1
Daniel Kessler waited, phone pressed to his ear, while Nicholas Bell, stunned into silence, processed the information. Daniel doodled in the corner of the yellow pad while he waited–a tight continuous spiral, each imperfection magnified by the following ring. It helped him stay patient with his clients. Face-to-face meetings were a lot harder.
“A setup?” Bell said, his voice hitched an octave higher when he broke the minute-long silence. “Th-that’s wild, man!”
“It’s an angle we’re pursuing. I’ve got one of my guys reviewing some security footage from the coffee shop on the corner. You’re no movie star, but you have some notoriety. And a lime green Cyber Truck—”
“What if they twist it? Say I was showing off or something?”
“That’s why we’re checking the footage and looking into this guy. To see what can shoot it down.”
“But—”
“You’ve just gotta stay calm, Nick. You were caught unawares. You’re innocent. You’re the guy who called 911, remember? You’re still in shock, still processing it. Like we practiced: ‘I never saw him coming. He lunged into the street between cars. I hit the brakes.’ Got it?”
“I never saw him coming. He lunged into the street between cars. I hit the brakes. I’m devastated.” Nicholas paused. “Will I have to testify?”
“The prosecution won’t call you first—they’ll start with the cops who responded or an eyewitness. They want to set up their story. But they might request you later, or I might put you on to counter their narrative. If that happens, just stick to the script: no deviations, no ‘I don’t know’ unless I nod. We’ll rehearse more if needed, but tonight, get some sleep. See you tomorrow at eight.
Kessler thumbed the screen of his phone. Two messages had chimed in his ear during their conversation. The investigator reviewing the footage sent a snapshot of the victim, the deceased, standing at the corner waiting.
‘Found him waiting for about an hour before Bell showed up.’
‘Search the days leading up,’ Daniel texted back.
‘Gotcha. On it.’
Another dug up some interesting dealings by the arresting officer.
‘This detective has a hard-on for high-profile cases. Gonna dig a little deeper.’
‘Not an angle I expected, but keep digging.’’
Kessler checked the time on the screen before he slid the phone back into the leather pouch on his hip. He gazed over the documents that covered the surface of his desk. Police reports next to the 911 call transcript. The half-used legal pad above the coroner’s findings.
One by one, Daniel stacked the papers, then grabbed the mug that sat perilously close to the corner. He downed the last dregs of coffee, with only a ghost of warmth left in it. Daniel grimaced and rose out of his chair.
He left the cup next to the coffee machine on the mahogany sideboard. It didn’t matter if it came from the fertile slopes of Costa Rica—coffee tasted like crap when it had gone cold. He rolled the tension out of his shoulders. He had a strong case. Simple, but strong. But people are complex creatures. Bell wouldn’t go to jail. Daniel was confident of that. Wealthy but not smug. Lavish, but paid his taxes and donated for scholarships at his alma mater.
He grabbed his suitcase and set it back on his desk. When he opened it, Jesus stared back at him. He shuddered and snatched the coin–Slovakian with a stylized image of the crucifixion engraved on the surface. A momento.
Daniel shoved the coin into one of the inside pockets and laid the stack of papers in the case. He sighed, looking over his clean desk, then dug into his front pocket and pulled out a simple flip phone. His personal phone.
The tiny screen and the text conversation it contained consumed his attention.
‘Will you be staying late?” His wife, Sarah, had messaged.
‘Yeah sorry’
‘Night before trial. It’s your MO’
An hour later, she had followed up, ‘Got you a plate ready. ETA?’
‘Still need some more time. Don’t wait up. Put it in the fridge for me.’
Daniel cradled the small device in his hands and, suddenly feeling the hours grating on him, texted, ‘All set in record time. Coming home.’
He held the device a moment longer, willing Sarah to message him back, some token acknowledgment. She didn’t, so he snapped the phone shut.
2
The man sat in a coffee shop situated across from the tower that housed Kessler, Reinhardt & Associates. He swirled his third cup of coffee while staring at the ornate brass doors across the street. His stomach gnawed at him, grumbling its discomfort, bitter with the excessive caffeine.
But he waited. The trial began tomorrow, which meant Kessler would stay late preparing, as predictable as a clock.Unlike the other partners, he was the first one in and the last one out. He didn’t keep any standing tee times on Fridays.
The man scratched his cheek. Stubble well on its way to a beard. He took another swig of his coffee. The barista had checked on him twice in the last twenty minutes, but since he wasn’t on their precious wi-fi, she didn’t have any leverage to kick him out. Instead, she wiped the long bar along the windows, getting closer and closer, practically lifting his cup to clean beneath it.
Then Kessler appeared. Visible through the tall windows, talking to the man at the reception desk. Niceties.
How’s it going, Mark?
Fine, thank you, Mr. Kessler.
