“Vic, I won’t blame you if you feel like you can never trust me again, but they called to threaten me. Threaten the children. The man who called knew the exact address of Emily’s camp in France and told me what she’d eaten for dinner the night before. I was terrified and I felt trapped—I couldn’t send the boys back to their father, and I didn’t know what else to do with them. I thought if I told you, you’d go riding off half–cocked and get all of us killed.” She twisted her hands round and round as if she could wash off the memory.
“You could be right.” I tried to smile, but found I couldn’t quite manage it. “I’m not going to sit in judgment on you for being scared, let alone for trying to look after Nate and Josh. What hurt was the way you were judging me. Claiming I was running hotheaded into danger when I was fighting for my life. I had to go into the heart of the furnace to save myself. If you could have trusted me enough to tell me why you were withdrawing from me, it would have made a big difference.”
“You’re right, Vic,” she whispered. “I could have gone to Terry about Lemour; maybe it would have stopped him from trying to plant the coke on you or from beating you when he arrested you. I can only say—I’m sorry. If you’re willing to let me try again, though, I’d like to.”
We left it at that—that she would open the office back up, get the files in order, take preliminary information from clients while I continued to recuperate. We’d give it three months and see how we felt about the relationship then.
I kept trying to go back to work myself, but I felt dull and drained. I had told the psychologist at the Berman Institute I would sleep better if I stopped feeling so humiliated. By rights, taking care of Lemour and Baladine should have solved my problems, but I still was plagued by insomnia. Maybe it was because my month at Coolis sat like a bad taste in my mouth, or maybe it was because I couldn’t stop blaming myself for staying inside when I could have made bail, as if I had deliberately courted what had happened to me. There were still too many nights I dreaded going to sleep because of the dreams that lay on the other side.
The night after my press presentation I’d invited Morrell home with me, but when he started to undress I told him he would have to leave. He took a long look at me and buttoned his jeans back up. The next day he sent me a single rose with the message that he would respect my distance as long as I felt I needed to maintain it but that he enjoyed talking to me and would be glad to see me in public.
The knowledge that I could choose, that Morrell at least would not force himself on me, made sleep come a bit easier to me. I went to a couple of Cubs games with him as the season wound down—thanks to tickets from one of my clients—and saw Sammy Sosa hit his sixty–fourth home run, invited Morrell to my Saturday afternoon pickup game in the park, ate dinner with him, but spent my nights with only the dogs for company.
I kept busy enough. I made endless depositions with attorneys for the state, attorneys for the CO’s I was suing out at Coolis, attorneys for Baladine, attorneys for Global. I even had a meeting with Alex Fisher. She thought it would be a good idea if I toned down some of my statements about Global and Frenada.
“Sandy, the reason I call you Sandy, which you hate, is that it’s the only thing about you I ever liked. You were a pain in the ass in law school. You wanted to be a firebrand and take the message about racism and social justice to the proletariat, and I made you uncomfortable because I was that odd phenomenon in an upscale law school—a genuine blue–collar worker’s genuine daughter. But at least you were who you were—Sandy Fishbein. You didn’t try to pretend you were anything else. Then you went off and found capitalism, and had your nose and your lips done, and cut off your name, too.”
“That’s not what I came to talk to you about,” she said, but her voice had lost its edge.
“And another thing. I have a tape of yours. Baladine made it during his swim meet.”
“How did you get it?” she hissed. “Did he give it to you?”
I smiled blandly. “He doesn’t know I have it. It’s yours, Alex. It’s yours the day I get concrete evidence that Global has fired Wenzel, the man who managed the Coolis shop, and that he is not working elsewhere in your organization. And the day that Carnifice lets CO Polsen and CO Hartigan go. Without placing them elsewhere.”
Her wide lips were stiff. “I have little influence on Global’s day–to–day operation, and I do not work for Carnifice.”
I continued to smile. “Of course not. And it doesn’t look as though Baladine will be at Carnifice much longer, anyway, at least not if the report in this morning’s papers can be believed. Between his sending that e–mail announcing his resignation and all the publicity we’ve generated this week, his board is pressuring him to step down. And Jean–Claude Poilevy, who’s always been a survivor, is backpedaling as fast as he can scoot. He says Baladine operated a for–profit shop at Coolis completely without his knowledge, and he’s shocked at the tales of sexual abuse in the prison. I think Carnifice would welcome the chance to fire a couple of low–level employees. If they let Polsen and Hartigan go, they can make a big press pitch on how they’re cleaning house.”