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Kincannon didn’t look like a naïve man.
But then, she thought, smart people were fooled all the time. Look at her and her brothers. They’d been unwittingly duped for twenty-six years by the one person they had all loved unconditionally. That kind of thing shook up your faith in the world and made you reassess all your existing values and views.
Offering the wounded man an encouraging smile, Kincannon slipped his hand out of Tim’s fingers. The judge dropped back as the two paramedics swiftly whisked the wounded bailiff through the double doors and out into the hall.
He walked like a man who owned his destiny and his surroundings, Greer thought, watching him cross back to her. Maybe he’d gotten over his wife’s death and moved on. For his sake, she certainly hoped so. The man she remembered encountering in the hospital had been all but broken.
“You probably saved his life,” Greer said as Kincannon came closer to her.
“You save some, you lose some.” The remark appeared to be directed more to himself than to her.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t over his wife. What else could his response mean? Did the judge blame her for not being able to save the woman? God knew she’d tried, doing compressions and breathing into the woman’s mouth until she thought she’d pass out herself.
Greer could feel words of protest rising to her lips. Again she pressed them together. This definitely wasn’t the time to get into that. Besides, the judge hadn’t actually come out and said anything to accuse her. Maybe she was just being paranoid.
As she was trying to decide whether or not she was overreacting, she saw Kincannon make his way over to Munro’s attorney. The small, slight man looked very shaken. His hands trembled as he attempted to pack up his briefcase. Twice papers slipped out of his hands, falling to the table and onto the floor like giant, dirty snowflakes.
“Until I’m persuaded otherwise, I’m holding you responsible for Munro’s escape, Mr. Wells,” Kincannon said to the man.
In response, Hayden Wells abandoned his briefcase and began stuttering, unraveling right in front of them.
“I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” All but hyperventilating, Wells cleared his throat and tried again. “Your Honor, you can’t be serious.”
Greer saw the steely look that came into the judge’s eyes. She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that, she thought.
“I can,” Kincannon informed him, “and I am.”
“But, Judge,” Wells squeaked, his voice cracking out of sheer fear, “I had no way of knowing that this was going to happen. No way,” he insisted. “I’m just as surprised as you are.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Blake responded coldly.
Reining in his frustration, he set his jaw hard. This shouldn’t have happened, he thought. There were supposed to be safeguards in place. Were all the security measures just a sham?
Taking a deep breath, ignoring the babbling lawyer, Blake slowly looked around the empty courtroom.
Frustration ate away at him. He sincerely regretted his own ruling which had specifically forbidden any videotaping of proceedings. At the time his thinking had been that he didn’t want tapes to be leaked to the media, didn’t want cases to be compromised because some reporter wanted to break a story.
But in this case, if there had been a video camera on, it would have caught the events preceding Munro’s escape on tape and that would have been a godsend. Blake had a gut feeling that Munro hadn’t acted alone. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. The man had to have had help. A lot of help. Blake was willing to bet a year’s salary on it.
Wells was still sputtering that he was offended that someone of the judge’s caliber would actually think that he would lower himself to aid a criminal.
“I could be disbarred!” he declared dramatically.
Greer had a feeling the man was just warming up. She was about to tell him to keep quiet when Kincannon beat her to it.
“Please spare me your self-righteous protests, Mr. Wells. I am well aware of your record. No one enters my courtroom without my knowing his background,” he told the man. “Someone who loses as often as you do can’t possibly support himself in this line of work without having something else going on on the side.”
Wells’s dark eyebrows rose all the way up his very large forehead, all but meeting the semicircle of fringe that surrounded the back of his head. “Your Honor, I give you my word—”
Greer didn’t know how much more they could take. “That and two dollars will get you a ride on the bus,” she observed.
Damn, she’d done it again, Greer thought. That wasn’t supposed to have come out. Not because she didn’t mean it, but because she had no idea how Kincannon would react to her flippant attitude.
But when her eyes met his, if anything, Kincannon appeared to be somewhat amused. Or, at the very least, in agreement.
“My sentiments exactly,” he told her.
The din just beyond the double doors in the hallway suddenly increased, swelling to three times its original decibel level.
Hopefully, there was only one reason for that. “Maybe they found him,” Greer guessed, looking at Kincannon. With that, she decided to see for herself. Moving quickly, Greer hurried out the double doors to find out. She’d intended to report back.
She should have known better. Apparently Kincannon didn’t like to remain stationary.
“Maybe,” she heard him agree, then add, “You stay here.” Since she was all but out the door, he had to be addressing the order to Wells. “I want to have a few more words with you when I get back.”
Greer stopped dead the second she was out the doors.
There were two paramedics in the hallway. Two paramedics pushing a gurney.
A feeling of déjà vu slid over her. That and a great deal of uneasy confusion.
She wasn’t the only one experiencing it.
Even before Greer reached the paramedics, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was terribly off.
The lead paramedic looked only slightly friendlier than a rattlesnake.
“Look, we got the call and got here as fast as we could. MacArthur Boulevard’s a parking lot,” he bit off, his words directed at the chief. “Now, is there a patient or isn’t there? We’re short-handed and we don’t have any time for some damn game.”