The kids?
Straight A’s. One’s an all-time quarterback. The other’s gonna cure cancer this time next year.
That’s great, Mark. Have a good evening.
Kessler tugged the door handle and emerged into the last glow of daylight.
With one last gulp from his cup, the man rose from the stiff stool and followed, sneering when he saw his reflection in the darkening glass
It was a straight shot to the L. He kept his distance though, easily achieved on the other side of the street.
He waited at a crosswalk while Kessler stepped onto the escalator. Daniel disappeared into the station above, while the watcher sprinted across the intersection and up the steps of the moving stairs, trying to catch up.
They both entered the same car at opposite ends. He didn’t need to look—the stalker knew which stop his target would exit at—he arrived at the law firm’s doorstep from that very same station every day for the last week. But he glanced, anyway. Through the meager Sunday evening crowd he saw Kessler sit, briefcase cradled in his lap. Two homeless men, drunk or stoned, argued. Their voices filled the confined space, and an elderly Asian woman got out of her chair and sat next to the watcher.
Self-awareness struck him in that moment. He didn’t stink, but the scent of his unbathed body wafted to his nose, contrasting with the stale metallic air of the train. He bit back an apology. A year ago he was a different man. Hated the city. He hid his trembling hands as he folded his arms, set his head back against the wall behind him. And waited.
3
The argument escalated in the middle of the train car, but the two homeless men stumbled out of the train car door at Chicago station before it came to blows.
Halfway home, Daniel thought to himself.
Lily would be working on her homework, saving calculus for the very end so he could help her finish. So she could force him to share her misery, since he and Sarah had enrolled her at Parker, as she liked to remind him. He’d microwave his dinner and eat out of a plastic container as usual.
He’d find Sarah up in the office grinding away at her latest article. Daniel tried to remember which one she was working on. With a trial in the morning, she’d spare him from reading through it tonight. She’d be all over him to revise it by Wednesday though. He made a mental note to leave himself with enough energy after work, with the trial done hopefully.
Sedgwick Station. More people left the train than got on. He drummed the top of his briefcase, waiting for the doors to close. Daniel liked to use the time on the train to read, but he was between novels. A taxi would be a little faster, but he enjoyed taking the time to change gears. He and Sarah struck a bargain years ago. Work stayed out of the home.
He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, ready for dinner. Bracing himself for advanced mathematics.
Daniel exited the train at Armitage, shins aching as he descended the stairs down to street level. He pounded pavement and zigzagged the three blocks until he came to the now-familiar street. After seventeen years, he could get home blindfolded. He had nearly memorized the way the concrete buckled upward under the pressure of the ancient trees, the hedges that grew like a wall of leaves against the street, and even the echoes of his footsteps as he passed the front steps leading up to the other houses.
He closed his eyes and stuck out his left arm. After about thirty seconds, the back of his fingers rattled on a wrought-iron fence. Three more strides and he felt the gap. He stopped and turned. Nestled between two gray stones was his own small kingdom in the world. The three-story structure rose into the night. The brick looked smart in the wash of the streetlights, almost purple against the starlit night.
As he mounted the steps to the entrance, Daniel fished out the keys from his pocket. He had to lean back toward the streetlights to see as he thumbed through them until he found his house key. He glanced up as he stood on the welcome mat and froze, staring at the gap between the door and frame. The blacker black. Almost imperceptible. The door wasn’t locked, not even latched shut. Daniel dropped the key back in his pocket and gently pushed the door inward. As the heavy oak slab swung inward, he grabbed before it thudded against the inside wall. Daniel’s heart quickened. This was Chicago. Doors stayed locked. During the day, when you walked your dog if you had one. But especially at night. Daniel stuck his head in the door.
“Sarah?”
The word shivered through the ground floor without reply. Daniel stepped inside. He pivoted and locked the door behind him. A hand reached into his pocket, fumbling for his phone.
The house was dark, except for the wash that poured in through tall windows in the family room at the back of the house. His heart thundered as he listened for a reply, anything.
An old, deep-seated fear bubbled up. He ate lunch with one of his clients two weeks ago, right before a jury convicted him of a triple homicide. Daniel had no misgivings about the type of people he worked with. Worked for.
His eyes adjusted to the dark. The antique dining table’s polished surface glimmered ever so slightly. A plate of food, his plate of food, sat on the corner. It drew him forward like a magnet. The food was cold.
How long ago did Sarah text me? He wondered.
Daniel flipped open his phone and stared at the text conversation.
Hours ago.
A faint glow caught his eye. Light from the second floor.
Daniel darted for the stairs. He stumbled in his hurry. Shins collided with the corners of the steps. Wincing, he hauled himself to his feet and rushed up the steps. When he reached the top, he realized the light came from his room. Daniel barreled down the hall, stumbling again as he glanced back and forth between his phone and the doorway at the end of the hall. He had the keypad up, thumb jamming into the buttons.
