'Thanks,' he said.
'For what? Calling you a nobody?' she asked.
'No. For not shooting me. This is important.'
'I'm listening,' she said.
Mason explained, 'I've got a missing client.'
'And I've got office hours,' she answered, turning around.
'Don't, Sam. Not so fast,' he said, his hand on her arm. 'Hear me out.'
Samantha looked at him, shaking her head. 'Okay.
'Your client give you a key to her house?' she asked Mason.
'Not exactly,' he answered.
'This isn't a commercial for Hertz, counselor. Representing someone gives you permission to overcharge, not break and enter.'
'You find Mary and ask her if she wants to file a complaint,' Mason said. 'I'll plead guilty.'
Samantha puffed her cheeks, letting out the air, not hiding her annoyance. 'Lou, you know how these things work. No one is a missing person for at least twenty-four hours. Adults with no history of mental illness or disability who don't come home are not missing persons for a lot longer than that. You're not giving me anything to get excited about. Who would want to hurt your client?'
'Whitney King. He knows Mary hired me to get a pardon for her son.'
Holding up one hand, reaching for the door with the other, Samantha said, 'Do you have any idea how crazy that is? A jury found King innocent. Getting a pardon for someone who was just executed for two brutal murders from a governor who denied him clemency and is running for reelection isn't exactly something Whitney King would lose any sleep over. Besides, he's probably a big campaign contributor and the governor cares a whole lot more about money from the living than he does pardons for the dead.'
'I'll tell you what's crazy, Sam,' Mason said, grabbing the handle on the door. 'The jurors in King's case take a vow of silence and then start turning up dead.'
'What are you talking about?' she said, sharpening her question.
'I'm talking about four out of twelve jurors who are dead. Two of them in accidents that probably weren't, and two of them shot in the face, including Sonni Efron. I haven't tracked down the rest of the jury yet.'
'You may be certifiable this time, Lou, if you want me to believe that Whitney King fixed the jury in his murder trial fifteen years ago, then turned around and started killing the jurors to keep them quiet.'
Mason smiled. Samantha's scenario fleshed out his own ill-formed suspicions. 'Doesn't sound so crazy when you say it out loud.'
'It's stupid!' Samantha said. 'In the first place, the kid was seventeen at the time. How's he going to fix anything, including his lunch? In the second place, why kill the jurors after all these years if they've kept quiet. And, if they haven't, once he kills one or two of them, the rest are going to fall all over each other talking so we'll protect them. None of which has a damn thing to do with your client, I might add.'
'Sure it does,' Mason said. 'If Mary and Nick are out of the picture, I've got no reason to stir things up. It all stays quiet.'
'So now you're telling me that Nick Byrnes is missing too?'
The door opened before Mason could answer. Phil, the voice from upstairs, handed Samantha a cordless phone. He was a few inches shy of Mason's six feet, soft in the middle, losing his hair. He was wearing an open terrycloth robe over boxer shorts and house slippers.
'It's for you,' he said. Samantha took the phone, walking into her front yard, cupping her hand over the mouthpiece. Phil turned to Mason, 'Phone rings more in the middle of the night than it did with my ex-wife, and she was a doctor, but at least no one knocked on the door.'
'Sweet dreams,' Mason told him as Phil trudged up the stairs, scratching his backside, the back of his robe bobbing like a tail.
Samantha cut small circles in the yard, Mason not able to hear her end of the conversation, moon shadows dancing through a red oak, splashing at her feet. Her call finished, she tucked the phone under one arm, chewing her lip, eyes narrowed, like she couldn't decide what to do with Mason. Thank him or smack him.
'We found your client,' she said, arms folded over her chest again.
Mason crossed the short distance to Samantha, his shadow enveloping hers, his pulse jumping, knowing that cops didn't call each other with good news in the middle of the night.
'Where is she?' Mason asked.
'Not Mary. Nick. He's in the hospital.'
'What happened?'
'Whitney King shot him.'
Chapter 19
Nick Byrnes was at St. Joseph Hospital in south Kansas City, twenty miles and a lifetime from Samantha Greer's house. The light and siren on Samantha's car brushed aside what little traffic there was at that hour. Mason followed Samantha south on I-29, merging into I-35, crossing the Paseo Bridge over the Missouri River, all night gamblers still hitting on sixteen at the riverboat casino docked next to the bridge.
They picked up the Bruce R. Watkins Memorial Freeway on the east side of downtown, cresting a hill with a panoramic view of the skyline to the west and the Channel 5 television tower farther south, an exoskeleton patriotically illuminated in red, white, and blue that dominated midtown. Mason replayed what little Samantha had told him about the shooting.
'Looks like self-defense,' she had said. 'There's at least one witness who vouches for King, says Nick came after King with a gun. King tried to take it away from him and it went off.'
'How many times?' Mason had asked, the question rising in his throat like bile. He couldn't forgive himself for letting Nick race out of his office, threatening King. Mason didn't take the threat seriously. He knew better, but blamed Blues anyway for inciting the boy.
'Once. In the chest. It's bad, but St. Joe's trauma docs are good. He's got a chance.'
Mason had a lot more questions, but they would have to wait. They covered the twenty miles in fifteen minutes, their cars racing in tandem. Mason was a step behind Samantha as they passed through the ER on their way to the surgery waiting area. A uniformed cop picked them up, whispering an update to Samantha, glancing warily at Mason.
Samantha's partner, Al Kolatch, was already there, sitting with an elderly couple Mason guessed were Nick's grandparents. The woman rested her head on the man's shoulder, both of them white haired and slight, his arm around her. Both sets of eyes were red, the woman's face crumpled, the man's face hard. Kolatch fidgeted with his notepad, stirring a cup of coffee, forcing himself to stay in his chair. Comforting the unconsolable was not one of his strengths.
Samantha joined Kolatch, shaking hands with the man; the woman lifted her head for a moment, no strength for more questions. She motioned Kolatch to the other side of the waiting room, their conversation an exchange of murmurs and nods out of Mason's earshot. Samantha took Kolatch's place with the couple, coaxing a few more answers out of them while Kolatch briefed Mason.
'Your boy's in bad shape,' Kolatch began.
'So I'm told,' Mason said. 'What went down?'
Kolatch looked at his notepad. 'About eight o'clock last night, your client assaulted a Mr. Whitney King in the parking lot of his office building in the Holmes Corporate Centre just off I-435.'
Mason knew the area. I-435 was the beltway around Kansas City. Holmes Corporate Centre was only a couple of miles east of the hospital. Office towers with an outer skin that reflected like mirrors.
'I know where it is,' he told Kolatch. 'What do you mean my client assaulted King?'
'Assault, Counselor. Threatening bodily harm. It's a Class B felony. Only since your client had a gun and threatened to kill Mr. King, it's assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder. Both of which are Class A
