For some reason, I tried to deny it. Needed to. “I wasn’t crying,” I said to Nellie. Like a fool. One look at me put the lie to my words.
Nellie wiped under my eye with her thumb. “It’s all right,” she said. “You just need to release some pressure, like last night, at the hospital. Do you good. Then you can get some sleep.”
Well, I didn’t let that happen. I was done with sleeping. No way I’d take a chance on drifting into another nightmare scenario: my mother screaming for help, and me powerless to provide it. That was no place I ever wanted to go again.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling in Nellie’s spare room until it started to get light outside. Didn’t play games on my phone. I wasn’t in the mood for games. It was a relief when morning came and I could ease out of that bed.
Sitting at my desk in chambers, I took another sip of that cold McDonald’s drink as a soft rap sounded at the door.
I said, “Luna? Come on in.”
It wasn’t Luna, though. It was Eleanor Lindquist, wearing a black suit and a somber expression. She clutched a file folder to her chest.
“Judge Stone, I heard what happened. I’m so sorry.”
Before I had a chance to respond, my throat closed up and I felt my nose sting. I had to blink back tears while I gripped the arms of my chair.
It took a moment before I could trust my voice. “What can I do for you?”
She slipped into the office and shut the door. Stepping up to my desk, she looked down at me with a sorrowful face. “Robert and I have been talking it over this morning, Judge. The burden on you. It’s too much to bear. Too much for anyone to bear, but especially someone in your circumstances.”
The words were like a verbal slap. I sat up straighter in my chair. “Excuse me? Someone in my circumstances?”
She let out a sympathetic sigh. “A single woman. Living alone, in the country. Now your home has been destroyed. Robert and I understand, Judge—really. There’s no way you can continue to preside over this case. Just pull out. Disqualify yourself. No one will think less of you. No political fallout, I guarantee it.”
She was trying to put me in a spin. “We’re in the middle of a felony trial, Ms. Lindquist.”
“Exactly. A very important case. The judge needs to be 100 percent present. And we understand, Judge. There’s no way you can perform up to your standards. Your house burned down last night! You lost everything!”
She did it, then. Glanced down at my clothing. I was dressed in Nellie’s schoolteacher clothes. Because my entire wardrobe was reduced to ash.
Nellie was taller than I was. Stouter, too. I was wearing a printed orange tunic over a pair of black jeans that were too long in the inseam. I’d rolled up the cuffs of the pant legs, pushed up the sleeves to my elbows.
She couldn’t make me self-conscious about my borrowed clothes. Not after what I’d been through. “Ms. Lindquist, my house didn’t just burn down. It was blown up.”
“Riiight,” she said, stretching the word out.
I sucked down some more Diet Coke before I cleared my throat and spoke again. “So! Thank you, Ms. Lindquist, for your sympathy and concern. I appreciate that. But there’s too much at stake here for me to just quit. I can’t walk away. Do you want to make this proposal on the record? Because you know that ex parte communications between counsel and the judge are prohibited. You want to call defense counsel in here? Get the court reporter?”
“No,” she said. “No, absolutely not.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Dropped her head, so I was staring at the part in her hair. She let out a long groan before she spoke.
“Oh, God. I hate to have to do this.”
CHAPTER
73
I tensed, waiting for the shit to fall. I didn’t even know what to steel myself against.
One thing, though. They probably weren’t trying to take my property from me today. That was yesterday’s move.
“I’ve been sent by the attorney general. To show you this.” She finally lifted her head. Opened the file folder she’d been clutching. She pulled out a document. Handed it across the desk to me.
It was a copy of an old medical record.
I recognized it, of course. From the first glance. Tried to keep a poker face as I looked at it. Total fail.
