Page 126 of Goodbye Girl

“Because I wassureit was a bluff,” he said—though, truthfully, he was only “sure” in hindsight. “The thought of you testifying as a witness inthis trial is ridiculous. You’re doing important work. I didn’t want you to have to deal with a bullshit distraction.”

“Well, it wasn’t a bluff, and now I have to deal with it.”

“No, you don’t. The judge shot it down. He ordered the FBI to produce a handwriting expert as witness.”

Andie sighed so heavily that it crackled on the line. “This makes me more certain than ever that my solution is the only solution to this problem.”

She was referring to the conversation at Cy’s Place, but he was still in the dark. “I still don’t know what ‘solution’ you’re talking about.”

She paused, as if trying to decide whether this was the time to go there. She decided it was not.

“Why are you doing this, Jack? Why are you demanding a witness from the task force?”

“If the handwriting is the same, that means there is one killer. One killer means my client didn’t kill Tyler McCormick.”

“You’re not going to get that testimony,” she said.

Jack hesitated. “What?”

“Jack, if the work of the task force showed that your client is innocent, do you think I would just zip my lip and let two innocent people go to jail?”

Jack wasn’t sure how to respond. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“You have confidentiality obligations to the FBI investigation. I didn’t want to ask you to breach any confidences and put you in a compromising position.”

“So, instead, you allowed me to be blindsided by the prosecutor, who wants me to be the one to tell the judge that your theory doesn’t fly? The signatures are not written by the same person. Shannon Dwyer’s killer did not kill Tyler McCormick.”

Jack fell silent. It was a whipsaw of disappointment. Not only had his trial strategy fallen flat, but he’d put Andie in an untenable position.

“I’m sorry. You have a right to be mad.”

“Getting angry isn’t going to solve the real problem here.”

“What do you mean?”

There was silence, then she answered, “This isn’t working anymore.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant, but his mind raced to what she could have meant, and it scared him. “This what?Whatisn’t working?”

“This arrangement of you not telling me about your cases and me not telling you about my investigations. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked in a long time. Actually, it never has.”

She was talking about the cardinal principle of their relationship—of their marriage. Jack swallowed hard. “So, what are you saying?”

Another sigh on the line. “Can we talk about this when I get back from Chicago?”

“No. You can’t just throw out something like that and say we’ll talk about it later. We need to talk now.”

There was a knock on the door. It opened, and Shaky’s lawyer poked her head into the room. “Sorry to interrupt. The judge is back. The FBI has a witness by videoconference.”

“I need a minute,” Jack told her.

“Judge Cookson is in no mood to give anyone a minute.”

Jack took her point. He spoke into the phone. “Andie, I have to go back to court. But I want us to talk about this sooner, not later.”

“Sure.”