The Good Lie by A.R. Torre

CHAPTER 14

I sat at my round breakfast table and watched Clementine stretch out on the surface, her tail curling atop a spread of photos. Digging a spoon into a large jar of peanut butter, I withdrew a heap of the creamy mixture and reviewed the report on Natasha Kavin’s death.

Some family fates were cursed, others were orchestrated. The chances of Robert Kavin losing both a son and a wife reeked of suspicion, and I could see the evidence of it in these pages. Page after page of detailed notes from the detectives. Multiple interviews with Robert. A transfer of the wife’s file out of cold case and back into active.

Natasha Kavin had been pretty. Hot, actually. That’s how a man would describe her. Thin and blonde, with big, perky boobs that had to be fake, but who cared when they looked that good. My own fairly large breasts did a better job of making me look heavy than they did of arousing anyone.

I stuck the spoon back in the jar and set it to one side. Granted, Robert had seemed to enjoy them. I looked down and squeezed my elbows together, watching as my breasts plumped together nicely with a deep line of cleavage visible below the V-neck of my sweater.

Clem yawned and extended a paw, knocking a page to the floor. I reached down and retrieved it, then looked back at the file. Natasha Kavin had been shot in their home while Robert was out of town and Gabe was upstairs, sleeping. One gunshot wound at close range, in the chest. A maid had found the body the next morning. Ten-year-old Gabe was still in his room, the door locked from the outside.

The door locked from the outside.Someone had underlined that sentence twice and put the words Question Kavin beside it.

Valid,I thought. Who had a lock on the outside of a child’s room?

I leaned back against the wall and thought through it all. It was hard to connect the man in this file—mourning father and widower—to the one who had slid into my booth at the bar. Delivered jokes with a bashful smile. Pressed a kiss into my neck in the taxi. Pinned down my wrists and groaned into my ear when he moved on top of me. Snooped through my personal client files while cooking me breakfast. Brought me flowers and an apology and left a perfect gentleman.

There were certainly two sides to him. That of the single, romantic, and sexual male, and that of the hardened litigator—the one who stood in my office and wanted confidentiality, the one who opened John Abbott’s private file without hesitation, the one who had his son’s death details within easy reach.

Two sides didn’t mean he was manic. I had two sides—my home and my work. Most people do.

Clem purred for attention, and I ran my fingers across her exposed belly, parting the dark-black fur.

The file had a lengthy list of potential suspects in Natasha’s murder. Attorneys weren’t exactly the most popular kids at the lunch table, and a criminal defense lawyer caught heat on both sides. Suspects included criminals Robert hadn’t represented properly and those he’d argued against. I flipped through two pages of potential killers, most of whom had been vetted and discarded, but there were a few . . . My finger paused halfway down a list.

James Whittle. Talk about a blast from the past. James had been one of my first clients, back when I was in residency and working pro bono. He’d been a farm boy from . . . I closed my eyes, trying to remember fifteen years back. South Dakota? I couldn’t remember. I wasn’t advanced enough to have a specialty back then, and James had come in on court orders to work on his anger management. He hadn’t been an easy client, and I had been timid and unconfident—a horrible combination that had led to another more experienced staff member taking over.

Even now, my cheeks burned at how he had rested his hands on top of his bald head and smirked at me, his lips curling upward beneath a wild red beard. He’d ignored half my questions as he had reclined back in the plastic chair, his eyes journeying over me in a lewd way that I hadn’t needed a degree to understand.

I moved my finger to uncover the words next to his name. No alibi. Have not been able to verify current whereabouts.

It didn’t mean anything. Half the names on this list had similar notes. I kept going, pushing the memory of James out of my head and scanning down the rest of the list. No other names were familiar.

On the night his wife died, Robert was in San Francisco. There was a hotel bill in his name, along with a credit card receipt showing a dinner charge at a steak house. One bone-in filet. One bottle of wine. Chocolate mousse. Pricey. He was also an exact twenty-percent tipper, down to the penny.

There was also a handful of phone records and interview logs, all citing file numbers and names that weren’t included. I flipped to the end of the folder and sighed, setting it to the side and picking the jar of peanut butter back up.

So, Robert Kavin meets Natasha. Graduates from law school. Practices criminal law for three years. She gets pregnant. Has a child—Gabe. When Gabe is ten, Natasha is murdered. Case goes unsolved. Seven years pass, and Gabe is kidnapped, then killed. Nine months pass, and Robert sleeps with me, then shows up in my home, asking me to do a psychological profile on his son’s killer.

I took another spoonful of peanut butter and let my mind float over the timeline. Before me was the rest of the file, the thick wedge dedicated to Gabe Kavin’s kidnapping and death. I didn’t have the mental fortitude to go through it tonight. I needed junk television and a long soak in a scalding-hot bath, with an extra scoop of Epsom salts dropped in.

Pushing to my feet, I twisted the lid onto the jar and returned it to the cabinet. Clem went for my sticky spoon, and I batted her away. “Stop it. Back to the floor.” I took the spoon to the sink and was washing it off when I heard the faint chime of my cell phone. Returning to the table, I opened the text message from Jacob. The receptionist rarely contacted me outside office hours, so I steeled myself, expecting a note that he wouldn’t be able to work in the morning.

Did u see this?

The note was followed by a link to a news article. I tapped on it, opening the page.

BLOODY HEART SUSPECT LAWYERS UP

Randall Thompson’s legal woes have been solved, and the source may surprise you. The man arrested for six murders in the Los Angeles area is now represented by Robert Kavin, criminal litigator and . . . wait for it . . . the father of the Bloody Heart Killer’s sixth victim, Gabe Kavin.

Robert Kavin’s courtroom record is impressive, as are his legal fees. So, how is this high school teacher able to afford his $400 hourly rate? He can’t, which is why Robert Kavin is representing him pro bono.

If you’re scratching your head over this arrangement, you aren’t alone. We tracked down the high-powered attorney to get some answers.

“I’m representing Randall because I believe in his innocence,” Kavin said. “Trust me when I say that I want justice for my son’s death. Justice will not be served if an innocent man serves time for this crime.”

What in all holy . . . I scrolled back up to the top of the article and read it again, then opened a fresh browser window and did a search for Randall Thompson’s attorney, hoping the first article was a spoof.

It wasn’t. There were dozens of articles, all posted within the last couple of hours. Robert was representing Thompson. My psychological profile . . . it would be used by the defense, not the prosecution.

I turned the information over, examining it from all sides. There was no logical reason for Robert to protect the man who’d killed his son. Not to mention, this would turn into a giant legal tangle with mistrial and appeal stamped all over it.

I looked at the file, the open folder mocking me from its innocent place on the table, Gabe Kavin’s grisly details in reach.

What was his father’s game, and why was he pulling me into it?