While Justice Sleeps(98)
Jared stepped out of the apartment and circled behind Avery, settling his hands on her shoulders. He glared at the agent, asking, “How about the stairwell? If she stays inside the building, can she go into the stairwell?”
“I don’t—” He noticed the sheen of frustrated tears in the wide green eyes and relented. He’d swept the stairs on his way up for his shift. With the door open, it should be safe. “Okay, ten minutes. Then I need you all back inside the apartment for the night.”
Avery wrestled with the urge to run, to hide on the humid streets of the city. To shuck off Justice Wynn’s expectations—to flee. But the feel of Jared’s hands on her shoulders stiffened her spine and her resolve. She gave a short nod and moved to the shadowed stairwell.
Jared followed her. They stood silent in the cloistered dark for nearly five minutes. Then, as though her legs could no longer hold, Avery sank down onto a step. Jared followed her down, sitting a step above her. He leaned down, lightly gripped her shoulders, and turned her toward him. Her eyes glimmered with moisture in the dim overhead light. “You’ve had a rough week.”
A morbid laugh sputtered out. “Yes.” She covered his hand, releasing a long, low breath. “But your father is dying. You haven’t had a much better time of it.”
“I barely know my father, Avery. And the more I learn, I can’t say I’m growing fonder.” When she started to protest, he simply shook his head. “It’s the truth. But if he had to pick a champion, he chose the right one.”
“I haven’t figured anything out.”
“You knew that VGC meant something. You got the corporate names to Ling, and I’m certain you’ve got a plan for tomorrow.”
A sob caught in her throat, but Avery swallowed it down. Yet, when she went to speak, her voice broke. “Thank you, Jared. I don’t know—”
“That’s bullshit. Whatever you are about to say is bullshit.” With his thumb, he swiped at an errant tear. “You know just about everything, Avery. Algebraic tables for chess. How to decode an old man’s Don Quixote fantasies. How to make sure his estranged son has a reason to stick around.”
“Maybe tilting at windmills is a family trait,” she whispered.
“Perhaps. But you’re the real deal. You’re smart, and you care. That’s more than he has the right to ask.” He lifted a hand to her chin, stroking the stubborn curve and the plane of her cheek. “Ready to go inside?”
Avery smiled slightly. “I’d like to sit here for a few more minutes.”
Jared nodded, shifting down a step to drape his arm around her. She resisted for an instant, then allowed her head to fall onto his shoulder. They sat that way until a knock sounded at the metal door.
“Time’s up,” Jared said as he stood. He helped her stand and reached for the door. The agent stood at attention on the other side.
“I’m sorry about before. It’s been a long day.” She gave a half-hearted attempt at a grin. “I won’t be any more trouble tonight.”
The agent nodded and took a step away. “No problem, Ms. Keene.”
Jared opened the apartment door, where Ling hovered near the breakfast bar. Her troubled gaze locked with his. Jared gave a short shake of his head over Avery’s head. Beneath his hold on Avery, he’d felt the tremble of nerves.
In silence, he cursed his father and himself. Then he quietly shut the door.
FORTY
Saturday, June 24
The lights were low, despite the morning sun. Bars shared that trait with casinos. The constant illusion of night aided the passage of sour whiskey and the acid burn of rum. Rita Keene swayed on a stool, fingers gripping the glass of vodka with an expert hold. She might fall, but her drink wouldn’t.
Above her head, a news anchor droned through the stories of the day. Her free hand dropped onto the sticky wood, bracing for the inevitable. The unflattering image of her bent over a table popped up with numbing regularity. The asshole who’d taken the picture had caught her in a weak moment, her arms flexed for solace.
Bet the judgmental reporters had never lost a husband, she thought in the twisted dimness of righteous indignation. A pain she’d clung to for decades, nursing its bite. Honing the bitterest edges for the cuts she required to justify her choices.
Now she was being publicly humiliated because her daughter had to go and piss off the wrong people. Treated like trash, all because of Avery.
She’d always surfaced when her baby needed her, hadn’t she? She’d kept the girl fed, got her into and out of school. Laid on her back to earn bread for the ungrateful brat’s mouth, hadn’t she? Memories conveniently expiated of detours from the grocery store to a shadowed corner for a tiny bundle of forgetfulness.
Now, because of that bitch, she had to watch herself on a fucking screen, being laughed at by the high and the mighty and the scum of the earth. Like they understood what she’d gone through. What she’d lost.
She tossed off the glass’s remnants. The vodka lacked the punch of coke, or the speedy amnesia of heroin, but it was all she could afford. Her sniveling, stingy bitch of a daughter hadn’t been home when she’d stopped by. Only cops who refused to let her pass when no one answered the phone.
“Hey!”