Free A Plague of Secrets by John Lescroart Page B

why I kept him on and wouldn’t let go of the place.”
    “Why wouldn’t you? If you didn’t need the money, and I presume you didn’t.”
    “No. It wasn’t the money.” She hesitated, then finally came out with it. “But the shop was my own. It made me feel like I was contributing. I just couldn’t ever convince myself that there was a good enough reason to give it up.” She let out a breath of pent-up frustration. “Anyway, Harlen told me you could be there with me if the police want to talk to me again, just to make sure I don’t say something wrong.”
    “I could do that,” Hardy said, “and of course I will do that.” He leaned forward in his chair and leveled his gaze at her. “But you and I both know you don’t need a lawyer to keep the police from asking you about the hijinks of you and your friends in college. And practically speaking, no one’s really going to think you were skimming from Dylan’s dope business. If anything, people will feel sorry for you that he was abusing your confidence the way he was.”
    “So you’re asking why I told Harlen I needed a lawyer.”
    “Never that,” Hardy said with a small smile. “Everybody needs a lawyer all the time. That’s my motto. But in this case, from what you’ve told me, maybe not so much.”
    “You don’t think I’m telling you the truth,” she said.
    “It’s not what you’ve said. Maybe it’s what you haven’t.” He pointed down at her hands and added gently, “That’s a fragile glass. If you squeeze it any harder, I’ve got to warn you, it’s going to break.”
    For a long moment, her eyes glazed over and she sat utterly still. Finally, a small tremor passed through her body, she blinked, and a tear spilled onto her cheek. “Dylan called me the night before and said he had to see me first thing the next morning. That it was an emergency. So I went down there.”
    “You mean Saturday morning?”
    “Yes.” She closed both eyes, trying to regain her composure. “I went into the alley and saw him. He was already dead.” Meeting Hardy’s eyes, she went on in a rush. “I didn’t know what I should do, other than I knew I didn’t want to be there. I got back in the car and left. I mean, there was nothing I could do for Dylan. That was obvious. But then, when the police came to question me at my house, I told them I’d been at Mass, which is where I did go afterward, except I was very late, after communion, and somebody might remember that. And then I thought, what if somebody had seen me and they described me or my car to the police?”
    Hardy let her sit with her words for a moment. Then, “What was the emergency?”
    “He didn’t say. Just that he had to see me.”
    “In person?”
    “I know. I didn’t know what to do with that-it didn’t seem to make much sense-but it was the first time he’d ever called with a message like that, and I thought I ought to go.”
    Hardy placed his wineglass onto the small table in front of him. Suddenly things had turned serious. She had lied to the police about her alibi for the time of a murder. Her reason for wanting him to represent her in the event of another interrogation was now not only rational but powerful. Given a lack of other quality suspects, that fact alone might be enough to give her prominence in their investigation.
    Whether or not she was politically connected.
    “Plus,” she went on.
    He waited.
    “If they check his phone records-and I guess they do that, don’t they?-they’re going to find out he called me, and they’ll want to know about that, won’t they?”
    Hardy shrugged. “He managed your store. That wouldn’t necessarily be incriminating.” He sat back again. “How about this? When Bracco calls again, if he does, let me know right away and we’ll see what he wants to talk about and then decide if we’d be well served by telling him you were there. If not, we won’t. How’s that sound?”
    She attempted a shaky smile. “A little scary,