when Allie and I really doubted you’d break this case, but you came through. I really was ready to cut a deal to buy us some more time.”
If she only knew the half of it. But I could never tell her about that other half, so instead I just blushed and said, “Yeah, well…”
Her smile broadened. “No, really, we couldn’t have done it without you. Or Buzz Mercer, either. As much as I despise the CIA, they sure pulled through on this one. Be sure to pass on to him how deeply appreciative we are.”
And in that instant, my mouth just fell open.
I gagged and stammered once or twice, and tried to force some air through my throat, but before I could say anything she shrugged and thumped a hand on her forehead and said, “Oh, right, of course. No need to remind me. Carol Kim, too. She certainly deserves some credit.”
I sputtered out, “How’d you… uh? Oh my God. The bugs? Those were yours?”
She nodded. “Don’t lose it on me now, Attila. We bugged your predecessor’s room too. That’s how we discovered he was leaking information to Spears’s legal adviser, which was actually why I fired him. As I told you before, you really have no idea how your side plays. When I asked for you, I certainly hoped I could trust you, but under the circumstances I had to be sure.”
And suddenly little pieces began falling into place.
Her grin broadened. “I don’t mean to rub it in, but we even bugged your hospital room. God, that little court scene was riveting. Tell me, what was the look on Golden’s face when Mercer finished his testimony?”
I knew what she was up to. She was trying to evade my explosion. I yelled, “My hospital room? You bugged my goddamned hospital room?”
She nodded.
“But how?”
“How what?”
“Don’t give me that crap! How in the hell did you bug my hospital room?”
“Well, I didn’t do it personally. Captain Bridges handled that. He’s a full, dues-paying member of OGMM, you know.”
I guess I looked pretty angry, because I was starting to lunge forward and say something when she reached down and put a finger on my lips.
“Look, before you get all worked up, just remember – if we hadn’t been listening, we wouldn’t have heard you call Mercer about the attempt at the Blue House, and Allie wouldn’t have been there to keep Choi from shooting you.”
And in that instant I suddenly realized how thoroughly Katherine Carlson had deceived me from the very beginning. She’d known everything I was up to. She’d manipulated and exploited me like a dumb mackerel on the end of her fishing line.
No wonder she hadn’t insisted on a change of venue when I’d discovered the bugs. It isn’t like her to give in so easily. Why hadn’t I been more suspicious about that? But they were her bugs. And after I’d ripped them out, and then run to her, she’d faked her little tantrum, then allowed herself to be talked out of it, then simply had them replaced.
But what about Imelda? Wasn’t she supposed to be having my room swept every day? Hell, she’d assured me two or three times that my room was clear. Then it hit me. She was in on it. And that probably meant I was wrong, that she also must be a member of… oh my God, OGMM.
I tried to think through all the ramifications and odd angles, but it was simply too vast and complicated to begin to contemplate. I’d been dancing in Katherine’s web from the beginning.
She’d known about the North Koreans. She’d known everything I’d discovered about the Itaewon station, even as I discovered it.
Which of course meant she’d known there’d been nothing romantic between Carol Kim and me, too. But she’d played it like a Broadway star, kissing and kicking and prodding me along at all the right moments.
And then another piece fell into place. I suddenly understood why she’d been so desperate to get the charges for committing homosexual acts and consorting with enlisted troops dropped. Of all the charges against her brother, those were far and away the least serious. So why those two? Because she knew her brother hadn’t murdered Lee, because he was her brother. Because she’d tracked my progress, and she’d overheard me getting closer and closer, and she’d figured that I’d eventually find out who actually murdered Lee, so she wanted to get her brother cleared of the only two charges that would stick regardless, the two crimes he’d actually committed.
All in all, it was staggeringly brilliant. I felt so profoundly stupid and used I almost sank through the mattress.
But why hadn’t she told me Melborne was a detective, or about his suspicions? Or that Whitehall was her brother? I mean, what was the harm?
And then I understood everything. Or nearly everything. Maybe her brother was in on it, too. Maybe Tommy Whitehall had deliberately held back from me, forcing me to come up to speed, forcing me to dig deeply into things I never would’ve checked if he and Katherine had just sat me down and told me everything they knew from the start. Tommy had waited until I was completely flummoxed and at a dead end before he told me about that key he’d given Lee.
See, Katherine knows me too well. I mean, this wasn’t just about trust, although that was no doubt part of it. She just knew how senselessly and remorselessly competitive I can be. She knew how hard I’d work to beat her out, to vie for her client’s loyalty, to prove I was a better legal brawler, a more thorough investigator, a tougher litigator. She knew I’d kill myself to get ahead of her. And I very nearly did. She set it up perfectly.
Or maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe she went to all these great lengths just to put me in my place, to show me she really was better than me.
Or maybe it was none of that, because if there was one thing she’d taught me, it was that I’d never really know what was in that beautiful, brilliant head of hers. The woman was a walking enigma on stilts.
I was still shaking my head in shock as she walked over and pulled the chair away from the door.
I said, “Hey? Why’d you put that chair against the door?”
She returned the chair to its place beside my bed. “I don’t know. I just did.”
She was pulling her bag over her shoulder and running a hand through that gorgeous hair of hers.
I said, “Y’know, someday they’re gonna let me outta this place.”
“Not if they do a psychiatric on you, Attila.”
“Yeah, maybe. But you know, I still have some vacation time built up. See, the last time I tried to take one, somebody ruined it.”
She put a finger on her lower lip and I swear to God, it was the most enchanting thing I’d ever seen. “So go to Bermuda. I hear they have Swedish stewardesses running all over the place.”
“Nah, that’s just what they tell the tourists. All they really got is burned-out secretaries with big puffy hairdos and Bronx twangs.”
She nodded, like, Yeah, that’s what she’d heard, too.
“Well, Attila, I hate to run, but I have to be in court in one hour.”
I guess I looked dispirited, or bewildered, or maybe suicidal. She studied my face a moment, then bent over and kissed me again. And right on the lips this time. Maybe it was only what you’d call a pity kiss, or maybe it was a full-blown conquest kiss, but like I said before, I’ll take it any way I can get it.
Then she walked out the door and was gone.
The truth was I knew damned well why she put that chair against the door. Of course, you have to know Katherine to really understand it. I mean, she knew before she even walked in the room that I was sexually comatose.
That chair thing, that was a teaser.
Or maybe it was a rain check, a signal that as soon as I got out of this place, I could put a chair against
Not that I was sure it would ever work. She really is the most conniving, deceitful attorney I’ve ever met – you’ve got to believe me about that. The woman wasn’t first in the class for nothing.