9
Daniel shoved the door open.
1
His heart pounded in his chest.
1
Sarah and Lily sat on the floor, tied to the corners of their brass-framed bed. They both screamed against the gags tied around their heads, over their mouths. Daniel lunged toward his wife as he jabbed the green button and dropped the phone on the carpet next to her.
He reached for the rope around her hands—thin nylon paracord. The knots were tight. Through the pulse pounding in his ears, he heard the tinny ring of the call. Once, twice. A woman’s voice.
The knot was too tight. His hands shook too much. Sarah screamed. Daniel yanked at the gag in her mouth.
“Daniel, look out!”
Footsteps pounded up behind him.
Crack
Stars filled his vision. Then everything went dark.
4
The man followed Daniel.
Something changed within the lawyer every time he walked from the train station back home. A reverie. A ceremony. The transformation from renowned criminal defender to husband and dad.
If only they knew.
The streets were abandoned. After nearly a decade of violence and turmoil, the city self-imposed a type of curfew. It made the pursuit a little more perilous. The man smiled and acknowledged the thrill–something he assumed he learned from Johnny Marks. Over a year’s worth of planning, but nothing compared to the notorious serial murderer. A one-off, a passion project. His wasn’t even a hobby compared to the years Marks’s dedicated to his stalking.
Daniel strode along the sidewalk, hand outstretched to the fences and bushes. Blithely unaware.
A hundred paces back, the figure watched him fumble with his keys. A smile crept over the figure’s face as terror washed over his target. An open door.
The figure peered around a tree trunk in time to see Daniel enter the house. As soon as he heard the latch click behind the lawyer and the deadbolt slide into place, he rushed toward the large brick building.The watcher smiled as he produced the key—Sarah Kessler’s copy that he had stolen the first time he had visited. He stood next to the door, peeking through the glass panes. Daniel went to the dining table, then up the stairs in a hurry.
As Kessler raced up the stairs, the man slid the key into the lock and turned. As he pushed the door open, he could hear Daniel panting up the stairs. The watcher opened it just enough to squeeze through and closed it behind him. He too locked it.
No interruptions–Imagine, a home invasion now of all times.
Steps reverberated up the stairs, and he followed in pursuit.
Daniel threw the master bedroom door open, and the stalker followed.
From the darkened hallway, he saw Daniel kneeling in front of his wife. The watcher reached for the softball bat—Lily’s softball bat. In two strides, he stood over Daniel. With a stiff swing, the aluminum shaft connected with the back of Daniel’s head. He watched his target slump forward onto the carpet. A thin line of scarlet dribbled down through the unconscious man’s hairline, while his wife and daughter shrieked into sobs.
5
Nausea hit Daniel like a wave. He retched. To his horror, a band of fabric wrapped around his head and mouth. Vomit collided with the back of the gag. Meeting resistance, the bile surged upward out his nose, flooding his sinuses.
Daniel’s eyes burned in their sockets. He could feel them swelling as tears streamed down his face. Daniel coughed, struggling to breathe. Hands yanked the gag out of his mouth, and Daniel winced and vomited again. He gulped down air and blew the sick from his nose. When he opened his eyes, his vision swam. His wife and daughter, still tied to the bed frame. Pain radiated from the back of his head, slick with sweat, throbbing and hot. A face lowered into view. Daniel fought back another wave of nausea, choosing to stare at the floor.
“Do you recognize me, Daniel?”
The voice thundered inside his head. Every movement, even the faintest flutter of his eyes, threatened to break the dam, the acrid contents of his stomach, though he couldn’t imagine there he had much left.
Daniel shut his eyes. The other man wrapped a hand around his jaw and jerked Daniel’s head up. Pain blossomed in his skull, sending roots down his neck and into his back.
“Look at me.”
Kessler obeyed.
A week’s forth of growth, patchy, salt and pepper, sprouted from his face. But his eyes. The man’s brown eyes, red-rimmed, lined with black-blue circles, bore into Daniel. His cheeks were gaunt, lips peeled back in a sneer.
But the eyes. Daniel recognized the cold eyes. Hateful. More so since the first time he laid eyes upon them.
If he could only remember where.
The man stood up straight and arched his back.
“You’re a heavy bastard. Lots of time at the desk, eh, Daniel?”
There was a flash of a smile. White in the blurry image that filled Daniel’s eyes. The sight, however distorted, stabbed into the lawyer’s mind. Familiar, distant, something he couldn’t remember but should. That face.
The flick of a coin, ringing as it spun up into the open air, brought Daniel back to his senses.
“How about now?” said the man.
He was in Daniel’s face again, holding a disk between his fingers. Daniel fought the concussion and willed his eyes to cooperate, and like two drunks, they stumbled together and fell on the coin.
