And then he started kicking some serious ass in court.
He discovered he was a natural at the role, as talented at cross-examination as he had been at throwing men much bigger than he across a two-inch-thick mat. He was respected, liked as an attorney if you could believe that.
Then he had met Jennifer at a Bar function. She was vice president of development and marketing at Baldwin Enterprises. Dynamic in presence, she had the added skill of making whomever she was talking to feel important; their opinions were listened to if not necessarily followed. She was a beauty who had no need to rely solely on that asset.
When you got past the eye-catching looks, there was a lot more there. Or seemed to be. Jack would have been less than human had he not been attracted to her. And she had made it clear, early on, that the attraction was mutual. While being ostensibly impressed at his dedication in defending the rights of those accused of crimes in the Capital City, little by little Jennifer had convinced Jack that he had done his bit for the poor, dumb and unfortunate, and that maybe he should start thinking about himself and his future, and that maybe she wanted to be a part of that future. When he finally left PD, the U.S. attorney’s office had given him quite a send-off party, and good riddance. That should have told him then and there that there were a lot more of the poor, dumb and unfortunate who needed his help. He didn’t expect to ever top the thrill he had felt being a PD; he figured times like that came around once in life and then they were gone. It was time to move on; even little boys like Jack Graham had to grow up someday. Maybe it was just his time.
He turned off the TV, grabbed a bag of corn chips and went to his bedroom, stepping over the piles of dirty laundry strewn in front of the doorway. He couldn’t blame Jennifer for not liking his place; he was a slob. But what bothered him was the dead certainty that, even spotless, Jennifer would not consent to live here. For one thing it was in the wrong neighborhood; Capitol Hill to be sure, but not a gentrified part of Capitol Hill, actually not even close.
Then there was the size. Her townhouse must have run five thousand square feet, not counting the live-in maid’s quarters and the two-car garage that housed her Jag and brand new Range Rover, as if anybody living in D.C., with its traffic-strangled roads, needed a vehicle capable of driving up the vertical side of a twenty-thousand-foot-high mountain.
He had four rooms if you counted the bathroom. He reached his bedroom, stripped off his clothes and dropped into bed. Across the room, on a small plaque that had once hung in his office at work until he had grown embarrassed looking at it, was the announcement of his joining Patton, Shaw & Lord. PS&L was the Capital City’s number-one corporate firm. Legal caterer to hundreds of blue-chip companies, including his soon-to-be father-in-law’s, representing a multimillion-dollar account that he was credited with bringing to the firm and that, in turn, guaranteed him a partnership at the next review. Partnerships at Patton, Shaw were worth, on average, at least half a million dollars a year. That was tip money for the Baldwins, but then he wasn’t a Baldwin. At least not yet.
He pulled the blanket over him. The building’s insulation left a lot to be desired. He popped a couple of aspirin and washed them down with the rest of a Coke that was sitting on his nightstand, then looked around the cramped, messy bedroom. It reminded him of his room growing up. It was a warm, friendly memory. Homes should look lived in; they should always give way to the screams of kids as they dashed from room to room in search of new adventures, of fresh objects to break.
That was the other thing with Jennifer: she had made it clear that the sound of little feet was a distant project that was far from certain. Her career at her father’s company was first and foremost in her mind and heart — maybe more so, Jack felt, than he was.
He rolled over and tried to close his eyes. The wind pushed against the window and he glanced in that direction. He looked away, but then with a resigned air, his eyes drifted back over to the box.
It held part of his collection of old trophies and awards from high school and college. But those items were not the object of his focus. In the semidarkness he reached out a long arm for the framed photo, decided against it, and then changed his mind again.
He pulled it out. This had almost become a ritual. He never had to worry about his fiancée stumbling onto this particular possession of his because she absolutely refused to enter his bedroom for longer than a minute. Whenever they slid between the sheets it was either at her place, where Jack would lie on the bed staring up at the twelve-foot ceiling where a mural of ancient horsemen and young maidens shared space while Jennifer amused herself until she collapsed and then rolled over for him to finish on top of her. Or at her parents’ place in the country where the ceilings were even higher and the murals had been taken from some thirteenth-century church in Rome, all of which made Jack feel that God was watching him being ridden by the beautiful and absolutely naked Jennifer Ryce Baldwin and that he would languish in eternal hell for those few moments of visceral pleasure.
The woman in the photo had silky brown hair that curled slightly at the ends. Her smile looked up at Jack and he remembered the day he had taken the picture.
A bike ride far into the countryside of Albemarle County. He was just starting law school; she was in her second year of college at Mr. Jefferson’s university. It was only their third date but it was like they had never lived without each other.
Kate Whitney.
He said the name slowly; his hand instinctively traced the curves of her smile, the lone dimple right above the left cheek that gave her face a slightly lopsided look. The almond-shaped cheekbones bordered a dainty nose that sloped toward a pair of sensual lips. The chin was sharp and screamed out “stubborn.” Jack moved back up the face and stopped at the large teardrop-shaped eyes that always seemed full of mischief.
Jack rolled back over and lay the photo on his chest so that she stared directly at him. He could never think of Kate without seeing an image of her father, with his quick wit and crooked smile.
Jack had often visited Luther Whitney at his little row house in an Arlington neighborhood that had seen better days. They spent hours drinking beer and telling stories, mostly Luther telling and Jack listening.
Kate never visited her father, and he never attempted to contact her. Jack had found his identity almost by accident, and despite Kate’s objections, Jack had wanted to get to know the man. It was a rare thing for her face to hold anything but a smile, but that was one thing she never smiled about.
After he graduated they moved to D.C. and she enrolled in law school at Georgetown. Life seemed idyllic. She came to his first few trials as he worked the butterflies from his stomach and the squeak from his throat and tried to remember which counsel table to sit at. But as the seriousness of the crimes his clients were accused of committing grew, her enthusiasm diminished.
They had split up his first year in practice.
The reasons were simple: she couldn’t understand why he had chosen to represent people who broke the law, and she could not tolerate that he liked her father.
At the very last breath of their lives together he remembered sitting with her in this very room and asking, pleading, for her not to leave. But she had and that was four years ago, and he hadn’t seen or heard from her since.
He knew that she had taken a job with the Commonwealth Attorney’s office in Alexandria, Virginia, where she was no doubt busily putting former clients of his behind bars for stomping on the laws of her adopted state. Other than that Kate Whitney was a stranger to him.