Chapter 46
Allison
When I lay my phone on the desk, I see a text message from Luke from fifty minutes ago. That must have been almost right after I left his townhouse, after he slammed the door on me.
Did you *really* look hard at the state’s evidence in my case? I think you missed something in that car inventory.
Something drops inside me, though I can’t source the feeling of dread—I don’t know what he means.
The inventory, he said, the state’s inventory of the contents recovered from Trinity’s Toyota after Luke was arrested.
I’ve seen the list. I never personally inspected the items. And now I can’t—I’m no longer Luke’s lawyer.
I remember reviewing the list and finding nothing significant. Nothing leapt out at Luke, either, when I showed him the list at my house. He barely had a thing to say. Standard glove compartment stuff, he said, words to that effect.
Wait. I remember now, the day I learned that my prints and DNA were found on the contraband. Just before dropping that grenade in his office, Bruce Ghadiali handed me a packet of paper, reproductions of photos of the inventory. I forgot all about it.
I fish the packet out of my work bag. Each page is a black-and-white copy of a photograph of a different item from Trinity’s car. A fast-food straw still in its wrapper. A bottle of hand sanitizer. A pair of sunglasses.
A power cord…a small flashlight…the owner’s manual…
A bag of peanuts…a container of mints…a thumb drive—
I sit up in my chair. A thumb drive. Luke had mentioned it when he was at my home, reviewing the list. Asking me what a “thumb drive” meant. You’ve never heard of a thumb drive? I asked him.
He knew what it was. He was calling my attention to it, but I didn’t take the bait.
I take a closer look at the black-and-white photograph. A thumb drive with a jagged piece of masking tape stretched across its side, a label of some kind, with words, handwritten words.
I use the flashlight on my phone to illuminate the handwriting on the side:
school security vid
School security video.
My phone drops from my hand, clanking on the desk.
Cold dread shoots up my spine. My heartbeat catches up a moment later, knocking without mercy against my chest. I remind myself to breathe.
The day after the road-rage incident with Marlow Luckett.
The following morning, Luke handed me the discs in his living room, the CD-ROMs containing footage from the security cameras in the Mortimer school parking lot.
I broke them into tiny pieces. He even made a joke of it.
I could get you a hammer. We could grind them into a fine powder.
You risked an obstruction charge to do so, Luke, to sneak those discs out of the video room before the police got their hands on them. You could have lost your job. You risked everything to do that, for no other reason than I asked you to.
But…you made a copy first, before handing them over to me?
Why? Why would you do that back then, last June, nine months ago, before I’d done anything to Trinity Casto, before you’d even met her?
And if that’s not enough, you left a thumb drive of that footage inside Trinity’s car, knowing that the police would seize it along with everything else.
Knowing that a prosecutor like Bruce Ghadiali might just say, Hey, why not, let’s take a look at this thumb drive, just on the off chance it might hold something relevant.
And what would Bruce see? A video of me hitting a man with my car as he stood in front of it trying to photograph my (missing) license plate, of me checking on the man, then taking his phone and driving away without helping him, without calling 911, without offering him any assistance whatsoever, leaving him for dead.
Maybe attempted murder, at a minimum aggravated battery with a vehicle.
Leaving the scene of an accident involving serious bodily harm.
Prison. A handful of years, if not ten or more. Either way, the end of my legal career.
And I am powerless. I am at the mercy of Luke, at the mercy of the simple chance that Bruce may or may not decide to take a look at what’s on that thumb drive.
That video is a noose around my neck, invisible until, without warning, it yanks taut against my throat.
I struggle through my videoconference with the congressman, my mind constantly returning to that night in the parking lot with Marlow Luckett.
Self-defense would not work. I wouldn’t be able to argue that Marlow was an imminent threat to me when he was leaving, when he was doing nothing more than trying to photograph my license plate with his phone.
And I took that phone. I took it, they’ll say, in case it held any incriminating photos or videos. Rather than call 911 to come to the aid of an unconscious victim, I turned off the phone and drove away, worrying only about myself and leaving him for dead.
When the videoconference ends, I call Luke. He doesn’t answer. I call a second time—again, no answer. So I send him a text: I see the thumb drive. What’s on it?
His reply comes quickly: I think we both know, don’t we?
I try again: What are your intentions? What are you going to do with it?
A pause. Then bubbles. I tap my toe impatiently on the carpet.
Wonder what Finley will say about it, he replies.
A slow burn works through me. No. Anything but that.
Please don’t, I text. Not Finley. I’m begging you.
He doesn’t respond.
Not Finley. Luke is a different story; I have enough on him that I can probably keep him in line. But Finley? He’s a loose cannon. He has nothing to lose. He’d love to have leverage like this on me.
No one can ever see that school security video. Least of all Finley.