Again, Christ on the cross stared back. Daniel felt it. Recollection rattling forward on a horrible children’s rollercoaster. Graceless and boisterous.
Kessler looked at the man’s face—smirk gone, once again deadpan—and remembered.
6
Kessler had just finished a case. A mixed bag. White collar crime. Guilty of embezzlement but not bribery. Tax evasion would come later.
Friday. Daniel sat at his desk. A crystal tumbler of whisky, double, rotating on between his fingertips on the surface of his desk. The twenty-year-old bottle sat at the corner.
Peter Reinhardt came in, the look on his face, chiding, sympathetic. He flopped a sheaf of papers on Daniel’s desk. A section of the newspaper. Kessler eyed Peter, who paused at the door for half a heartbeat, an eon for that man, the same look on his face, before he slipped back out the door, as quietly as he came.
Kessler sipped at the glass. Folded into thirds, and already he dreaded what lay within. He saw enough of the title to fill his stomach with dread.
…Marks… in big bold newspaper font.
Johnny Marks—Ján Marek—struck again.
Peter wasn’t judging Daniel. Hell, a third of Reinhardt’s clients paid their lawyer’s fees with whatever they just got away with stealing, thanks to Peter.
It was a warning.
The firm didn’t often deal with that level of… darkness. Husband killed his wife and her lover. A-list celebrity caught with a little too much self-medication. Ugly stuff sure, the kind of things that made Kessler question… well… everything.
But Marks. That was a whole other level.
By the time Marks’s face wound up on Daniel’s desk, he had quite the reputation.
The year before he’d apprehended an entire board of directors at some private Christian school. Parents accused a coach of misconduct—inappropriate behavior with a senior girl. She was eighteen years old, so… up the the air. In all the uproar, the board called into question the administration’s ability to blah blah blah.
Enter Marks. Johnny drugged the coach, the administrators, and the board of directors, and had a little sit down, as Johnny does. The result… was newsworthy. Marks killed a stout, old lady. At the insistence of the coach.
When the police apprehended Marks, he requested Kessler by name. That was ancient history.
Until the system set him free, good behavior and overcrowding at the mental health unit, thanks in no small part to Kessler’s work during sentencing. Something that drew a lot more attention that Daniel ever wished.
Enter…Hershey? Hensley. Richard Hensley.
The name on the paper that Peter delivered that afternoon. The latest victim. However, Richard couldn’t choose. Didn’t choose. Indecision was a decision to Marks, so he chose for him—everyone but Richard.
Three weeks later Kessler had lunch with Reinhardt and some associates. They’d just finished the biggest case of the year. One of Reinhardt’s college buddies. Embezzlement. Either he really was innocent, or his people were better than the forensic accountants.
Daniel flopped back down at his desk, buzzing on half a pitcher of brown ale. In the middle of his desk sat a priority mail envelope. Plastic, with bubble padding. Do Not Bend. Crisp, familiar handwriting on the label.
The alcohol in his stomach soured. The light euphoria replaced by dread, and a cold sweat. He tore the seal and dumped the contents.
A single photograph.
Johnny Marks held the camera for a selfie. Behind him sat five other people. Bound. Gagged. Crying. Eyes red with anger.
‘Thanks for all that you do!-Johnny’ written in gaudy silver marker, like a celebrity autographing their glossy print.
Kessler burned the picture in their grill that night–the last time he’d seen Richard Hensley’s image.
7
“Richard Hensley,” Daniel said between gasping breaths.
“There it is. Bravo. I’m flattered.” Marks’s own words, this cadence and timbre spewing from Hensley’s mouth.
Hensley stepped backward and knelt at Kessler’s briefcase, the contents spread out like some cumbersome deck of cards flat across the floor. The Slovakian coin sat atop the scattered sheets. Richard snatched it up and flashed a manic grin at Daniel.
Richard held up the pair.
“We seem to have someone in common. Two degrees of separation, as it were.” Hensley stepped toward the bed and with a grunt leaped onto the center, legs dangling, swinging, over the edge.
Richard leaned over Lily’s head, eyes locked onto Kessler’s.
“Do you know what Daddy does for a living?” The same manic grin, sharp lips peeling back to reveal yellowed teeth. Cold, lifeless eyes boring into Daniel’s.
“He hangs out with criminals of all types. Murderers. Thieves stealing millions from little old ladies. Psychopaths.”
Lily knew this. She knew what Daniel did. It wasn’t a mystery in their household. Though, he tried to soften the edges for his daugher.
“How do you think he pays for this house? That swanky private school you go to?”
Lily glanced back and for the between her father and their captor. Eyes wide. Fear.
“You see, your father is such a smooth talker, so good at what he does, that most of these criminals get off. Or at least they get off easy.”
