Inevitable Discovery Read online

  She searched the desk for a bell to ring or a button to push to announce her arrival but saw nothing. She craned her neck in both directions. The halls were dimly lit and silent.

  Patience was never her strong suit—a fact that was doubly true before sunrise. She waited another thirty seconds, then darted behind the desk and through the open door set in the wall. The smell of coffee led her to a cramped kitchenette with a refrigerator, a small stove and microwave, and a wood laminate table shoved up against one wall. A tall red-haired guy who looked as tired as she felt was pouring coffee from a glass pot into a “World’s Best Dad” mug.

  She knocked on the doorframe. “Hi.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”

  “Sorry,” she said in a voice that didn’t carry so much as a hint of apology. “There’s nobody out front. I really need to spring my client and get back home before my twins wake up.” She nodded at the mug in his hand. “You know how it is.”

  He gave her a quizzical look, then glanced down at the lettering on his mug. “Oh. Nope. Can’t say that I do. This is just some random mug from the cabinet.”

  Crap.

  “Oh. Regardless, my legal intern was picked up at the protest earlier. I need to speak to the arresting officer.”

  The guy rubbed his temple. “We have a busload of protestors. And two officers total to process them. Your intern probably hasn’t been charged with anything. It’s just taking some time to get through everyone.”

  “You can’t detain citizens indefinitely without charging them. You know that right?” She eyed him coldly.

  He raised the coffee to his lips and took a sip, then grimaced. “Ugh. Burnt. So, you a lawyer?”

  “I am.” She twitched her lips. The attempt to connect parent-to-parent had failed, but maybe she could reach him through an actual shared interest. “A dash of cinnamon—or, even better, cardamon, if you have it—will help with the burnt taste.”

  He showed the first signs of life. “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yep.”

  He rummaged in the cabinet over the microwave and dug out a jar of cinnamon. He shook it over the mug and stirred it into his coffee. She waited while he took another appraising sip.

  “Not bad.” He nodded. “So, this client of yours, what’s her name? Maybe I can light a fire under Officer Diamond.”

  She gave him her warmest smile. “I’d appreciate anything you could do. Her name is Jordana Morgan. But how do you know which of the two officers is processing her?”

  “Diamond took the females. Officer Willard is handling the males. Follow me,” he waved a hand and headed toward the door as he explained.

  “So, how many protestors did you say they picked up?”

  “More than thirty. They were blocking the travel lane. Right around a blind corner, after dark. Those dang kids are lucky nobody got hit by a car.” He shook his head.

  She smiled noncommittally. She unavoidably had to talk to these people to get Jordana out of here, but the less she said, the better.

  Officer Not-A-Dad led her to a bland conference room and told her to take a seat. She scrolled through her phone answering emails until the door opened and a pale, silent Jordana walked into the room with a motherly looking police officer gripping her arm.

  Sasha rushed around the table and gave Jordana a hug. Then she pulled back and studied her tear-streaked face. However bad her night had been, it was over now.

  “You her mom?” Officer Diamond asked, looking Sasha up and down. She took in the charcoal gray suit, the glasses, and the briefcase.

  “No, I’m her lawyer. And her friend.”

  “Hmm. Well, she’s free to go. You can pick up her personal effects at the front desk on your way out.”

  Jordana wilted. Whether from relief or exhaustion, Sasha couldn’t tell.

  “She hasn’t been charged with anything?”

  “Citation for impeding the flow of traffic.”

  Sasha turned to Jordana. “How long have you been here?”

  “I dunno. I don’t even know what time it is. It was before midnight when they picked us up. I know that.”

  “You’ve kept these college students here for hours in the middle of the night to issue citations?”

  “Look, Ms …”

  “McCandless-Connelly.”

  Diamond set her mouth in a hard line. Her voice was weary. “Right. Look, we’re a small PD. We’re processing them as fast as we can. We’re supposed to go in alphabetical order, but we bumped Ms. Morgan here to the front as a courtesy. But I’m on the ‘F’s, so if you want me to put her back in line, I’ll be happy to.”

