The Victim (27 page)

The career that stayed on his mind through college and law school. He would become a criminal defense attorney, a great trial lawyer. He put in his time at the State Attorney’s Office; slaving away under the strain of bureaucracy for less than a living wage—all to prepare himself for this.

That dream was on his mind that morning on the Beeline. A dream that could have vanished in the time it took to crash into Kelsie McEvoy’s Honda.

The dream that pushed him toward that desperate, awful decision.

Guilt seared in his gut like an ulcer.

The flashbacks of March 16, 2003, stuck with him with post-traumatic resolve. They came without warning, as unrelenting as the real thing. The phantom smells were so vivid he sometimes had to look around and check for fire.

The past was never buried and put to rest. It could be covered up, cloaked by the passage of time and convincing denial. After so many years, the flashbacks came less frequently and the smells more subdued. He was finally starting to think that the ugliest moment in an otherwise decent life could be forgotten and—God willing—ultimately forgiven.

When the news said that Kelsie McEvoy and Evan Rangel were alive when the wreckage caught fire, he fell to the floor and vomited. He wanted to die. He didn’t think that one form of murder was better than another. Death by sixty-mile-per-hour impact or death by fire. When the result was the same, what was the difference?

What destroyed him was the thought that they were alive when he had crashed into them. If he had just gotten ahold of his common sense and shown some humane measure of accountability, he could have called 911 and they could have been rescued. He would have been arrested and charged with felony DUI, given the serious bodily injury he had caused. Technically, he could have done time but he probably would have been given probation. He would be a convicted felon and his chances of becoming an attorney would have vanished. Life would go on. He could find another career. Realize a different dream. He was smart, capable, certainly adaptable.

Life would have gone on for him.

Life would have gone on for Kelsie McEvoy and Evan Rangel.

Looking around Jack’s office, he still felt pangs of envy surging through him like an electrical current. That bothered him, that his ambition was so brutal. Lethal, even.

For every upward stride he took in the professional world, he did so on the shoulders of the dead.

Anton braced his hands on the armrests and stood, stretching out the knots of stress woven into the muscles in his back. For the second time in his life, he was letting someone burn so that his dream could continue. He thought of Gina and Charlotte. Who would take care of them if he were to be prosecuted for the murders of Kelsie and Evan? What if he lost his license and couldn’t practice law?

What would Gina do if she found out about Evan and Kelsie?

If she found about about what he had done with Daniella?

A tinge of bile ticked his throat. He leaned forward and spit into the trashcan.

Daniella had spent eleven years preparing to exact her revenge. Anton felt like a moron thinking that he could unravel her strategy simply by lawyering his way around her. She was way too smart for that, he was beginning to realize. She knew about Vicki Brandt. She walked him right into it. With no resolution in sight but a trial by jury, Anton shuddered at the thought of not one but two women testifying that his client—his innocent client—had strangled them in the same fashion.

It was a slam-dunk guilty verdict.

If he let Bryan take the fall, he could chalk it up to a loss. Losses happen. You move on. After all, it would have been Bryan’s fault. Had he been upfront about Vicki Brandt from the beginning maybe Anton could have kept that quiet, tailoring his questions in such a way that would not elicit any information about her. Then again, Daniella could have simply told Sylvia about her during the many conversations he was certain they were having. So a conviction would have been Bryan’s fault. He should have never laid his hands on Vicki. Even if the allegations against Daniella were untrue, a jury would still be heavily persuaded by similar fact evidence.

Strangely, Anton felt some relief.

He walked over to the teak liquor cabinet angled in the far corner of the office. Framed photographs were arranged on top. Most notably, there was a picture of Jack and former governor Charlie Crist, clad in Polos and khaki shorts, posing with their drivers at Trump’s private course, Mar-a-Lago. Anton knelt down and opened the cabinet. There had to have been at least fifteen bottles of Scotch, the older ones coated with a film of dust. He fished through the collection, the bottles clinking as he delicately moved them around: 21-year-old Glenlivet, Johnny Walker Blue Label, 18-year-old Laphroaig, 12-year-old Talisker, 18-year-old Glenmorangie. He found the one in the back, Jack’s crown jewel: a 30-year-old Knockando.

He grabbed a lowball glass and unscrewed the cap, filling the glass halfway. The mossy aroma tickled his nose, opening his sinuses. He sipped. It was warm and perfectly smooth.

Anton put away the bottle and took the glass with him to his own office. He sat down at his desk and checked his inbox. He had a dozen emails, mostly requests for coverage from his fellow defense attorneys on the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers Listserv. He checked the latest snippets from the Florida Supreme Court in an email from his Florida Law Weekly subscription, and deleted two spam emails containing links for sites that sold generic Viagra.

He clicked out of Outlook and checked his customary websites. Miami and Broward news sites, national news sites, and box scores on ESPN.com. He read the Justice Building Blog, an online forum created by an anonymous member of the Miami legal community known only as “Rumpole” that discussed current happenings in local criminal justice.

An emailed dinged in his inbox. He opened Outlook.

The subject line of the email was blank but a paperclip icon beside it indicated a file attachment.

