“Hello?” Cate called out, holding the bookend. No sound came from the reception area. Her chambers were quiet. She felt a tingle of something. Suddenly, a dark head popped in the doorway, and Cate jumped, startled. “Emily! I thought you went home.”
“No. Did I scare you?”
“I thought it might be Meriden.”
“He’s gone. I saw him go down the judges’ elevator.” Emily entered the office, and her dark eyes shone with wetness, as if she’d been crying. She wore her dark raincoat and a long black skirt with her Doc Martens, and after a minute, she pulled something from her coat pocket. A black semiautomatic, its barrel lengthened by a silencer.
Cate blinked. “I don’t understand. Is this a joke?”
“You figured it out, didn’t you?”
“What did I figure out?”
“That I killed Simone.”
“What?” Cate couldn’t believe her ears. She froze, bookend in hand.
“I was standing at Val’s desk when she called you. You told her you figured out the real killer.”
“I did. Micah Gilbert.” Cate’s mouth went dry. Emily holding a gun, with a silencer?
“I don’t believe you. You knew it was me.”
“No, I thought it was Micah. It isn’t Micah? She had an affair with Simone. I even know where she bought the gun.” Cate remembered that her celebrity gun sat uselessly in a shopping bag. Not that she’d bought bullets, anyway.
“You really didn’t know? I mean, I never thought it would get this far.” Emily’s eyes went newly wet, and she raised the gun higher.
“No. Wait. What do you mean?” Cate suppressed the urge to panic. “Explain this to me. You owe me that. I thought we were friends.”
“Art Simone called me at home, after the pretrial. He said he’d pay me. All I had to do was call Micah and let her know when you were leaving chambers at night. So that she could follow you.” Emily’s Goth mascara began to run, her eyelashes turned to spiders. “I need the money really bad, you know that. I have school loans and no offer. He said he’d hook me up with the network’s legal department.”
Keep her talking. She’s already in a state. “So what happened?”
“He wanted more details, like what you wore, or how you looked the next day, after you’d been out. I said no, I wanted to end it but he said he’d tell you.”
“How’d you do it?” Where were Meriden and the marshals?
“I followed him to dinner and I shot him.” Emily’s eyes brimmed over, running black tears. “I had to. My family depends on me. You remember that day, when we talked about people and their dreams? This is their dream. I am their dream.”
“What about Marz?” What was taking them so long?
“I had to do it. After what happened in court, I knew it was my chance. His phone numbers were on the pleadings, and I called him on the cell. I told him to meet me, that I had inside info.” Emily sniffled. “He was so drunk, it was easy to make it look like a suicide.”
“How did you get the gun past the metal detectors?”
“The judges’ elevator. I went in and out with everybody for Judge Meriden’s birthday. When they went to lunch, I went to the gun store.” Emily’s eyes brimmed over, and a black tear rolled down her cheek. “I didn’t want to, Judge, but I had to. Or thought I had to, because of what you told Val, that you figured it out.”
“I would never think it was you,” Cate said softly. Her own emotions bubbled to the surface and she used them to her advantage. “Jeez, Em. You would really hurt me? Kill me?”
“I have to, to end it.” Emily sobbed and raised the gun higher, giving a panicky Cate her answer.
“Wait! No. Please, Em.” Cate heard sheer desperation in her voice. She had run out of time. The stalling wasn’t working. “You can’t do this. It’ll only make things worse. They’ll know it was you.”
“No, they won’t. Val thinks I went home. No one knows I’m still in the building. I’ve been hiding in the bathroom. The cleaning people already went through, and I’m staying the night. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be the one who finds you dead.”
My God. Cate’s fingers tightened around the bookend. She would get one shot.
Emily squinted, taking aim. “Sorry, Judge.”
CHAPTER 49
Suddenly Cate threw the brass bookend at Emily, hitting her in the cheek.
“Ahhh!” the clerk yelled, staggering backwards, her hand flying to her left eye. Blood appeared at a cut on her cheekbone. Pfftt! Pfft! Bullets flew into the tiled ceiling as she fell, knocking over stacked boxes.
Cate bolted for the door of her office, past the boxes. She flung the door open wide.
Onto an angry Jonathan Meriden. “Cate, the marshals are on rounds, and I-”
“She has a gun!” Cate screamed, barreling into him, plowing him backwards into the opposite wall.
“Stop, Judge!” Emily bellowed from chambers.
Meriden’s eyes popped. “What?” he asked, shocked.
“Run!” Cate screamed, disentangling them. She thought fast. Meriden still held his passcard for the judges’ elevator. He’d be dead if he went with her. She shoved him to the left, setting him in motion. “Take the elevator!” she shouted, tearing down the hallway in the opposite direction.
“Help!” Meriden shrieked, taking off toward the judges’ elevator.
Cate ran for her life to the stairwell.
“No!” Emily yelled, the sound coming from the hallway now.
Cate hit the staircase at speed and straight-armed the door, banging into the stairway and grabbing the rail not to fall on the concrete stairs. She flew, grabbed the railing, and whirled around the corner at the landing, half-running and half-stumbling down the tight stairwell as it wound tightly down.
Pttt ptt ptt! Bullets exploded into the concrete wall.
“Help!” Cate screamed. The marshals might hear her. They were on rounds. Her breath came in panicky bursts. She almost caught a heel on the stair. She grabbed the railing, frantic.
Cate tore down the third floor, then the second. Did the fire stairwell go all the way down? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t take a chance. She’d be trapped at gunpoint.
Pttt! Bullets flew into the wall.
Cate burst through the stairwell door into the hallway near the clerk’s office, skidding across the waxed floor. She ricocheted off the wall, righted herself, and went flat-out for the two-story escalator that led to the courthouse lobby. The escalator was turned off, and Cate ran down the up escalator, her heart thundering. In the next second, she heard Emily’s heavy tread behind her. Ahead lay the polished expanse of black granite. The lobby floor. Almost there!
But the metal detectors and the security desk were empty. No one left on guard? Cate tore down the steps, trying not to fall.
Ping ping ping! Bullets strafed the stainless steel of the escalator.
Cate’s shoulder suddenly felt odd. Had she been hit? Emily was right behind her. The clerk had a clear shot to finish her off.
Suddenly Cate’s heel caught in the ridge of an escalator step. She fell, hurtling forward and down, banging her head against the metal side of the escalator, scraping her cheek against the sharp stair edge, rolling end over end. She tumbled to the bottom, her bruised cheek smacking into the cold granite.
She heard a man shout, “Help! Help!”
Meriden. He must have reached the lobby.
“Judge Meriden, stop!” Emily shouted, thudding down the escalator stairs in her heavy shoes.