Hensley shut his eyes, and the smile fell from his face.
“Did that football player even set foot in jail after killing his wife?”
Abraham Barnes did not set foot in prison. Eighteen months of probation. Judge Nelson was a Bears fan.
Richard climbed back off the bed.
“You’ve heard enough witness testimony. You know how this goes,” Hensley said as he ambled across the room toward Kessler. “Let’s do this just like Johnny.”
He bent at the waist and put his hands on the chair’s armrests, putting his face in Daniel’s.
“Mr. Daniel Kessler.” His voice became singsong, almost carefree if it weren’t for the latent rage. A damn fine impression of Marks. “Someone in this room is going to die tonight. I am the blade in your hand, but you have to choose.”
8
Richard straightened and reached behind Kessler. With one hand, the gag—some torn section of bedding–fell into Daniel’s lap.
“How about your lovely wife, Sarah?”
He strode next to Daniel’s wife and grabbed the long kitchen knife from where he set in on the bed. He knelt next to Sarah, holding the blade inches away from her throat.
“My wife, Mira, wanted a divorce.” Hensley’s voice returned to normal, cracking. “She said I’d been spending too much time at work. Said she didn’t love me anymore.”
Richard rolled back and sat, crossing his legs in front of him.
“She already had a lawyer,” he said to his lap. “She threw the papers at me one night when I got home. I didn’t want the divorce.”
Richard’s head jerked up. The sadness vanished, burned to ash. “Do you know what the craziest part was? Adam. Fucking Adam.”
Hensley jumped to his feet. He teetered as he found his footing, his solid mass swaying. When Richard steadied himself, he aimed the knife at Daniel, peering over the metal like he was aiming his words.
“Fucking Marks. Motherfucking Johnny Marks.” He punctuated each syllable with little jabs in Kessler’s direction, while stalking forward.
“Somehow he knew Mira was cheating on me with the goddamn math tutor. You could tell—the joy he got when he dropped that little nuke. ‘Your wife is cheating on you with your daughter’s math tutor. She washes the sheets after school, while he helps Brooke with her calculus.’ What the fuck?!”
Richard collapsed onto the carpet halfway between Daniel and Sarah. He had his hands to his face, one still clutching the knife. So perilous an edge. The instrument.
Richard broke. He gasped full sobs, veering toward hyperventilating. Until he knelt, like some prostrate believer, broken and repentant. Minutes passed. The shuttering hand clutched the knife, point up into the air, vibrating with each sob.
Daniel locked eyes with his wife. She swung her head over her shoulder to where their three cell phones lay in the center of the bed, next to a large black pistol. Daniel could see it. The break-in, flashing the gun around. Tying them up, waiting for him. Daniel nodded his understanding and twisted at the zip tie that dug into his wrists.
Hensley sobbed, oblivious to the world. Kessler leaned forward, his shoulders groaning in pain, as he looked at his ankles. The same zip ties. Industrial. Black. Quarter of an inch thick. He’d seen the videos. Some musclebound martial artist pumped his zip-tied hands against his abdomen in order to break free.
Daniel was not muscular. And the ties were not of the normal variety.
Richard fell silent after one final sob and gasping breath. He lay bunched up, motionless, vacant. His solid frame seemed to sag.
“Do you ever just get it mixed up? I provided, brought home more than enough. I’d like to see Mira try and find someone that could give her all that nice shit she liked. She’d never pull down enough to cover all the trips she took for her photography shoots.”
Every muscle in Richard’s body seemed to tense.His white knuckles wrapped around the knife clenched. He sucked in a breath and held it. Longer than Daniel thought possible. Richard’s lips burst, and his head shot up, glaring at Daniel.
“They didn’t need the money—no, they wanted the money. They needed me. They needed me!” Richard gasped. His eyes rolled in his sockets, the tenuous balance between run-of-the-mill wrath and insanity, vengeance.
“You should have seen the way she glared at me. I thought she hated me before Marks showed up in our life.”
Richard’s eyes softened, staring off into some memory.
“Wino forever. She had a sweater that said Wino forever.” Hensley said with a chuckle. “Johnny Depp—a far better Johnny, I’m sure—and Winona Ryder were married. He got a tattoo. Winona Forever. Until they weren’t. He got lasik and changed it to Wino.”
Richard brought his palms to his eyes as he sucked in a chest full of air. It exploded outward as a sob.
“She wore that ugly fucking sweater, one fresh wine stain down the front… probably from when Marks broke into the house.”
The sobs wracked his entire body. Daniel couldn’t help but watch as the tears and saliva drilled down his stubble, dotting his pant legs.
Minutes passed achingly slow.
