The Last Invitation (13)

“Today sucked,” Jessa said.

Faith nodded. “Funerals are seldom fun.”

Jessa thought about Tim being in New Jersey for depositions for a few days and tried not to dwell on how relieved his absence made her. She loved spending time with him, but the more entwined their lives became, the more anxious she grew. The excuses about needing to work late or go into the office on a Sunday now just flowed out of her without thinking.

“The Gabby situation made everything so much worse.” Okay, so Jessa could admit she hadn’t shoved Gabby all the way out of her head yet. “I think if she could have thrown me in the hole in the ground and left me there, she would have done it.”

Faith winced. “Well . . .”

Jessa eyed up Faith. “You’re siding with her? And as my best friend there is a right answer here, you know.”

“Not at all, but you had to expect some anger from her.” Faither swirled the wine in her glass. “Can you really blame her? You said the divorce started as a bloodbath. It settled out of the blue but only after a lot of ugly fighting.”

“I wasn’t on the case.” But Gabby had to admit that wasn’t totally true.

Baines sudden shift toward a semi-amicable settlement never made sense to anyone at the firm. He went from yelling and vengeance to being conciliatory in the span of a few days. The turnaround ticked off Covington, who had spent a lot of time preparing for war. But that’s all Jessa knew about the specifics . . . sort of . . . well, for the most part.

Faith’s eyes narrowed. “And it’s not as if you hear Gabby’s voice in your head sometimes . . . judging you.”

What the hell? “No. Really, no.”

“Okay.”

Sure, she was a bit obsessed about Gabby, but she’d never told anyone that. There was no way Faith could know. “Not at all. No.”

“So, no?”

Jessa ignored the laughter in Faith’s voice. “Right. If I wasn’t clear, I’m going with no.”

“And I’m weighing my words carefully here.” Faith smiled, but it quickly disappeared again. “Let’s just say if your firm represented my girlfriend, wife, partner, or whatever—the pretend one I don’t have because I’m exhausted and don’t want to fight over who gets the bathroom first in the morning—I’d be pissed.”

“That’s totally different.” Jessa gave up on relaxing. She set the wineglass down when she realized she held it in a death grip. “We’re close. I barely know Gabby.”

Okay, not really the truth, but Jessa had invested a lot of time in selling that to her office, to Covington, and to the court. She wasn’t about to engage in a self-assessment and back down now.

“I love you, but you’re in denial or feeling guilty because . . .” Faith held up a hand when Jessa tried to take over the conversation. “Despite all your protests to the contrary, you and Gabby were more than general acquaintances. I’m not judging. Just saying, I was there—not in law school, but as your friend, so I know.”

That’s not how Jessa saw the relationship with Gabby at all. It was an understated, unspoken thing. Really, it was more of a problem. Her problem, and she didn’t even know why she had it. Gabby didn’t deserve this much of her time or attention.

“I think you’re revising history a bit to make yourself feel better about helping to screw her in the divorce.” Faith started counting on her fingers. “You did moot court competitions together. You had that study group. You went to—”

Jessa’s cell phone buzzed, but she ignored it. “We weren’t . . . I mean, I didn’t consider her . . .”

“Uh-huh.” Faith nodded at the cell. “Answer the phone while you make up an answer.”

Jessa grabbed on to the diversion, hoping her brain would kick into gear and she’d come up with something intelligent to say. Then she saw the name of the caller. “Shit. It’s my office.”

Faither rolled her eyes. “Of course it is. After ten on a Thursday night. A totally reasonable time for a work call.”

“Hello?”

Covington’s stern voice broke across the line. “There’s been an accident.”





Chapter Fifteen

Jessa




Police cars lined the cul-de-sac in the usually quiet Bethesda, Maryland, neighborhood by the time Jessa arrived. Faith had insisted on tagging along but waited in the car. Jessa barely made it five steps up the long driveway toward the Bartholomews’ marital home before Darren stepped in front of her.

He pushed up his glasses. “I told you this would happen.”

He shouldn’t be here. He’d moved out, but only temporarily and under great protest. The current living arrangement was one of the many disputed items between the couple. His being here at all made the anxiety churning in Jessa’s stomach spin even faster. “What’s going on?”

“She tried to run. But you knew that.” His boyish features curled into a snarl even as his voice remained calm. “You did this.”

She was not in the mood to appease him like everyone else clearly did. “Where’s Curtis?”

“You mean my son?”

“Ms. Hall?” The woman who stepped up next to Darren flashed a badge. She was fortyish and tall, almost as tall as Darren, and he was about six feet, with pronounced cheekbones and a don’t waste my time attitude that hummed around her. “I’m Detective Melissa Schone.”