The Jodi Picoult Collection #3 Read online

  This being a Wednesday, he was at the Golden Dragon, waiting for his take-out order to be filled. He watched May ferry it into the kitchen (where on earth did someone buy a wok that big, he always wondered) and turned his attention to the television over the bar, where the Sox game was just beginning. A woman was sitting alone, tearing a fringe around the edge of a cocktail napkin as she waited for the bartender to bring her her drink.

  She had her back to him, but Patrick was a detective, and there were certain things he could figure out just from this side of her. Like the fact that she had a great ass, for one, and that her hair needed to be taken out of that librarian’s bun so that it could wave around her shoulders. He watched the bartender (a Korean named Spike, which always struck Patrick as funny after the first Tsingtao) opening up a bottle of pinot noir, and he filed away this information, too: she was classy. Nothing with a little paper umbrella in it, not for her.

  He sidled up behind the woman and handed Spike a twenty. “My treat,” Patrick said.

  She turned, and for a fraction of a second, Patrick stood rooted to the spot, wondering how this mystery woman could possibly have Judge Cormier’s face.

  It reminded Patrick of being in high school and seeing a friend’s mom from a distance across a parking lot and automatically checking her out as a Potential Hot Babe until he realized who it actually was. The judge plucked the twenty-dollar bill out of Spike’s hand and gave it back to Patrick. “You can’t buy me a drink,” she said, and she pulled some cash out of her pocketbook and handed it to the bartender.

  Patrick sat down on the stool beside her. “Well, then,” he said. “You can buy me one.”

  “I don’t think so.” She glanced around the restaurant. “I really don’t think we ought to be seen talking.”

  “The only witnesses are the koi in the pond by the cash register. I think you’re safe,” Patrick said. “Besides, we’re just talking. We’re not talking about the case. You do still remember how to make conversation outside a courtroom, don’t you?”

  She picked up her glass of wine. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  Patrick lowered his voice. “I’m running a drug bust on the Chinese mafia. They import raw opium in the sugar packets.”

  Her eyes widened. “Honestly?”

  “No. And would I tell you if it were true?” He smiled. “I’m just waiting for my take-out order. What about you?”

  “I’m waiting for someone.”

  He didn’t realize, until she’d said it, that he’d been enjoying her company. He got a kick out of flustering her, which, truthfully, wasn’t really all that hard. Judge Cormier reminded him of the Great and Powerful Oz: all bluster and bells and whistles, but when you pulled back the curtain, she was just an ordinary woman.

  Who happened to have a great ass.

  He felt heat rise to his face. “Happy family,” Patrick said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what I ordered. I was just trying to help you out with that casual conversation thing again.”

  “You only got one dish? No one goes to a Chinese restaurant and only gets one dish.”

  “Well, not all of us have growing kids at home.”

  She traced the lip of her wineglass with one finger. “You don’t have any?”

  “Never married.”

  “Why not?”

  Patrick shook his head, smiling faintly. “I’m not getting into that.”

  “Boy,” the judge said. “She must have done a job on you.”

  His jaw dropped open. Was he really that easy to read?

  “Guess you haven’t cornered the market on those amazing detective skills,” she said, laughing. “Except we call it women’s intuition.”

  “Yeah, that’ll get you your gold shield in no time.” He glanced at her ringless hand. “Why aren’t you married?”

  The judge repeated his own answer. “I’m not getting into that.”

  She sipped her wine in silence for a moment, and Patrick tapped his fingers on the wood of the bar. “She was already married,” he admitted.

  The judge set her glass down, empty. “So was he,” she confessed, and when Patrick turned to her, she looked him right in the eye.

  Hers were the pale gray that made you think of nightfall and silver bullets and the edge of winter. The color that filled the sky before it was torn in half by lightning.

  Patrick had never noticed this before, and suddenly he realized why. “You’re not wearing glasses.”

  “I sure am glad to know Sterling’s got someone as sharp as you protecting and serving them.”

  “You usually wear glasses.”

  “Only when I’m working. I need them to read.”

  And when I usually see you, you’re working.

  That was why he hadn’t noticed before that Alex Cormier was attractive: before this, when they crossed paths, she was in full buttoned-up judge mode. She had not been curled over the bar like a hothouse flower. She had not been quite so . . . human.

  “Alex!” The voice came from behind them. The man was spiffy, in a good suit and wingtips, with just enough gray hair at his temples to look distinguished. He had lawyer written all over him. He was no doubt rich and divorced; the kind of guy who would sit up at night and talk about penal code before making love; the kind of guy who slept on his side of the bed instead of with his arms wrapped so tight around her that even after falling asleep, they stayed tangled.

  Jesus Christ, Patrick thought, looking down at the ground. Where did that come from?

  What did he care who Alex Cormier dated, even if the guy was practically old enough to be her father?

  “Whit,” she said, “I’m so glad you could come.” She kissed him on the cheek and then, still holding his hand, turned to Patrick. “Whit, this is Detective Patrick Ducharme. Patrick, Whit Hobart.”

  The man had a good handshake, which only pissed Patrick off even more. Patrick waited to see what else the judge was going to say about him by way of introduction. But then, what options did she have? Patrick wasn’t an old friend. He wasn’t someone she’d met sitting at the bar. She couldn’t even say that they were both involved with the Houghton trial, because in that case, he shouldn’t have been talking to her.

  Which, Patrick realized, is what she’d been trying to tell him all along.

  May appeared from the kitchen, holding a paper bag folded and neatly stapled. “Here you go, Pat,” she said. “We see you next week, okay?”

  He could feel the judge staring. “Happy family,” she said, offering a consolation prize, the smallest of smiles.

  “Nice seeing you, Your Honor,” Patrick said politely. He threw the door of the restaurant open so hard that it banged on its hinges against the outside wall. He was halfway to his car when he realized he wasn’t even really hungry anymore.

  * * *

  The lead story on the local news at 11:00 p.m. was the hearing at the superior court to get Judge Cormier removed from the case. Jordan and Selena sat in bed in the dark, each with a bowl of cereal balanced on their stomachs, watching the tearful mother of a paraplegic girl cry into the television camera. “No one’s speaking for our children,” she said. “If this case gets messed up because of some legal snafu . . . well, they aren’t strong enough to go through it twice.”

  “Neither’s Peter,” Jordan pointed out.

  Selena put down her spoon. “Cormier’s gonna sit on that case if she has to crawl her way to the bench.”

  “Well, I can’t very well get someone to gilhooly her kneecaps, can I?”

  “Let’s look at the bright side,” Selena said. “Nothing in Josie’s statement can hurt Peter.”

  “My God, you’re right.” Jordan sat up so quickly that he sloshed milk onto the quilt. He set his bowl on the nightstand. “It’s brilliant.”

  “What is?”

  “Diana’s not calling Josie as a witness for the prosecution, because she’s got nothing they can use. But there’s nothing to stop me from calling