your father again?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Come on, I didn’t want to make this conversation about that. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. This was a traumatic event for both of us. If you want to talk to me or someone else or even a counselor, it’s okay.”

She fell silent, then looked at him and said, “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to show you.”

“What?”

“Wait right here.”

She rose and followed the dark hall to the spare bedroom that she’d turned into her temporary home office. In a minute she returned to the table and laid a ten-by-twelve photograph before him and said, “I shot a few rolls of film a couple weeks ago. Just a run-of-the-mill outdoor portrait of a little girl and her dog.”

Jack studied the photograph, shrugged, and said, “It’s a nice picture.”

“Look at the lower right-hand corner. See anything?”

He zeroed in. “Like what?”

“Does that not look like a shadow to you? As if someone might have been standing behind me?”

He looked again and said, “I don’t see any shadow.”

“You don’t see that?”

“The entire corner is a little darker than the rest of the photograph, but it doesn’t look like a person to me. Was someone there with you?”

“No. That’s the whole point. It was just me, the girl, and the dog. Yet I had a weird sensation that someone else was there during the shoot.”

“Cindy, please,” he said with concern.

“No, it’s true. Then I went back and took a really good look at the proofs, and I saw this.”

“Saw what?”

“This silhouette.”

“It’s just a dark spot.”

“It’s a person .”

“Cindy-”

“Just listen to me. I’m not losing my mind. I thought I was, to be honest. Between my creepy dreams and this shadow in the photograph, I was starting to think-well, I didn’t know what to think. But ever since this thing happened with Jessie, it’s beginning to make sense to me.”

“What’s making sense?”

She paused, as if to underscore her words. “Maybe someone’s following me.”

“What?”

“Jessie told you that some thugs were behind that viatical investment. She said they were going to kill her, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“What if those same thugs think her lawyer helped her pull off the scam? They could be out to get you, too. They could be out to get us. ”

“No one’s going to get us.”

“Then why is this shadow in my picture?”

“I honestly don’t see it.”

Her eyes seemed to cloud over. She looked at the photograph, then at Jack. “You really don’t see anything?”

He shook his head. “If you want, we can hire another photographer to examine it. See if their professional judgment squares with yours.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. You’re right. It’s not there.”

Jack recoiled, confused by her sudden reversal. “It’s not?”