Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [799]
And then it was over. Charlie continued rocking, his eyes still staring at the TV, but the flood of words stopped as suddenly as they had started.
Andrew looked from Charlie to Melanie, waiting. His heart pounded as he watched her. She had stood the entire time with her arms crossed, her body finally still. Her face was expressionless. Her eyes, too, seemed void of emotion, even the panic was gone as if silenced by Charlie’s confession instead of being intensified by it. She’d have to do something now, wouldn’t she?
She walked over to her son until she was standing between him and the TV. “Look at me, Charlie.” She waited for him to look up at her. She waited for the rocking to slow. “I want you to listen to me, Charlie.”
Andrew held his breath. Here it was. The defining moment. Would they finally decide to rise up and stand up against Jared? Was this the last straw for Melanie?
“Listen to me, Charlie,” she repeated, and Andrew heard a strength in her voice that hadn’t been there before, a resolve and command. “You didn’t kill anybody. Do you hear me, Charlie? You did not kill anyone. And I don’t want to hear you ever say that again—do you understand? Don’t you ever say that again.”
Then she walked away and began pacing again as if there had been no interruption, no confession, no exchange, as if there had been no denial. Even Charlie stopped rocking, his feet back on the floor, TV channels flipping again before his unblinking eyes.
Andrew seemed to be the only one who realized what had taken place, what this silent bond of denial meant. And Andrew Kane felt as if someone had just knocked the wind right out of him.
CHAPTER 62
9:05 a.m.
Max Kramer crushed the paper coffee cup and tossed it at the trash can, missing, not even hitting the rim. Not a good sign. The caffeine had made him shakier than usual. Probably not the caffeine but all the wine he’d managed to down last night. After Barnett’s phone call Max started opening wine bottles from his wife’s reserve, getting a rush each time he popped a cork. He had left before she got up this morning so he wouldn’t have to endure both a hangover and her wrath.
He swiveled his leather chair around to stare out the window and down at the mall. Another fucking beautiful day. A little too warm and humid for him, but the Nebraska sky was cloudless, not a wisp of white to mar the blue. As a young man he used to brag about Nebraska’s blue skies when he was traveling back and forth to New York City, working for a huge law firm and flying coach because his bosses cared even less about their attorneys than they did their clients. Back then he did have a passion for the law, for righting wrongs, even for blue skies. He couldn’t remember the day it stopped. It wasn’t one event in particular, some injustice or a major failing. It wasn’t any one thing. Instead, it happened piece by tiny piece. First one exception, one exemption, one small unintentional slip to take advantage of the rule of law. Then another. And another. He couldn’t even remember when the unintentional changed to the intentional. It had happened so gradually, so smoothly, so easily.
He checked his Rolex. Less than an hour until he had to be in court. He thought about Grace Wenninghoff turning down his deal. He had Carrie Ann Comstock ready and willing to identify Jared Barnett as the convenience-store robber and the prosecutor hadn’t taken the bait.