Shattered (Max Revere #4)
Allison Brennan
Acknowledgments
My fellow writers are generous souls, many of whom are experts in areas other than spinning tales. In particular, I want to shout out to Dr. D. P. Lyle, who has been a blessing. He never blinks an eye when I shoot him an e-mail beginning, “So I have this dead body…” Once again, Doug has been instrumental in helping me with the small details. Any mistakes are on me.
Legally, there’s no one better than former prosecutor Allison Leotta, who always responds so quickly when I have a question about the justice system. This time, she really saved my butt. Thank you!
I needed some details about prisoners, bail, and the Maricopa County legal system. Thank you to Sergeant Patrick Regan with the Scottsdale Police Department for answering my questions. Apologies if I got anything wrong!
My editor, Kelley Ragland, always has a keen eye for problems in my books; with Shattered she saw the potential and with one eye-opening comment helped me see the solution. A good editor is worth her weight in gold; thank you, Kelley! And thanks once again to my agent, Dan Conaway, who always has my back.
As always, my family is my rock. They let me work when I have to and make me play when I need it. I love you all.
Prologue
She sat on the edge of her son’s bed, clutching his favorite stuffed toy. A dog. Matthew had wanted a puppy for years. She’d convinced her husband that they should get a puppy for Christmas.
But their son would never see another Christmas.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, but it was dark when her husband came into the room.
“Please, honey, come to bed.”
She stared at the man she had once loved. The man who had fathered her only child. The face she had admired, the smile that made her heart flutter, now made her physically ill. She hated him. She had never hated anyone more than the man she had sworn to love, honor, and cherish. The man she had promised to be faithful to, the man she had promised to stand by in everything life threw at them.
She could barely speak, but she said, “You should have been here.”
“Don’t—please don’t.”
Tears flowed, but they didn’t soften her heart. Tears of rage were so very different from tears of grief.
“I can’t look at you. I can’t live with you. It’s your fault our son is gone!”
“You don’t mean that. Please, I’m sorry. I’ll say it as many times—”
“It’ll never be enough! Sorry doesn’t bring Matthew back!”
“I know you’re hurting, honey. I’m hurting, too.” His eyes wandered to the wall of photos. Of Matthew growing up. Baby. Toddler. Kindergarten. And the last photo, second grade. His last school picture.
His voice cracked. “Stay with your mom for a few days. Until—”
“I’m not coming back.”
He reached for her. “I know you’re hurt, but we can survive this together.”
She jumped up before he could touch her. She didn’t know what she’d do if he put his hands on her … if he tried to console her.
She might kill him.
Death would be too good for him. He should suffer for the rest of his life. Suffer because he wasn’t here. Suffer because he had lied, he had cheated, he was a selfish, disgusting excuse for a human being. How had she loved him? Why hadn’t she seen the truth before it was too late?
She ran to the door of Matthew’s room. The anger and hate bubbled up and overshadowed the deep, numbing pain.
She had never realized how much it would hurt to lose her only child, but if she dwelled on it, let the pain in, she would drown in her grief. Instead, she focused on the reasons Matthew had died. The anger that would keep her breathing.
“I hope you suffer for the rest of your miserable life. I hope you know that because of you, my son is dead.”
Through the sobs that shook her husband’s body, he said, “He’s our son. Please—don’t. Don’t do this to me. To us.”
“I hate you.” Those three words changed everything. There was no going back.
She walked out without another word, without looking at her husband, leaving him sobbing in the middle of their dead son’s room.
She hoped he suffered twice as much as she did.
I hate you.
She should have been speaking to a mirror.
Chapter One
WEDNESDAY
Maxine Revere, investigative reporter, learned the hard way that insinuating herself into the middle of an active police investigation was a recipe for disaster, which is why she focused primarily on missing persons and cold cases. Law enforcement was usually willing to talk when the case was dead in the water. Unsolved cases grated on the nerves of most cops. If Max used her extensive financial resources and media access to gather actionable information, cops would often work with her.
Worse than shaking things up in the middle of an investigation was showing up right before a trial. The bad guy was behind bars, the powers that be were a 1,000 percent positive they had the right person, and Max’s involvement caused the chief of police, district attorney, and prosecutor to lose sleep. She didn’t much care—if they were confident with their evidence, there was nothing to lose sleep over.
But Max rarely did anything the easy way, so when her old college friend—okay, old college ex-boyfriend—called her weeks before his wife was to go on trial for the murder of their only child, desperately believing that she was innocent, Max agreed to fly to Scottsdale, Arizona, to listen to John’s theory which—she had to admit—sounded intriguing over the phone.
Still, in Max’s experience, while occasionally the wrong person was accused and imprisoned, the prosecution rarely went forward with a costly trial when they didn’t have ample evidence for a conviction. Not only because of the cost, but politics. A high-profile case such as a wealthy mother killing her eight-year-old son? Everyone was under a microscope from the beginning. With such scrutiny, the DA wouldn’t let it go this far without something solid to sway a jury. So even though it was John Caldwell—a man Max respected and even admired—asking for her help, she needed more than his faith in his wife’s innocence.
It was the cold cases that had her flying from New York to Phoenix. Three cold cases in the southwest that were eerily similar to the murder of Peter Caldwell.
*
Max had interviewed many defendants and witnesses during her decade-long career as an investigative journalist. Most of the lawyers she dealt with either wanted nothing to do with her or attempted to manipulate her into printing only information favorable to their client.
She didn’t know what to expect from Charles North, the respected criminal defense lawyer who represented Blair Caldwell. But a condition of her interview with Blair was that she would first meet with North, where he would “lay down the rules.”