Джозеф Файндер - Judgment

“Okay,” she said. “Let me be very clear with you. I’m not going to be manipulated, I don’t care what it costs me.”

“All they want you to do—”

“I know what ‘they’ want, and I won’t do it. Here’s the bad news for you, Matías. I’m willing to sacrifice my marriage, if that’s what it takes. But I’m not going to be blackmailed.”

“You are in so far over your head,” he said. “You have no idea.” He didn’t say it in a threatening way. He sounded defeated.

“And you,” she said. “What do you think happens to your sister now?”

He winced visibly.

“Yes,” she said, “I know about Bianca.”

He shook his head slowly. Now she realized something else: the man was frightened. His eyes widened. “What do you know about her?” he demanded. “ How? ”

Her phone made another text sound, and she ignored it again. “I have my judicial sources. I know the Miami authorities dropped charges without prejudice, meaning that they can charge her again at any time.”

“These people — please, just do what they say. You have no idea what they’re capable of. These people will do anything — stage an accident, a suicide, whatever they need to do if they think you’re an inconvenience.”

“And who are they? Wheelz? Are they working for Devin Allerdyce?”

Matías laughed mirthlessly. “Devin Allerdyce knows nothing.”

“Then who?”

“I have no idea. They have people inside the Justice Department in Washington. They have people all over. It’s so much bigger than one corporation.”

“And they got their hooks into you through your sister?”

He nodded sadly.

“The opiates. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Our father was killed in the Dirty War, and she has never gotten over his murder.”

“You’re from Argentina.”

He nodded. “I went to law school in Chicago, and my sister went into a master’s degree program to become a physician’s assistant. In Miami. She worked at a spine clinic, and she started to have problems. She started to forge prescriptions to get OxyContin and that sort of thing. A couple of months ago she was arrested by Miami police. She was charged with obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, which is a felony offense. Meaning prison time. So I flew to Miami — I’m all she’s got — to be her lawyer, help her through the process. And that’s when they contacted me. They made me an offer.”

He hesitated. In the long silence she said, “Yes?”

“They would drop the charges against her if I did as they instructed.”

“How were you contacted?”

“A phone call.”

“And who was it?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t given a name. He knew who I was, where I was. He knew all about Bianca’s legal situation.”

“What did they promise, exactly?”

“That all charges would be dropped. Just that.”

“And if you didn’t do... as instructed ...?”

“She’d be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“So you — what? You forced yourself to seduce the old bag?”

“Oh, please. You’re an attractive woman. You know that perfectly well. That’s not the point.”

Her face turned hot. “Why is my ruling so important? What’s the evidence they’re trying to conceal?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I just keep my head down and do what I’m told, and my sister remains free.”

“I’m sorry I can’t help you. But I’m not going to be controlled. I have no idea how I’m going to rule,” she said.

“You don’t have a choice ! They’re going to release that video. Listen to me. You and I, we’re just... chess pieces. We’re being played. Fighting them is pointless.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “Well, they picked on the wrong woman,” she said. “I will not be played.”

Outside the hotel, she looked at her phone and saw a series of texts that had come in from Duncan.

8:47: Where’d you go?

9:16: Hello?

9:23: Where r u?

9:36: going home.

At 9:36 a call had come in on her phone, no voice message left.

He’d looked around for her, texted and texted, and finally had given up. He was probably furious and justifiably so.

And what could she possibly tell Duncan by way of explanation? She couldn’t tell him the truth, of course. She scrabbled around for something to say, came up with a story about a college friend she’d run into who was in a very bad way. Yes, she should have checked the text messages as they came in, but she didn’t, she couldn’t tear herself away from a very difficult conversation. She mentally rehearsed this lie, this one lie atop a pile of lies, and she felt terrible about it.

But what else could she do?

At 10:30, her cab pulled up to her house. Some lights were on, on both the first and second floors. Presumably Jake was awake, but she wondered about Duncan. She’d tried his mobile a few times but had gotten no answer. Either he’d turned his phone off, which would be odd, or he was ignoring her calls. Which would be even odder.

When she entered the house, she called out quietly for Duncan and Jake but got no answer. Upstairs, she saw that Jake was in his bedroom — she could see the light under the closed door — and Duncan was in bed with the lights off. She entered as soundlessly as she could, navigating by the moonlight that filtered in through one of the windows, where he hadn’t closed the curtains all the way.

“What happened?” Duncan’s voice in the dark startled her.

“Oh — I’m so sorry about tonight. I ran into an old college friend who was in really bad shape. We got into an intense conversation.”

She left it vague and hoped he didn’t ask more. She’d met her in the women’s room, she’d say, if he pressed. This old friend was attending some other function in the hotel, that’s what she’d say.

She undressed, placing her clothes neatly on the chaise longue.

“You didn’t get my texts?”

“I’m sorry — I heard my phone and ignored it. I didn’t want to be rude to this poor woman. I should have looked. I’m really sorry.”

A long silence. “A lot of people asked about you.”

“Oh?”

“Lynn Golding.”

“She was there? It was like I fell into a black hole. By the time we were done talking I checked my phone, and I saw you’d left. God, Dunc, I’m so sorry.”

She got into her nightgown, then went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, and washed her face. By the time she got into bed, Duncan was softly snoring.

When Juliana arrived at her lobby the following Monday, Kaitlyn was already there. “I didn’t think you’d want them on top of your desk,” Kaitlyn said.

Juliana saw what Kaitlyn was talking about: four bankers boxes of documents were piled next to her desk, taking up valuable (and scarce) floor space.

“From the defense?”

Kaitlyn nodded. “It’s printouts of all chats that mention Rachel Meyers’s name.”

“That’s a lot of mentions.”

“In these boxes are actually two sets of documents. One is redacted, one’s unredacted. With a privilege log.”

Somewhere in those four boxes was the answer to the question of why she was being blackmailed. “Where’s the log?”

“On your desk.”

Juliana saw the manila folder on her desk next to the keyboard.

“Have you looked through the documents yet?”

“No, I wanted to wait for your instructions.”

“Okay.” She took off her jacket and hung it on the coatrack next to her black robe.

Sitting down at her desk, she opened the folder and began skimming through the privilege log. It listed all the chats the defense wanted to withhold, identifying each chat by date and time, sender and recipient, subject, and, most important, the reason they wanted to withhold it. Assembling a privilege log was tedious grunt work, probably done by some poor young associate.