The sender was
[email protected]
.

He clicked it open.

The two recipients were
[email protected]
and
[email protected]
.

Gina’s email. The one she had been using since before they were married.

A dull pain spread from the small of his back throughout his body. His heart drummed in rapid-fire succession, so fast he could barely keep his hands from shaking.

The attachment was in AVI format, meaning that the file contained a video.

The title of the attachment was antonanddaniella.avi.

He read the one and only line of the email.

When’s the last time you fucked your wife like this?

CHAPTER 29

Frantically, Anton logged onto Gmail and racked his brain, trying to figure out Gina’s password. His fingers were trembling so quickly he could barely type without mashing two or three keys each stroke.

He knew that the email would be coming up on her iPhone any moment.

He punched in every password he could think of. Her birthday. Fisher—her maiden name. Charlotte’s name. Charlotte’s birthday. He prayed that her phone was on silent, buried at the bottom of her diaper bag. But then again, she was on her phone a lot. Gina and her mother kept a steady stream of texts throughout the day. Gina was usually involved in some ongoing group text with her mom friends. She was always going back and forth with Missy, her best friend from college.

If Charley was down for her afternoon nap, Gina might have been taking a much-needed break, sprawled out on the couch playing Candy Crush. Or indulging herself in mindless celebrity gossip on TMZ.

A little chime would sound and that email would be in the palm of her hand.

His guesses continued to be rejected.

The email or password you entered is incorrect.

He thought hard. Really hard. When they were buying their home the realtor had emailed Gina the contract. Gina was at work and Anton had to open it so they could print it out, sign it, and fax it back. The sellers were in California and they were trying to close before midnight.

He clamped his eyes shut, trying to visualize the password. It was case-sensitive. It included her high school volleyball number; he remembered that. 29—that was it. Half of his football number, 58. The alphabetic portion…what was her high school mascot? No, that wasn’t it. College!

Seminole29.

He held his breath as the screen loaded, relieved when he passed the login stage and was in. The email from Daniella was at the top, the bold print showing that it had not yet been read.

He clicked the empty box beside it and deleted it.

His cell phone rang. He didn’t need to look at the display.

It was Gina’s custom ring.

He felt his whole body lurch forward with involuntary force. He hooked his mesh wastebasket with his leg and dragged it until it was positioned between his knees. He hunkered over it and prepared himself to throw up.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

And stopped.

Oh God.
Had she seen it? In the few precious seconds since he was able to log in had she read the email? If he were accessing her email, it would have been possible for the message to show as unread while in the meantime, she was reading it on her phone. The email wouldn’t show as read until the page was refreshed.

The phone rang again. Gina’s ring.

He stared at the flashing display. It was a picture of her taken about a month before they had gotten pregnant. Sitting in a patio chair outside of their room at their favorite motel over in Sarasota. She was wearing a white sundress, her blonde hair wet and slicked back, fresh out of the shower. Beads of water glistened on her tanned shoulders. She was holding a Dixie cup full of eight-dollar cabernet, the uncorked bottle on the table beside a paper plate of Gruyere cheese and Wheat Thins. Her sunglasses shielded her eyes but her cheeks bore the telltale flush, her relaxed smile barely concealing the obvious.

It was just an impromptu weekend, a spur-of-the-moment thing that only young couples without children can do. They dropped off Samson at the kennel, called in a last-minute reservation, and drove the three and a half hours on I-75, their hands clasped, watching the storm clouds billow over Florida’s Gulf Coast.

He remembered that day. They slept late, grabbed a gluttonous breakfast, walked along the water collecting shells. They shopped, stopped at Publix for a bottle of wine and some cheese. They went back to the room, where the wine loosened their inhibitions and they had incredible sex.

The phone rang. And rang. And stopped.

He recalled that when he snapped that photo of her, he thought for a moment that maybe God had smiled upon him. As if He had forgiven his misdeeds and given him permission to be free from guilt.

They were carefree, had a little money in their pockets, and were madly in love.

It was one of the best days of his life.

He waited, afraid she might try to call a third time. Gina always called again if she couldn’t get him the first time. Or she might text. He counted thirty seconds in his head, which seemed like an hour. No call. No text.

He grabbed his phone and fired off a quick text.

?

The gray caption bubble emerged on the screen, indicating she was writing her reply.

Nothing. Just saying hi.

He melted in his chair. His breathing returned to normal.

He opened Outlook and reread Daniella’s email. He double-clicked on the attachment. It took about fifteen seconds for the file to download. A black box appeared on the screen. He clicked the play button on the toolbar and turned down the volume.

The camera had been set up to capture a side-angle view of Daniella’s bed. Natural light seeped in through the window. The bed was empty, slightly ruffled. There was no sound, just the hush of an empty speaker. But he could see movement in the other room, shadows spreading and receding across the floor through the open bedroom door.

The toolbar lingered along. Three minutes. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

The sunlight dimmed with the passage of the late afternoon but the picture was still clear. Anton realized that the camera had been turned on long before he arrived. He dragged the toolbar until he saw shadows writhing just outside the doorway. He resumed the video there, watching as he and Daniella scurried backward and onto the bed.