The Lawyer's Lawyer

CHAPTER Forty



Henry didn’t find Hannah at the Boulder Book Store—she found him. She came running up to him as he walked in the door and gave him a big hug. He hadn’t seen her since Thanksgiving two years before. She was a little taller and she looked more grown up and healthy. That zest for life that college kids possessed seemed to ooze from her pores. She was smiling from ear to ear at the sight of him.

Kids, Henry thought, even though he was referring to a twenty-year-old. They’re so open with their feelings. We could learn a lot from them.

“Hi, Henry,” Hannah said. “I hear you’ve come to rescue me.”

“I don’t know about that,” Henry replied. “I’m just helping your mom out here.”

“Do you really think this guy is after me?”

“I don’t know, Hannah, but we can’t take any chances.”

“Where’s Jack?”

“He’s back in Gainesville. He’s going to do what he can from there.”

“Mom’s pretty pissed at him.”

“It’s understandable, but Jack had his reasons for representing Felton.”

“That’s not what Mom said.”

“I know. Don’t they teach you at school to look dispassionately at all sides of a problem?”

“Yeah. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, this is one of those problems that has many sides, and since it’s about life and death, it brings out the best and the worst in people. Are you hungry?”

“Kinda.”

“We’re going to meet your mother at the coffee shop here in three hours. Why don’t we get something to eat.”

“Okay. There’s a great vegetarian restaurant right down the street.”

“Are you a vegetarian?”

“No. I’m a vegan.”

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“No meat, no dairy, no eggs, milk, or cheese, and no fish.”

“So what do we eat, the bark off the side of a tree?”

“Very funny,” Hannah said. “You just wait—you’re going to love it.”

Henry didn’t know that he had consented to go to Hannah’s restaurant but she was already on her way. She’s a lot like her mother, he decided.



Danni had a lot of time to think on her drive to Tampa and her flight to Denver. Henry would probably have some suggestions about how best to protect Hannah. Danni felt that nobody could protect her daughter as well as she could. However, something else very powerful was building inside of her—the need to find Felton and kill him. While Hannah’s security was still paramount, she trusted Henry to see to it. They weren’t that close and Henry had participated in the decision to help Felton get out of jail, but there was that day in a small apartment in Miami when Henry could have walked away and saved his own life and didn’t. He’d had her back, and he would have Hannah’s back no matter what—Danni was certain about that. So if Henry’s suggestions allowed her to go back to Oakville and find Felton or let him find her, Danni was going to listen. After all, finding Felton and killing him was the best security of all.



Henry watched Hannah bolt from the chair in the bookstore coffee shop, run to her mother, and throw her arms around her. He had seen Danni walk through the door a second before Hannah saw her. She’d looked stressed and troubled. Her daughter’s hug had momentarily replaced that look with a smile of genuine joy. Hannah was slightly taller than her mother now but the two women looked so much alike. Other people glanced up from their computers, books, and lattes to watch and listen to the reunion.

“You look great!” Danni told her daughter.

“Not as good as you, Mom. You always look great.”

The two women approached the table where Henry was waiting. He stood up and put out his hand. Danni didn’t take it. She walked around the table and gave him a big hug.

“There’s no animosity between us, Henry,” she whispered in his ear. “You came all the way out here to save my daughter.”

Henry’s response came out before he had a chance to grab it. “I wish you felt the same way about Jack.”

They separated. “Don’t go there, Henry. Not now.”

They all sat down. Danni ordered a coffee, and they chatted a little before getting down to the hard stuff.

“I almost missed my plane,” Danni said. “I was on my way to the airport, stopped at a stop sign not too far from my home, when I saw this elderly gentleman on the corner struggling to maintain his balance. Suddenly, he went down. I jumped out of the car and ran to help him up. ‘What happened?’ I asked.

“‘I dunno,’ he says in an Italian kind of New York accent. ‘I just kind of lost my balance.’

“‘Where do you live?’ I asked.

“‘I dunno,’ he says. Now I’m thinking he’s either disoriented or he has other problems. I check him over, ask him how he’s feeling. ‘Fine,’ he says but he’s still holding onto me. So I get him in the car. I ask him his name and I try to look up his phone number on my phone. Nothing. I’m not exactly sure what to do—he remembered his name but he had no idea where he lived—so I asked him on a hunch what his telephone number was. He rattled it right off. Amazing.

“Anyway, I called the number and his wife answered. She told me he had Alzheimer’s and the whole family had been looking for him for hours. He lived about two miles away so I drove him home. She was out there waiting for him when I arrived.

“‘That’s my wife, Rosemarie,’ he beamed as we pulled up to the house. ‘She’s my heart. Everybody has to have a heart. Rosie is mine.’

“Rosemarie thanked me profusely and then she gently led him into the house. Why am I telling you this story? Oh yeah, I was telling you why I almost missed the plane.”

