It's Nothing Personal (44 page)

Above the loud wind gusts whipping through
the trees, Jenna heard the incessant ringing of her cell phone.
 
She had no intention of answering it,
but caller ID showed Nancy’s number.
 
Jenna fantasized that perhaps Nancy was calling her to tell her that the
judge had reconsidered, and her appearance in court was required
immediately.
 
Waiting until the
fourth ring, Jenna picked up the line.

Although Jenna was alone, she inexplicably
felt the need for privacy.
 
Walking
into the office, she shut the French doors and sat down in the leather
chair.
 
Jenna cradled the phone
against her left shoulder while she held the oversized mug of tea with both
hands, warming her palms.

“Hey, Jenna.
 
I just wanted to see how you were
doing?”
 
Nancy’s voice sounded flat
and forced, as if the wind had just been knocked out of her.

“Awful,” Jenna replied bleakly.
 

Nancy was speechless.
 
She felt like someone had died –
there really was nothing she could say.
 
Mere words could not begin to heal the hole in Jenna’s heart.

“If it makes you feel any better, Jim and I
feel the same.
 
The judge’s decision
was unconscionable.
 
Every lawyer in
our firm is talking about it.
 
We’re
all shocked.”

“Then, why?
 
Why would he make such an outrageous
ruling?
 
Why would he do this to
me?”

“I don’t know.”
 
Nancy had no other reply.

Jenna slammed her cup down on the desktop.
 
Her resentment had reached a crescendo.

“Don’t give me that!
 
What the hell is ‘I don’t know’ supposed
to mean?
 
You and Jim must have some
idea!
 
You owe me the truth.
 
I’ve got nothing else.”

Nancy stood up and closed the door to her
office.
 
She sat down on the edge of
her desk and stared at the copy of the Tribune with Jenna’s story on the front
page.
 
From the day the story was
printed, Nancy had kept it on display, tacked to her corkboard.
 
It was her constant reminder of the
doctor she was working to save.

She lowered her voice.
 
“Let me start by saying that all this is
speculation.
 
Even Jim and I will
probably never know for certain what motivated Judge Hastings to make the
ruling.
 
That being said, our
impression is that, for whatever reason, he did not want to see this case reach
trial.
 
Maybe he was concerned about
publicity, maybe somebody got to him.
 
For whatever reason, he knew how to make sure the trial would never come
to pass, and he acted.”

Jenna swiveled her chair around toward the
bookshelves and glanced up at the rows of anesthesia and medical textbooks –
books she had spent countless hours studying, memorizing facts and
concepts.
 
She wondered how much of
her life she had given away to those books.
 
How many precious moments had she
missed?

Spinning back around, Jenna studied her
medical school diploma, displayed prominently on the wall.
 
It was elegantly framed in oak with
solid-gold inlays.
 
She remembered
the day she took it to the framing studio.
 
Jenna had strutted into the store with her precious diploma rolled in a
protective cardboard tube.
 
She
unrolled it in front of the framer and imagined the other shoppers glancing at
the degree in awe.
 
For the first
time in her life, she felt like she had made it.
 
She was
 
. . . a doctor.

Since then, her life had been sucked
away.
 
Her career was a parasite –
always taking, but never giving anything back.
 
Now it had taken her honor.

Jenna knew what she needed to do.
 
She spoke discreetly, “Nancy, I need to
ask you a favor, off the record.
 
If
you can’t do it, I understand, and we can forget I ever mentioned it.”

Nancy muttered, “Tell me what you need.”

Jenna continued gazing at her diploma, with
animosity and sorrow swelling within her.
 
“I want to confront Judge Hastings.
 
Privately.
 
How could I do
that?”

Nancy felt her heart skip a beat.
 
“Are you sure about this Jenna?
 
You’re contemplating something that
could turn out to be very dangerous.”

“Will you help me, or not?”

The boldness in Jenna’s voice made Nancy
wish they were in court, as scheduled.
 
In this state of mind, Jenna would have been invincible.

“I’ll help.
 
Just give me a minute to find my file.”

“What file?”
 
Jenna asked, accusatorily.
 
From Nancy’s end, Jenna heard the sound
of drawers opening and closing, and papers shuffling.

“We have a file on every judge.
 
It contains their professional bio, past
rulings, and personal information.
 
The kind of stuff that gives us insight on how best to deal with each of
them.”

“I never knew about that.”
 

Nancy replied sternly, “And you still
don’t.
 
Okay, I found it.
 
Graduated from Harvard, married to wife,
Julie, for thirty years, three kids, blah, blah, blah.
 
Here we go – home address.
 
You got a pen ready?”

Jenna hurriedly retrieved one from the
cluttered desk drawer, along with an old, tattered envelope to write on.

“Ready.”

“Fifteen Holden Road in Greenbrier Village.”

Jenna scribbled down the address.
 
“Got it.
 
Thanks, Nancy.”

Nancy shook her head, unsure of what she had
just unleashed.
 
“Be careful,
Jenna.”

CHAPTER 69

Jenna hung up the phone and began executing
her plan.
 
First, she called Tom.

“Hey, babe.
 
What’s up?”
 
Tom asked.

Jenna struggled to sound normal and keep the
pitch in her voice even.
 
“Nancy
just called and asked me to dinner.
 
Normally I wouldn’t go, but maybe it will help me get some closure.
 
She also wanted me to drop by her office
this afternoon to tie up some loose ends.
 
Is there any way you can get Mia after school?”

