“No. I want to kill him.”
She gave him a look that caused him to rethink that declaration and set him to cursing. Abruptly turning away from her, he began prowling her office like a caged lion, taking in the aspects of the room. He picked up the crystal paperweight on her desk and hefted it in his palm. For a moment she feared he would hurl it through the window.
“Nice office.” He tilted his head back to look at the chandelier in the center of the ceiling. “Is this where you make all those judgments against people? Is this where you roll the dice to determine their futures?”
“Don’t do that.”
Brimming with contempt, his eyes cut to her. “Why not?”
“Because I won’t be your whipping boy when it’s not me you’re angry at. Besides, I won’t be making any judgments regarding you. I recused myself from your custody case.”
Chastened, he returned the paperweight to the desk with inordinate care. “Since when?”
“I dictated the letter first thing this morning, before the press conference. Mrs. Briggs had it typed on my letterhead and ready to sign before I left for lunch. She hand-delivered it to Judge Mason. He’s the administrative judge for this district.”
He relaxed his stance and his shoulders, but resumed the prowling.
She went on. “I told Mr. Gilroy that he would have to take the TRO to another judge for signature, but I asked him why he felt one was necessary. He told me about your unannounced visit to their home last night.”
“I’ve never had to announce my visits before. I always did just as a courtesy. Fat lot of good having manners has done me.”
“He claims you threatened him with ‘you’ll be sorry.’”
“I did, and he will be if he keeps up this kind of bullshit.”
“There wasn’t any physical contact last night?”
“If he said there was, or ever has been, he’s lying.”
“No, he acknowledged that you hadn’t touched him. In which case, I urged him to reconsider.”
“To no avail, apparently.”
“He…” This was the part she had most dreaded telling him. “He claims you pose a threat to Georgia.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her, obviously at a loss for words.
“Not in an abusive sense,” she said. “He fears you might take her.”
“Kidnap her?”
“That was the word he used.”
He snuffled a mirthless laugh. “If I’d had intentions of doing that, I’d have done it a long time ago.”
“I said as much. But he argued that the events on Monday could have an impact on you professionally. Your mishandling of the situation, and the fallout from it, could cost you your career.”
“Mishandling?”
“He said all this, Crawford. I didn’t.”
“Discounting Neal, neither has anyone official. I never even discharged a weapon.”
“I noted that. However, in Mr. Gilroy’s view, the action you took might eventually come under internal review, and this time, he said, your agency—or any agency—might not be as lenient as they were after Halcon. If you were fired or forced to resign from the Rangers, you’d have nothing to lose by taking Georgia and disappearing.”
“Except that it would make me a criminal. A fugitive. Even if I chose that for myself, does Joe believe I would do that to Georgia?”
“I don’t know what he believes, Crawford. But I told him that I believed he was completely wrong. Unfortunately I didn’t change his mind, didn’t even make a dent. He left here to seek out another judge.”
He rubbed his hand across his mouth. “What kind of repercussions will there be for you?”
“For recusing myself?”
“For giving me warning of the TRO.”
“If Joe Gilroy learns of it, he could file a grievance against me.”
“Christ, Holly. I don’t want any of my crap to land on you.”
“I don’t want you to be provoked into an altercation with your father-in-law.”
He glanced at the door. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I would have been in his face by now.”
“Which is what I feared and why I gave you the heads-up. It flirts with violating ethics, but in good conscience, I couldn’t let you completely destroy your chances of getting your daughter back.”
“How destructive is it for you? What reason did you give for recusing yourself?”
“Giving a reason isn’t required. A judge can simply say he/she can’t hear a particular case. That’s it. However, what I put in the letter to Judge Mason and the governor—”
“The governor?”
“I felt he should know. I called his office, but he’s out of state at a conference, so I emailed him, explained the situation, and attached a copy of the letter to Judge Mason.”
“You have the governor’s email address?”
She made a gesture downplaying that. “What I said in the letter was that since you had saved my life, and that, by necessity, you and I are closely linked to the investigation, sustaining objectivity is virtually impossible. Which is the truth.”