Chapter 4: The Man Who Doesn't Lose
I didn't sleep.
I lay in the dark and listened to Mark breathing beside me and thought about forty minutes.
Forty minutes between a normal birthday party and whatever Malcolm's associate had been sent to do.
By morning I had made a decision.
I called my friend Diane at seven.
She was a family law attorney, not a criminal one, but she knew people.
She picked up on the second ring.
"I need a name," I said.
"Someone who handles federal cases.
Someone good."
A pause.
"How bad is it?"
"I don't know yet.
Bad enough."
She called me back in twenty minutes with a name.
Carol Voss.
A former federal prosecutor who now ran a small private practice in the city.
Diane said she was careful and she was thorough and she did not lose.
I met Carol that afternoon without telling Mark.
Her office was plain.
No diplomas on the wall.
A single window facing a brick building across the alley.
She listened to everything I said without writing a single note.
When I finished she was quiet for a moment.
"The folder your sister kept," she said.
"Where is it now?"
"My house."
"Get it out of your house today.
Don't tell your husband where it goes."
"You think he'd destroy it?"
"I think he's frightened and frightened people make bad decisions." She folded her hands on the desk.
"Tell me about Victor Hale."
I told her everything Rachel had said.
Carol's expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes sharpened.
"I know that name," she said.
"From a case?"
"From a case that was closed two years ago.
Insufficient evidence." She stood and went to the window.
"If your sister's documents show what you're describing, that case may not stay closed."
I felt something shift in my chest.
Not relief.
Something more complicated than that.
"What happens to Mark?" I asked.
She turned from the window.
"That depends entirely on how cooperative he's willing to be."
I drove home and told Mark he needed to call a lawyer before the end of the day.
He asked me which one.
I told him it couldn't be mine.
He looked at me across the kitchen.
"You already have one," he said.
"Yes."
He nodded slowly.
He didn't argue.
That frightened me more than if he had.
I took the folder to Rachel's apartment that evening.
She opened the door before I knocked.
"I was going to call you," she said.
"Why?"
She stepped back to let me in.
On her kitchen counter was her phone, screen up, showing a text message.
*Tell your sister to stop asking questions.
This is the only warning.*
The number was not saved.
It was not Malcolm's.
I had memorized Malcolm's number from the hotel receipt.
This was someone else.
"When did this come?" I asked.
"An hour ago."
May you like
I looked at the message again.
Victor Hale already knew I had been to see Carol Voss.