“Sure.
 
When do you think you’ll be home?”

Jenna hated lying to him, but she knew he’d
disapprove of what she was about to attempt. “I don’t know.
 
Maybe not until late.
 
Is that okay?”

Tom hoped the meeting would bring Jenna some
relief.
 
“It’s fine.
 
Tell Nancy hello from me, and I’ll see
you when you get home.”

Before Jenna left the house, she conducted a
quick Internet search on the judge.
 
It did not take long before Jenna knew exactly what he looked like.
 
Armed with an address and a photo, Jenna
quickly dressed in jeans and a sweater and left her house.
 

Driving across town, Jenna played things out
in her mind.
 
She planned on waiting
as long as necessary for the judge to come home, and then she would confront
him.
 
Her GPS directed her into a
very elite neighborhood.
 
Mansions
were perched along the hillside, offering panoramic views only bestowed upon
the wealthy.
 
The grounds were
meticulously maintained, not a single tree branch was out of place.
 
Even in the dead of winter, blades of
green grass poked through the snow.
 
Unfortunately for Jenna, the community was gated – something she
hadn’t anticipated.
 
She pulled off
into a small parking area and watched as a security guard questioned each
driver before granting access.

“Shit,” she muttered, as her strategy
unraveled.
 
There was no way she
would make it past the guard.
 
Gazing out her windshield, Jenna watched as Mercedes, BMWs, and the
occasional Bentley passed through the security screen.
 
Jenna was about to give up when she
noticed a large man with a full head of white hair leaving the
subdivision.
 
He was driving a
silver Lexus sedan.
 
Her glimpse at
the driver was brief, but Jenna was sure it was the judge.
 
She put her car into drive and pulled
out on to the road.
 
Careful to keep
at least two cars between them, she followed Judge Hastings.

Her head was buzzing as she pursued the
judge through the congested mid-day traffic.
  
At one point, several cars merged
into the lane in front of her, and she was sure she had lost sight of him.
 
After several anxious minutes of craning
her neck to see past the other vehicles, she glimpsed the rear of his car.
 
Changing lanes, Jenna accelerated,
passing several of the cars and pulled in behind Judge Hastings.
 
Before she got too close, she slipped on
her dark sunglasses and a wool, winter cap – not the best masquerade, but
better than nothing.
 

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled into the
parking lot of a country club and parked in the outermost row.
 
Jenna strategically parked between the
judge’s car and the building’s entrance.
 
He would be forced to walk past her on his way in.
 
Glancing in her rearview mirror, Jenna
spotted Judge Hastings gather a tennis bag from his trunk and make his way
toward her.
 
When he was ten feet
away, she removed her sunglasses and stepped out of her car.

The air was frigid, and a biting wind
chilled Jenna’s cheeks.
 
She put her
hands in her coat pockets and rushed toward the judge.
 
Jenna stopped directly in his path.
 
They were the only two in the icy
parking lot.
 
Jenna stood in front
on him, and the judge smiled politely.
 
In a flash, his smile faded as he recognized Jenna from her deposition
tape.
 
Standing only a few feet
apart, neither of them moved.

“Judge Hastings?”

“Dr. Reiner,” he said suspiciously.
 
“What are you doing here?
 
Are you following me?”

Jenna had come for a purpose, and she
refused to be sidetracked.

“I just have to know.
 
Why?
”

Grant Hastings had never been tracked down
and confronted by a defendant before.
 
His instinct was to be indignant and harsh.
 
However, as Jenna stood in front of him,
her cheeks red from the cold and drops forming at the base of her nose, he was
riveted.
 
The woman in front of him
was so much softer than what he saw from Jenna during her deposition.
 
Her deep, blue eyes revealed a sense of
great loss and immeasurable pain.
 
The way she stood, unpretentious with her shoulders slightly hunched,
made her look battered and crushed.
 
Mostly, Jenna looked empty.

She continued, “Do you know what you took
from me?”

Judge Hastings bowed his head, partly in
shame and partly because looking at Jenna was too agonizing.
 
He had ruined this woman.

“Look at me!” Jenna insisted.
 
She struggled to maintain her composure
as anger welled up inside her.
 

The judge raised his head and beheld the
victim in front of him.

Jenna erupted.
 
“I have lost everything – my
dignity, my integrity, my reputation.
 
You took away the only chance I had to redeem myself.
 
You took that from me!”

Black streams ran from Jenna’s eyes and down
her face.
 
She refused to wipe them
away.
 
Judge Hastings deserved to
see every aspect of her anguish.

Jenna pulled a picture of Mia from her coat
pocket and thrust it at the judge.
 
At first, he made no effort to accept it.
 
Jenna shook the photo in front of him.

“Take this!” she insisted.

The judge reached for the picture.
 
He studied the young girl in the
photo.
 
Instantly, he recognized her
eyes.
 
They were the same as her
mother’s, except the girl’s eyes were happy and full of life, whereas Jenna’s
were hollow and dead.

“She’s beautiful,” Grant Hastings said softly,
rubbing his thumb along the edge.

“Yes, she is.
 
Not only that, she’s smart and kind and
funny.
 
Now, thanks to you, she’s
also jaded.
 
We taught her to follow
the rules and stand up for what she believes.
 
Then, she watched me cower and say nothing,
as I was slayed by Allison Anders.
 
Right now, I should be in your courtroom making my daughter proud.
 
Not here, in some parking lot, begging
you for answers!”