The Murder Rule(55)

“About the nondisclosure agreement,” I say. “The agreement must be two-way. You must never speak to anyone about what we talked about tonight. Especial y Michael Dandridge.” I look her right in the eye. “If you do, the consequences for you must be terrible.”

She agrees. And she adds a requirement of her own—that I wil sign away any possible right to claim on Tom’s estate, on the family trust. She makes me wait for an hour while she talks to her lawyer.

He faxes her an agreement, we both sign. She makes me a copy of the agreement and she writes me a check. I walk away down the drive and cal a cab from the gate. I go to a nice hotel and pay two hundred dol ars for a room. They want a credit card number too, it’s policy. I don’t have a credit card. I’m so tired that I start to cry and the woman checking me in (she’s already noticed my bel y, I saw the glance) takes pity on me. I give her another hundred dol ars, a deposit for incidentals, and she takes me to my room herself.

So here I am. I’ve ordered room service (a burger and fries, ice cream—comfort food) and it should be here soon. I’m wearing my pajamas and I’m wrapped in a soft hotel robe. Tomorrow morning I’l go straight to the bank and deposit that check. I guess it might take a few days to clear. That’s okay. I already have my return ticket to Boston. I can get on the bus and tomorrow night I’l be back at my shitty apartment. I won’t be there for long.

I think . . . I think everything’s going to be okay. I’m going to leave al of this behind me. I’m going to take the money and build a life and I’m going to forget about Michael Dandridge and my father and everything bad that has ever happened. God help me, I’l even forget about Tom if it means I’l be a better person. I have to be better, for my baby. Everything I do from here on, everything, is going to be about being a good mother. My whole life wil be about my child.

I’m finished with this diary. I’m done.





Hannah

TWELVE

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 2019

The meeting room in Greensvil e Correctional Prison was windowless, deep inside a maze of a building, with grubby wal s and furniture screwed to the floor. Almost exactly as Hannah had expected it to be, from a hundred movies and a hundred TV shows, actual y, but no amount of television could have prepared her for the impact of being there. The smel of body odor, old linoleum, and disinfectant. The claustrophobia from the shitty air and from being so far underground. The simple intimidation of the security procedures —the guards had been so humorless, so fil ed with latent hostility.

And on top of that she was stil so much more nervous than she had expected to be. Somehow, with al her planning, she had never imagined that there would be a moment where she would be face-to-face with him.

“You okay?” Sean asked.

“Fine,” she said. But she wasn’t. She had to work hard to keep her turmoil from showing. “Wil it take much longer?”

Sean shrugged. “Sometimes it’s ten minutes, sometimes half an hour. There’s nothing we can do but wait.”

Fifteen minutes passed before they heard movement in the corridor, the door opened, and Michael Dandridge was shown into the room. He looked nothing at al like his mug shot, which was the only photograph Hannah had ever seen of him. The mug shot had been in black and white, and showed a thirty-five-year-old Dandridge, too thin, with a shaved head and a look of utter confusion in his eyes. Now he was forty-six years old. His head was shaved even tighter—he would have been largely bald if he hadn’t shaved— and he’d put on some weight. He was tal er than she’d imagined from the description in the diary. He wore glasses, little steel-rimmed glasses that might have given him the look of a col ege professor, if it wasn’t for the orange prison jumpsuit. His wrists were in handcuffs behind his back as he entered but the guard removed them before leaving, and Dandridge shook Sean’s hand, then turned and offered a hand to Hannah. She hesitated, barely a moment, but perhaps it had been noticeable, and then she found herself shaking his hand.

She wanted to vomit. She wanted to lash out. For the first time in her life she found herself wishing for a weapon. A gun. A knife. She could use it too. She would be capable of it. Here was pure destruction. A psychopath who had kil ed her father, destroyed her mother, and even now was attaching himself like a leech to good people.

“Hel o,” he said. He had blue eyes, dark lashes, and an almost feminine mouth. She couldn’t stop cataloguing his features, as if she could find the answers to al of her questions in his face. How was it possible that he should look so normal?

“I’m Sean.” Sean paused and waited for Hannah to introduce herself. When she didn’t, he continued. “This is Hannah. We’ve both been assigned to work on your case.”

“It’s good to meet you both,” Dandridge said. “Thank you for your work.” He took a seat on one side of the table and they sat opposite him. He rested both arms on the table and leaned forward. “Where’s Rob? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He’s tied up,” Sean said. “With the hearing next week, he’s been working on motions and preparing arguments. He wants to be here, but he also wants to do his best work for you.”

“I get that,” Dandridge said. “But I need to prepare too. I’m going to be in court next week, with Pierce and Engle and al of the rest of them out to get me. To get that needle in my arm.” He tapped at his inner right elbow with two fingers of his left hand. The movement was sudden and unexpected and despite herself, Hannah flinched.