“Harleigh.”
Leigh had let herself block out Andrew. She looked up.
His mask was off. He was at the witness stand. “Is this where Tammy will sit?”
Leigh sent the email to Bradley and dropped her phone into her purse. “Who are Lynne Wilkerson and Fabienne Godard?”
He rolled his eyes. “Jealous ex-girlfriends. One’s an alcoholic, the other’s a crazy bitch.”
“You’re going to need a better story than that,” Leigh said. “These women didn’t spontaneously decide to come forward today. Dante has been keeping them under wraps. These women are going to get on that stand and do exactly what I warned you Sidney might do.”
“Which is?”
“Testify in front of a jury that you’re a sadist who gets too rough in bed.”
“Can’ t argue with that,” Andrew said. “But history tells me that a cash inducement will persuade them both it’s better to sit this one out.”
Leigh warned, “That’s called bribery and tampering with witnesses.”
He shrugged, because he didn’t care. “Reggie will meet you at your car. Give him the list of the jurors so far. He’s going to start looking into them, see if there are any weak points we can exploit.”
“How does Reggie know where my car is?”
He tsked his teeth, shaking his head at her stupidity. “Harleigh, don’t you know that any time I want, I can find you or your sister?”
Leigh wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her rattled. Andrew’s eyes tracked her as she walked out of the courtroom. She looked down at her personal phone. Her thumb pressed the power button. She watched the screen, waiting for the signal to pick up.
She was in the stairwell when the notifications came in. Six calls from Walter. Two from Maddy. They had both left voice messages. Leigh clutched the phone to her chest as she walked down the stairs. She would listen to them in the car. She would let herself cry. She would find her sister. Then she would figure out what to do next.
The lobby was full of stragglers. The metal detectors were blocked off. Court was closed for the day. Two deputies stood guard by the exit. She nodded to Walter’s friend. He winked at her in response.
Sunlight washed over her face as she walked through the square. She felt her phone buzz again. Not Walter or Maddy this time, but Nick Wexler with another DTF? Leigh mentally ran through some polite rejections before she realized that Nick wouldn’t care. They had barely been lovers. They had never been friends. And once Leigh’s crimes were out in the open, they would likely be enemies.
Her phone went back to her side. She crossed the street at the light. She had parked her Audi in the deck opposite the square. Before Covid, the lot had been filled with customers for the restaurants, bars, and boutique stores that used to line the streets of downtown Decatur. This morning, Leigh had found a prime spot on the first floor.
The overhead lights flickered maniacally as she walked through the garage. Shadows danced around the three cars parked close to the front gate. The rest of the spaces were empty but for Leigh’s Audi, which was parked at the base of the ramp. Out of habit, she let her house key stick out between her fingers. Between the dark shadows and low ceiling, this was just the kind of place where women disappeared.
Leigh shuddered. She knew what happened to women who disappeared.
She looked at the time on her phone. Reggie was probably on his way to retrieve the jury list. Leigh had worked enough contentious divorce cases to know how the private investigator would locate her Audi. She ran her hand under the car’s rear bumper. She checked the wheel wells. The GPS tracker was in a magnetized box stuck above her right back tire.
Leigh tossed the box onto the ground. She opened her trunk. Out of habit, she punched in the combination on the safe she’d had bolted to the floor. She might’ve been a suburban mom, but she wasn’t a stupid suburban mom. Leigh’s Glock was in the safe. Sometimes, she shoved her purse inside when she didn’t want to carry it around. Now, she needed a spot to store Ruby Heyer’s crime scene photos. Her hand rested on the file. She thought about the knife that had been left inside of the woman. The state of Andrew’s dark bruises.
“Leigh?”
She turned around, shocked to find Walter standing there. Then she looked behind him, wondering if he’d brought the police.
Walter turned, too. He said, “ What is it?”
Leigh swallowed the saliva that had rushed into her mouth. “Is Maddy safe?”