  Jordana tugged on Sasha’s sleeve. “Please,” she whimpered.

  Sasha held the officer’s eyes for a long moment before relenting. “Good night, Officer Diamond.”

  “Ms. McCandless-Connelly.” The woman nodded, then shifted her gaze to Jordana. “And, you, missy, stay out of the roadway while you’re exercising your First Amendment rights.”

  “Or you could stop shooting motorists and we won’t need—”

  Glad as Sasha was to see a spark of life in her intern, this was neither the time nor the place. She put a hand on the small of Jordana’s back, whispered, “Zip it,” in her ear, and piloted her past the police officer and out into the hall.

  At the front desk, Jordana signed for her phone and student ID while Sasha asked her new friend for the name of the nearest open coffee shop.

  As they exited the building, a stocky man on his way into the station held the door for them. Sasha noted his salt-and-pepper hair, expensive pinstripe suit, and cashmere scarf and gave him a friendly nod.

  “Looks like at least one of your friends also has a lawyer on speed dial,” she observed to Jordana.

  The girl mumbled an indecipherable response as she trudged out into the cold night, shivering in a short-sleeved t-shirt.

  Sasha stifled her urge to comment on the importance of weather-appropriate clothing and put her arm around Jordana’s shoulders. “Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee.”

  3

  Landon turned and watched the petite brunette in the ridiculous boots guide a purple-haired girl toward a gray station wagon.

  He waited until the headlights flared to life, then turned away.

  “Hiya, Paul.”

  “Mr. Lewis, sir.” The officer behind the desk straightened his posture and raised a ‘World’s Best Dad’ mug in salute. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

  “Your coffee sucks.”

  “That it does. But turns out if you sprinkle some cinnamon in it, it’s drinkable.”

  “Cinnamon, eh? The sun’s not even up yet and I’ve already learned something new today.”

  “You and me both. That lady lawyer told me.” He jerked his chin toward the parking lot.

  “One of the protesters called a lawyer? Huh. You catch a name?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  Kara Diamond stuck her head through the doorway. “McCandless-Connelly. She said the girl works for her. The girl’s name is Morgan—Jordana Morgan.”

  Landon stroked his chin and thought. “This bears watching.”

  “Sir?”

  Paul tented his eyebrows, questioning.

  “Talking to myself.”

  The lawyer and her employee did bear watching, but he’d handle it privately.

  “Oh, okay. Right. Here’s the list of protestors.” Paul handed over a single sheet, still warm from the printer.

  Landon flicked his gaze down the page, skimming the names. “All students at the university?”

  “Yep.”

  “What about the information on the others?”

  The police officer slid a sealed manila envelope across the countertop. Landon folded it lengthwise and tucked it into his chest pocket. “Great, thanks.”

  Kara jutted her chin toward his pocket. “Those guys, the ones who went to PPC, what did they do?”

  He smiled. “Nothing. Yet.”


  The officers shot him a pair of confused frowns, but he didn’t elaborate. It was true that he needed the cooperation of local law enforcement to run his beta tests, but the fewer details he shared with the testers, the better. The Predictive and Preventive Crime Program was continually being refined, tweaked, and improved. Until he had a program he was ready to go public with, there was no upside in talking about it.

  “But—”

  “Thanks for this.” He tapped his chest and cut off the officer before she could press him.

  As he turned to leave, a door at the far left end of the hallway swung open, and a short, balding officer ushered a tall, broad-shouldered teenager through the doorway. He loped more than walked, slouching, with his hands jammed into the pockets of his gray hooded sweatshirt.

  Josh.

  Landon’s heart thumped against his ribcage and his throat closed.

  A moment later, the kid glanced in his direction. His face was all wrong. The eyes were close-set, not wide. The lips were full, not thin. There was no dimple in his chin.

  Not Josh.

