Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (21 page)

KERRI WOKE UP EARLY
and got ready for work while Landon slept. Normally he would get up too, but this morning, even though she did some extra clanging around, he just grunted, stirred, and slept right through it.

She didn’t like the way they had left things last night. And when she kissed Maddie good-bye that morning, she realized that she didn’t want to get so busy breaking the latest national scoop that she missed the best days of her sweet daughter’s life. She wasn’t going to be that type of mom, the one whose day-care providers knew more about her kids than she did.

As she drove to work, she admitted to herself that what she really wanted was for Landon to support the move to D.C. so that she could turn it down and be the martyr. She also realized that wasn’t fair to Landon. Even though she didn’t quite understand the intensity of his commitment to McNaughten and Clay, she was glad to see him happy. They had sacrificed for years for an opportunity just like this.

After the newscast—another typical day in the South Hampton Roads market that nobody in the nation’s capital would notice—she made a call to Sean Phoenix.

“I really appreciate your willingness to put in a word for me, but I think I need to stay here.”

He spent ten minutes trying to talk her out of her decision but eventually conceded defeat. “That’s one of the things I like about you,” Sean said. “Once you make up your mind, nobody’s going to change it.”

She gave him an update on the Universal Labs story. Kerri had already spoken to the source. He was bringing the documents later that day. If everything checked out, this thing could be huge.

“That story’s in good hands,” Sean said. “I knew it would be.”

///

That same afternoon, Kerri received the photographs.

They came in a plain manila folder. There was no note or letter enclosed. Just photos of Landon and Rachel, 11.5 by 14, looking like the world’s happiest couple.

They were inches apart in a booth, staring at each other across the table. They were walking down the boardwalk together. She was hanging on to him, and they were both smiling. She was kissing him in the car. They were leaving a hotel room together.

Kerri was stunned. She flipped through the photos once. Twice. She placed them down on the counter as if they were a snake. Landon would never do something like this.

Disbelief turned to anger. Maybe this was the reason that Landon so desperately wanted to stay at McNaughten and Clay. Kerri had not trusted Rachel from day one. Now she wanted to rip the woman’s heart out with her bare hands.

But her real fury was reserved for Landon. They had so much to live for and he was going to throw it away for
this
? She had waited for him when he was in prison. Endured the endless recriminations that came his way. Defended him to her friends and even her own family.

Was this man in the photographs the real Landon? The one that love had blinded her to?

Now she knew how his teammates felt.

She thought about Maddie, their little family unit, and her anger turned to a gut-wrenching grief. The room started closing in, suffocating her, and tears streamed down her face. The photos scattered on the counter stared up at her, mocking her, making her question everything she thought was solid. Her love for Landon. His love for her. Was it all just a mirage?

She found her way to the kitchen table and sat down. The room, like her entire world, was spinning out of control.

How could he do this? Why would he throw away everything they had? What did she do wrong to cause this?

And the ultimate question, the one she was almost afraid to ask. But she asked it anyway. For the sake of Maddie. For her own integrity. Because she had never once in her life run away from the hard truths of reality.

How could she live without him?

LANDON WAS NOT A TOTAL IDIOT,
and even if he had been, Kerri was making no effort to hide her feelings on Monday night. There wasn’t just a chill in the air; it was more like the North Pole. Kerri spoke to him in clipped, one-word answers. She put the dishes in the dishwasher with the ferocity of a middle linebacker. The lines on her face were tight, the edges of her mouth turned down in a serious scowl.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I said I’m fine.”

A few minutes later she snapped at Maddie, and Maddie went crying to her room. Landon shot Kerri a look—
You don’t have to take it out on her!

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you,” he said, as he took off after Maddie. He noticed that even Simba seemed to be keeping his distance from the matron of the condo.

It took less than ten minutes to get Maddie straightened out. But now Landon was determined to get to the bottom of what was bugging his wife. He had tried to give her some space, but she had no right to vent her anger—probably from work—on the other members of the Reed household.

He cornered her in the bedroom. She had her back to him, stuffing clothes she had just folded into the dresser drawers.

“Look, I don’t know what’s eating you, but it’s not fair for you to take it out on me and Maddie. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. But we can’t walk around on eggshells all night just because you’re in a bad mood.”

“A bad mood?” she asked.

“Yeah. A bad mood.”

She continued stuffing clothes in the drawers with the same level of intensity she had demonstrated with the dishes. Landon caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror, eyes red and puffy, her bottom lip trembling. This was more serious than he thought.

He walked over and put a hand on her shoulder. “You okay?” he asked. His voice was conciliatory, comforting.

“
Don’t
touch me,” she said, jerking her shoulder free.

What was that all about?
Landon was ready to fire back but got preempted by Maddie, who had picked that precise moment to enter the room.

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” she said.