While Hensley had his face buried in his hands, Daniel tested his constraints. The plastic cut into his wrists at the slightest movement. With his hands behind his back, the binds forced him into a hunch. Stomach acid stung where it clung to his chin and dripped down his neck. The curdled smell lapped against his nostrils in the still room. He glanced downward. One of the dining chairs. Black painted wood, gray fabric. His ankles were bound to the legs of the chair. But there was nothing really holding them in place. He could tilt back and slide his legs free. Then what? Daniel would have just enough time to stand before Richard rushed him.
The silence caught his attention, and Kessler looked back at Richard, who sat there staring at him.
“I loved her. I would have fought for our marriage.”
Richard grunted as he climbed to his feet. He tapped the knife against Sarah’s shoulder.
“So is that a no?”
Daniel felt his eyes bugging out of their sockets.
“Marks slit her throat. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move a muscle. Mira just glared at me the entire time she bled out. She blamed me for everything.”
Kessler blinked. This man lost everything. He held on to sanity by a thread. Kessler didn’t trust him to play by Marks’s rules. He simply shook his head.
Hensley looked down at the floor and nodded. He pointed the blade at Lily.
“So then!” The Marks’s game show singsong voice was back. “Is it going to be your daughter Lily then?”
9
“Brooke was a teenager by the age of nine. Sass and drama. Everything was a battle. Brushing her teeth. Brushing her hair. Screen time. Homework. Boyfriends. Curfews. She slammed the door so many times, the molding came loose from the frame.”
Richard heaved himself back onto the foot of the bed. He kicked his heels against the brasswork, like a child. His face was blank. Unreadable.
“What sort of monster lets a monster like Johnny Marks kill their child?”
Anger flashed in his eyes again. The chef’s knife came up slowly, pointing at Daniel.
“But you tell me. How do you sleep at night knowing the kind of people you help set free? Have you kept up with your clients after the trial? I did a little research. The people you defend are twice as likely to wind up back on trial for the same offense. Or something equally bad. That nursing home director? The one that let four elderly patients rot in their beds? You saw the photos of the rat bites right? He found a new job in Springfield, and I guess he didn’t reach out to you when two more families pressed charges.”
Richard leaned forward, eyes like shadows in the light above his head.
“You have to take the three next most successful lawyers in the city to get as many re-offenders. You’re like a monster-magnet. A stopping point between crimes. You’re the ticket price to move on to the next. Have you ever just bailed on someone? ‘Oh shit, you’re pretty guilty. I can’t do this’?”
Hensley’s eyes bored into Kessler’s. The silence stretched on.
Kessler squirmed in his chair. Sometimes, he knew. Or felt like he did. Most were innocent. He’d see it a mile away, twenty seconds into the conversation. Angry or horrified. They were an open book.
But others. Their cold, muted smiles. Hands out, palms up.
Paychecks. He would say to himself. Everyone deserved to have a lawyer. And they wouldn’t be in his office if they couldn’t afford it.
Kessler’s eyes fell to the ground, the plush rug beneath his feet. He could almost feel it even through his dress shoes.
“That’s what I thought,” Richard said. He rose and strode behind Lily. Placed his hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“Brooke was expelled from two different high schools before her junior year. Drugs. Bullying. But only a monster like Johnny Marks could suggest to a father that he let his daughter die.”
Richard took a step toward Daniel. Again the knife came up, accusingly, glinting in the warm-white light.
“‘And what about little Joel here?’” He said, imitating Marks again.
Hensley’s face went rigid with rage.
“Goddammit, Daniel! Joel was autistic! The whole time this was happening, he was rocking himself, trying to soothe himself. The moment Marks said those words, Joel pissed himself! My son was so afraid that he wet himself!”
Richard’s hands went up his scalp, and he clutched the oily hair and tugged.
“My son was actually afraid I’d choose him!”
Richard dropped to his knees and buried his face in the thick rug and screamed, long and loud. The walls vibrated with his rage and anguish.
Again, the seconds ticked by into minutes.
When Hensley spoke again, Kessler had to lean in to understand the muffled sound.
“He was a surprise. Mira and I were drunk one night. No condoms. Too old to be having children. But God laughed.”
Richard pushed himself up onto his haunches. The lines of his face deep, like they were etched in stone. Bitter anguish.
“Late at night, you think things. If only…” He brought his hands to his mouth, strangling the words before they could be uttered. “But he drew such beautiful, intricate illustrations of birds. I swear, they could have been in a biology book or something. And he had these dreams about computer programming, writing his own code, something I couldn’t ever understand.”
Eyes fell on Kessler again. “Johnny Marks watched Mira die. Then he slit both Joel and Brooke’s necks. They were screaming and fighting. Brook threw herself to the floor, and Marks yanked her head up by her long hair. The look she gave me! Joel just shook and cried until he bled out on the couch sobbing.”
10
“I’ll admit I had it easier.”
