“Brad!”
The car exploded into a fireball that lit the night. Shop windows blew out with a whoosh and a tinkle of falling glass. A rain of debris fell from the sky, some of it wet and red. Kathryn screamed till her throat was raw, sinking to the ground, feeling the heat of the fire on her face. When the cops arrived, they found her prostrate on the sidewalk, sobbing uncontrollably, her hair and her clothes flecked with the blood of a man who had never been anything but kind to her.
Later that night, Ray came knocking on her door. She knew why he was there. The FBI planned to interview her first thing in the morning. Ray was going to deliver the same message he had years before, when she witnessed that knifing in the hallway at school. This time, her answer had to be different.
Her voice shook as she confronted him.
“Charlie lied to me. He promised no one would get hurt. Brad was a good man. I can’t do this anymore.”
Ray patted her shoulder consolingly.
“I’m very sorry about what happened. I’ll ask him to back off for a while. Give you some time to compose yourself.”
“Not for a while. Permanently.”
“Honey, I’m afraid that’s just not possible.”
“Well, it has to be. You tell him, or whoever pulls his strings, either I’m out or we have a problem. I’ll tell the FBI he’s involved.”
Ray looked alarmed. “Don’t get crazy on me now.”
“I mean it. I just can’t anymore, Uncle Ray. It’s over, even if that means testifying.”
His jaw jutted stubbornly, and his face flushed red, the very picture of getting his Irish up.
“Well, I hate to do this,” he said, taking something small and silver from his coat pocket.
She recoiled.
“Jeez, it’s just a tape recorder,” he said. “You think I could ever hurt you? Not that I can say the same for some of my associates. Sit down. I’ll get you some water.”
He led her to the sofa, bringing her a glass. As she drank, he held up the tape recorder.
“You’re a grown-up now, Kathy. I need you to listen to this, and then I’m going to be very frank with you. We have to stop pretending that things aren’t what they are. For your own sake.”
He pressed Play. It was her voice on the tape, the words spliced together for maximum culpability.
“Brad’s on his way to dinner with the task force guys.… They’re going to Villa Carlotta.… He drives a blue Volvo with a Red Sox sticker on the back.”
She looked at Ray in shock. He just shrugged, like, What did you expect? All those years. All that tuition money. She believed he truly thought of her as a daughter. But that wasn’t his only motive.
“If it was up to me,” he said, “I’d let you walk away, but the people above my head will never do that. You’re too valuable an asset. You need to accept that, or the consequences will be severe. I’m sorry, Kathy, that’s just the world we live in. You belong to them now.”
15
Present day
When Kathryn told people that teaching at Harvard Law was an escape for her, she meant it more literally than they would ever know. She was desperate to make a run for it. But there were eyes on her at all times. At home. At the office. Every place in between. The best-laid escape plans would fail if you were being watched. She’d learned that from hard experience, having tried to run before. It was a disaster, the worst thing that happened to her in her entire cursed life. Because they were watching. They found out. They retaliated. She lost Matthew and would have ended her own life if not for—well, there were other people she loved, who gave her reason to live. People who needed her protection. This time when she ran, she was determined to make it, for their sakes. But achieving that would require something that she lacked. Privacy. She needed a private space in order to make the complicated arrangements necessary to disappear without a trace. A place where her captors couldn’t follow her. A place they wouldn’t object to, where they would allow her to spend time.
The academic dean at Harvard Law was an old friend from law review days. He’d been begging her for years to teach a course. Working as an adjunct professor wouldn’t normally have been an attractive proposition for Kathryn. It was a lot of work for pittance pay, and she had no need to burnish her résumé by hyping her connection to Harvard. But it did come with one important perk—office space. There were four shared offices set aside for adjuncts that could be reserved on a rotating basis, for any day on which you taught a class or held office hours. During the period that the office was reserved, it was yours exclusively. It had a door that locked with a key, a desktop computer with internet access, and a landline telephone. Private space. Above reproach. Enhancing her reputation served their interests. She went to Ray with the idea. He approved it right away. And not a moment too soon. Her problems weren’t just getting worse—they were converging.
On the day that Kathryn invited Madison Rivera to apply for the internship in her chambers, two bad things happened. First, she got a phone call with terrible news, though it was not unexpected. It came in from an unidentified number whose caller ID was blocked, just as she’d instructed.
Sylvia sounded even weaker than the last time they’d talked.
“I’m worried about you, Mom,” she said. “You don’t sound good.”
“I beat it before. I’ll beat it again.”
“You need help. A home health aide. Or a nanny. Or both.”
“That’s a terrible idea, and you know it.”
“I’d vet them carefully.”
“No strangers, Kathy. It’s not worth the risk.”
“What happens if you collapse? Your platelet levels—”
“Don’t you dare use that doctor’s report against me.”
“I’m not using anything against you. I’m just worried about you. About her.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll talk to my neighbor Denise. She’s good people. I trust her in a pinch. You spend your energy getting out, understand? I want to see you again while I’m still aboveground.”
The knock on the office door made her jump. Instinctively, she knew it was more bad news.
“Sorry, I have to go,” she whispered, and hung up. “Come in!”
Her throat went dry when she saw who it was. Andrew Martin had been a hotshot prosecutor in Boston, with that killer combination of Ken-doll looks and naked ambition. Juries loved him. He was assigned to all the big cases. But then a few months ago, he surprised everyone by transferring to the Public Integrity Section in Washington, DOJ’s equivalent of Internal Affairs. Not long after, Ray received a tip that Martin had joined a new DOJ investigation into law enforcement corruption in Boston. They were adding prosecutors and agents at a rapid clip, looking into everything. They were even planning to reopen the cold-case murder of Brad McCarthy. Ray dropped in for a visit, supposedly to reassure her, but she knew better. He was getting his ducks in a row. It’ll be all right, he’d said with a warning look, as long as nobody talks.
And now Andrew Martin was at the door. Thank God it was here and not in chambers, where there were spies. But he probably knew that.
“Judge Conroy, I hope I’m not interrupting. Andrew Martin from the Department of Justice.”
“Yes, I know who you are. What are you doing on campus? Teaching, already, so early in your career?” she said, though she knew he wasn’t.
He placed a hand on the back of the guest chair. “No, I’m actually here to see you, Your Honor. May I sit down? This won’t take long.”
“Okay, but could you—”
She didn’t have to finish the sentence. He understood the danger. Nodding, he closed the door, then drew the chair close to her desk and kept his voice low.
“I’m here because I’m working on an investigation of an influence-peddling scheme by prominent individuals in law enforcement. We have reason to believe that you might have pertinent information.”
“Me?”