“Vince, I-”
“Don’t say it,” he told her.
Alicia reached out and laced her fingers with his. “I love you,” she said.
Vince let out another deep breath. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
Chapter Seventeen
Jack was still stinging on Monday morning. The phone call from Vince Paulo hadn’t gone as badly as he thought it would; it had been even worse. Jack probably should have been the one to initiate the call; maybe he should have even told him about the polygraph. But that probably wouldn’t have made a difference. Vince’s anger was completely unavoidable. Maybe even justified.
You don’t understand, Swyteck.
Jack closed his eyes for a moment-and held it. It could actually feel soothing, even calming in a way. Until you wanted it to end. Jack pushed himself to get to that point-eyes closed until he couldn’t stand the darkness any longer-and then he forced himself to remain without sight. Sixty seconds passed. It felt like an hour. Two minutes went by, and he was in hell. After five minutes, he would have cut off his legs rather than stay this way forever. And he realized Vince was right.
You can’t possibly understand.
At nine A.M., Jack had a court hearing in a foreclosure action-was there a condo anywhere in Miami-Dade County not in foreclosure?-and by midmorning he had returned to his office in Coconut Grove. It was an old one- story cottage on a forested stretch of Main Highway, near a three-way intersection that, depending on the chosen path, could lead to a chic shopping district, where hippies had once run head shops; waterfront mansions, where those former hippies now lived; or the Grove ghetto, where their children and grandchildren cruised in their BMWs to buy drugs. A ninety-year-old clapboard cottage wasn’t what Jack had envisioned when his lease in Coral Gables had expired, but it was “loaded with charm”-real-estate-agent speak for caveat emptor.
Jack pushed through the door-it always stuck on humid mornings-and his secretary nearly tackled him as he stepped inside.
“You had eleven calls,” she said, “including three from a woman who refused to leave her number and would identify herself only as”-Carmen stopped to check her notes-“oh, here it is: ‘the most beautiful and intelligent woman in the world.’ ”
Jack rolled his eyes. “By any chance did that woman sound a little like Andie?”
The lightbulb went on. “As a matter of fact, she did!”
Jack’s cell had been turned off in the courthouse, and in a free moment Andie had obviously tried to touch base with him at his office.
“Oh, one more thing,” said Carmen, and then she lowered her voice, as if it were a secret. “You have an unexpected visitor. She’s waiting in your office.”
Jack read between the lines and tried not to groan. He loved his maternal grandmother-Abuela-but it was a busy Monday morning, and she had a way of just showing up at his office whenever it had been too long since he’d last visited her. Usually, it was to wonder aloud if she was going to live long enough to teach Spanish to the great- grandchildren who, by the way, Jack and Andie needed to hurry up and give to her.
Jack whispered his reply. “I really don’t have time this morning.”
“But she was practically in tears.”
“Abuela?”
“No, Maryam Wakefield. Jamal’s mother. She came all the way from Minnesota.”
“You put her in my office? I don’t even know the woman.”
“Where else could I put her?”
Jack glanced at the tiny waiting area, but it was packed with dozens of exhibit boxes from a five-week trial in a bank fraud case, no place for anyone to sit. Just six months into a new lease, and he’d already outgrown the space.
“All right, hold my calls.”
Jack stepped around a few boxes and entered his office. Maryam Wakefield rose from the armchair, quickly introduced herself, and immediately apologized for having arrived unannounced.
“To be honest,” she said, “I hadn’t planned on coming to see you. I’m in town to visit Jamal. In fact, I just came from the…”
Her voice cracked. For Jack, she was hardly the first mother to get emotional about a son in jail on charges of first degree murder. That first look at a loved one on the other side of the glass was rarely a comfort.
“Please, have a seat,” said Jack.
She lowered herself into the chair, and her eyes begged for a tissue. Any experienced criminal defense lawyer kept plenty around.
“This is such a roller coaster,” she said, taking the Kleenex. “It’s like someone calling to say, ‘Good news, Mrs. Wakefield: After three years, we finally found your son. The bad news is that he’s in jail and, with any luck, he might not get the death penalty.’ ”
She dabbed away a tear, though few were left after her visit to the jailhouse.
Maryam Wakefield was not much older than Jack, probably no more than twenty years old when she’d given birth to Jamal. She was an attractive woman with a few strands of gray, but the strain of the past three years had aged her, and the tired eyes and sad expression seemed almost permanent. Jack knew from Jamal that she was of Somali descent on her mother’s side, but the name “Wakefield” had come from a father who was the descendant of slaves and not sure of his African roots.
“Anyway,” she said, “the reason I came is because Jamal told me how hard you have been working for him. I’m not rich by any stretch, but it’s important for Jamal to have a good lawyer,” she said, her hand shaking as she pulled her checkbook from her purse. “If you can hold this check until my daughter’s disability check clears next Thursday, and then hopefully I can write you another one after I sell off some of my-”
“Put that away,” said Jack. “I volunteered for this case. The only person to thank is Neil Goderich at the Freedom Institute.”
“Will he take a check?”
Jack couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, but usually it’s from rich people who didn’t see him sneaking up at a cocktail party and missed their chance to turn and run.”
She didn’t seem to get it, but that wasn’t important. She closed her purse, folded her hands in her lap, and heaved a heavy sigh of what seemed like a combined sense of relief and Now what?
“Jamal tells me you’re working on the alibi,” she said. “I might be able to help with that.”
Jack paused, trying to be discreet. A mother helping her son with an alibi. Now there’s a twist.
Maryam continued. “I know what you’re thinking. But Jamal was crazy about McKenna. He called me when she broke up with him. He sounded devastated.”
“On a help scale of one to ten,” said Jack, “I’d have to rate that as ‘not so much.’ ”
“I realize that it cuts both ways.”
“Obsession usually cuts only one way,” said Jack.
“You don’t understand. Before he disappeared, the last conversation I had with my son, he told me he was coming home-back to Minnesota.”
“When was that?”
“I don’t remember the exact date. But it was on his cell, so I’m sure there are phone records.”
Jack made a note to get it. “You’re sure it was before the murder?”
“Of course I’m sure. I called him the next morning to check on his travel plans, but he didn’t answer. I kept calling his cell, his apartment. No answer. I called McKenna’s father at work, Jamal’s friends. No one knew where he was, but his car was still in Miami-still parked outside his apartment. I was hoping he’d bought a bus ticket and just slept on the trip, but it was like he’d vanished. That was when I filed a missing person report, which of course got me nowhere.”
“None of that’s in dispute,” said Jack. “The prosecutor will simply say that the breakup sent him into a