Kerri stopped what she was doing, left a small pile of clothes on top of the dresser, and turned toward Maddie. Kerri had big tears in her eyes when she knelt down in front of her daughter. “Mommy’s sorry too.”

As she hugged Maddie, she looked up at Landon. “Later,” she mouthed.

Landon nodded. Whatever was bothering his wife would have to wait until after Maddie went to sleep.

///

An hour later, after Landon had read Maddie a bedtime story and tucked her in, he walked back into the bedroom, anxious to find out what was eating at his wife. There on the bed, she had spread out several large photographs, each prominently featuring Landon and Rachel. Kerri stood in the doorway to their walk-in closet, leaning against the doorjamb, her arms crossed, her eyes still bloodshot and puffy. Landon’s heart dropped to his ankles.

He took a few steps toward the bed to get a better look, desperately trying to think of something to say. He literally felt sick, an internal bleeding, as if somebody had cut him and ripped out a piece of his insides.

He noticed the picture of him and Rachel coming out of a hotel room and picked it up. He examined it under the watchful eye of his wife. “This isn’t what it seems,” he managed.

“Spare me.”

“No, I mean it. Some of these photographs aren’t right.”

“Some?”

“None of it is the way it looks,” Landon said. He had regained his balance a little and was starting to think clearly again. Yes, he had gotten too close to Rachel. But somebody was trying to make it look much worse.

“This photo here—it never happened. In fact, nothing has happened between me and Rachel. Where did you get these?”

Kerri’s eyes were red, but her voice was calm and unwavering. “Why does it matter? What are you doing at a bar with Rachel? Why are you walking down the street with her as if she’s your wife? How do you explain
any of this
?”

Landon picked up the photos and began stacking them so they weren’t just sitting there staring back at him.

“Rachel and I are friends. That’s all it is—all it’s ever been. I represented her in court last week, and she needed some advice. That’s all.”
He looked directly at Kerri. He knew she could see the truth in his eyes. “There’s
nothing
between us, Kerri.
Nothing.
”

“Did she kiss you? Did you kiss her? Did you walk down the street with her hanging on to you like that?”

“No. I mean . . . yes. But, Kerri, just listen—”

“No,” Kerri snapped. “You listen. From day one I worried about Rachel. You knew she was having an affair with another lawyer in the firm and you still cozied up to her. And now you’re trying to tell me that maybe she kisses you and maybe you walk with her on the beach, but you don’t go to hotel rooms together?” Kerri was talking with her hands now, fully animated, her voice rising. “How could you do this to us?”

Landon had seen this side of her before. She was on the verge of crying, not so much from sadness but from anger. He walked toward her.

“Don’t. Come. Near. Me.”

Her tone stopped Landon in his tracks. “What do you want me to do?” When Kerri didn’t answer, he continued. “Yes, I should have been more careful. And yes, Rachel is too touchy. But that doesn’t mean I had an affair.” He picked up the picture of him and Rachel leaving the hotel room. “Send this to an expert. He’ll tell you. This whole thing is just Photoshopped.”

Kerri snorted at the response. “What do I want you to do?” she asked caustically. “I want you to be my husband. I want you to tell me the truth. And right now, to be honest, I don’t want to be around you.”

The words stung Landon. They were supposed to. A smart husband would have let the words bounce off his chest. She needed to vent. The least he could do was listen. But Landon had never been one to run from a fight, especially when someone was challenging his integrity. “I thought we were all about trust,” he said, his tone now matching hers. “Somebody sent these pictures to try and destroy our relationship, and you’re believing that person rather than me.”

He saw the tears start and lowered his voice. “All I’m asking is that based on our years together and everything you know about me, that you would give
me
the benefit of the doubt.”

Kerri shook her head. “I knew you were going to do this. That somehow, you’d twist this so that it’s all my fault.”

She walked over to the bed and picked up the pictures. She tore the one that showed Landon and Rachel coming out of the hotel room. In half. In quarters. Then in small pieces that she dropped on the bed. She took the other pictures and spread them out.

“There. I believe you. No hotel room.” She stood back and surveyed what was left. It was, Landon had to admit, still a damning montage.

“So where does that leave our marriage?” she asked.

“No different than it was before.”

At this, she scoffed. There would be no satisfying her now.

“What do you want me to say?”

“How about that you’re sorry? How about that you’re ready to leave the firm if that’s what it takes to keep our marriage together? How about that you understand why I would be so upset?”

Landon spread his arms. “Kerri, I
am
sorry. And I’ll do anything it takes to keep our marriage together. But you’ve got to believe me—there’s nothing between me and Rachel.”

Kerri stood there for a moment and then sighed. “You have no idea how deeply this hurts, do you?”

Landon didn’t answer. What could he say that he hadn’t already said? He wanted to hold her. He wanted to tell her it would be all right, that their marriage was strong enough to survive. He wanted to tell her that he loved her.

But right now, she wasn’t ready for any of that.

