“I’m outta here,” he said as he popped from his chair.
“Tatum!” said Jack, but his client was already out the door and barreling down the hallway. Jack followed. “Tatum, if you expect me to be your lawyer, we need to talk.”
Tatum stopped halfway down the corridor, wheeled on the balls of his feet, and said, “You’re fired, okay? We don’t need to talk about anything.”
“Which ones did you do?” asked Jack.
Tatum’s eyes widened. “Watch yourself, Swyteck.”
“We know you didn’t kill Colletti, because you and Theo were out fishing. So that must have been your partner’s work. Did you do the reporter or the prosecutor?”
He took a step closer, pointing a menacing finger as he spoke, but Jack didn’t back away. “You listen to me,” said Tatum. “It’s like Theo said in there. Everything we talked about is attorney-client privilege. You keep your mouth shut.”
“The privilege has exceptions.”
He gave Jack a sideways glance. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m just telling it like it is. A lawyer can’t reveal what his client did in the past. But if a lawyer thinks his client is about to commit a future crime, the privilege doesn’t necessarily apply. From what I heard, it would seem that Sally’s ex-husband is next on your list.”
He flashed a thin smile, as if he thought it cute the way his lawyer was standing up to him. “What are you gonna do? Call the cops?”
Jack said nothing.
Tatum’s smile widened. “Didn’t think so,” he said as he turned and walked to the exit.
Jack followed past his secretary, who looked terrified by what she’d obviously overheard. When they reached the empty lobby area, Jack called to Tatum and said, “Maybe I’ll tell Miguel Rios first. Then I’ll tell the cops.”
Tatum stopped at the door. The smile was gone.
Just then, the door opened, and Kelsey walked in, arriving for work. Tatum grabbed her and pulled her into his grasp.
“Stop!” said Jack.
“Don’t move!” said Tatum.
Tatum was holding her in front of his body like a human shield, Kelsey’s eyes as wide as silver dollars. Tatum formed his hand into the shape of a gun, the index finger pointed to her temple, the thumb cocked like the hammer.
“Don’t threaten me, Swyteck.” He pulled the mock trigger, jerked her head forward as if a 9 mm slug had just shattered her skull, and then pushed her to the floor.
Kelsey rolled across the carpet and let out a blip of a scream that sounded like fear and relief combined as she went to Jack.
Tatum shot one last angry look at them. Jack glared right back as he watched his former client slam the door and then disappear behind a pane of translucent glass and the painted block letters that spelled JACK SWYTECK, ATTORNEY AT LAW.
Fifty-five
I could kill him,” said Theo.
Jack and Theo were back in Jack’s office, alone. Jack had taken a minute to calm Kelsey’s nerves and asked her to wait in the conference room while he and Theo sorted things out.
“Killing him isn’t the answer,” said Jack.
“I know that. But I at least gotta get him back in the ring, no gloves this time.”
“I understand you’re pissed,” said Jack. “I am, too. But for the time being, we have to put that aside and think clearly.”
“Think about what?”
Jack took a seat behind his desk, straightening a paper clip as he spoke. “Tatum just threatened Kelsey right before my eyes. If we don’t stop him, Sally’s ex-husband is likely to be next on the hit list. Tatum thinks that either I can’t do anything to stop him, because I was his lawyer, or that I won’t do anything, because I’m afraid. Tatum needs to think again, but that doesn’t mean the answer is to run outside and tackle him.”
“You gonna call the cops?”
“Let’s think this through first, okay?”
“Okay. Shoot.”
Jack pulled a notepad from his desk drawer, feeling as though he should be jotting things down, but he was thinking and talking too fast to write. “Let’s start at the beginning. Vivien Grasso laid it out on the table in the first meeting she had with the beneficiaries as personal representative of Sally’s estate. She flat out told us: ‘If any of the beneficiaries is thinking about bumping off the others in order to be the sole survivor, forget about it. Your motive would be obvious, and you’ll never get away with it.’”
“Tatum figured out a way around that.”
“He thinks he has. My guess is he teamed up with a partner-someone who could do the killing while he was out building alibis.”
“Like, ‘I was out fishing with my brother,’” said Theo.
“Exactly. So long as he has a workable defense, like an alibi or whatever it might be, the fact that he’s the last man standing at the end of the day won’t be enough to send him away on murder charges. He may be right about that. He may be wrong. But a forty-six-million-dollar inheritance can buy one heck of a good criminal defense lawyer.”
“One thing’s for sure,” said Theo. “I know my brother. If he’s come this far, he won’t stop.”
“Which means we need to figure out who his partner is.”
“Any guesses?”
Jack leaned back in his chair, considering it. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. It seems possible that there are two killers at work-or, at the very least, someone has gone to the trouble of trying to make it appear as though there are two killers at work.”
“How do you count two?”
“The first is the guy who called me after the prosecutor was murdered and said that no one can opt out of the game, ‘Everyone must die.’ If this guy is taken at his word, money is not his primary objective.”
“A psycho like that doesn’t sound like Tatum’s partner.”
“No. But the other killer-or, at least, the other personality-is the guy who attacked Kelsey and said he wanted Tatum to withdraw from the game.”
“Wait a sec,” said Theo. “If you’re saying that this guy is Tatum’s partner, why would he want Tatum out of the game? Seems like the opposite would be true.”
“It has to be a ruse,” said Jack. “It makes a nice cover for Tatum and his partner, doesn’t it? It would appear that Tatum is being threatened into withdrawing, but in reality Tatum and his partner are killing off the other beneficiaries so that Tatum can stand firm and inherit the jackpot.”
“You sound pretty convinced that this partner is not himself a beneficiary.”
“It only makes sense if his partner is not already a beneficiary. He wouldn’t need Tatum if he was already in the game.”
Theo rose, pacing as he thought aloud. “So, we’re looking for a friend of Tatum’s who is not a beneficiary and who is not squeamish about blood.”
Jack and Theo looked at one another, as if the name came to them simultaneously. “You thinking who I’m thinking?” asked Jack.
“Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”
“The guy who got Tatum into the game in the first place. The dirt bag who linked up Sally with Tatum.”
“Sally’s old bodyguard?” said Theo.
“Yup.”
