“You’ re damn right I did. No offense to Octavia Bacca, but when I heard the cops were trying to jam up Andrew on these three other cases, I knew he needed a goddam cheetah with a razor blade.” He rocked back in his chair. “It’s crazy he recognized your face, right?”
Leigh desperately wanted to believe him. Both the best and the worst alibis could sound wildly coincidental. “When did you show it to him?”
“Two days ago.”
Right when Andrew had fired Octavia Bacca. “He had you look into me?”
Reggie let another one of his dramatic pauses fill the void. “You’ve got a lot of questions.”
“I’m the one signing off on your invoices.”
He looked nervous, which gave the entire game away. Reggie Paltz wasn’t on some kind of secret mission. The reason he was bragging about his encrypted server and the need for discretion was because he wanted Leigh to give him more business.
She adjusted her evaluation, kicking herself because she should’ve recognized the type: a poor kid who had managed to scholarship his way into the rarefied air of the filthy rich. That explained the lacrosse stick and the exotic trips and the shitty office and the expensive Mercedes and the way he kept constantly referring to money. Cash was like sex. You didn’t talk about it unless you weren’t getting enough of it.
She tested him, saying, “I work with a lot of investigators on a lot of cases.”
Reggie smiled, one shark to another. He was smart enough to not take the first bite. “Why’d you change your name? Harleigh’s killer.”
“Doesn’t fit with corporate law.”
“You didn’t go over to the Dark Side until the pandemic hit.” Reggie leaned forward, lowered his voice. “If you’re worried about what I think you’re worried about, he hasn’t asked me to. Yet.”
There were so many different things he could be referring to that Leigh could only feign ignorance.
“Really?” Reggie asked. “Dude has a massive hard-on for your sister.”
Leigh felt her stomach start to seize again. “He wants you to find her?”
“He’s talked about her off and on for years, but now that you’re right in front of him, reminding him every day?” Reggie shrugged. “He’ll ask eventually.”
Leigh felt like hornets were under her skin. “You’re Andrew’s friend. He’s going to trial in less than a week. Do you think he needs that kind of distraction right now?”
“I think if Sid finds out he’s chasing his first wet dream, dude’s gonna end up with a knife in his chest and we’ll both be out of jobs.”
Leigh glanced down the short hallway to the outer office, making sure they were alone. “Callie had some problems after high school, but she lives in northern Iowa now. She has two kids. She’s married to a farmer. She wants to keep her past in her past.”
Reggie drew out the moment way too long before finally saying, “If Andrew asks, I could tell him I’m too busy working other cases.”
Leigh dangled some more bait. “I’ve got a client with a cheating husband who likes to travel.”
“Sounds like my kind of assignment.”
Leigh nodded once, and she hoped to God this meant they had an understanding.
Still, Reggie Paltz was only part of the problem. Leigh was mere days away from what looked like a very compelling case against her client. She said, “Tell me about these other victims the prosecutor has in his pocket.”
“There’s three of ’em, and they’re a guillotine hanging over Andy’s neck. They come down on him, his life is over.”
“How did you hear about them?”
“Trade secret,” he said, which was how any investigator answered when they didn’t want to give up a cop informant. “You can take it to the bank, though. If you can’t get Andrew out of the Karlsen charge, he’s gonna spend the rest of his life trying not to drop the soap in the shower.”
Leigh had too many clients behind bars to think prison rape jokes were funny. “How does Tammy Karlsen’s attack tie into the others?”
“Similar MOs , similar bruising, similar wounds, similar morning after.” Reggie shrugged again, as if these were hypothetical injuries rather than real harms against real women. “The big thing is, Andrew’s credit card pinged at or near various businesses where they were last seen.”
“At or near?” Leigh asked. “Does Andrew live in the area? Are these businesses he would normally frequent?”