A.K.A. Page 28

  I knew from the beginning of my career what the game was and how I was going to play it. The game was putting bad people away without the taxpayers paying for a costly trial. If you bluff better or play the game better than the average ADA, you make the DA look good, the mayor happy, and the taxpayers’ pockets fuller.

  I wanted to make a difference, and I believed I couldn’t make this difference if I was stuck prosecuting petty crimes. So I played the game better, made a name for myself, and rose up the ranks faster than any LA County ADA had. Most of my fellow ADAs knew I worked hard and deserved my promotions. But there’s always someone within the ranks who sees you as a threat or as someone who doesn’t play by the rules. They try their best to undermine your plans and cut you down.

  I was accused of sleeping with the DA, a DA who happened to be a good friend and closet-dweller. I was also accused of using my dad’s celebrity status to rise in the ranks. But if you cared to look into this, you’d find out that the DA and law enforcement in general despised my dad and authors like him. His books often painted the system as corrupt and useless.

  I had wanted to become the youngest female LA County DA ever. But I took a different path and that path was ending. How it ended was in the hands of a man wearing a black robe and tapping his pen as he sat behind a raised bench.

  Senator Terrance Caldwell hung himself two weeks after his arrest, that’s the official story, anyway. The truth…

  Mary found the last pieces to her puzzle and the blackmail tapes in her greenhouse. Hodges took it from there, giving them to Terrance’s victims. It was only a matter of time before his victims in Washington, with the help of a smart, ambitious young senator Langley, took him down. All of his dirty laundry, along with his son’s, was hung out to dry for the entire world to see.

  I knew what I had done was a crime, and I had no illusion about my guilt. That said, I still believe what I did was just. And if I could travel back in time and do again, nothing would change, because I simply did what had to be done. I simply did what others couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

  I realize that many don’t agree, and that’s okay. I can live with the judgment of those I don’t know. The judgment of those I hold dear and the judgment of the man sitting before me is what I care about.

  “Ms. Steel, please rise.”

  I stand.

  “Your case is the most complicated and bewildering of any I’ve been involved with as a judge or an attorney.”

  I nod.

  “In light of the evidence, I’m overturning your conviction and your record will be expunged.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.”

  Damn.

  “You’re a gifted attorney, Ms. Steel. One so gifted, it’s hard for me to see you as merely a victim. You faked your death and deceived not only your friends but the authorities as well. Your time incarcerated and what happened to you during your incarceration was unlawful and horrific, at best. However, I don’t believe for one minute that you’re an innocent bystander. But as you know, you can’t be convicted of the same crime twice, and even if you could, it’s not likely after what this court has learned that it would happen. At this time, I’d like to ask you a few questions before I make my final ruling.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve read some of your old case notes. What I read I didn’t always like. You seemed to see the world in black and white, and the people you incarcerated as inhuman. Would you agree with this?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “And now?”

  “I still believe there are good and bad people.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s the system I no longer see the same. Bad people do bad things, but good people also do bad things. I used to see them as one and the same, I no longer do. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay the price for your crime, I’m saying each case needs to be judged individually, on its own merits.”

  “So you no longer believe in three strikes you’re out, or the same crime, same time rules?”

  “No, I don’t. There was a woman I was trying to help, a fellow inmate. She killed her husband and her son. There was no doubt she did it, and she acknowledged it. But what her husband and son had done to her was, in my opinion, worse than death. She got life without parole. Her cellmate who’d killed nine strangers, just because she could, received fifteen years.

  “Go on.”

  “There are countless women who are serving ten years or more, their only crime, addiction or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know the system isn’t perfect, but these kinds of things shouldn’t be happening.”

  “You’re right, they shouldn’t. I have been debating if I should relieve you of you attorney’s license.”

  Dad stands. “You can’t do that. Why would you do that?”

  “Dad, sit down.”

  “You’re Jack Steel?”

  “Yes, sir. I am.”

  “I’ve read a few of your books.”

  He smiles. “Oh yeah.”

  “Can’t say I liked them.”

  “Oh,” he says and sits.

  “I realize what you write is fiction, Mr. Steel. But come on.”

  I giggle.

  “I think you know what I’m asking of you, Ms. Steel.”

  “I do, Your Honor.”

  “I don’t,” Dad says.

  “Jack, muzzle it,” Peter tells him.

  “Good luck, Ms. Steel.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  His gavel comes down. “Case dismissed.”

  Mary stands and hugs me. “Thank God.”

  I hug her back. “Thank you, Mary. If it weren’t for you and Hodges—I can’t thank you two enough.”

  “I think you can.”

  I shake my head. “No. Never. Not going to happen.”

  “Please, Morgan. I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. But you can’t do this to him. You can’t do this to me. I’ve lost one son forever and another for thirty years. I’m not missing out on this.”

  “I’m sorry, Toddy, but the answer is no.”

  “You love calling me that, don’t you?”

