Chapter 18
Blade watched Tori signal the waiter for another basket of chips and salsa. Her second refill. He shook his head and grinned.
“Seriously? You’re gonna clean them out of tortilla chips.”
“Can’t help it that you’ve been starving me.” Tori crunched through another chip loaded with salsa verde. “Besides, this is authentic. Not that jarred stuff you probably keep in your fridge.”
“I can’t believe a woman who weighs maybe a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet can put away more food than I can.” Blade gestured at the empty basket between them. “Where does it all go?”
“Fast metabolism. Plus, I grew up eating real food. Maria made empanadas every Sunday. Pernil on special occasions. Arroz con gandules that could feed half the neighborhood.” Tori rolled the words like she was back in Little San Juan, each name of a dish landing with the rhythm of home.
The smell of sizzling fajitas drifted from the kitchen, mixing with fresh cilantro and lime. Blade’s stomach growled.
“What about you?” Tori asked. “What did the St. James family feast on?”
“Cornbread. Lots of cornbread.” Blade scraped the bottom of the chip basket for a crumb and popped it in his mouth.
“Eight kids, two parents working dawn to dusk. Cornbread stretched everything. Cornbread with beans. Cornbread with whatever fish we caught. Cornbread with more cornbread when times got really tight.”
“That explains a lot about you.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Why you never order bread at restaurants.”
Of course she noticed. Tori noticed everything. It was a detail Kiara, after five months, had never picked up on. He loved her thoughtfulness, but no matter how many times he mentioned his dislike of bready foods, she continued to bring them. Case in point, the pastries she brought this morning.
Well, that didn’t matter anymore. She wouldn’t be bringing him carbs or anything else now.
He reached for his water glass. A flash of light near the entrance caught his eye. Janice Lebowitz swept through the door, navigating the crowded restaurant like she owned the place, her blond hair defying both gravity and the humid Florida air. He stood and waved her over.
She sauntered to their booth with the confidence of someone who’d never met a courtroom she couldn’t command. Late fifties, probably on a first-name basis with her plastic surgeon, but not overdone. Professional polish with just enough edge to remind you she’d clawed her way to the top.
Janice slid into the booth beside Tori just as their waiter appeared.
“?Janice!” the waiter said. “?Cómo estás, mi amor? ?Lo de siempre?”
“Sí, Carlos. Y tráeme el queso blanco también.”
Tori jumped in without missing a beat. “Yo también, por favor.”
They chattered with the waiter in Spanish, and Blade caught maybe half the exchange. Something about cheese, definitely. And he was pretty sure he heard the word tequila somewhere in there, which made him nervous about what Tori had just ordered.
When this was all over, he should ask Tori to teach him Spanish. His patrol days had given him enough to handle basic situations, but conversations like this left him feeling like a tourist in his own county.
“Detective St. James.” Janice extended a manicured hand across the table. “You sounded mysterious on the phone.”
“Thanks for meeting us on short notice.”
Blade studied her face as they shook hands. Friendly enough, but he caught the exhaustion lurking behind her professional smile. The skepticism that came with decades of cops sending her clients to jail. This wouldn’t be an easy sell.
He couldn’t lead with the conspiracy theory. Had to build trust first.
“How’s your caseload these days? I know defense attorneys are swamped with the backlog.”
“Brutal. Three trials next month, two appeals pending, and a rich client who thinks calling me at three a.m. constitutes legal strategy.” Janice’s laugh held no humor. “But that’s not why you dragged me to my favorite taco joint.”
Carlos returned with a fishbowl-sized margarita for Janice and bowls of white queso for both women. Blade wondered if he should wait until she finished the drink before making his pitch, but time was working against them.
“Your client Damien Sullivan reached out with information about a cold case. Problem is, he’s in administrative segregation. Warden’s refusing visitors and phone calls.”
“Administrative segregation usually means he ticked someone off.” Janice dipped a chip in the queso. “What kind of information?”
Blade played his next card. “The Crew murders.”
Janice’s chip stopped halfway to her mouth. Her gaze shifted to Tori, and Blade watched recognition dawn in her eyes. The professional mask slipped for just a moment, replaced by something deeper. Empathy. Understanding.
She wasn’t looking at just another cop and consultant anymore. She was looking at the surviving daughter of a case that had made headlines across the state.
“Honey, you might need this drink more than I do.” Janice pushed the margarita toward Tori.
“I’m good, thanks.”
This was his opening. Blade leaned forward, lowering his voice to avoid being overheard.
“Janice, I’m going to tell you something that could end careers. Maybe lives. We believe there was a cover-up. Chief Barclay buried evidence. Damien claims there’s a second murder book with the real investigation. We think he’s the only person who knows what was in it and where it is.”
Janice lifted the margarita and drew out a slow drink, the rim leaving a smear of melted salt on her lip. She lowered the glass with care, squared it against the table’s edge.
