“Charlie’s not invited. Mom is standing up with me. I don’t believe in the whole handoff thing anyway. But thank you.”
“Suit yourself. Well, I just wanted to drop off a little wedding gift. It’s not the sort of thing I can leave on the table next to the cake. Hope you don’t mind, it didn’t fit in an envelope.”
He lifted the duffel bag onto the table and unzipped it. She stared in horror. The tightly packed bundles glowed in the light from the window, giving off the musty scent of ink. From the size of the bag, there had to be several hundred thousand dollars in there.
“A suitcase full of cash? Are you crazy? No. Get it out of here right now.”
He was taken aback. “No need to get mad. Maybe I shouldn’t’ve brought it to the wedding. I can put this somewhere safe. A secure account that can’t be traced to you.”
“That’s not the point. If you want to give me a gift, I have a registry. I can’t take your money.”
He looked hurt. “Well, I don’t know why not. You been taking it for years, and it’s not like I’m slipping you something for no reason. This is a special occasion. Your wedding day. Your future. You could start looking at real estate. It’s enough for a down payment on something nice. I always said I consider you like my own, Kathy.”
“I feel the same way. You’re the closest thing to a father I had.”
“Don’t say that. Eddie did what he could.”
“You did more. It’s not that I don’t love you, Uncle Ray. I do. But I can’t accept this. Since what happened with Brad—”
He put up his hand as if to ward off a blow.
“I get it. That was a terrible mistake, putting you at risk that way. Those guys were careless. You were never supposed to be there when it happened. Just so you know, I never worked with that particular syndicate again.”
“Okay, but that’s not the point. I appreciate everything you did for me in the past. I did things for you, too. Things I wish I hadn’t. Water under the bridge, okay? Going forward, it needs to be different. I’m a judge now. There’s too much scrutiny. I can’t accept your money. And I can’t do any more favors.”
“Aw, honey. I wish it was that easy. This isn’t just about me. There’s a whole network of people who invested more than dollars in you. They pulled favors, at great inconvenience to themselves, great risk. Your background check. Your promotions. Your nomination to the bench. They put their network at your disposal, their powerful friends. I mean, Charlie you know about, of course. Would he maybe let things slide, out of love for you, his little sister? It’s possible, though I can’t say for sure. But there are too many others involved. People you’ve never met, and you don’t know their names for good reason. You can’t just take the goodies and go home. Not with those guys.”
Was Ray telling her that her hard work and talent counted for nothing? Year after year of late nights at the office, early mornings in court. The case files, the legal briefs, the witness interviews, and oral arguments—all meaningless because she had shadowy people in her corner, whom she’d never even met, and never knew about? It couldn’t be.
“That can’t be true. I worked hard. I had the Harvard degree. I played by the rules. I—”
“Yeah, and so did plenty of other schmucks who never got anywhere. Look, Kathy, I’m not disparaging you or saying you weren’t qualified. Just, things go on behind the scenes. What happened for you was no accident. You had help. And that’s the truth.”
She thought about Brad McCarthy’s murder. How that douchebag cop, Morelli, tried to stop her from getting in Brad’s car that night. How Doug Kessler waltzed into Brad’s job and dismissed the case against Fiamma, just like the mobsters wanted. Ray was telling it to her straight. Behind the scenes, there was play upon play. Her meteoric rise was not her own. It just made her want to quit. Run away and start over, a million miles from here, with Matthew and the clothes on their backs, nothing else.
“If that’s true—”
“It is true. Cross my heart,” he said.
“Then I never asked for it. And it stops now.”
“Now? You’re kidding me. Now you’re a judge. You’re finally in a position to pay off the debt. Now you’re too valuable to let go. Do I need to remind you of the stakes? Kathy, you’re implicated in the murder of a federal prosecutor, and they will use that against you.”