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“Hang on,” Jack heard her say, pleading. “Just hang on, Grace.”
Epilogue
Jack was at Andie’s side late into the night, seated and waiting outside the surgical suite at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Agent Kennedy’s husband was with them, and they had the added comfort of knowing that there was no better place for a gunshot victim to land than the Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson. Andie’s partner had presented with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg, and the surgery went well. “She’ll be on crutches for a while,” the surgeon told them, “but she’ll be fine.”
“Fine” was not the prognosis for Imani.
Her initial social media strategy was predictable: Imani was a hero who had convinced Amongus Sicario to spare Jack’s life. That narrative was actually gaining traction for a day or two—until the first victim came forward. A twenty-eight-year-old woman from Australia felt that she owed it to her two daughters to expose the abuse she had suffered as a sixteen-year-old girl on Vladimir Kava’s superyacht, at the hands of Shaky Nichols. Imani’s messaging strategy quickly pivoted from hero to “victim,” claiming that the pop star knew nothing about her husband’s sex crimes. Naturally, the media swarmed around Jack for information.
“Say one word about me, and I’ll have you disbarred,” Imani warned him. Jack had refused to sign Imani’s NDA as part of the engagement, so a bar complaint or defamation suit were the only threats she could make to silence her former attorney. Bar rules are not a muzzle, however, and truth is a defense to any defamation suit. Jack could have jumped into the national chatter with both feet, but he chose not to. He simply gave up the phone number for Tyler McCormick’s cousin.
“Call him,” he told the media. “And be sure to taste the conch fritters.”
Imani’s “victim” messaging quickly backfired. Fans and followers peeled away by the millions. Imani’s “go pirate” campaign had a new twist: “Cancel Imani.”
Whether she would face criminal charges was unclear. Double jeopardy prevented the state attorney from bringing charges against Imani for any involvement in the murder of Tyler McCormick, even if his status as blackmailer was a previously unknown fact. Charges for covering up the sex crimes of her husband were part of the national chatter, but even the state attorney had to admit that it might be too late to bring those charges under the statute of limitations. It left many people feeling unsatisfied.
It was early December, following what Righley decided would be an annual holiday cookie-baking party at her house. Jack and Andie were in their kitchen, cleaning up what looked like the aftermath ofCupcake Wars: Nuclear Edition. Jack wasn’t sure what had triggered it, but Andie suddenly wanted to sort out how the dust had settled.
“So, she gets away with it?” said Andie.
“Depends on what you mean by ‘it,’” said Jack.
“Having threesomes with her husband and underage girls. Conspiring to murder the blackmailer who threatened to expose their crime. And then mutilating the corpse to make it look like the work of a deranged pirate killer.”
“The only thing we know for certain is that Imani refused to pay a blackmailer who threatened to make it public that her husband had sex with underage girls. Once she knew, she should have done something about it. Instead, she helped her husband hide his crimes.”
Andie squeezed the last of the dishwasher soap into the dispenser. “That’s it? In your mind she’s guilty of being a pick-me girl?”
“No. A pick-me girl throws other women under the bus to curry favor with men. Covering up your husband’s sexual violation of underage girls is an actual crime.”
“Conspiracy to commit murder is also an actual crime.”
“If there’s evidence to provide it beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“How big does the mountain of evidence need to be, Jack?”
“Kava’s hit man killed Tyler McCormick because he wasn’t just blackmailing Shaky and Imani, but Vladimir Kava, as well. He left it to Shaky to dispose of the body. Shaky was probably in on the murder before it happened. Maybe, after the fact, Imani was actually happy her blackmailer was dead. But as awful as Imani’s conduct was, I’ve seen no evidence that she actually conspired and agreedin advancethat Tyler McCormick should be strangled to death.”
“Oh my God, Jack. This only convinces me more: my solution is the only solution.”
She was referring to the “solution” that she had come up with on her own, and that she couldn’t discuss with Jack until the conflict between his trial and her investigation abated. It seemed that time had arrived.
“What’s your solution?” asked Jack.
Andie paused, setting up her delivery, as if she were announcing this year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture.
“I want you to stop doing criminal defense work,” she said.
It sailed right over Jack’s head. “Huh?”
“Hear me out. Fighting crime is the essence of what I do as an FBI agent. I don’t have a choice about being averse to the criminal bar.”
“Criminaldefensebar,” said Jack, a distinction he’d drawn at least a thousand times in their marriage.
“Right. My point is, you do both criminal and civil cases. Only one of those is averse to law enforcement. The choice is obvious: stop doing criminal defense work.”
Jack was incredulous. “That’s your solution?”
