The 8th Confession - James Patterson [32]
I held on tight, the heat burning me up, my hair blowing around our faces as cars streamed past us. I heard a driver calling out his window, “Get a room!”
And with that, gravity dropped me back to earth with a jolt.
What the hell are we doing?
Before Rich could say, “That man has the right idea,” I panted, “Damn, Richie. I don’t know who’s crazier, you or me.”
His hands were at the small of my back, pulling me tight against his body.
I gently disengaged from his arms. His face was all twisted up from our kisses, and he looked… stung.
I said, “I’m sorry, Rich. I should’ve…”
“Should’ve what?”
“I should’ve watched my step. Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah. Just have another thing to pretend never happened.”
My lips were still tingling, and I felt ashamed. I couldn’t look at his hurt face any longer, so I turned away, placed my shaky foot firmly on the running board, and hauled my stupid ass into the driver’s seat.
“See you tomorrow,” I said. “Okay?”
“Sure. Yes, Lindsay, yes.”
I closed the door and put the car in gear, and as I backed out, Rich motioned for me to roll down my window. I did.
“You. Since you asked, you’re crazier,” he said, putting both hands on the window frame. “Between you and me, it’s you.”
I leaned out the window, put my arm around Rich’s neck, and drew him to me so that our cheeks touched. His face was warm and damp, and when he put his hand in my hair, I almost melted from his sweetness. I said, “Richie, forgive me.”
I pulled back, tried to smile. I waved and then headed out to the empty apartment I shared with Joe.
I wanted to cry.
For all the reasons being with Rich was wrong before, it was still wrong. I was still about ten years older, we were still partners — and I still loved Joe.
Sowhy, I asked myself, driving away from Rich — speeding away, as a matter of fact — does doing the right thing feel so bad?
Chapter 41
YUKI AND PHIL HOFFMAN sat in easy chairs in Judge Duffy’s chambers. The court stenographer was sitting behind her machine near the judge’s desk, and Yuki was thinking, What now? What the hell is it now?
Judge Duffy looked frazzled, as though he’d misplaced his hallmark nonchalance. He tapped an audiocassette on its side, called out edgily, “Corinne? Got that player ready?”
The clerk came into the wood-paneled office and placed the cassette player in front of the judge, who thanked her and then pressed the tape into the box.
Duffy said to Yuki and Hoffman, “This is a tape of a phone call made from a monitored pay phone at the women’s jail to juror number two. It’s crackly but audible.”
Yuki looked at Hoffman, who shrugged as the judge pressed the play button.
A young woman said, “Can you hear me okay?” A second woman, recognizable by her nasal twang as juror number two, the retired postal worker Carly Phelan, said, “Lallie, I can’t talk long. I’m supposed to be in the little girls’ room.”
The judge pressed the stop button, said, “Lallie is the juror’s daughter.”
Hoffman said, “The juror has a daughter in detention at the women’s jail?”
“So it seems,” said Duffy.
The judge pressed the start button, and the tape played again. There was some back- and-forth conversation between the two women: how Lallie’s defense was going, how her mother liked the hotel accommodations, what was happening with Lallie’s son now that both mother and grandmother weren’t home.
Duffy said, “It’s coming now. Listen to this.”
Yuki strained to make out the words under the static.
“I saw your defendant in the shower this morning,” said Lallie. “That Stacey Glenn?”
“Crap,” Hoffman said.
Duffy hit rewind, played it again.
“I saw your defendant in the shower this morning. That Stacey Glenn? She’s talking to the matron, saying if she had done that murder, she wouldn’t have done it with no crowbar when she’s got a perfectly good handgun at home.”
Yuki felt light-headed and a little sick.
First, Carly Phelan had lied by omission during voir dire. If she’d said she had a daughter in jail, she would have been