  Of course it was not Josh. His brain wasted no time berating him for the mistake. Josh has been dead for twelve years. If he were alive, he’d be a man in his thirties, not a scruffy college kid out protesting in the middle of the night. He’d probably have a job, a spouse, maybe even a child—

  Landon shook his head to stop the train of thought before it ran him over and left him plastered all over the tracks.

  The officer nodded as he escorted Not Josh to the front desk to gather his personal belongings. Landon swallowed hard and nodded back. He hurried out of the building and into the whipping wind on legs that trembled, shook, and threatened to give out completely.

  He made it back to his sedan on autopilot and slid into the driver’s seat. He gripped the leather-covered steering wheel, pressed his head back against the headrest, and squeezed his eyes shut.

  Josh.

  He’d lived with the loss of Josh for a dozen years and the enormity of the hole in his life had never, not for a moment, lessened. The death of his only child had cleaved his life into two: Before and After. And every good thing in the After—every holiday, every sunset, every accolade—was tinged with the pain of Josh not being there.

  When Deanne finally left him, after all the counseling and the fighting and the trial separations, she’d told him she simply couldn’t love two ghosts. But Landon couldn’t find a way to let go—not of Josh, and not of the way he’d been ripped from their lives.

  All that mattered, the only thing that mattered now, was that he devote his remaining days on the earth to his work. Deanne thought he was motivated by their loss, by his own grief. But it was more than that.

  What he wanted, more than anything, was to spare even one other family from that midnight knock on the door. Spare them from seeing two grave-faced police officers on the doorstep. Spare them from hearing the words “Your son’s been shot. I’m sorry, sir. He didn’t make it.” And spare them from the breathless spiral into endless darkness that would follow.

  He sat in the car, eyes closed, hands clenched like claws around the steering wheel, for a long time until his breathing returned to normal and his nausea ebbed. Then he removed the sealed envelope from his breast pocket and slit it open with his fingernail.

  He spread the sheet out flat over the steering wheel and studied the list of names, backgrounds, and arrest records. His mind whirred as he digested the information, calculated threat ratings, and churned out hypotheses and recommended outcomes.

  The computer could do it faster. But he assessed risk more accurately than Cesare did. The artificial intelligence program was, in many ways, a child—learning, adapting, growing. In contrast, Landon had years of experience to draw upon. One day very soon, though, Cesare would be able to make the judgments more quickly and more accurately than Landon, or any police officer, psychologist, social worker, or judge could ever hope to. And that was the day Landon would finally be able to honor Josh’s memory, to say his murder hadn’t been for nothing.

  He shoved the list back into the envelope and started his engine. It was almost daybreak. He’d drive straight to the office and feed the reports into Cesare to see what it spit out.

  4

  By the time Sasha pulled into the parking lot at Jordana’s campus apartment building, the sun was up. She glanced over at her passenger. The adrenaline had worn off, and Jordana was dozing, curled up with her face partially covered by her jacket hood, the way Java covered his nose with his tail when he slept.

  She looked so peaceful that Sasha hated to wake her. Leaving aside the question of how the girl had even managed to fall asleep with several mugs full of caffeine and the sugar bomb of not one, but two, glazed doughnuts coursing through her bloodstream, she had no choice. She needed to get back home, shower, have breakfast with the twins and Connelly and get into the office. No run today. And she’d have to reschedule her Krav Maga workout for lunchtime.

  But she was glad Jordana had trusted her enough to call her.

  She killed the engine and gave Jordana’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Hey, wake up. We’re here.”

  The teenager mumbled and shifted but didn’t open her eyes.

  She shook her again, less gently this time. “Jordana.”

  Jordana groaned and turned toward her, bleary-eyed. “Huh?”

  “We’re at your apartment. I have to get home and get ready for work.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Thanks for breakfast,” she mumbled as she shoved her feet back into her shoes.

  “My pleasure.”

  She scrubbed her face with her hands. “And thanks for springing me from jail.”

