with shock and wasn’t thinking straight. Or that I’d been working so hard over the last week under such enormous stress.
I stepped over the threshold and crashed into Charlie like he was a tackling sled. I wrapped my arms around him like he was my last hope. Probably because he was.
He seemed baffled, to put it mildly. But that shocker wasn’t anything compared to what came out of my mouth a second later.
“My name isn’t Nina,” I said in his ear. “Oh, Charlie. You have to help me. Please.”
Chapter 89
CHARLIE STARED AT ME, blown away, for a few moments before he brought me back into his office and sat me down. After he paid for the taxi, he put a half-full water glass of Johnnie Walker in my hand and one in his own, sat slowly himself, and let out a breath. After several more beats, he yelled, “What?!”
I stared at him for a few seconds, biting my lip. How could I do this? I thought. How could I open up after so many years, so many lies? I’d been keeping my secrets for too long. How could I reveal them now?
At first, I scrambled to think of a way to minimize the utter outrageousness of my insane life story. But after a minute, I realized how impossible that was.
Harris’s case file was sprawled out on Charlie’s desk. I stood and retrieved the sheet with the photographs of the suspected Jump Killer victims.
“Look, Charlie,” I said, tapping my high school yearbook picture twice. “This isn’t a young Renee Zellweger. It’s me. My name is Jeanine. Jeanine Fournier. I used to be married to Peter Fournier, the Key West chief of police.”
Then for the next half hour, as Charlie sat there blinking, I explained myself. Or at least tried to. When I got to the part about my faked abduction, he held up his hand.
“So you’re telling me that Fournier, the chief of police, is not only a bad cop, but, in fact, a psychopath?” Charlie said.
I nodded vigorously. “That’s why I faked my death. Peter’s first wife tried to leave him through regular channels. I didn’t feel like being stalked and gunned down.”
Then I told him the part about the Jump Killer and my new life and identity up in New York with Emma.
“When my firm volunteered me for the pro bono initiative, and I found out about Justin,” I explained, “I knew I had to come back down here to help. I knew Justin was innocent because the psycho who picked me up hitchhiking and tried to kill me the night I left was white.”
Charlie closed his eyes and began to rub them. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.
“Are you really a lawyer at least?” he finally spat out.
“I went to Fordham Law at night. I even passed the bar. My plan here was to get Justin off, but keep my life secret and safe and intact. But that’s out the window now. Peter was in my room tonight. He must have seen me at the bar when he was talking to you. I’d call the cops, but Peter is the cops. What am I going to do?”
Charlie lifted his drink and stared at it, thinking. Then he finally finished it.
“Well, from one lawyer to another, here’s my best advice, off the top of my head,” he said. “You need to get on a plane and get as far away from Fournier as possible until we can figure out a way to deal with him. You need to go back to New York.”
Chapter 90
“GO BACK to New York?” I said. “What about Justin? I had contact with the real Jump Killer! That’s pertinent to Justin’s case, isn’t it? I’m probably the only person who’s ever seen the Jump Killer and lived. Don’t I need to testify?”
“It’s not that simple,” Charlie said. “In order to get a stay of execution with this little time left, you have to go through the Florida Office of Executive Clemency. We’re going to get only one shot at convincing the board to look at any new evidence. As it stands now, Justin’s fiancee recanting her damaging testimony is still the best possible scenario. She’s the only one who has vital exculpatory evidence that speaks directly to the case. The members on the board would be forced to consider it.”
“But—” I started.
Charlie silenced me with a palm. “Your, uh, new revelations, on the other hand, are essentially this: you came into contact with a white man who seemed to be the Jump Killer. It’s certainly thought-provoking, but there’s not enough legal red meat there. In fact, it might be seen as so fantastical that I wouldn’t be surprised if the governor dismissed it as a desperate stunt. Fabiana’s testimony is it, our only shot.”
“But we haven’t even found her yet,” I pointed out. “Let alone convinced her to tell the truth. And what if we don’t? Then what do we have? Nothing. Fantastical as it is, my testimony is at least something.”
“Maybe,” Charlie said. “But it’ll be really hard for you to testify if you’re dead. You’re not thinking straight. Didn’t you just say that Fournier was in your room? You getting out of Key West isn’t a choice.”
I sat there staring at him. He had a point. I definitely was in danger. Now more than ever. But after meeting Justin, I knew I couldn’t run again.
“I need to see this through,” I finally said. “Whatever happens, I’m not leaving until I’ve done everything I can do for Justin. I’m staying.”
Charlie stared at me, exasperated. He drummed his fingers on the desk.
“Mission Exonerate? Mission Impossible is more like it,” he said. “Fine. I’m not going to deny that I do need your help. For Justin’s sake, I guess we don’t have a choice. But until this is over, we stick together. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said, letting out a breath.
I couldn’t believe it. I was still here. I had actually told someone my secrets, and I hadn’t burst into flames.
Not all of my secrets, I reminded myself. I had yet to mention Ramon Pena, but I guess it was a start.
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me, Charlie,” I said. “For me, for my daughter. I’ve been holding this inside for so long. I’ve never told anyone. I’m so sorry I lied to you.”
Charlie lifted the phone. “I should have known you were trouble the second you crushed your doughnuts in my door, Nina. Or do I have to call you Jeanine now? Never mind. What’s the number for your hotel? That bathrobe is probably too casual even by Miami standards. If we’re still going to go up there to find Justin’s ex-fiancee, I have a funny feeling you’re going to need your bags.”
Chapter 91
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Charlie and I were in Miami. It was around nine when we rolled up in front of the address Fabiana’s cousin gave us, a tiny stucco house in the northeast Miami neighborhood known as Little Haiti.
