the thoughts from my mind and took a long drink of the fizzy Seven-Up, wishing I’d bought water instead.
With my head tilted back, my eyes fell on a black car parked next door at a Burger King. I watched a bald man with a moustache sitting in the driver’s seat. I felt a surge of energy. He looked incredibly familiar. He did not appear to be getting out of the car, did not appear to be eating, and did not appear to be leaving.
I got in my car and put the top down, glancing over my shoulder at the black car and the man inside. For a second, I thought I saw the man looking at me and quickly looking away when I turned toward him. Where had I seen him before? I finished putting the top down and looked back again. I told myself I was crazy, paranoid. I felt an urgency to get home. I needed to study. I needed to stop thinking about Steele and Andersen and get back to my normal life.
On the freeway I turned up the radio and tried to pick up speed and lose myself in the act of driving, but it was impossible. The hoards flowing back into the city were bringing traffic to a frustrating thirty or forty miles per hour. The carpool lane was nearly empty and I watched several cars filled with people cruise by me while my foot alternated between gas and brake.
It was hopeless. I turned the radio up louder and tried to think about nothing at all. But the reason I was stuck in traffic kept coming back to me. The folder slid around on the floor with every act of acceleration and braking. I imagined Steele confronting his wife. I could almost hear her threaten him. She knew everything. She was going to leave him, take the children, and leave him open to questions. And suddenly, Steele could see his life unraveling around him.
In a hot moment he gives in to his rage. He attacks her. Once it is over, Steele realizes what he has done. He is covered with blood. He is unsure what to do. He calls his lawyer. There is a conversation. But about what? Maybe he confesses, maybe he makes up a story as he goes along. He locks his four year old in a room. He calls 911. He calls his lawyer back, worries that his daughter will be home soon and then, from out of the panic, it hits him. The daughter’s boyfriend. The kid his wife hated. By the time the police arrive he has his story.
He never tells anyone about the calls to Andersen because they make him look guilty. Andersen never tells anyone because it’s a privileged conversation. Andersen doesn’t investigate Bishop because he knows it’s a lie. But why let Steele take the stand and tell his story? Why let Steele perjure himself? I struggled with these and other questions, avoiding the obvious one that I was afraid to focus on: what do I do now?
Steele was enjoying a resurgence of popularity. Carver was a hero. The firm had a new, high profile client with a lot of potential for bringing in business as people lined up to get on the Steele bandwagon. I didn’t want to think about waltzing into Carver’s office to tell him that we might have gotten it all wrong.
Then there it was in the mirror. I could see the black Taurus speeding up the wide-open carpool lane. When the Taurus slowed, I focused on the license numbers, repeating them in my head to remember them. It merged in two cars behind me. I could see the man driving. He was alone. Not only should he not have been in the carpool lane, but if he was really trying to get somewhere, why get over and merge back in with traffic? And suddenly I remembered where I’d seen him. He was sitting in Andersen’s office when I was walking out. And then I knew I’d seen him other places too. Parked on the street somewhere. Was it really the same guy? Was Andersen having me followed? And if so, why?
My eyes scanned the traffic. It was plodding along with no real end in sight. I eyed the empty carpool lane and decided to press my luck. I jerked the wheel to the left and stomped on the gas. The BMW bolted from the lane, the roaring torque propelling me back into