“That’s not the reason.” Henry almost whispered the words.

“Maybe not,” Danni said. “Maybe it affected me so much I wanted to share it. I mean, what a tragedy to see the love of your life walking around in a stupor. And yet, how beautiful it is to see two people who love each other so much.”

“There’s beauty in seeing a stranger help another human being too, Mom.”

“There you go,” Henry said. “A person to model yourself after.”

Danni immediately changed the subject.

“So, Henry, you said we needed to make a plan. Do you have any ideas?”

“I do.”

“Do you want to share them with us?”

“I thought maybe I’d listen to your thoughts first,” Henry replied.

“I don’t have any. I mean nothing concrete. So I’d rather hear from you.”

“Okay,” Henry began. He leaned in toward them, his arms resting on the table, his enormous hands surrounding his coffee cup so that it almost disappeared. “Hannah, you’re not going to like this part. I know it’s close to the end of the semester, but I think you’re going to have to leave school. He knows you’re here and there’s too much open space here even if we moved your living quarters and tried to watch you all the time. It’s too dangerous.”

Henry paused to let his words sink in and to wait for a reaction.

“I already figured that,” Hannah said, a slight look of disappointment on her face.

Danni didn’t have a reaction to that part.

“Go on,” she said.

“After that, there’s a lot of options,” Henry continued. “Danni, you could take Hannah to Europe or she could even go herself. The likelihood of Felton getting out of the country at this point in time is pretty low. It’s not impossible but I think Hannah would be safe out of the country.”

Danni wasn’t buying it. Henry was holding back and she had an idea why.

“What would you do if Hannah was your daughter, Henry?”

“She’s not my daughter,” Henry persisted.

“What would you do if I entrusted her to your care?”

Henry didn’t answer right away. He looked at Danni as if trying to read her thoughts. Danni nodded slightly to let him know that this was her wish if he wanted to do it.

“I’d take her to New York,” Henry continued. “I have family there, my aunt in particular who lives in Harlem. It’s a city of over eight million people. We’d drive up so there would be no flight record or anything. She’d be a needle in a haystack, assuming Felton even thought to look there. I can get her a new ID, if necessary, and I have people to watch her at all times when I’m not available, which will be a rare occasion, I assure you.

“It’s a short-term solution. I can’t see keeping it up for more than a month, two at the max, but I think Felton will be caught by that time.”

“I agree with you for the most part,” Danni answered. “He may not be caught, but he’ll be dealt with in that time period.”

Henry stopped at that point. He’d been very reluctant to even offer the plan. Hannah was a twenty-year-old woman who he did not know very well, he was an ex-convict, and Danni was a retired cop. It didn’t seem feasible that she would trust him to walk off with her daughter. But she’d asked. She’d even persisted. And he was convinced that he could protect Hannah.

“Do you really want to do this, Henry?”

“I do, Danni—for me and for Jack.”

“Leave Jack out of this,” she said. Then she looked at Hannah.

“What do you think, honey?”

“I don’t want to leave school,” Hannah said. “But if I have to, this sounds like another type of learning experience. I’ve never been to New York City. And Harlem—wow!”

“You’d be living with real black people, too,” Henry added with a smile.

“That’s the best part, Henry,” she said, smiling. “A new cultural experience.”

“You’re sure?” Danni asked Henry again.

“I’m sure. Are you sure?”

“I can’t explain it, Henry, but I don’t think I’d trust Hannah with anyone else but you. Hannah, are you sure?”

“Yes, Mom. I feel the same way.”

“Then it’s settled. Henry, I’m going to write you a check for a thousand dollars. It should cover the first week or so.”

“No, ma’am.”

“‘No’ what?”

“No, I won’t accept any money. We’ve all got some amends to make here, and I’ve got to do it my way. Besides, I’ve got a lot more money than you do.”

Henry smiled when he said it, causing Danni and Hannah to smile as well.

“When are you planning on leaving?” she asked.

“Right away. We need to get out of here.”

“But I need to pack and, Mom, you just got here,” Hannah said.

“I know, honey, but we’ll have plenty of time when this is over to enjoy each other’s company.”

“Would you take her to the apartment and help her pack?” Henry asked Danni. “If he’s watching the place, I don’t want him to see me. If he doesn’t know that I exist, Hannah is a lot safer.”

“Sure,” Danni replied. “I want him to think she’s coming home with me anyway.”

Hannah walked ahead as they left the coffee shop, giving Henry an opportunity to say a few words to Danni alone.

“I know you’re going after him and that’s why you’re leaving her with me. Don’t make me feel like I made the wrong decision again. Be careful.”

“I will, Henry. I’m going to make that son of a bitch come to me. And when he does, I’m going to be ready for him.”