Alex nodded, studying her, feeling badly that she’d so underestimated Bonnie, whose face was drawn and lined with worry. Her scrubs were splattered with bloodstains. Alex reached out, touching one.
“Mine?”
Bonnie took her hand, pressing it against her. “Yeah.”
They sniffled in unison until a nurse came in the room.
“There’s a Detective Rossi wanting to speak to your patient.”
Bonnie said to Alex, “Maybe we’re about to find out if he bought it.” Then to the nurse, “Send him in.”
Rossi stood in the doorway. “I hear you had a close call.”
Alex shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m okay.”
“That right, Dr. Long?”
“Yes. She’ll be fine as long as she’s left alone.”
Rossi eyed Bonnie, ducking his chin for an instant, not taking the bait. “Alex, I need to ask you a few questions.”
“I’ll make it easy on both of us. I left my room at the Residence Inn a little after nine and went for a run. I did a loop down Main, onto Pershing, and back south on West Pennway. I cut across the park heading toward the Scout, and just as I got there, I heard someone coming up behind me. I don’t know if he followed me or was just hiding in the dark waiting for someone to come by. I turned to look behind me, saw someone wearing a runner’s mask, and the next thing I knew I’d been stabbed and was on the ground. It had to have been some random asshole.”
Rossi nodded. “Or not.”
Bonnie stood, squeezing Alex’s hand, looking back and forth at the two of them. She guessed Rossi’s meaning.
“Oh my God! This is about Robin’s phone call.”
Rossi looked at Alex. “You told her about that?”
“I told her everything.”
“And you still think it was some random asshole who just happened to follow you into the park, stab you, and throw your cell phone away so you’d bleed to death before anyone could find you?”
“Until you can prove it wasn’t.”
“Who knew about the phone call?”
Alex thought for a moment. “I mentioned it to Judge West last week. And yesterday, at the memorial for Robin, he said something about it to Judge Steele and his wife. But I didn’t tell any of them what was on the message.”
Rossi shook his head and sighed. “Perfect. I’ll arrest all three of them and see which one flips first. When can she go home, Doc?”
“You know hospitals these days. No one stays overnight unless they’re never leaving. I’ll take her home.”
“There’ll be a patrol car outside your house the rest of the night just in case the random asshole shows up again.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
Rossi turned to go, stopping for a moment. “One last thing, Alex. You said you left your room at the Residence Inn a little after nine to go for a run. What were you doing staying at a hotel fifteen minutes from your house?”
Alex looked at Bonnie. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
Late Wednesday morning, Alex sat in bed, thinking about Meg Adler’s proposal that she take over the Kansas City public defender’s office. Though she loved being in the courtroom, she felt tainted by everything that had happened. Running the office might be a welcome change. She’d never managed people before, never run anything that wasn’t a race, but she thought she could learn. She wouldn’t decide without talking to Bonnie.
Her cell phone rang, the sound jangling her frayed nerves. Between the pain from her wounds and worrying about whether the attack had been random or intentional, she’d hardly slept. She’d put on a brave face for Bonnie, insisting that she was fine and that there was no cause for concern, empty assurances that didn’t make either of them feel any better.
The call was from an unidentified private number. The last anonymous call she’d gotten had been from Judge West. He’d called her burner phone, but this call was to her regular cell phone. That didn’t make her any more willing to answer it without knowing who was calling. She let it ring, waiting to see if the caller would leave a message.
The ringing stopped, and a moment later, the phone chirped, announcing that she had a message. She opened the phone and played it.
“Ms. Stone, this is Judge Steele. After we spoke yesterday I remembered the young woman you asked me about. I’d be happy to visit with you if you’d like to stop by my chambers this morning. No need to return my call.”
Before Bonnie left for the hospital, she gave Alex strict instructions to take it easy for the next few days. Alex promised to do as she was told, but she couldn’t ignore Judge Steele’s message, certain why he had called. It was one thing to deny remembering Joanie. It was another to deny it knowing that Alex was going to get medical records that identified him as the one who’d paid for Joanie’s treatment at Fresh Start. Better to come clean than to invite more questions. And volunteering would buy him credibility for any other denials. Alex could have called him back and let him tell her over the phone, but she wanted to hear it in person to better evaluate whether he was telling the truth.
She had another reason for going. Staying in bed, cooped up in the house, made her feel more trapped than safe. If someone wanted to kill her, she liked her chances better in Judge Steele’s chambers than as a sitting duck at home.
She eased herself out of bed and into her clothes, each movement launching a jolt of pain through her midback. She dug through her T-shirt drawer, slipping into one with a favorite marines saying on the front-Pain is only weakness leaving the body. Repeating it out loud made her feel better already.
Judge Steele sat on the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Western District of Missouri. It was the only intermediate appellate court in Missouri that had its own courthouse. Located at Thirteenth and Oak in the shadow of the Sprint Center, it was the southernmost of the trio of courthouses on Oak that included the Federal Courthouse at Ninth and the Jackson County Courthouse at Twelfth.
The judge’s secretary ushered Alex into his chambers. It was twice the size of Judge West’s, a beautiful Oriental rug covering the center of the hardwood floor, two chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and walls lined with mahogany bookshelves jammed with case reporters and statutes. State and federal flags stood behind the judge’s desk, draped floor-to-ceiling windows completing the backdrop.
Judge Steele sat at an oval table on one side of the room, wearing khakis, a long-sleeved polo shirt, and deck shoes without socks, one shoe off and dangling from his toes. He looked up from the brief he was reading, his glasses partway down his nose.
“Come on in, Alex. You’re awfully pale. Are you all right? Have a seat, please.”
She held one hand over her wounds, grimacing as she slid onto the chair, not wanting to talk about what happened.
“Sort of threw my back out yesterday.”
“Believe me, I’ve been there with the way my wife makes me work out. She’s a fitness buff and I suffer for it.”
Alex was surprised at his informality, since formality was one of a judge’s strongest assets. Lawyers called them by their honorific title as if using their given names was forbidden. Rules against ex parte communications stifled casual conversation. Their black robes and elevated courtroom benches were a reminder of their exalted status. On the few occasions she’d run into judges on a weekend, dressed like civilians and running errands like ordinary folks, she’d almost failed to recognize them. But here was Judge Steele, dressed down and kicking back.
“I didn’t know the Court of Appeals had adopted a casual dress code.”
“If you had gotten here an hour ago, you’d have caught me in my workout clothes,” he said, chuckling and pointing to the duffel bag on the floor. “One of the little-known perks of being an appellate judge is that I can wear whatever I want as long as we don’t have any oral arguments scheduled. And if there’s an emergency hearing of some kind, I just put on my robe and no one can tell what I’m wearing underneath. It’s kind of like the TV anchorman who reads the news wearing a shirt, jacket, tie, boxers, and nothing else.”