Her shoulders sagged, and she went into the closet and brought out a small gym bag.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. I just need you to take care of Maddie tonight. I’ll pick her up after day care tomorrow. I need some time alone.”

Landon tried to talk her out of it, but he knew it was a losing cause. She packed her stuff, went back and kissed Maddie, and walked out the
door. She shut it behind her—not hard, because she didn’t want to wake Maddie. But there was an unmistakable finality to it.

“I love you,” Landon said.

He tried to call a few times that night, but she wouldn’t answer. He sat in the family room with the TV on until three in the morning.

Simba stayed with him, sprawled out on the family room floor, breathing deeply, not a care in the world. Landon envied him.

When did life get so complicated?

THE NEXT DAY,
Landon couldn’t concentrate at work. He didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. Guilt weighed him down, smothering every emotion except regret and despondency. In truth, he had grown close to Rachel and had loved being around her. Kerri was right. Landon had blurred the lines and then stepped over them. Now he would have to re-earn Kerri’s trust.

But he was also blistering mad. Somebody was trying to sabotage his marriage. His prime suspect was Carolyn Glaxon-Forrester. Her investigator would have been following Rachel around. Glaxon-Forrester had lost in court last week, so maybe this was her sick way of getting revenge.

Landon called the divorce lawyer three times during the day and left increasingly irate messages. When she finally called back, late in the afternoon, she denied having an investigator trail Landon and Rachel. She denied Photoshopping any images.

“Thou doth protest too much, if you ask me,” she said.

Landon reamed her out and hung up the phone.

He left work early that night and brought home a dozen roses. He pulled Kerri away from Maddie and tried to apologize.

“I just need time,” she said. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

Kerri had stayed at a hotel on Monday night, and on Tuesday, after Maddie went to bed, she started packing again. Landon insisted that she stay so they could talk it through. But Kerri said she didn’t have the emotional energy.

“I’ve cried about this. I’ve gotten mad at you. I’ve beat myself up. I just can’t deal with it right now with everything going on at work and the thought that maybe our marriage isn’t what I thought it was.”

“But that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Landon insisted. “Our marriage
is
everything you thought.”

She wouldn’t hear any of it. So instead of watching her leave again, Landon said it was his turn. He took Simba and an air mattress to the office and tried to sleep there. The building had more moans and creaks than he had noticed during the day.

He tossed and turned and couldn’t get comfortable. He told himself that it was just a matter of time. Kerri would come to her senses and feel sorry for him. They would kiss and make up, and Landon would be more careful with Rachel. Someday, Kerri and Rachel might even become friends.

In the meantime, Landon wanted to kill Carolyn Glaxon-Forrester.

///

The flight plan would be perfect. On his approach to the Norfolk International Airport, Brent Benedict would have to spend a good twenty minutes over the expansive Chesapeake Bay, just a few miles from the Atlantic Ocean, looping around before he merged into the approach vector. The plane would be close enough to shore that the explosion would be seen. Far enough out that most of the pieces would never be found.

The Chesapeake Bay. What could be better?

The NTSB, of course, would conduct a comprehensive investigation. It would be the agency’s job to determine the cause of the accident and to issue safety recommendations based on its findings. But they were
only as good as the evidence they had to work with. And when a plane explodes into ten thousand tiny pieces over the Chesapeake Bay, most of the evidence is lost forever.

The mastermind congratulated himself. It was a near-perfect plan.

There was still work to do. The explosives couldn’t be attached to the plane until Thursday night, the night before Benedict’s return trip. But that should be no problem. The Cessna Citation would be sitting on the tarmac at the Allegheny County Airport. Ironically, even with all the elaborate security surrounding commercial flights—the invasive searches at the TSA checkpoints, the elaborate background checks on everyone working in aviation, the guards constantly patrolling the premises—private aircraft still had very few protections.

He had already scoped out the facility. The airport closed at nine. Only one security guard roamed the premises at night, and he liked to watch TV. Sneaking onto the tarmac in the middle of the night and planting the explosives would be child’s play. The mastermind would use a plastic C-4 explosive, which could be molded into any shape and could be fastened securely into a hollow spot in the wheel well. He believed in overkill. He would have enough explosive power on board to blow up a small warship.

He would need an accomplice, of course, because he couldn’t be in two places at once. For this, he enlisted an old friend with plenty of combat experience. The man would be well paid to drive the boat to the precise latitude and longitude on the bay, just under the flight path, close enough to detonate the explosives.

The man could be trusted to keep his mouth shut.

The deposition Brent Benedict would be taking was scheduled to start at 10 a.m. Friday. It was supposed to take at least six hours, so Benedict had filed a flight plan that had him leaving Allegheny County at six. By the time he flew out over the bay and radioed Norfolk air traffic control to get his final entry vector, it would be dark. The explosion would be even more spectacular in the nighttime sky.

It was only May 3. But it would seem like the Fourth of July.