'A witness saw you enter the building on the ground floor. The elevator only runs from the basement to Dr. Gina's office. Why did you go up that way?'
'My father gave me a key to the building a long time ago. I didn't have a key to Gina's office, but I wouldn't need one if I used the elevator.'
'Weren't you meeting Gina? Wouldn't she have let you in?'
'I didn't know she was going to be there.'
'Then what were you doing there?' Jordan sat down again, thumping her balled fist on the metal table. Mason sat across from her and covered her fist with his hands. 'I need to know,' he said.
Jordan gnawed at her lower lip and pulled her fist away. Mason clamped his hands around hers, yanking her toward him. She was meaner but he was stronger. 'I need to know,' he said again.
'You're hurting me.'
'I'm sorry,' he said, feeling small but uncertain of any other way to break through to her. 'Tell me.'
She glared at him until he released her, leaving her rubbing her wrist, Mason feeling like a bully, his arms still tingling. They were finding a common language that he wasn't anxious to learn.
'Gina didn't take notes during a session. She always said that she didn't want to have anything she might have to turn over to the insurance companies. Sometimes I gave her stuff I wrote and she kept it. After she said she wouldn't treat me any more, I wanted it back. I knew where she kept it and I took it and got out of there.'
'What did you write about, Jordan?'
She squirmed in her chair, glancing around, looking for a way out, finding none, dipping her head, letting her hair cover her face, tugging on it like a mask. She hid beneath her hair, her breathing growing ragged, finally throwing her head back, slapping both palms against the table. The metal sang, bringing the guard to the window in the door. Mason waved him off.
'Mr. Mason,' she said through clenched teeth. 'It took eight years of therapy with Gina Davenport before I could tell her. I don't know you. I didn't even hire you and you want me to tell you.'
'You're wrong, Jordan,' he said. 'It's you who wants to tell me.'
She clutched her neck with one hand as it reddened with blood creeping up to her chin. She ran her other hand through her hair. Her eyes grew large and wet. 'Okay, okay, okay,' she said, talking herself down from the emotional ledge she was standing on. 'When I was thirteen, my brother raped me. My parents didn't believe me when I told them. I put it all in my diary. The day it happened and every day after, when my parents called me a liar and my brother called me a slut when they weren't around. I told Gina everything a couple of weeks ago and gave her the diary.'
Mason felt the walls close in around them, the air too thick with Jordan's shame for them to breathe. He understood with crippling clarity the source of her rage. He wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how. All he knew was that there wasn't enough room on his dry-erase board for these new lines.
'Did your parents know that you told Gina?'
'We had a session with my parents. They said the same thing they always said. That I made it up. They even said there must have been something wrong with my birth mother and I inherited it.'
'What did Dr. Gina say?'
'She said that she believed me and that she was obligated to report cases of child abuse to the police. My father threatened to sue her. My mother stormed out of the room, like she always does, like it was my fault.'
'Did your father bring it up again after that session?'
'Last weekend. We had a real screamer. I was mad because Gina wouldn't see me anymore. That's when he told me about Gina's contract and that she wouldn't keep treating me unless he let her out of her contract. Then he started hollering at me about the rape story, saying that Gina was going to report Trent to the police if he didn't let her go.'
'Did Trent know that Gina had threatened to turn him in to the cops?'
'I don't talk to the little worm,' Jordan said. 'You'll have to ask my parents.'
'Why after all of that did you confess to killing Dr. Gina?'
'Terry Nix caught me when I came back to Sanctuary.
I'd broken curfew. I was pretty shook up and I told him what had happened. I showed him my diary. Terry said my brother probably killed Gina, just like you said. Terry said my real problem was that my parents didn't save me from my brother. If I confessed, they'd have to choose between me and Trent. He said they'd choose me this time.'
Mason clasped his hands behind his neck, stretching his back and neck muscles. He didn't know whether Jordan was still telling the truth, but as long as she believed it, his representation of her had just gotten more complicated.
'Your father is paying my fees, but I can't take any more money from him. He covered up the rape. Trent may have killed Gina to keep the rape story from coming out and your father could be covering up for him again.'
Jordan wiped her eyes. 'I can't afford to pay you. I don't have any money of my own.'
'Don't worry, the court will appoint me to represent you. My hourly rate goes down but the friendly service stays the same,' he said with a smile.
'You believe me?'
Mason clasped her shoulders. 'I believe you.' At the moment, he knew it was more important that she believe him than that he believe her. 'I need to know something else. It may not be important. Did you program your cell phone to forward your calls to Gina Davenport?'
She furrowed her brow. 'Why would I do that?'
'I couldn't begin to guess,' he answered. 'Where's your phone?'
'I lost it. I had it with me when I left Sanctuary last Friday. I must have put it down somewhere because I didn't have it when I got back Friday afternoon.'
'Where were you last Friday?'
'Terry Nix brought me in for my appointment with Gina. That's when she told me she wouldn't treat me anymore, but she wouldn't say why. She said I should talk to my father. I stopped at the radio station to talk to him, but he wouldn't tell me anything. Then Terry took me home. I don't understand what this is about.'
Mason asked, 'Have you ever tried to find your birth mother?'
Jordan shook her head. 'My parents always blamed my problems on my birth mother. I used to hear my dad tell my mom that they didn't get the pick of the litter with me. I never thought about looking for my birth mother. I was afraid my parents might be right.'
'What if they were wrong?' Mason asked.
'I was afraid of that too,' she said.
Chapter 11
Courtrooms have personalities, Mason thought as he made his way to the counsel table in front of Associate Circuit Court Judge Joe Pistone's bench. Pistone's courtroom reminded him of a hundred-year-old saloon, where the floor had absorbed lifetimes of blood, booze, and spit, sagging from perpetual fatigue, resigned to the next spilled fluid. Judge Pistone was well matched to his courtroom, having sentenced himself to a life term in associate circuit court, first as a lawyer, then as a judge. Mason bet he was gray-haired and shoulder-hunched at birth, holding his mother in contempt the first time she burped him.
Mason felt as worn as the floorboards in the saloon. His body creaked like it had been trampled on. His eye looked like a doorstop. He ignored Sherri Thomas and her cameraman, who had set up shop in the hallway outside the courtroom. He smiled with unfelt good nature at the jabs from other lawyers who asked if he'd gotten the license number of the truck that hit him, or if the other guy looked worse than Mason.
He was hopeful that Jordan's arraignment would be brief and routine. He would waive formal reading of the charge, enter a plea of not guilty, and ask for bail. The prosecutor would demand bail in six figures, at which point he knew hope would go out the window like Gina Davenport if Arthur Hackett made good on his threat of the night before.
Mason had called Hackett after his jailhouse meeting with Jordan. He had to talk with Hackett about Jordan's