  “It makes me smile.”

  “I’m an old woman, Morgan. My heart”—she takes my hand and places it over her heart—“do you feel it? It skips every other beat. Who knows how much time I have.”

  I roll my eyes at her. “Toddy, you’re in better shape than I am.”

  “I’m all alone, Morgan. In that big house.”

  “Pathetic,” I tell her.

  “Don’t do it for me. Do it for him.”

  I look at Peter. “You don’t owe Drake a thing. But you owe Mary your life, and you owe someone else something only he can be.”

  I look at Dad. “It’s the right thing to do.”

  I look at Mark. “Why you even bother to look at me, I don’t know, sister. You know how I feel.”

  “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  Mary smiles. “Thank you, Morgan. My heart”—she places her hand over her heart—“it skips no more.”

  The man standing before me is not the man I fell in love with. He’s changed, and so have I.

  I’d known we were connected in some way, but I never would have guessed in a million years he was the little boy who was thought to have died in the same accident that took my mother away from me. He was the same little boy who I’d dreamt about and envied because he’d been with my mother when she died. He was the same little boy whose death had wracked me with guilt for most of my life.

  Terrance had told Hodges why he wouldn’t divorce Mary. He told him that he’d become increasingly disillusioned with Washington. He knew his power and influence in Washington would always be limited unless he was appointed to certain select committees. Blackmailing had got him through a lot of doors, but blackmail alone wasn’t going to get him on those committees. He needed the darling of the South to work her magic and get him on those committees. But Hodges knew it was never t
hat straight forward with Terrance. Mary and Aden Ferro had upped him, and no one upped him and got away with it.

  After Hodges made a wire transfer to a New York account, he recalled the conversation he’d overheard at the hanger. He knew they had to be linked, so he confronted Terrance. Terrance wouldn’t give him any details of his plot, but he did tell Hodges it was too late, and if he interfered in anyway, he’d kill Mary and everyone he loved.

  Hodges knew his cousin better than anyone; he knew Terrance was a sociopath who never made idle threats. Hodges was secretly in love with Mary and would do anything to save her, and Terrance knew this.

  Hodges found himself in a no-win situation. So out of desperation, he came up with a crazy plan. He knew Aden Ferro smoked, and he knew Mary wouldn’t allow him to smoke in the plane or around their son. He himself was a smoker and knew Aden would be desperate for a cigarette, and would exit the plane when it made it’s refueling stop in New York. Hodges knew a man who worked at the Teterboro airport. It was a risk, the guy was a real low-life, but he was also the kind of guy who would do anything for money. He told the man if he could get the baby off the plane without Ferro knowing, he’d pay him everything he had, a million and some change. Hodges was never told the details, but somehow the man got the baby off the plane.

  When the Ferro jet went down someone over the Atlantic, he knew Mary and her son would always be in danger if he remained alive. So, he asked Terrance’s one-time lover and Mary’s old friend, Nancy, to take him away. Nancy had firsthand knowledge of the horrible deeds Terrance was capable of. So she agreed to take him away and raise him as her son. She changed their names and disappeared, and not even Hodges knew of their fate.

  Few agree with what Hodges had done. But Mary forgave him and I never blamed him for what I had done. Mary said he’s on his own now, studying to be a teacher. There will be no more messes for him to clean, and I’m happy for him.

  Terrance had killed my sister, his stepson, my mother, and Drake’s real father, Aden Ferro. He forever changed my life, my dad’s life, Mary’s life, and the lives of countless others. He was the root of evil that had spread and tangled us all together in a web of danger and deceit.

  It was by chance, or a miracle if you asked Mary, that her son had found a photo and made the false connection that would become a true connection. Drake connected with a man he thought could be his father. Terrance not knowing who he truly was, spun his web by falsifying DNA and telling Drake stories that had been riddled with lies. He used Drake as a pawn to capture the queen. And he almost got away with it. But love and fate won in the end. What happens to the king is now up to me.

  “I never wanted or meant for it to go that far.”

  I sit in the sand and stretch out my legs. “You mean the engagement and marriage part.”

  “Yes,” he says and sits next to me and looks out at the ocean. “It was supposed to be simple. I was to get close to you, seduce you, and get you to trust me. Then I was to collect DNA and other physical evidence. Terrence told me the police had mishandled the evidence in Thomas’s case, and that’s why you got away with murder. I was making things right.”

  “But it wasn’t that simple, was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Tad? Was he part of the plan?”

  “No.”

  “What really happened that night?”

  “I was driving home and I saw his car in your driveway. I thought it was strange because I’d just spoken to him at the pub. He said he was heading back to Portland. He had a meeting in Cleveland and was flying out in the morning.”

  “Go on.”

  “I heard a gunshot when I was getting out of my Jeep. I broke the side door in and found Tad standing over you with a syringe. I stopped him before he’d emptied it. We fought and I got a hold of your gun. I made him tell me what he’d done. Then I made him beg for his life.”

