Page 6 of Hush
And then, they both were in the hallway, naked, clutching their clothes, Silvio glaring at Mike like his eyes would truly murder him if he just wished it hard enough.
Mike let the door slam shut, cutting Silvio off from him. Hopefully forever.
A minute later, a car started up on the street. Probably that car he’d noticed, the out-of-place one. He’d known something was up the moment he saw it.
And then, his cell phone buzzed. And buzzed again. And again.
He looked down, swiping the screen on.
A barrage of texts from Silvio paraded down his phone, exhortations and eviscerations, the fight he hadn’t let Silvio start apparently now happening over text. Blistering tirades, Silvio shredding him right and left, ripping into their relationship, his job, and even their sex life.
He had to call a locksmith and get his locks changed tonight. Start pulling out all of Silvio’s things and making giant piles of his crap. Silvio could pick them up on the curb tomorrow. Maybe neighborhood vultures would tear through it, pull out what they wanted and leave Silvio with the dregs. He had to post signs in the building, tell his neighbors not to let the cheating bastard in if he claimed he’d lost his key. He had to bleach—or fucking destroy—his kitchen.
His phone buzzed, over and over and over again.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
Chapter 2
Nine AM, and Tom’s courtroom was packed.
The first day of trial for Wayne Lincoln was due to begin that very moment. Wayne Lincoln was a mid-level gang member, responsible for running drugs through his depressed neighborhood of Brentwood, and had upped his game to murder. The prosecution was charging him with four drug-related murders and slapping distribution charges on top of that. They were trying to send a signal to gangs and drug runners in DC: gang violence and drug distribution weren’t going to be tolerated.
He was still a baby judge, only a year into hearing his new title: Judge Tom Brewer, the newest judge on the DC federal bench. And, even though he was new, he’d tried to work with Lincoln’s attorney to persuade Lincoln to offer up evidence and testimony in chambers that would help with the federal investigation into the growing gang and drug violence, in lieu of going to trial. He wanted the best for everyone, if possible. He’d lessen the sentence if Lincoln cooperated with the investigation. But, Lincoln had clammed up, and the case went to trial. If the jury found Lincoln guilty, he’d have to be harsh with sentencing.
It was a high-risk trial—all gang cases were—and Tom had been briefed by the JSI assigned to him, Deputy U.S. Marshal Mike Lucciano, about the security procedures Mike had hand-crafted.
Point number one on the security plan was that Mike himself would escort Tom from his chambers to the courtroom every day and provide personal security, standing watch during the trial when Lincoln and the public were present, and then escort him back to his chambers after trial was over.
Nine AM, time for Tom to stride into the courtroom and call the proceedings to order.
But Mike wasn’t there.
Tom, already wearing his voluminous black robes, frowned at the clock. In the history of time, since he’d started as a federal judge at the DC federal court, Mike had never been so much as a second late, not for anything. He was as punctual as he was friendly, as professional as he was warm and kind. All of Tom’s fellow judges, others who worked with Mike, had nothing but the best words of praise for the man. Dedicated, diligent, unflappable. Considerate. Professional.
Fifteen different reasons for Mike’s tardiness flew through Tom’s mind, each more terrible than the last. Should he call the police first, or the hospitals? Did his coworker, Deputy Marshal Villegas, or his boss, Marshal Winters, know Mike was late? Did they have any information?
The bailiff assigned to Tom poked his head into Tom’s chambers, knocking as he opened the door. “Your Honor, the court is assembled and everyone is ready for you.”
Tom swallowed. Did he blow Mike’s tardiness off? Ignore the security procedures, built by Mike by hand after studying this trial and the potential risks?
He gave his bailiff a small smile and stayed sitting at his desk. “Thanks. There’s been a delay. Please let both parties know to expect a… ten-minute delay.”
Ten minutes. Was that enough time to produce a missing man from the ether, a man who was as reliable as gravity? Tom didn’t know Mike all that well, but he’d worked with him for a year, and—before today—would have set his watch by the sound of Mike’s footfalls down the secured hallway, just outside his chambers.
He reached for his desk phone, chewing on his bottom lip. He had the speed dial programmed for Mike’s office, but he didn’t have Marshal Winters’s, Mike’s boss. There was phone chart on his laptop, somewhere—
Bang. A door slammed at the end of the fourth-floor secured hallway, the corridor behind all the courtrooms that connected their private areas—a handful of judge’s chambers, their law clerks’ offices, a tiny law library and small break room, and Mike’s personal office, the size of a closet—away from the public. The weighted doors securing the corridor were as heavy as a small car. Bulletproof, blast proof, people proof. More than one unsuspecting law clerk had been mowed down by those doors, and most of the other judges, significantly older, significantly grayer, used the slow-as-drying-paint private elevator to the private lobby, instead of the main center stairs.
But Mike always took the stairs. So did Tom, and he’d run into Mike most days, each of them balancing their shoulder-slung briefcases and their cellphones and their coffees. Mike would chide him for being on the public staircase, shaking his head and laughing at him. Tom always quipped back that it was good he ran into Mike most mornings, a judicial knight in dark-suited armor.
Was that Mike, now?
Tom crossed his chambers in three quick strides. Baby judge that he was, he’d been given the smallest chambers. His robes, billowing like bat wings behind him, nearly touched both walls as he hurried to the door.
Leaning into the hallway, Tom spotted Mike rushing toward him. Hair disheveled, standing straight up, suit wrinkled, and what looked like stains on his jacket and spraying over one side of his shirt. Coffee, maybe. But he didn’t have a coffee cup in his hand.
He didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more concerned. Mike never, but never, looked less than professionally perfect. It was disgusting, in a way. He had that effortless masculine chic that Tom had always envied. Sandy hair combed into a pompadour and styled like he’d stepped from a magazine, cockeyed grin like he knew the punchline to every joke ever told. A body made for suits, filling out the shoulders to perfection, and a trim stomach and narrow hips that some fashion designer, decades and decades ago, must have dreamed about when first creating the enduring fashion craze of a man in a perfectly tailored business suit.
