Page 95 of The Best Lawyer
Emma looked at the ceiling. “If it had been anyone else asking him the questions, he might not have. He’s been an idiot.”
“Emma!” I barked. I needed her to snap out of it.
She looked at me, her expression tortured. “I think … no … I know why my dad panicked and lied to Detective DePaul. Aunt Cass, Mason DePaul was the guy I hooked up with. He was the father. Detective DePaul’s son.”
“What?”
“Detective DePaul,” she said. “It was her grandchild I was carrying. And she knew about us. She walked in on us in Mason’s apartment the weekend it happened. It got ugly. She called me all kinds of names. She flew into a rage and lunged at Mason. She started slapping him. I was mortified. So was he. Mason’s engaged to Jordyn McCardle. Do you remember her? She was a runner-up to Miss Michigan last year. Her dad’s a state representative. Never mind the mess this would cause to my life. This would be a whole story if people found out he was cheating on Jordyn. I was freaking out. Sharon accused me of all sorts of things.”
Rage coursed through my veins. It wasn’t hard to imagine the kinds of names Sharon would have called my niece. To Sharon, she clearly viewed the whole thing as another reason to hate anyone named Leary.
“We drove down the night before and stayed at this hotel. After it was done, he didn’t want me to be alone so he took me to his house until I felt a little better. He was going to take care of me that day. But by the time we got home late that morning, Dad’s phone was blowing up about what happened to Tom Loomis and Sharon was trying to get a hold of him. She was on her way to his house! I wasn’t in a great place mentally or physically. Dad said he’d just go down to the station and handle Sharon. That he’d make sure everything got handled quietly and that I didn’t have to worry. I had no idea he outright lied to Detective DePaul about where he was. I swear, I wouldn’t have let him. But then, I thought that was the end of it. He came back from the sheriff’s office. That was it. Katy got charged and that’s been my focus. My dad took this way too far. I swear if I’d known what he did or was planning, I’d have come to you.”
I didn’t want to blame Emma. Deep down, I didn’t. But this all seemed entirely avoidable. My brother, Joe, was just too damn stubborn for his own good.
“Aunt Cass,” Emma said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to talk to my brother,” I said. I needed to figure out if there was some way to salvage this mess.
She reached for a tissue off my desk. “I have to ask you something. I know you wanted to keep me away from all of this. Clearly, it’s way past too late. It’s just … You said Maisy Carmichael and now Tallon Shipley have alibis, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, so does my dad. I have paperwork if you need it. He signed some forms for me at the clinic. Everything is timestamped. There should be a hotel bill on his credit card. Have I been wrong about this? If they all have alibis, then the only one who doesn’t is Katy. Did she do this? Is Addison Quick right? Could she have just maybe not known or remembered what happened because of all the drugs she mixed?”
I had an answer. It wasn’t one either of us liked. But I’d insisted on the truth from her. I would give her the same.
“I don’t know. I truly don’t.”
“But you’re starting to believe it,” she said.
“Maybe,” I answered. “Now you need to let me go talk to your dad.”
Joe was waitingfor me when I got to his house. Standing on his front porch, he had the posture of a gunslinger as if he were waiting for my quick draw in an old Western movie. If he had neighbors close by, they would have likely started boarding up their windows like saloon owners.
“Don’t start,” he began. “I just got off the phone with Emma.”
As I approached him, my words came out with the speed and retort of machine gun fire. “Oh, I’m starting. I am soooo starting. I don’t … I don’t even knowwhereto start.”
“Cass …”
That he could think this was something he could just explain away. That he had any valid arguments to make. That there could be any other side but mine.
I think he saw something in my expression. Or he knew me so well he realized there was nothing to do but back up and get out of my way.
I barreled forward. Joe put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, then backed through his own doorway into the living room. I kept advancing. Once I got inside myself, I slammed the door shut behind me with enough force to shake the framed pictures on his walls.
Fitting. They were family photos. One of his favorites was a picture of the two of us when we were maybe nine and ten years old. I held up a large mouth bass I’d just caught. Joe stood next to me with wire cutters, waiting to dislodge the hook my fish had swallowed. I envisioned grabbing that picture and hurling it at him.
“Do you realize how dumb you are?” I shouted. “How unbelievably stupid.”
The surprise in his eyes settled into anger. “If you …”
I jabbed a finger into his chest. “No. You don’t get to talk. Not yet. Sit down.”
