Page 38 of Goodbye Girl
“No, honey. I was with a client.”
“Is your client a pirate?”
“No. She’s accused of helping pirates. But not the kind of pirates who were in your dream.”
“Aren’t all pirates bad?”
“Well, yes.”
“Aren’t all pirates scary?”
“They can be.”
“Is your client helping bad, scary pirates?”
Jack had to think about that one. “I’m not sure she understands exactly who she is helping.”
“Your client doesn’t sound very smart.”
Food for thought, but Jack changed the subject. Righley selected a chapter book from the stack on her nightstand, and Jack listened to herread aloud. In five minutes, her eyes closed, and she was fast asleep. Jack quietly slid out of bed and returned to the master bedroom. Andie was still in the shower. He turned on the television. Since Imani’s arraignment on charges of piracy, one entertainment industry expert after another had appeared on cable news. Jack caught the tail end of the interview of a Hollywood executive.
“The list of streaming services goes on and on,” the expert said. “Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Apple TV Plus. Each one has its own subscription fee, and they are all trying to lure new subscribers by pumping out exclusive content. But exclusive content means that unless you pay a subscription fee to every streaming service, you’re going to miss something. Who can afford that? No one. That’s why we are seeing the highest levels of piracy since the early 2000s. Even people who are basically honest have had enough, and they can rationalize it by saying, ‘Well, at least I don’t pirateeverything.’”
A cellphone vibrated on the dresser. Jack glanced over, thinking it was his, but it was Andie’s. He didn’t intend to read the message, but the preview bubble popped right up on the screen. The fact that it was from Detective Wallace Green from the MDPD cold-case unit and written in all caps made it impossible for him to disengage quickly enough to avoid reading it.
BREAK IN TM CASE. SAY NOTHING TO YOUR HUSBAND. CALL ME IN A.M.
Jack looked away. He should not have seen it, but there was no erasing it from his brain. Obviously, “TM” stood for Tyler McCormick. According to Andie, she’d had virtually no involvement in the McCormick investigation. If that were true, why was she getting a text message from the cold-case detective—someone she would never have even met if, in her words, “the FBI was out of that investigation almost as soon as we got in,” years before the case was transferred to the cold-case unit?
An unsettling feeling came over him. The one rule that made sense in their marriage was “no discussing active cases,” which was their way of avoiding a compromising situation between law enforcement and a criminal defense attorney. But not talking about active cases and lyingabout them were two different things. Jack had never thought deception was part of the arrangement. He’d apparently thought wrong.
The bathroom door opened. Andie stepped out, wrapped in a bath towel.
“Smooth leg alert,” she said, eyebrows dancing.
Jack still wasn’t sure what to do about her lie. One thing for sure: he was in no hurry to explain how he’d seen a work-related message on her cellphone, which was, arguably, the bigger sin. This could wait.
“Come to bed,” he said with a smile.
Chapter 14
Theo’s nonstop from Miami left Sunday night and landed at Heathrow on Monday morning. At one point in his life, he would have embraced without qualification Jack’s legal arguments that the execution of an innocent man is “cruel and unusual punishment” in its most egregious form. Flying coach overseas had him rethinking things.
At least Amongus had arranged for a limo. The driver met him at the end of the immigration chute and led him to a black SUV in the parking garage. His name was Benjamin.
“First time in London?” asked Benjamin.
Theo wondered how he’d guessed right. Did he really look that out of place? Then it hit him. He’d walked around to the wrong side of the car. The preferred backseat with more leg room was never directly behind the driver, and in the United States that seat was on the right. Benjamin was standing on the other side, holding open the rear door for him. Theo walked around and climbed into the backseat.
“Never gonna get used to this,” he said.
Theo listened to music on the drive into the city. To show her appreciation, Imani had shared a studio recording of a track on her album-in-the-making, and Theo was a lucky Beta listener. He wondered how much a pirated version might fetch on the dark web, which made him wonder half-seriously whether he should be traveling with his own bodyguard.
The streets were getting narrower, and the neighborhood was definitely upscale.
“Where are we?” asked Theo.
“Covent Garden.”