  “You killed him.”

  “Yes, I killed him. What he did to you…” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t let him live after that. I didn’t even think about it, Morgan. In my mind, I was doing what had to be done.”

  “Was it your idea to make me think I was crazy? To make me believe it had never happened?”

  “No, of course not. I called Terrance and told him what had happened. He sent someone to give you a drug that would counter the one Tad gave you. When you were coming to, he gave you a sedative that he said would knock you out for several hours while the scene was being cleaned. Then I was told to tell you that nothing happened.”

  “And the man and woman?”

  “He told me he’d hired a man who looked like Thomas and the woman, Jane, who looked like your sister. Terrance told me Tara had drowned and you’d played a part in her death and felt guilty.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Yes, I believed him, or maybe I wanted to believe him.”

  “So you didn’t know the truth about Tara or Thomas.”

  “I didn’t know the truth until Mary and Hodges told me.”

  “Why did you prolong the game? You could have had the DNA and all the other evidence within weeks.”

  “I wanted to end it. I begged Terrance to end it, but he wouldn’t. He was getting off on hurting you.”

  He pauses and looks out at the ocean. I wonder if he is listening, waiting for an answer to his unspoken question.

  “I had this hole, a space in me for as long as I could remember. When Terrance told me our DNA was a match, I thought he was the answer; he was what I’d been searching for.”

  “But he wasn’t.”

  “No. I didn’t want to play his game, Morgan. But I was desperate to fill that emptiness. I knew the moment I met you that I’d been mistaken. I knew you were the only one who could fill that space. I tried to do as he asked, to play the game, but I just couldn’t. I’d fallen in love with the woman I was supposed to destroy.”

  “The engagement, what did you think would happen?”

  “I don’t know, Morgan. He told me how my mother had broken his heart. That she had been his one and only, and I thought…”

  “What?”

  “I thought that if we got married, he might find it in his heart to forgive you. I thought I could reason with him, show him that I loved you just as much or more than he’d loved my mother.”

  “But then we found the woman on the boat.”

  “I never understood the lengths he’d go to get what he wanted until then. I couldn’t understand why he’d killed her. She was an actress, playing a part. There was no reason for him to kill her. I realized that would be your fate. I wasn’t there to collect evidence for a trial. I was there to witness your murder. So I called him and told him to send his cleaners; the game was over.”

  “Then you called the sheriff.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about the wedding, Morgan. I wanted you to be around lots of people when the arrest went down. I knew when I told him the game was over, he’d send someone to kill you. I wasn’t going to give him that chance.”

  “Mary said you divorced Suzette.”

  “She divorced me.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “I never loved her. I never should have married her. She deserved better.”

  “I could have told her that.”

  He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I know I hurt you, Morgan.”

  “Deeply.”

  “I won’t ask you to forgive me.”

  “Good.”

  He frowns. “Where will you go? What will you do?”

  “I think I’ll go sailing. What about you?”

  “I don’t know. Mary wants me to go to France. Meet my grandparents.”

  “Would you do me a favor?”

  “Of course. Anything.”

  “Book a seat for your son.”

  “When a chess game is over, the pawn and the king go back in the same box.”

  Irish saying

  “Mom,” my son yells as he runs up the dock.
/>
  I pick him up and kiss him on the cheek. “Hey, sweet pea.” I put him down, he takes my hand, and we walk down the dock.

  “How was your day, Mom?”

  “Long. How was yours, my little Jack-in-a-box?”

  “It was okay. Busy I guess.”

  “Do I dare ask?”

  “Grandpa stopped by.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  “I’m his new partner.”

  “Partner?”

  “He’s writing a kid’s book, and I’m helping.”

  “Wow! Didn’t see that one coming.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Will we be seeing him for dinner?”

  “Not tonight. He has research.”

  “Does she have a name?”

  “I don’t go there, Mom.”

  “Smart kid.”

  “Grandpa asked me what I wanted for my birthday.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “A dog.”

  “A dog? Do you think you’re up for the responsibility?”

  He frowns. “I’m almost four, Mom.”

  “Four isn’t very old, Jack.”

  “It’s like twenty-nine or something in dog years.”

  “Is that so?”

  He nods. “Grandma called.”

  “That really can’t be good.”

  He giggles.

  “What did Toddy want?”

  “She wanted me to ask if I could stay the weekend.”

  “What did your dad say?”

  “James is picking me up at five.”

  “Of course he is. Your Dad can never say no to Toddy.”

  “Neither can you.”

  “So true.”

  “She doesn’t understand, Mom.”

  “Grandma?”

  He nods. “She doesn’t understand why we live on a boat when she’s living in a great big house, with a great big pool, and a driver, and a cook, all by her sad, lonesome self.”

  All I can do is shake my head.

  “Where’s Mark?”

  I look over my shoulder. “I don’t—there he is.”