Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [4]
Twenty minutes later she was driving into the parking lot of the Bergen County Courthouse. Although it was only eight fifteen, as usual the lot was almost half full. An assistant prosecutor for the last six years, Emily never felt more at home than when she got out of her car and crossed the tarmac to the courthouse. A tall, slender figure, she was unaware of how many admiring eyes followed her as she moved swiftly past the arriving cars. Her mind was already focused on the decision that should be coming from the grand jury.
For the past several days, the grand jury had been hearing testimony in the case involving the murder of Natalie Raines, the Broad?way actress who had been fatally shot in her home nearly two years ago. Although he had always been a suspect, her estranged husband, Gregg Aldrich, had only been formally arrested three weeks ago, when a would-be accomplice had come forward. The grand jury was expected to issue an indictment shortly.
He did it, Emily told herself emphatically as she entered the courthouse, walked through the high-ceilinged lobby, and, scorning the elevator, climbed the steps to the second floor. I'd give my eye-teeth to try that case, she thought.
The Prosecutor's section, in the west wing of the courthouse, was home to forty assistant prosecutors, seventy investigators, and twenty-five secretaries. She punched in the code of the security door with one hand, pushed it open, waved to the switchboard operator, then slipped out of her coat before she reached the tiny windowless cubi?cle that was her office. A coatrack, two gray steel filing cabinets, two mismatched chairs for witness interviews, a fifty-year-old desk, and her own swivel chair comprised the furnishings. Plants on top of the files and on the corner of her desk were, as Emily put it, her attempt to green America.
She tossed her coat on the unsteady coatrack, settled in her chair, and reached for the file that she had been studying the night before. The Lopez case, a domestic dispute that had escalated into homi?cide. Two young children, now motherless, and a father in the county jail: And my job is to put him in prison, Emily thought, as she opened the file. The trial was scheduled to begin next week.
At eleven fifteen her phone rang. It was Ted Wesley, the prosecutor. “Emily, can I see you for a minute?” he asked. He hung up with?out waiting for an answer.
Fifty-year-old Edward “Ted” Scott Wesley, the Bergen County Pros?ecutor, was by any standards a handsome man. Six feet two, he had impeccable carriage that not only made him seem taller but gave him an air of authority that, as a reporter once wrote, “was comforting to the good guys and disconcerting to anyone who had reason not to sleep at night.” His midnight blue eyes and full head of dark hair, now showing light traces of gray, completed the image of an imposing leader.
To Emily's surprise, after knocking on the partially open door and stepping inside his office, she realized her boss was scrutinizing her carefully.
Finally he said, crisply, “Hi, Emily, you look great. Feeling good?”
It was not a casual question. “Never better.” She tried to sound offhand, even dismissive, as though she was wondering why he had bothered to ask.
“It's important that you feel good. The grand jury indicted Gregg Aldrich.”
“They did!” She felt a shot of adrenaline. Even though she had been sure it would happen, Emily also knew that the case was largely based on circumstantial evidence and would certainly not be a slam dunk at trial. “It's been driving me crazy to see that creep plastered all over the gossip columns, running around with the flavor of the month when you know he left his wife bleeding to death. Natalie Raines was such a great actress. God, when she walked onstage, it was magic.”
“Don't let Aldrich's social life drive you crazy,” Wesley said mildly. “Just put him away for good. It's your case.”
It was what she had been hoping to hear. Even so, it took a long moment to