“Who’s concerned?” Kessler said.
“I don’t know. I was tasked with delivering that message in those exact words and wasn’t told anything beyond that.”
“A word to the wise, Madeline. Forget this conversation ever happened. Never mention it to anyone, or you could be in real trouble. Understand?”
Shit. He’d just proved her theory right.
“Yes, sir.”
“If I hear you talked about this, you’ll regret it. And that’s a promise.”
Kessler walked away, leaving her standing conspicuously alone. Hearing his angry tone, a couple of people in the immediate vicinity had turned to look. Bixby lawyers, presumably. God, let them forget her face by next summer, when she’d have to work with them. If she wasn’t locked up by then.
Cheeks blazing, she was slinking away when she heard her name. Chloe swanned toward her, trailing Ty in her wake. In evening clothes, champagne in hand, they were a glamorous pair. But the sight of them after what just happened made her want to run.
“What was that about?” Chloe said, looking shocked. “My dad seemed angry.”
“I don’t know. It was odd, actually. I mentioned I was interning for Judge Conroy, and—”
“Oh, that explains it. There’s bad blood between those two.”
“Why? Did something happen between them?”
Chloe looked over at the Bixby tables, realized that she was surrounded by lawyers from her dad’s firm, then turned back to Madison with a guarded look in her eye.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said.
Maybe that was her way of avoiding an awkward question, but it came off as condescending. Madison wasn’t having it, not after Chloe’s father, who turned out to be a criminal himself, had just threatened her.
“You’re here. Why not me? Am I not worthy?”
Chloe flushed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just wondered where you got your ticket.”
“Where did you get yours? Oh, wait, your dad sponsored tables.”
As Ty took Chloe’s arm, his eyes lingered on Madison in the black jumpsuit.
“We should find our seats. Enjoy the party.”
She could hear them bickering as they walked away.
The encounter with Kessler spooked her enough that she wanted to go hide in the bathroom. But she wasn’t done with her espionage. She had to find the second target before cocktail hour ended and the guests repaired to their assigned tables. The judge had been clear that she would only sign the order releasing Danny if Madison succeeded at both tasks.
Pulling out her phone, she glanced surreptitiously at the photograph the judge had provided of Andrew Martin. The young prosecutor was in his thirties, clean-cut, with dark hair and a square jaw. Trouble was, at a party full of lawyers, dozens of men fit that description. She grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and began a circuit of the room, trekking from one end to the other of the vast space. She spotted several lookalikes, but none of them was him.
The band took a break. A woman stepped up and tapped the microphone, eliciting ear-splitting feedback.
“Please take your assigned seats. Dinner service is about to begin.”
Time was running out. Because her assigned seat would normally have been next to the judge at a table full of people from the courthouse, she was supposed to leave the event before dinner was served. Otherwise, people would find out the judge gave her a ticket, which would look strange, since she was only an intern. That meant she had to find Martin in the next few minutes, or she would fail at her task, giving the judge an excuse not to fulfill her end of the bargain. She’d be exposed to criminal prosecution for warning Kessler and get nothing in return.
Suddenly, the throng parted, and she saw the judge coming toward her, looking like a movie star in that white tuxedo. Their eyes met.
“Martin,” Madison mouthed, shrugging.
The judge continued walking, looking straight ahead like they’d never met.
Okay.
She was heading for the exit when she spotted her quarry at the bar. Mobbed earlier in the evening, it was now empty except for the bartender and one patron—Andrew Martin. She abandoned her champagne glass in a potted palm and approached him. Busy checking his phone as the bartender mixed him a drink, he didn’t notice her. She was supposed to identify herself as Judge Conroy’s intern and ask for a private meeting later that night in an alley not far from the judge’s house. She worried that would not go over well. No matter how impressive she looked in her finery, she was a stranger to him. And he had the sort of job that made him a target. He could perceive it as a threat. Worse, it might actually be a threat. She wanted to believe that Conroy was a victim. But she had new doubts after witnessing Kessler’s reaction. She couldn’t be sure whether the judge herself planned to show up to that alley. Or, whether it would be Wallace and his gun.
What if they were putting her in the middle of an assassination plot?
The lights flashed, like in a theater, herding the attendees to their tables. Still, Martin hadn’t turned around. She’d just made up her mind to leave without speaking to him when he suddenly turned, drink in hand, and nearly crashed into her.
“Excuse me,” he said.
Then he looked at her, and his expression transitioned from recognition to shock in the space of a second. Andrew Martin knew who she was. And that was not a good thing.
“Miss Rivera. I’m surprised to see you here. You have something to say to me?”
She was struck speechless, her mind filling up with an image of a room in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, windowless, full of evidence boxes, with an enormous bulletin board featuring photos of the suspects. Judge Conroy’s picture was in the center, with pieces of string stretching between her and the co-conspirators: Wallace, Logue. And Madison.
His eyes scanned the room, alert for threats.
“You’re afraid. And for good reason. We shouldn’t talk here. Call my office,” he said, and walked away.
23
Madison fled the MFA like she’d seen a ghost, with Martin’s words echoing in her ears. You’re afraid. And for good reason. Did that mean she should fear arrest? Or something worse?
The Huntington Avenue T station was above ground, right across from the museum. A train pulled up and opened its doors, beckoning her to escape. She ran for it, barreling into the empty car and collapsing into a seat. With shaking fingers, she pulled out her phone and deleted Andrew Martin’s photo. Having it in her possession felt dirty and incriminating, like—yes—a bag of drugs. She wanted it gone. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that Martin hadn’t followed her. There was no sign of him.
But just then a pale man with red hair stepped into the halo cast by a streetlamp. Lighting a cigarette, he looked up, deliberately making eye contact with her.
Wallace.
Her stomach plummeted. As the tone sounded indicating the doors were closing, he took a deep drag, tossed down the cigarette, and boarded a car somewhere behind her. She got up to run. But it was too late. The doors had shut.