problem.
'You knew how to get in touch with Deems by using the phone numbers in the old file.'
'Yes.'
'How did you convince someone like Deems to cooperate with the police?'
'I left copies of the pictures from the coast and from his meeting with Justice Griffen in a bus-station locker. We spoke on the phone, so he never met me. I told him that the police would arrest him for the attack on Abbie and the murder of Justice Griffen if I sent them the photographs. Evidence of prior similar criminal conduct is admissible, even if a person has been acquitted of the crime, as you well know from your research in Abbie's case, if the prosecution has evidence of a signature crime. The notches in the bombs were unique. I explained to Deems that no jury would acquit him once they heard the evidence about the Hollins murders.
'To sweeten the pot, I told him I would pay him fifty thousand dollars if he testified against Abbie and told the exact story I made up for him. I let him think I was someone Abbie had convicted. A criminal with a grudge. I convinced Deems that the best revenge would not be to kill Abbie, but to make her suffer on death row for a crime she did not commit.'
'Did you tell Deems to say that Abbie had shown him the dynamite in the shed and suggested he use it in the bomb?'
'Yes.'
'Why did you do that when Abbie didn't tell you about the photos until after she was arrested?'
'I saw her take the pictures. I knew she'd shot some footage behind the house. If she hadn't remembered about the undeveloped film, I would have led her to remember it.'
'Just as you tricked her into loving you?' Tracy said, not meaning to be cruel, but unable to help herself.
Reynolds reddened. 'This was my only chance to let her see past this face. To let her know that I love her. To give her a chance to love me for what I am.'
'It was a trick, Matt. You brainwashed her. You arranged to have her placed under house arrest. You isolated her and made her dependent on you. You . . . you trained her, the way you train a dog. That's not love she's feeling. It's something you created. It's artificial.'
'No. She does love me,' Matthew answered, shaking his head vigorously.
'Love is something that comes from your heart. Would she still love you if she knew what you did?'
Reynolds looked stricken. 'You can't tell her,' he said desperately.
Tracy gaped at Reynolds. 'Not tell Abbie? My God, Matthew.
This is murder. You killed a man. I'm going to have to tell the police. I came here to give you a chance to do that. If you confess, Jack Stamm may not ask for the death penalty. You can hire an attorney to negotiate for you.'
'No.'
'What choice do you have?'
'You can keep it a secret, the way you did with the photograph. I'll quit my practice.'
Tracy leaned forward until her face was inches from his. Was it possible that Reynolds did not understand the magnitude of what he had done?
'Are you insane?' she asked. 'Do you think this is some minor ethical violation like commingling funds? This is murder. You used a bomb to kill a Supreme Court justice.'
Matthew started to argue with Tracy, to use the powers of persuasion that had saved so many lives in the past, but he stopped and turned away, realizing suddenly that the moment he had feared had arrived. He was part of the case he could not win and the life that would be lost was his own.
'I'm going to give you two days to turn yourself in,' Tracy said. 'Then I'm going to the police.'
Reynolds turned back. He looked desperate.
'I'll destroy the evidence. I'll say you're lying. I'll deny we ever had this conversation. Last week you claimed Deems killed Griffen. This week it's me. Stamm won't accept your word against mine.'
Tracy wished she could just walk away and do what Matthew wanted, but that was impossible. She shook her head sadly.
'I have the pictures, your bankbook and the faked photo of the shed. If I give them to Jack Stamm, you run the risk that he will believe Abbie was in this with you. If you confess, you can save her from having to go through a second trial.'
'Griffen was a murderer,' Matthew implored Tracy. 'He killed your friend Laura Rizzatti, and he paid Deems to kill Abbie.
Can't you let this be?'
Matthew's eyes pleaded with Tracy, but she stood up and turned away. As she did, she remembered the question Matthew had asked her the firsttime they met: 'Tell me, Miss Cavanaugh, have you ever been to Stark, Florida, to the prison, after dark?'
That image of. visiting the prison after dark and leaving before dawn with her client dead had haunted Tracy. When she was with Matthew in Atlanta, when she was sitting beside him during Abbie's trial, when she worked on the brief in the Texas case, she had been driven by her fear that someday the image would become reality if she did not give her all every moment of every day.
Silent tears rolled down Tracy's cheeks as she closed the door to the hospital room behind her. In the moments she had spent just now with Matthew Reynolds, she had finally learned how all those brave attorneys felt in the prison, at the very end, after dark.
EPILOGUE
Abbie parked in the visitors' lot of the Oregon State Penitentiary, then walked down a tree-lined lane to the front door of the prison. On either side of the street were friendly white houses that were once residences but now served as offices for the staff.
Looming over the charming houses and their neatly trimmed lawns was the squat, square bulk of the prison with its thick eggyolk-yellow walls, barbed-wire fences and gun towers.
After checking in at the visitors' desk, Abbie walked through a metal detector, down a ramp, through two sets of sliding steel bars and down a short hall, where she waited while her escort unlocked the thick metal door that opened into the visiting area.
Abbie identified herself to a guard who sat on a raised platform at one end of a large, open room crowded with prison-made couches and wooden coffee tables. The guard called Matthew's cellblock and asked for him to be sent down. While the guard spoke on the phone, Abbie looked around the room. Along the far wall, a prisoner was waiting in front of a vending machine for a paper cup to fill with coffee. The prisoners were easy to identify in their blue jeans and work shirts. They played with children they saw once a month, leaned across the coffee tables toward their parents or stood in the corners of the room pressing against a wife or girlfriend, trying to steal a few moments of intimacy that would help them forget the dreariness that pervaded their prison lives.
'He'll be down in a few minutes,' the guard told Abbie. 'You can use one of the attorney rooms.'
On the left, outside the large visiting room, was an open area.
Along two walls were windows. Behind several of the windows were prisoners deemed too dangerous to be allowed into the visiting room.
Their visitors sat on folding chairs and spoke to them on phones.
Also in this area were two glass-walled rooms where prisoners could meet their lawyers. Jack Stamm had called the superintendent and obtained permission for Abbie to use one of these rooms. She closed the door and waited for Matthew, dreading the meeting, but knowing that she had to see him, no matter how painful the visit might be for both of them.
Abbie did not recognize Matthew at first. The starchy prison food had caused him to gain weight. His face had filled out and his hips and waist were fuller. She even detected the beginnings of a paunch. When he entered the room, Abbie stood up and searched his face for a clue to his feelings, but Matthew was keeping his emotions hidden. When he paused in the doorway, she thought he might change his mind and leave.
Instead, he offered his hand. She took it and held it for a moment.
Then they sat down.
'Thank you for coming to see me,' Matthew said. 'Aside from Barry and Tracy, I haven't had many