Richard pushed himself back and leaned against the foot of the bed, between Lily and Sarah. He stared at his worn tennis shoes.
“My wife hated me. My daughter hated me. Joel was afraid of me. But if I chose one of them it’d make me a monster.”
Hensley kicked his sneakers off, scraping one heel against the other.
“But, Adam Young,” Richard drawled the words, venom filling the words.
“He was my daughter’s tutor,” Richard said with a scoff. “When he wasn’t selling her ecstasy.” Another long pause. “And my wife’s fling. Sixteen years her junior. He’d show up before Brooke and Joel got home from school. They’d get high and fuck. Just another Tuesday for Adam.” Daniel heard Richard’s throat constrict. The words came out in a rasp. Another sob choked by anger.
Richard balled his hands against his eyes.
“And Johnny Marks. Johnny Fucking Marks knew about it. Dad of the year, Husband of the Century. A fucking cuckold. You should have seen the look on Marks’s face. Like he had it. Pocket Aces. ‘Richard’s gonna buckle with this one!’”
Richard growled. A long, fierce thing. It crescendoed into a bellow, then a fraught scream. He rose to his knees and crumbled to the floor in a heap. Fetal.
“Fucking Adam! That fucking piece of shit!” Richard bellowed.
Richard pushed himself to his knees again.
“Jeff was a buddy from college, said his son was great with math, great with students. He didn’t mention that Adam had a criminal record. Juvie. Never mind that it’s hard to get a job with a record!” Richard bellowed at Daniel.
“Do you know what he got into trouble for? Dealing drugs in college. Of course he’s great with math. Real entrepreneur!”
Richard gasped, raw and ragged. “I saw it then, just then. Mira in her robe, bloodshot eyes, Brooke with the same deer-in-the-fucking-headlights look. Just hours before I showed up!” he hissed.
Sarah locked eyes with Daniel. Wide and fearful. Searching. Looking for assurance. Daniel was empty. Helpless. Richard was stronger than he was. In the face of infidelity and treachery. A family that all but wished him dead. He couldn’t do that to any of them.
Richard spun and caught the silent exchange, glaring at the husband then the wife. He shook, physically shook off the memory, the grief.
“I was too stupid to realize. And too pathetic to choose. It shattered me. Right then and there.”
Slowly Hensley rose to his feet. His head hung, and his arms dangled from the shoulders.
“I realized something. Far too late.”
Vigor climbed up the man’s body. He flung his arms back and rolled his shoulders. Richard’s head rose, hooded eyes gazed darkly at the lawyer.
“It’s your fault, as much as it’s Johnny’s…” He slunk forward and put his hands on Daniel’s thighs, glaring at Kessler. “As much as it’s mine. Too stupid. I realized I was too stupid. So I’m gonna let you in on Johnny’s big secret.”
11
“Someone in this room is going to die tonight. ‘I am the blade in your hand, but you have to choose.’” Richard summoned Marks’s tone and cadence. Mockingly. “What does a person do with that? How can they live with that sort of information? How can they live with that sort of choice!”
Hensley straightened and turned his back to Kessler. Daniel watched as Richard, arms folded now, studied Lily and Sarah one at a time.
“I didn’t come for them.” Hensley nodded toward Sarah and Lilly. It’s enough that they know the sort of monsters you protect. ‘Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.’ How long have you got, Kessler? Until you slide off your high horse? ‘Right to a fair trial’, my ass. You know who’s guilty before you set foot in court. But you give it your all. Even when the world condemns them, you fight for them.”
The walls shook with his words. Daniel’s ears stung with the lashings, the accusations. Richard spun, knife out.
“Time’s nearly up, Mr. Kessler. It’s time to choose.” Richard said, manically, a crooked smile etched on his face to match Johnny Marks’s. He lunged at Daniel, mouth to ear, “Here’s the big secret to Johnny’s game. You see…” He brought his voice low to a whisper. “Johnny never said who in the room it could be… Just that they had to be in the room.” Daniel sensed the knife, cold and deadly, coming up under his chin. “I’m not as heartless as Marks. Just say the word, and you can spare your wife, your daughter.”
Richard stepped backward and pressed his forehead to Daniel’s.
“Johnny never said I couldn’t choose myself.”
12
The knife kissed Daniel’s neck. He felt the blade scrape along the stubble on his neck before it caught flesh and bit. Richard panted in his ear. Waiting.
I am the blade.
Thrill.
Someone in this room is going to die.
The hostile takeover. In 2012, Illinois Bank Shares bought out Bank of Rockford, a little family operation. Mom and pop by financial standards, but they had some big clients, stumbled into some solid money right as the world turned to tech. Then Johnny Marks came along. A boardroom, trustees and the entire C-level. And there was Justin Clark, the son of the founder, some out-of-his-league peon president. Holding the knife. His family was months away from getting screwed out of everything. Bought out and fired. And there stood Johnny Marks, smiling in the center of the group, lording it over them. Over a dozen people. With only one holding the knife.