Instead of answering the man, Brian put in a call to dispatch.
“Yeah, Hallie, it’s Chief Cavanaugh. How many ambulances did you send out?” He listened to the answer. “Okay, describe the paramedics.” He frowned. “What do you mean you can’t keep track?”
“Chief,” Greer interrupted, pushing her way through the crowd. “Let me send her a picture so she can identify them,” she suggested.
Brian paused. He looked at his cell phone uncertainly, then lifted his eyes to Greer’s. “Does this—?”
She nodded, knowing what he was going to ask, sparing him the embarrassment of having to put it into words. “Yes, it does,” she assured him. Taking his phone, she snapped a shot of the two disgruntled-looking paramedics. Done, she quickly forwarded it to the woman on the other end of the line, then handed the cell phone back to the chief.
Confirmation was almost immediate.
“You didn’t send another team?” Brian knew the answer before he even asked the question. His mouth was grim as he muttered, “Thanks.”
Flipping the phone closed, Brian regarded the officers gathered around him. The paramedics were all but forgotten. “Right under our noses,” he declared, his voice low and steely.
He made Greer think of a volcano that was trying not to erupt.
Chapter Three (#u2c14454a-762f-52a3-8a2a-2004ced350e1)
Confused, Blake looked from the chief of detectives to the animated narcotics detective at his side. It was now a foregone conclusion that the first set of paramedics who’d whisked Timothy Kelly away had been bogus. However, the rest of it didn’t make sense to him.
“But why would they kidnap the bailiff? If they were in on the escape, wouldn’t they have found a way to make off with Munro?” he asked.
Who said they didn’t? Greer thought as she shook her head. “They didn’t kidnap the bailiff, the bailiff was part of it.”
Blake refused to believe it. He could remember Tim’s first day on the job. So obviously wet behind the ears, the young bailiff had been so eager to please, so eager to do a good job, it had almost been painful to watch. “But they almost killed him,” he protested.
Brian was clearly struggling to keep his temper under control. “Almost being the operative word,” the chief pointed out.
“No, you’re wrong,” Kincannon insisted. “I know the man. He’s shown me photographs of his wife, of his baby daughter. A man like that doesn’t suddenly get up one morning and decide to help a career felon escape out of a courtroom.”
He was having trouble with this, Greer realized. Rather than instantly become indignant because he’d been duped, Kincannon was searching for some elusive reason that would explain what happened and absolve the bailiff of any wrongdoing beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She had to grudgingly admit she found that admirable. At the very least, that made the judge more of a human being than most who sat on the bench.
Reviewing the situation, she realized that there was possibly a plausible explanation that could be acceptable to both sides. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. She sincerely doubted that Kincannon could be easily deceived.
“Maybe he didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to help a hardened felon escape,” she suggested, her conviction growing stronger with each word. “Maybe Tim Kelly had no choice.”
Janelle had been quiet this entire time, remaining out of her father’s way as he took charge of the situation. But now she seemed compelled to point out the obvious flaw in her new cousin’s theory. “They weren’t holding a gun to his head, Greer,” she said, her tone of voice barely masking the frustration she clearly felt over the drug dealer’s escape.
Greer knew that Janelle had spent a great deal of time preparing this case and was almost certain she would have won. Now, it looked as if all that time she’d put in had been wasted.
“Maybe they were holding one to his family,” she countered, standing her ground against her indignant cousin.
The moment she made the suggestion, Greer could see that the explanation was more than acceptable to Kincannon. But his opinion wasn’t the one that counted here.
Greer shifted her eyes toward the chief, holding her breath. Waiting.
“Maybe,” Brian allowed slowly. “Makes sense,” he decided. The chief turned toward two of the officers he’d summoned. “Mahoney, Wong, find out the bailiff’s address. See if there’s anything going on at his house that shouldn’t be.”
“His name’s Tim Kelly,” Kincannon informed them to facilitate the search. “Human Resources can give you the rest of the information. Their office is located on the third floor. Three-seventeen,” the judge added for good measure. He wanted to clear the young man, wanted it not to be Tim’s fault. Otherwise, it would make him begin to doubt his own judgment, and that was a dark place he never wanted to revisit.
They had their instructions so the two officers took off.
Belatedly, Blake felt a surge of adrenaline kick in. He needed to be doing something. Blake looked at Brian. “Is there anything I can do to help? To move things along?” he wanted to know.
“Unless you can pull a felon out of a hat, Judge, I’d say go home. You’re free for the afternoon,” Brian added. Kincannon looked at him in surprise, forcing Brian to state the obvious. “I’m afraid that court’s adjourned for the day, Judge. Everyone’s court,” he clarified in case there was any question. “There’re a lot of places Munro could hide and it’s going to take a while to conduct a completely thorough search. The bastard’s got to be here somewhere.”
“Not necessarily.” All eyes turned to Greer. “Think about it. The fake ambulance has clearance to be on the grounds—and to leave. What’s to have stopped them from backing the vehicle up in front of one of the side exits? With all this commotion, even with all the backup you called in, the officers can’t be everywhere at once.” She spread her hands. “Munro ducks out where they’re not.”
