Page 89 of The Best Lawyer
“Does this hurt Katy?” he asked.
“I’m more worried about whether it hurts Emma, Joe.”
“I am too. I’m on my way to her place right now.”
“Good,” I said. “Just worry about being a good dad. That’s the only thing you need to do. I’ll deal with Josie. Or try to.”
“What good will that do?” he said. “This thing is already out there. Thousands of people have probably already heard it. Can we sue? Can we get it taken down?”
Probably not. Horrible as it was, Tallon’s broadcast didn’t violate any criminal laws that I could think of. Despite Josie’s over-exaggeration of Joe’s affections toward her, it didn’t seem as though anything she said was defamatory either. Because she appeared to otherwise be telling the truth.
I clicked off with Joe and headed for the shower.
“What do you want to do?” Eric asked as he stood at the sink, squeezing toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m probably going to kill her.”
Chapter 30
The first time,she slammed the door in my face. But Josie and I went back a very long time. She knew I wasn’t leaving her front porch until she came out to talk to me. After a minute more of my slamming the brass door knocker, she finally opened up but wouldn’t come out onto the porch.
Fine.
“Don’t lecture me,” she started. “You can’t tell me what to do and I’m not afraid of you.”
“I don’t care what you’re afraid of,” I said. “I was just hoping you cared about your own daughter.”
“I do care! How dare you suggest I don’t?”
The urge to wring her neck hadn’t left me. I took one step back and a breath. “Then please explain to me why you thought this was a good idea. Do you think this will make Emma want to have anything to do with you?”
“You’ve all been poisoning her against me for decades. Nobody’s ever asked for my side of the story. Not until thatpodcaster lady did. Maybe if Joe and the rest of you had treated me fairly and hadn’t blocked my relationship with my own daughter, I wouldn’t have had to resort to something like this. At least now my story is out there. If Emma ever wants to hear it, she won’t have to go through you to get to me.”
“Emma’s twenty-three years old!” I shouted. “If she wants to hear from you, nobody’s stopping her.”
Josie rolled her eyes. “Whatever, Cass. I don’t have anything else to say to you. I’m not going to pretend I’m not glad people are seeing Katy for what she is. She’s a manipulative monster. And she’s dangerous. Joe’s just lucky she didn’t slaughterhimwhile he slept after all these years.”
“This actually isn’t about Katy,” I said. “You really don’t understand the damage you’ve caused Emma.”
“Like you said, she’s twenty-three years old. She’s old enough to know the truth about who I really am.”
Was she serious? “Oh, I think we can agree on that. You sure did show her who you really are.”
Josie slammed the door in my face and locked it. I raised my hand to knock again, but froze. I was wasting my time with her. Josie was a first-class narcissist. She would never see herself as anything but the hero or victim in any situation.
I collected myself. If I could at least keep Joe from charging over here and making everything worse, I’d call it a victory. Still fuming, I stepped off the porch and got in my car.
I had three more missed calls from Joe. It was just after ten. Jeanie would already be in court by now. She had one last card to play. She’d call Tom Loomis’s current station manager, for all the good it would do.
My dashboard alert went off. I was on E. I pulled into a gas station at the next intersection. After loading the pump into my fuel tank, I stepped away, meaning to call Joe back.
I never got that far. Just as the pump clicked off, another car pulled up behind me. Tallon Shipley was behind the wheel.
I stayed calm, pulling the pump out of my car and putting it back in its holster. I cashed out, then slowly walked up to Tallon’s driver’s side window.
“Park over there,” she said. “Then you and I can go for a drive.”
A strange request. “I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s a fast food place inside. We’ll get a table.”
