71
DUNCAN HAD been waiting outside of the Roth Properties headquarters for over an hour before he spotted Leah Roth coming out. She was heading toward a small row of parked car-service Town Cars outside the building when Duncan intercepted her on the sidewalk.
Leah froze upon seeing him, frightened, like she thought he was about to attack her right out on the crowded street. Duncan held up his hands, palms up. “I just need to talk to you for a minute.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about,” Leah said, struggling to regain her composure.
“We do. It’ll take five minutes.”
“You had plenty of chances to talk to me. You chose instead to betray your professional obligations, as well as any obligations you may have had to me personally.”
“I’m not here to apologize or explain or grovel. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. So just hear me out for five minutes.”
Leah hesitated, but then nodded. Duncan had been relying on her wanting to know what he was up to. “I’ll listen to you for five minutes, but that’s going to be it.”
Duncan followed Leah to a Town Car, sliding in next to her in the backseat. It felt strange to be so physically close to her: he felt a sudden flare of violence, an impulse to physically hurt her for what she’d done to him. Leah must have felt it: she gave Duncan a sidelong look and put her back against the inside of the car door rather than the seat.
“In the course of my representation of you,” Duncan began, “I became aware that you were a conspirator in ongoing criminal activity. That conspiracy included future criminal conduct.”
“The hell do you think you’re doing?” Leah interrupted, her gaze now shifted toward the car’s driver. Duncan, who was seated directly behind the man, could see only the back of his head.
Duncan ignored the question. “Part of that future illegal conduct is an attempt to perpetuate a fraud upon a court, specifically in the prosecution of Rafael Nazario for the murder of Sean Fowler. I am therefore asking that you bring this fraud to the attention of the judge hearing that case. If you refuse to do so, I will have no choice but to do it myself.”
The man in the driver’s seat turned while Duncan was speaking, and to Duncan’s shock he found himself looking into the eyes of Darryl Loomis. “I think you should assume our high-yellow friend here is recording this conversation,” he said to Leah, his voice soft with controlled menace.
Ignoring Darryl, or at least seeming to, Leah permitted herself something like a laugh. Duncan found himself wondering if Darryl had already told her about his father, and whether she’d cared. “I have no involvement in a conspiracy of any kind,” she said to Duncan. “Certainly not one involving Mr. Fowler’s tragic murder by your former client. Any attempt by you to suggest otherwise would not only be slanderous, but would violate your ethical obligation as my former lawyer. It’s bad enough you’ve lost your job from your inappropriate behavior toward me, Mr. Riley; do you really want to throw your law license onto the fire?”
Duncan was still trying to process what the hell Loomis was doing behind the wheel of the car. “I’m not recording this, or trying to get a confession out of you,” he said. “I’m simply formally requesting that you notify the court of the truth about Fowler’s murder.”
“And what truth would that be?”
“That Fowler was murdered because he was blackmailing your brother over the Aurora. Driscoll was part of it; Mr. Loomis here probably was too. But you were behind it, all, weren’t you, Leah?”
Other than a tightness in her face from clenching her jaw, Duncan didn’t see much of a reaction from Leah. She was good. “I understand you’re upset, Duncan,” Leah said. “But really.”
“I’m not letting you get away with it. If you hadn’t made an innocent man the fall guy, that would be one thing, but I’m not standing by and watching Rafael go to jail for something he didn’t do. If you won’t find a way to get him out, then I’ll go to the court and tell them everything I know.”
Duncan spoke quietly, unable to fully keep a slight tremor out of his voice. Leah glanced up at Loomis, then back at Duncan. “Even if the judge agrees to listen to you, what proof are you going to show him? What evidence do you have?”
“I’ve shown you all the cards you’re going to see. It was you who picked out Rafael as the fall guy; it had to be. You picked him because I was his lawyer—you had me implicated in this from the start.”
Leah looked over at Loomis, trying not to react. “I couldn’t have less idea what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly.
Duncan wasn’t expecting a confession. “You’ve made me the most dangerous kind of person there is: a guy with nothing to lose.”
“You’ve got plenty more you can lose, Counselor,” Darryl growled.
Duncan opened the car door, got out, and slammed it behind him, walking quickly away. Leah made eye contact with Darryl in the rearview mirror. “What did you make of all that?” she asked.
“He was just fishing around for you to say something,” Darryl replied. “He was wired, I’m sure.”
“You think the cops wired him?”
“Nah,” Darryl said. “I think he was just freelancing, hoping to pull out a rabbit. The question is, can he really go to the judge?”
“If he even tries I’ll have his law license.”
“Won’t much matter to you if you’re in jail,” Darryl said. “It sounds like he knows what’s been going on.”
“Knowing and proving are entirely different things. He has no evidence. I shouldn’t have gotten him fired, though: it meant I lost control of him. I overreacted.”
“Even if he can’t prove anything, there’d be some serious shit if he went public on this.”
Leah shot Darryl a look by way of the rearview mirror. “I hope you’re not suggesting anything. He’s a lawyer, he’s been talking to that reporter, he just got fired because of me—people would put it together, easy.”
“There’s no doubt he’s a threat, though. This personal between you two?”
Leah was a little surprised that Darryl would ask, but then again, she figured the answer was probably obvious. “Not anymore,” she said.