Sean looked about his office at Harrington & Caine. He was finally settling in. Framed photos of his family covered the place, as did Jack’s artwork. Sean glanced at Jack’s latest masterpiece drawn in colorful markers. It showed Sean, Emily, Ryan, and Jack walking outside, holding hands. All of them were smiling. Tiny smiles, but smiles nonetheless. Above them, a sun with a smiley face and a stick figure of Abby in the clouds, holding a leash and walking her dog, Lucy.
Sean swallowed hard. He would never know how her relationship with Justice Carr began. Nor would he understand it. But he believed, or wanted to believe, that they were genuinely in love. She’d backed off working on John Chadwick’s case to protect Carr, and Carr had taken a big risk getting Abby’s necklace back from Billy Brice, neither realizing that the real danger wasn’t from Mason James or Sebastian Finkle or small-time drug dealer Brice. The real threat was hidden in plain sight at One First Street.
Sean glanced at a framed photo of Emily from Before. He doubted she’d ever look so happy again, but they were trying. They were in counseling and, like Jack’s picture, their smiles were small, but he thought they would make it.
From the corner of his eye, Sean saw a familiar figure standing at the doorway. His assistant, Mable, knocked softly.
“Sean,” she said. “Your guest is here.”
Blake Hellstrom, looking as rumpled as ever, strolled into the office.
To Mable, Sean said, “It’s Friday and getting late, you really should get home. Looks like more rain is coming.”
Mable smiled and shut the door behind her.
Hellstrom removed his coat, and he and Sean considered one another. Finally, Sean said, “Remember the first time you came to my office?”
Hellstrom gave a knowing nod.
“How’s he doing?” Sean asked.
“Malik? It’s hard to wash off the stink of being charged with murder, even if you’re proven innocent. But he’ll be okay. Patti Fallon, to her credit—given the shit she got for prosecuting an innocent man—helped get him a job at Justice.”
Sean nodded approvingly. “So, you wanted to come by,” he said. “I take it you have some news?”
Hellstrom nodded and gestured for Sean to sit at the worktable next to the large rain-spattered window. Hellstrom pulled out some papers from his worn briefcase.
“Let’s start with Japan,” Hellstrom said. “The Japanese law experts I’ve spoken with don’t think the events you’ve described would render you guilty of anything under Japanese law, other than being a dumb kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. That might be different under U.S. law, but since the incident happened outside the military base, Japanese law would apply.”
The incident. The impersonal language of a criminal defense lawyer.
Hellstrom continued, “So, if this ever comes to light, there’s no risk to you, at least legally.”
“What if I come forward on my own?”
Hellstrom sighed. They’d been through this before. “It’s unlikely they’d pursue it. Beyond the legal issues, it was a bit of a scandal back then when they put an American kid in a cell with some hard cases. Given what happened to Juan Martinez, they wouldn’t want to dredge all that up again.”
“Did you find Mr. Takahashi’s family?”
“No. We had no better luck than you did. He and his wife ran the store together and they had no kids. Both are deceased with no living family, best we can tell, so there’s no one to even try to compensate for the loss. Again, my advice is that there’s nothing more to be done.”
Sean made no response. He just stared out the window into the gloom.
Hellstrom remained quiet.
After a long moment Sean said, “Can I ask you something? It’s personal, so I’ll understand if you’d prefer not.”
Hellstrom nodded.
“I understand that you lost a child?”
This time it was Hellstrom who shifted his gaze out the window. A hard swallow. “Tommy was sixteen…”
“Does it ever get better?” It was the same question Sean had asked Carl Martinez, who believed that peace came only through revenge.
Hellstrom thought awhile. “I can’t say it ever gets ‘better.’ You don’t recover. You cope. It used to be that Tommy was the first thing I’d think about when I woke up. Most days now I can make it until about noon.”
Sean had hoped for a more optimistic answer. But he admired this wise old lawyer for stating the truth.
“Advice?” Sean asked.
“What I’ve learned is that everybody grieves differently, in their own way,” Hellstrom said. “Some people are forever crippled in despair, some people bounce back faster than seems possible. All I know is that it’s something that never leaves any of us. What I try to do is live my life in a way that I think would have made Tommy proud.”
“I guess that’s what I’m struggling with,” Sean said. “Abby believed in justice, the rule of law, right and wrong. Wouldn’t the right thing to do be coming forward about Japan?”
“I know you’ve lived with this thing for a long time, and you want to do something. But I can tell you from experience, sometimes there just isn’t a clear right and wrong, a clear black and white, and I think your daughter understood that. It would be a mistake to come forward, Sean.”
More silence fell between them. Hellstrom studied Sean for a moment, then sighed heavily. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not gonna follow my advice?”