Mother May I(51)

“I’m a professor,” Adam said.

“But you went to law school. You passed the bar,” Marshall said, inexorable.

“It didn’t suit me. I’m better here, in academia. I like the life of the mind.”

Beside him Kelly continued to sag down, her eyes drifting shut.

“You live more like a lawyer,” Marshall said, looking pointedly around at the vaulted ceilings and marble counters.

“I have some family money,” Adam said. He waved at Marshall’s phone like he was shooing it away. “I told you. I don’t know them.”

Marshall wanted to follow up, but Kelly appeared to be fully unconscious now. She’d faded out so fast it worried him. “Kelly?”

“M’yes,” she slurred, so slack as to appear boneless. “M’up.”

She wasn’t. As they watched, her lips parted, mouth falling open. Marshall was about to get somewhere with this asshole, but he couldn’t keep pushing while this girl slid into a coma and died.

“Kelly? Hey, Kelly?” Nothing. He turned to her husband. “Maybe we should—”

“She’s fine,” Adam cut him off, making Marshall’s eyebrows rise. “I saw her like this yesterday. And the day before that. This is what three p.m. looks like here.”

A little drool had collected in one corner of her mouth. But she was breathing, shallow and steady.

Marshall leaned toward Adam and dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Well, she’s definitely out. If that helps you change your answer.”

“What does that mean?” Adam asked, but a flush came to his cheeks, visible above the beard.

“You tell me,” Marshall said. “No judgment. There are plenty of questions I wouldn’t want to answer in front of my wife.” He was good cop now, inviting Adam into a world where men kept confidences with each other. It smelled like that might work on this guy. “Remember the stakes. The cops are on the wrong scent, and I don’t think your PI has any leads. I do. This could be your shot.” Shitty, considering what the mother had told them about Geoff, but there it was.

He could feel Adam shifting, but he didn’t break. “I told you, I don’t know those men. I’m sorry for your client. She’s in hell. Believe me, I know. But it can’t have anything to do with me.”

Marshall caught the tiny emphasis on “can’t.” The guy was in denial. He couldn’t bear for it to have anything to do with him.

“He’s lying,” Bree said from the doorway. Adam jerked like he’d been shot, twisting at the waist to see her. Kelly stirred at his sharp movement. She made a small moan, but her eyes stayed closed. Bree held up a small framed photo, stabbing her finger at the faces in the picture. “That’s you, with the pledges. That’s my husband, in his senior year. That’s Spencer Shaw.”

Marshall shot her a quelling look. She’d pretty much handed this sober asshole her identity.

“Oh,” said Adam, very unconvincingly. “Was that Spence? I didn’t recognize him. I haven’t seen Spence or Trey in years.”

Marshall glanced at the picture as Bree came over closer. A frat house? Yes. Spencer and Trey were tiny figures with round baby faces and shaggy college-boy hair. He had a blinding moment of clarity, anger at himself hard on its heels.

Not a lawsuit. Something earlier. He could feel all his assumptions washing away. He shouldn’t have made such assumptions in the first place. A rookie mistake, not being open to everything. He was too close, as he’d feared.

Too close to the family, the situation, way too close to Bree. He knew too much about Spence and Trey, their job and how connected they were. It had made him myopic, blinded him to the idea that this might be old, old business.

Underneath his anger, he was thinking. Three boys, same frat.

That put this thirty years ago. But when Adam saw the current photos of Trey and Spence, he’d instantly remembered some piece of their history. Something bad enough to make him lie and say he’d never known them. When he’d heard that the next photo was of a woman, a face had come into his mind. Not the old woman, though. Adam had expected a different face.

The daughter? That was the most likely explanation. The mother was in her seventies, and she’d told Bree she had one female child. He did quick math. Yes, the daughter could be the right age to have been at school with Trey and Spencer and this jackal.

It made sense. So, say Adam was expecting to see the face of the daughter when Marshall asked him to look at a photo of a woman.

A young, drunk Spencer Shaw, frat brothers, and a woman spelled a certain kind of trouble. He knew what Spencer was. Or to be more correct, what he had been when he was living. He didn’t know this guy, Adam, and he couldn’t figure Trey fitting into the scenario he was imagining. But Spencer? Please.

Not two weeks ago, he’d gone to make some copies of a printed report only to find that Spencer had Gabrielle hemmed in the long, thin tenth-floor copy room. She was at the very back by some shelving, a good two feet away from him, but he’d put his big body between her and the door. He had one arm stretched across the aisle, resting his hand on the largest machine. Her exit was blocked, and the air felt wrong.

Spence was saying, “I’m genuinely curious, and who else can I ask?” There was something naughty-schoolboy in his tone. “It’s just a question.”