Bree was at the forefront of Tess’s thoughts. She didn’t think there was any diversion that would easily prevent that—but her heart wasn’t ready to sort out all she was feeling about Bree. Any decision she made would be profound, and it would have to wait until she was no longer a danger to Bree’s safety.
In the meantime, maybe she could get Bree off her mind if she buried herself in paperwork. She first wanted to look at those calendars from around the time of her shooting. Tesseasily found her own copy of the calendar file that she’d received just before the shooting and printed it. In her four-month absence afterward, it didn’t look like she’d received the calendar assignments, so she printed those from the thumb drive.
It appeared that the cases that had been planned for her courtroom had been reassigned to Alan Larkin and Simon Huffington. A big drug dealing case that she’d been preparing to hear just before the shooting had been reassigned to Alan, which made sense since he oversaw many criminal cases. On closer examination, Tess saw that Eric Smith had been assigned to take the case that Alan’s reassignment to her drug case had left open, rather than Eric just receiving the drug case himself, although he was qualified to handle it too. Tess wrote herself a note to inquire.
There had undoubtedly been some last-minute shuffling in the chaos that her absence had created. Tess continued to scroll through the calendars on the thumb drive, but without the original randomly assigned case calendars to compare, it was impossible to identify changes. She yawned and stretched before she browsed through a few journal articles she’d flagged to read.
At seven o’clock, Tess decided it was time to throw in the towel. She wasn’t accomplishing much more here. She loaded some of the paperwork into her satchel with the aspiration that she might have better luck reading and absorbing what was in the journals and on the thumb drive calendars over the next two days at home. She wanted to stay busy. She still hadn’t sorted out all her feelings, but she knew Bree was capable of causing her pain. Deep pain. Tess reminded herself that there had been a reason she hadn’t put her heart at risk in the past.
When Tess arrived downstairs, she looked around for Bernard. He was always willing to escort her to her car if she was alone, and she’d seen him earlier today. She didn’t see him now and was about ready to head out on her own when Marnieappeared with her custodian cart and hurriedly approached her.
“Hey, Judge Fairchild. Are you looking for Bernard?”
“I was, but it looks like he’s not here.”
“He got a phone call saying his wife had been in a fender bender and was getting checked out at the emergency room—her neck hurt. He went to join her.”
“That’s a shame. I hope she’s okay.”
Marnie nodded. “You want me to walk you out? I’d be happy to.”
Tess shook her head. “Thanks, Marnie. I should be fine. You’d just have to walk back in by yourself, and I don’t want that. I’ll see you next week.” Tess headed out into the dark night alone.
Chapter Twenty-four
Tess moved from the building out toward the asphalt and noticed that the parking lot appeared mostly empty. The lights emitted halos of amber that illuminated the lot well enough for her to make out two other cars besides her own. Tess recognized one as Marnie’s, and she was fairly sure the other belonged to Mel, the other custodian.
She paused and listened for anything unusual before she initiated a cautious hike across the stretch to her car. Since her shooting, she’d rarely ventured out here alone when she stayed late and the courthouse had emptied. But it was Friday night, an added incentive for most courthouse employees to be gone. She could clearly hear the hum of tires as cars navigated the street adjacent to the courthouse, and the distant sound of pedestrian laughter floated across the lot.
It wasn’t until Tess was approaching her car that she heard rapid footsteps. She had her key fob in her hand and pushed the unlock button as she approached her driver’s side door.
She’d just placed her hand on the handle when she was grabbed from behind. She tried to jerk free and twist at the same time as she made a grab for her assailant. Her forward fall to the pavement was so jarring that she initially didn’t register that her hand felt like it was on fire, or that she held a ski mask in that hand. She expelled a groan as the air left her lungs with a whoosh, and she stared at the pavement.
Tess tried to stand, but her attacker attempted to kick her in the ribs. He stumbled and his connection mostly missed. Shegrabbed backward and caught a pants leg. Tess clutched the hem and held on as adrenaline fueled her fear. She was terrified that she’d lose her grip, and then she did.
Her attacker let out a low growl before he said, “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?”
His voice struck a memory. Bree had told her the man who had offered her the bag in the Maria’s Café parking lot had a deep, raspy voice with a Southern accent. That’s how she’d describe this voice.
Suddenly, the one thought that consumed her was Bree. The profound regret that she’d let Bree go. That she’d sent her away without facing how she really felt about Bree. Without finding out how Bree felt about her. Without discussing if there was some way they could try to figure out if they stood a chance. She tried not to focus on those things as she fought for what might even be her life. Someone had shot her a little over a year ago in this same parking lot. She tried to swing her arms and kick her legs as she attempted to recover enough breath to shout.
Suddenly, Tess heard the approaching sound of running feet, and then her assailant was pulled away from her and thrown on the ground too. She lay on her back and drew deep gasps of air into her lungs. As the man who’d saved her rushed over to her, the person who’d attacked her took off.
“It’s okay. He’s gone. I won’t let him come back.”
Tess met the man’s eyes. She realized he recognized her, just as she recognized him.
“We met at the grocery store—the roast beef sandwich,” he said.
Tess nodded her agreement.
“I’m Eddie Patoone. Are you hurt?”
She was very shaken up, but she managed to say, “I’m Tess Fairchild. A judge here. My hand hurts.”
“Where’s your phone? Sorry, but I don’t have one on me. Weneed to call 9-1-1.”
Tess crawled to her purse and pulled hers out. She dialed the number and managed to identify herself and tell the dispatcher what had happened. She was assured the police would arrive shortly, and she passed that information on to Eddie.
