Rage throbbed in her head, filling her ears with a sound like the inside of a seashell. She didn’t hear footsteps until they were right outside the door.
“Don’t blame me for your screw-up, kiddo. Hold on,” a voice said.
It was Nancy, and she was on the phone. Madison froze, listening to the jingle of keys, the scrape as one was inserted in the lock. The office was on the tenth floor, and windowless. She was trapped, with no way out.
“Hey. Wait a minute.… That’s weird, the lights are on in my office.… I don’t hear anyone. You think someone could’ve broke in?… You know I always lock it, Charlie.”
Charlie. She was on the phone with Wallace. And from the sound of it, she knew him well.
“You think I should call security?… I don’t have it on me. I left it in my desk drawer.”
She was talking about the gun. Madison thought briefly about grabbing it to protect herself and immediately rejected the idea. She’d wind up with a weapons charge.
“I probably just forgot to turn ’em off. But do me a favor, hold on while I check that nothing’s been disturbed, okay? It’s making me nervous.”
Madison stared in horror as the door handle began to turn.
26
The blood pounded in her ears as she advanced on the door, careful not to make a sound. It swung open.
Now.
Madison exploded through the doorway, slamming into Nancy, knocking her backward into the wall. Nancy’s phone flew from her hands, and Madison scooped it up as she ran, ending Wallace’s call. She hoped whatever he heard didn’t bring him running. But it probably would. She had to get out of here. She sprinted through the courtroom out to the public hallway. At the elevator, she jammed the button over and over. But it couldn’t come fast enough. She was hearing footsteps. Nancy? A security guard? Run. Turning for the stairs, she bolted down, half sliding, breath rasping in her throat. On the floor below, she forced herself to slow down. There were cameras everywhere in this building. Running like a maniac would achieve nothing but alerting the security guards that she ought to be stopped. Every cell of her body cried out to run, but she forced herself to walk all the way to the lobby, where she waved her intern ID at the guard on duty and exited through the employee door.
When she hit the frigid night air, she realized she’d left her coat draped carelessly over Judge Conroy’s desk chair, proof of her break-in. Idiot. Looking over her shoulder to see if Nancy was behind her, she stepped into the street. Brakes screeched. A driver leaned on his horn. No Nancy, but she’d almost been hit by a car. Heart jackhammering, she ran across the street toward the bus that waited at the curb, reaching the door just in time. It didn’t matter where it was going, as long as it was away from here, before Nancy brought Wallace down on her head.
Wallace. And Nancy? Was that really a surprise? She should have expected the two of them to be in league. Walking unsteadily toward the back of the moving bus, Madison clutched the manila envelope in one hand. Madison herself might be fair game, but they were following her mother. The photos were an abomination. She’d intentionally confiscated them. Nancy’s phone she’d swiped by instinct on the spur of the moment, to cut off the call before Nancy put Wallace on Madison’s tail. She pulled it out, wondering what to do with it now. A text had come in about five minutes earlier, its first line visible on the home screen.
What happened? Call me back. I need Kathy’s …
Kathy’s what? It was from Wallace. She swiped at the screen and got a prompt to enter Nancy’s passcode. Maybe she could draw him into a conversation. She tried some obvious ones. 1234. 0000. A couple of possible birth years for Nancy. Nothing worked, and she gave up.
There was nobody sitting near her. She pulled out her own phone to call her mother, who answered on the first ring, despite the hour.
“You’re up late, Mom. You need your rest.”
“You know I can’t sleep. Any word on Danny?”
“Not yet.” She hunched over the phone even though no one was near her. “Mom, I need you to listen carefully. I haven’t been telling you everything because I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Oh, God. What happened? Is he—”
“It’s not about him. You know how I’ve been trying to get close to the judge in his case to get information? I found out she’s involved with the dirty cop. I don’t know if he’s her boyfriend, or what. But he’s following us.”
“The cop?”