Thrill.
Control. Control is the opposite of thrill. Control is confidence. Assurance.
He was never just the knife.
Someone in this room is going to die.
Thrill.
Richard Hensley was a disappointment. In every way. The blade cuts. It doesn’t care what. But Johnny Marks? He cared.
Someone. Anyone. Anyone?
Control removed thrill. Risk was the opposite of control.
Sitting listening to Ján Marek a week before the trial. ‘I watched my father get passed over for promotions again and again. Avowed party members, shitty workers. In the army, during a training exercise, I rigged a commander’s tent to collapse during a storm, watching from afar as the man scrambled in humiliation. The rush of orchestrating chaos among the powerful… I was the smartest. None of that stupid fucking cowing. Cows. Sheep. Led to slaughter.’
Someone in this room is going to die.
Daniel’s heart thundered in his chest. In Richard’s shaking hand, the blade drew blood over his throbbing aorta. This wreck of a man. This wretch. Daniel ached for Richard, but here and now…
“You,” Kessler said. “I choose you.”
13.
Hensley flinched at the word, as if a fly had bounced off his forehead.
“What? What did you say?”
“‘Someone in this room has to die’” Daniel repeated. “Not me—”
“You…” Richard said with a gasp.
Not thrill. Risk.
The thrill of finding another butcher. Not a blade in truth, just a hand holding the knife. A killer outsmarted. Knife spun in his hand, held to his own rules.
“You, Richard. I choose you.”
Hensley flinched again at the words. Struck. Understanding cascaded against him. Hensley staggered backward. Deflated, he fell against the bed frame.He stared transfixed at the kitchen knife in his hand.
“Me?”
Shadow engulfed the man, broken, defeated. He glanced at the teenager to his right and slipped the knife between the black plastic zip tie and flicked the blade. Her arms fell free, and she gaped, rubbed her wrists, and crawled on shaking limbs to her father. Richard turned and cut the tie that bound Sarah, and she bundled herself around her daughter, her husband.
Over the shoulders of his wife and daughter, Daniel stared at Richard. The revelation had hollowed him out. Eyes darkened as his mind fled elsewhere, staring at his reflection in the blade.
“Help me,” Daniel said, gesturing to the restraints around his ankles.
With Sarah’s help, he tilted back off the front legs. Lilly slipped the zip-ties down off the wood.
“Go. Go!”
With his wife and daughter safely sprinting down the hall behind him, Daniel slowly paced around the man slumped on the floor. Richard sat against the bedframe, legs jutting out. Still, he glared at the knife.
Daniel circled, aware of the man’s reach if Richard turned on him. As soon as he had drawn close enough to the bed, Kessler lunged for his phone and the gun. The gun shook in his hands as he tried to keep it aimed at Richard with one hand, while dialing emergency services with the other.
“It’s not even loaded,” Hensley said without looking up. “I missed it. I saw one thing, but not the other.”
“You didn’t play his game.”
Richard’s head snapped up, carved with disgusted anger. “And I got them all killed!” Spit flew from his mouth, lips disappearing in an agonized frown.
“No one’s ever not chosen before.” Daniel hoped his tone sounded uplifting and encouraging. “Anger blinded them. Or–or vengeance. Easy targets with tunnel vision. But you? He couldn’t get you to see things his way. You broke the game.”
Richard snorted a scoff–a half-convinced, non-committal sound. His arm dropped to his lap, and his eyes lost their focus. By then, a tinny voice sounded from the phone in Daniel’s hand. A 9-1-1 operator asked questions next to Daniel’s leg, where his arm hung limp.
“Just imagine,” Daniel said as he brought the flip phone to his ear.
Richard’s vacant expression twitched, a smirk turning at one corner of his lips.
“Me… You… ‘Fuck you, Johnny! I choose you! Someone in this room? How about you!’”
Richard’s face turned in surprise, and he brought a hand to his chest in mock alarm.
“‘Me? Why…’” His face turned chin dipping to his chest, a dark smile spreading. “‘Why Richard, how clever of you. I never said who did I?’” he said with Johnny’s teasing singsong voice. “‘I would have been content if you had chosen yourself–such a noble thing, if not a little pathetic given the family you’d be dying for. No doubt, they think they deserve to live instead of you!’ He’d laugh that laugh, wouldn’t he?” Richard asked, breaking the scene playing out so vividly in his mind. He paused in thought, then broke out in a peel of laughter so similar to Johnny Marks’s that it made the hairs on Daniel’s arms rise.
“Just imagine. Me. ‘Me. So brilliant, Richard.’”
The choice.
Richard brought the knife to his neck.
* * *
