He scoffed. “If you’re so innocent, why run? You knocked the old lady over, you were in such a rush.”
“It was late. I thought I was alone, and suddenly the door flew open. I got spooked, that’s all.”
“That’s a load of crap. You were looking for something. Was it the surveillance photos, or something else?”
“I told you, I was looking for documents on a case.”
“That’s not what you took, though, is it? What are these?”
He waved the envelope.
“They’re photos of me. Of my mother. Stop blaming the victim. You’re the one in the wrong. Why were you following us?”
“Because you’re a goddam snitch, that’s why. Andrew Martin. Doug Kessler. What are you doing talking to the likes of them?”
“It was a party. I was networking. They’re influential people.”
He smashed his fist against the steering wheel. “Bullshit. Tell me now, or you’ll end up at the bottom of the river.”
He wasn’t joking. Dizzy with fear, she struggled to keep her voice steady.
“I only did what Judge Conroy told me to do.”
The car swerved hard enough to draw a blaring horn from an oncoming truck. Wallace looked haggard in the rearview mirror.
“Kathy sent you in to talk to them? She’s working with them?”
Jesus, she’d get the judge killed if she wasn’t careful. On the other hand, the judge wasn’t in the car with this lunatic. She had to protect herself.
“There was no mention of working, nothing like that. She said the party would be a good networking opportunity, and those were the people I should talk to.”
“What were you supposed to say?”
“Just introduce myself and say I work for her. Look, I don’t know anything. I’m a lowly intern. The judge doesn’t confide in me. I haven’t seen her in two days. I don’t know where she is. I went to the house to feed Lucy, to make sure she didn’t starve. That’s all.”
“Right.” He scoffed.
They pulled up in front of a small, modern office building, the parking spaces in front of it filled with police vans and cruisers. The police precinct. She nearly fainted with relief. He wasn’t going to kill her. But the next second, she wanted to cry. She was under arrest. If he took her inside and actually booked her on a criminal charge, the thing she’d been so afraid of would come true. It would destroy her legal career, ruin her life. Would he really do that? Arrest her for stealing those surveillance photos from Nancy? The photos implicated him in a conspiracy. He’d be crazy to broadcast that. Yet here they were.
He came around to her door and pulled her from the back seat.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Where snitches go.”
He led her inside, through a glass door marked “Booking and Processing,” to a large open area. A uniformed female officer with short hair and no-nonsense body language came out from behind the desk.
“Charge?” she said.
“Narcotics conspiracy. Federal. Log this as evidence retrieved from her person,” Wallace said, throwing a clear plastic evidence envelope down on the desk.
Inside were dozens of little baggies filled with a brownish-white powder, stamped with a red rocket ship. Rocket was the brand of heroin that Ricky Pe?a’s crew sold, according to the write-up in Danny’s complaint. Madison staggered, her stomach heaving. Burglary she’d expected. That was a charge she could defend against. But narcotics? Jesus, no.
She looked at the female officer in desperation.
“He’s lying. Those drugs aren’t mine. I’ve never seen them before in my life.”
The woman rolled her eyes.
“If it’s federal, why you bringing her here?” she demanded of Wallace.
“The feds didn’t answer the phone. I’ll do a removal order tomorrow.”
“You dump all that paperwork on me when I won’t even get a stat? No way, Charlie.”
“Quit whining and do your job,” he said. “Here, log this, too.”
He threw Madison’s wallet onto the counter. But not her phone, she noticed. Was he keeping that? He would rifle through her photos, read her texts, track down her mother, her friends. No one would be safe.
“Where’s my phone?” she said to the officer. “He can’t just walk off with it, can he? That’s stealing.”
The officer sighed. “You got her phone or what?”
Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, so? I need it for a warrant.”