  She smiled. “Any time.”

  “Are you sure they’re not going to press charges?”

  “I’d be surprised. You might get a summary citation in the mail. If you do, bring it into the office, and we’ll take care of it.”

  Jordana’s eyes filled with tears. Sasha blinked. Jordana wasn’t a crier, she never had been. She had a tough exterior, much like Sasha’s own. But unlike Sasha, the younger woman had never revealed a gooey marshmallow core.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  Jordana nodded and wiped the tears from her face with an angry motion. “Yeah. I’m just worried about Charlie—Professor Robinson.”

  “Who’s Professor Robinson?” Sasha wrinkled her forehead. Where was this coming from?

  “He’s my Grassroots Organizing prof. He didn’t organize the protest or anything, but he knew about it. The leaders invited him to join us, and he did.”

  “Okay?”

  “Professor Robinson and a couple other people got picked up, too, but they weren’t on the bus with us, and nobody saw them at the station.”

  She frowned. “Did you see him get taken into custody?”

  Jordana sniffled. “Yeah. They grabbed him first. This black van came careening around the corner, with no lights on. People screamed and dived out of the way. At first, I thought someone was driving into the crowd, you know, like happens sometimes?”

  “But that’s not what happened?”

  “No. The van stopped and all these guys jumped out. All dressed in black, head to toe, with big guns. They were shouting orders, but it was chaos. I don’t know what they were saying. I don’t think anybody knew. Two of them went straight for Professor Robinson and grabbed him under his arms. They dragged him into the van with a few other people. All guys, nobody I knew well.”

  Sasha watched her face contort with anguish at the memory. After a moment, she said in a soft voice, “Then what happened?”

  “We all kind of stood there in shock. Then Letitia—she’s one of the organizers of Justice for Vaughn—ran up to the van and pounded on the window. She was screaming.” Jordana’s voice shook, and she paused. When she went on her voice was firmer. “They lowered the passenger window and stuck a gun out. Sasha, they put it right into her chest and ordered her to back up. So she did. Then the van sped off. I
t couldn’t have been a minute later when the uniformed police showed up with the school bus.”

  Sasha chewed on the inside of her lip. It sounded sketchy, no doubt. But Jordana had been through enough for one sleepless night. And it was entirely possible that her professor was home in bed, sound asleep by now.

  She reached over and rubbed the younger woman’s upper arm. “Do you have class with him today?”

  “No. But I know he has office hours from ten until noon.”

  “Okay. Go get a few hours’ sleep. Check his office at ten. If he’s not there, text me, and I’ll make some calls.”

  Jordana’s tense face crumpled with relief. “Thank you.”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t know how I can ever repay you. I have no clue what I would have done if—”

  “Hey. We’re friends. I would have done the same for Naya, or Will, or Caroline.”

  Jordana giggled. “Could you imagine Caroline at a protest?”

  Sasha smirked. Their office administrator’s polished, high-brow demeanor was genuine. But Sasha knew the woman had another side.

  “Adults are more complex than you give us credit for.”

  Jordana dismissed the notion with an eye roll and a wave of the hand, zipped her jacket up to her chin, and yanked open the car door. Sasha watched her trudge up the wide stone steps to her apartment building and wave her ID in front of the card reader. Once she was inside the glassed-in entryway, Sasha reversed out of the spot and followed the one-way traffic circle through the heart of campus.

  It was nearly deserted at this hour. Most of the buildings were still dark and silent. The athletic field was empty. Only the glass library center showed signs of life. Warm lamplight glowed from within, and a row of bicycles stood sentinel in the bike rack in front of the building.

  As she passed the entrance at a crawl, too conscious of her sleep deprivation to risk violating the ten-mile-per-hour posted speed, a young guy pushed open the library door and bounded down the stairs toward the bikes.

  She slammed on the brakes and stared. Her throat threatened to close, and her brain failed to send the message to her lungs to fill with air. After a breathless moment, she gasped. Patrick?