“Let me make sure I understand what you’re asking.
You want me to go into a maximum-security prison, meet with my client under the protection of attorney-client privilege, and ask him about evidence that may or may not exist in an unsolved case that he was supposedly involved in but that has been sealed six ways to Sunday for a quarter of a century. ”
Blade dragged a thumb across his jaw, mouth flattening into something like a grin.
“I might not have been so concise, but you got it.”
Janice scraped the salt from her lip with her tongue, then locked on Tori. She launched into Spanish, fast and seamless, too quick for Blade to grab more than a word here, a phrase there. Tori matched her, steady and sure.
He tracked what mattered. The body language. Janice cocked her brows like a question. Tori answered with a clipped nod. The rhythm between them shifted. Light at first, then heavy, both of their faces sharpening, the easy edges gone.
His lungs stalled. The noise in the restaurant blurred to a low hum. His focus stuck on Tori, on the tug-of-war written across her face. Rule-follower versus justice-chaser. If she gave the wrong answer, their whole case went down with it.
Janice nodded and patted Tori’s shoulder. “I’ll do it. But on my terms. I go in as his legal counsel. Everything stays under privilege. I ask your questions, I bring back his answers. Only if he agrees.”
She pointed her chip at Blade like a weapon. “But if this goes sideways, if this blows up in our faces, I will deny this conversation ever happened. I will throw you both under the bus so fast it’ll leave skid marks. Are we clear?”
Blade nodded. “Crystal.”
“Good.” Janice crunched on her chip. “I’ll check my calendar and see when I can make the trip.”
Tori swallowed the bite she’d been chewing. “That’s the other thing. It’s going to take up your entire day. Eight hours round trip, not to mention the time you’d spend inside.”
Janice swirled the ice in her margarita. “I don’t know when I could do it. My calendar’s packed solid through next month.”
Carlos appeared with a fresh basket of chips and pulled out his order pad.
Blade jumped at the interruption. The smell of those fajitas had been torturing him for the past twenty minutes. “I’ll take the chicken fajitas. Extra guacamole.”
Tori studied the menu like she hadn’t been demolishing chips for the past half hour. “Wow, I’m not even sure if I’m hungry.”
Blade pressed his molars into the inside of his cheek, holding back the grin that wanted out. She ordered the ceviche anyway and handed her menu to Carlos. Janice ordered tacos, then changed her mind at the last second.
“Fajitas sound perfect,” she said. “Same as Detective St. James.”
Carlos scribbled their orders and disappeared back toward the kitchen. The moment he was out of earshot, Tori cut her eyes to Blade. Her look said she wanted him to take over and make this happen.
“I appreciate you taking this on,” Blade said. “I wanted to make this easy for you, so I’ve lined up a private plane to shave down the hours.”
Janice’s margarita stopped halfway to her lips.
Tori’s eyes widened for a split second. He hadn’t told her about the plane. He must’ve arranged it while she was out of the room. A backup move he expected they’d need.
Janice set down her drink. “It must be really important if you arranged a plane.”
“It is,” Blade said. “A car will be waiting at the airport to take you to the prison. Tori and I will wait at a nearby diner.”
Janice picked up a chip and studied it like it held the secrets of the universe. “When do you want to go?”
“The plane is ready and waiting.”
Blade’s shoulders locked still. Janice didn’t speak for a full thirty seconds. Her gaze flicked to her phone. The screen glowed with a color-coded column of stacked obligations. Days full of what he assumed were hearings, meetings, and client calls all crammed one on top of the other.
She lifted her glass and wet her lips with the margarita. Then she set it down, punched a number, and pressed the phone to her ear.
“Maria? It’s Janice. I need you to rearrange my schedule. Cancel everything for the rest of today.”
Blade’s shoulders loosened. Janice was clearing the deck. She was doing it.
“I don’t care what you have to move. Reschedule the Bailey deposition for next week.
Push the Lawson meeting to Friday. And call Judge Patterson’s clerk.
Tell them I need a continuance on the Silva hearing.
No, I can’t tell you where I’ll be. Just handle it.
” Janice ended the call and laid her phone face down on the table. “There. My afternoon just freed up.”
She raised her margarita in a mock toast. “To justice. And to hoping we don’t all end up in prison for whatever we’re about to do.”
Blade lifted his water glass. “To finding the truth.” He looked at Tori, not Janice.
She met his gaze, and for a split second, the noise of the restaurant faded away. He saw the exhaustion, the worry, but underneath it, a flicker of something else. Gratitude. Trust. It was a silent acknowledgment of the massive risk he was taking, not just for the case, but for her.
The ice clinked as their glasses met across the table. Around them, the restaurant hummed with families sharing meals, couples on dates, and friends catching up over drinks.
None of them noticed they were sitting feet away from a conversation that might crack open a conspiracy and a killer decades in the making.