It seemed like a very simple explanation—and very doable. Greer continued. “The fake paramedics come back, pushing a gurney with a wounded victim. They load it and the bailiff into the back of the vehicle.” She snapped her fingers. “One, two, three, they’re gone and we’re still hunting for Munro.”
Brian frowned. It made sense. And he didn’t like it.
“Let’s hope they’re not as bright as you are.” But even as he said it, it was obvious to those around him that the chief of detectives knew there was a good chance that Greer was right. He offered his niece a quick smile. “Just glad you’re on our side,” he told her. Turning back to his men, he directed the new groups to fan out everywhere and double-check the locations, including the basement—just in case.
With everything being done that could be done, Blake decided that he might as well do as the chief advised and go home. But first, he needed to take care of a few things of his own.
Returning to the courtroom again, Blake went directly to his administrative assistant, an older woman who wore sensible shoes and nondescript suits that never called attention to her. To the casual observer, Edith Fields looked like the very prototype of what had once been referred to as a mere secretary. Edith was that and so much more.
The moment she saw him, the grandmother of six—two of whom she was raising herself—was on her feet. “Any news, Your Honor?” she wanted to know. Blake knew it had never pleased her that the wheels of justice ground slowly. She wanted every criminal to be thrown into jail quickly, and left there for the duration of a maximum sentence.
“We’re being sent home, Edith.”
The news was not received well. The woman looked down at the compact laptop that sat on her desk, opened and at the ready. She read one of the entries on the judge’s heavy schedule. “I could reschedule the Brown case, Your Honor.”
Left on his own, he would have said yes, but the day belonged to Chief Cavanaugh and the latter called the shots. Blake shook his head.
“No point. We need to clear out of the courthouse.” He saw that Edith was far from jubilant about the turn of events. “Think of this as an enforced holiday. I’m sure Joe could use a hand with Emily and Ross,” he said, mentioning the names of the two grandchildren who lived with Edith and her husband of forty-one years.
The woman had made it known more than once that she thought she was indispensable to his court. She sighed now, a child being sent to her room for no good reason. “If you say so, Your Honor.”
“The chief of detectives says so, Edith,” Blake corrected. He glanced over his shoulder. Just as he thought, the detective was still there, like a shadow he couldn’t cast off without taking drastic measures. “If you feel uneasy about leaving the courthouse, Edith,” he told the older woman, “I can have Detective O’Brien take you home.”
Greer blinked. Had he just volunteered her services without consulting her? She wasn’t part of his team, to be ordered about, she thought, irritated at his cavalier manner.
She was about to protest, but as it turned out, she didn’t have to. His administrative assistant dismissed the offer with a haughty wave of her hand.
“I’m a big girl, Judge. I stopped being afraid of thugs like Munro when I was in grammar school. He doesn’t scare me.” Her things packed, Edith nodded at her employer. “See you in the morning, Judge.”
Blake barely nodded. A moment earlier, he’d crossed to his desk and was about initiate the procedure that would power down his computer when the big, bold letters that were written across the monitor’s screen caught his attention.
And then raised his ire.
When he made no answer in response to his assistant, a woman he obviously held in warm regard, Greer looked at the judge. She saw the angry look that had darkened his features.
Kincannon was a formidable-looking man, she couldn’t help thinking. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted to find herself on the receiving end of that look. But right now, she was more curious as to what had caused it. It couldn’t be the ongoing situation because he seemed to have calmed down about that—unlike her.
Maybe, instead of throwing herself on top of Kincannon, the situation would have been better served if she’d had the wherewithal to tackle Munro and keep him from fleeing. Growing up with her brothers as playmates and partners in crime had taught her to be fearless, reckless and unafraid of pain if enduring pain resulted in achieving a desired outcome. In this case, it would have been preventing that poor excuse for a human being from making good his escape.
Greer took a second look at Kincannon’s expression. Something was off.
“What’s wrong?” she wanted to know. Not waiting for an answer, she rounded Kincannon’s desk and came up next to him. Since he was staring at the computer screen, Greer looked at it, as well. For a second, the words seemed too absurd to be real.
And then they were all too real.
Back off or you and your father are going to die. Slowly and painfully.
She thought Kincannon was going to hurl the laptop across the room, but he restrained himself. She heard him mutter angrily, “Brazen son of a bitch.”
There was no question that this had come from Munro. “Obviously, he believes in the family plan,” she commented. The next moment, she was hurrying out of the courtroom again.
Turning away from the courtroom in an attempt to create a pocket of privacy, Blake quickly took out his cell phone and turned it on. One of his pet peeves was cell phones that rang during court, but right now he was glad he had forgotten to leave his cell phone in the top desk drawer in his chambers. It saved him precious seconds he didn’t know if he could afford to waste. He was not about to continue underestimating Munro.
“C’mon, answer,” he ordered, addressing a man who wasn’t there. The message he’d left on the answering machine at home was just kicking in when he glanced toward the double doors in the rear and saw O’Brien coming back—and she had the chief with her. “Pick up, Dad,” Blake instructed through clenched teeth. “Pick up!”
And then he heard the receiver being lifted on the other end.
Thank God.
