Chapter 8: Disclosure

Erik's courtroom became a crime scene.

Caution tape crisscrossed the entrance. Gangs of cops examined the corpse, took pictures of the body and the vestibule and the layout of the hallway and courtroom, and questioned everyone. From what Christine overheard, no one in court knew the deceased. No one had seen anything unusual in the vestibule—until the body appeared.

Behind the bench, Judge Delgado gave the detective a copy of the morning's docket and tried to list everyone who'd been in court. The judge looked tired; his answers hesitant. His uneasiness reminded Christine of his anxiety the night they'd kissed. As if they'd committed a crime. You put yourself in danger, he'd said. I don't know if I can protect you. What was happening to him? And what had come over him, that he would hold two distinguished attorneys in contempt in the same case, on the same day?

She couldn't ask him in front of all these people.

She lingered for over an hour, waiting for everyone to leave. She paced the hallway. She roamed the gallery pretending she'd forgotten her purse or dropped her keys. But the cops were everywhere, and they were in no hurry.

Behind the bench, Erik's clerk said something to him that Christine couldn't hear. Erik nodded and gave a quick reply, then the clerk gathered his stack of case files and left the room through a narrow door beside the bench, which led to a back stairwell.

On impulse, she slipped through the same door while no one was looking.

To her right, the service stairs to Erik's chambers twisted into shadow. Paint vapors hung in the oppressive air. The clerk had disappeared. She crouched in the twilight beneath the stairwell and waited for Erik out of view. Only court personnel were allowed in the back halls, and if she were discovered, gossip would spread faster than an epidemic. The commotion in the courtroom rumbled faintly through the walls. Footsteps faded upstairs, echoing in her bare stairwell. With a corpse in the next room and a murderer loose, it was a frightening place to be. She squeezed her father's locket and wished for his courage.

It was at least another quarter of an hour before the door opened and Erik strode through.

"Hi," she whispered, emerging from under the stairs.

He shouted in surprise, and backed against the wall with a hand over his heart. He stared at her. Then he took a very deep breath and gave a sheepish smile. "Oh, it's you. You startled me."

His fraught expression had worsened since she'd left the courtroom. Disheveled hair hung over his forehead, and he had loosened his tie. Even the blue rose in his lapel seemed pale and wilted. Gone were his dignified composure and easy humor. He looked like he wanted to cry.

She threw her arms around him. "Erik, what's happened to you?"

"What are you talking about?" he said in a trembling voice. "You surprised me just now, that's all. I'm fine." He kissed her brow.

"No, no. You're not yourself."

He shook his head. "I warned you before. It's too dangerous to be near me now." He headed towards the staircase without looking back.

"Erik, please!" She caught his arm with both of her hands, and he turned. "Please. I'm sorry about the Post article. You were right, we—I, I need to be more careful. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen to you." She wasn't crying yet, but her voice shook as it echoed in the shadowy stairwell. "I know I shouldn't be here right now, but I need to talk to you. Please? Please don't walk away."

He sighed and stared into the gloom behind her. "Well, we can't talk here. These walls have ears."

She tightened her grip, afraid he was about to flee. "Where can we go? Your chambers?"

"With this investigation, there's a good chance someone will walk in on us."

"Someplace they won't look for you, then…?"

He paused. "No one but Judge Polini knows I have a key. But we can't take the elevator, someone might see us… We have to take the stairs."

His hand slipped from hers to hold the bannister as he mounted the staircase, and she followed. Their light footsteps echoed like repeated whispers. Piquant whiffs trailed from his rose corsage. When they reached the next landing, he continued climbing. He kept going after the next flight of stairs, and the one after that. By the time they reached the top, her legs were burning. A thick, metal door blocked their path. She leaned against the wall to catch her breath while he fished a set of keys from his pocket. Then he unlocked the door, it creaked open, and glorious sunlight spilled into the stairwell. They walked out onto the roof.

The Bronx stretched from under her feet in all directions. Yankee Stadium bloomed directly ahead of them, so close she could see the bases. Beyond slept clusters of tall, brick tenements whose windows glowed in the noontime sun. Train tracks crisscrossed the neighborhood and drew her eyes to the horizon, where the Harlem River glittered.

Erik's dark eyes scanned the empty rooftop and the roofs of the neighboring buildings. "Thank God you weren't fired over that Post article," he said and leaned his back against the parapet with his hands behind him. A breeze lifted his tousled hair and shook beads of perspiration from his forehead. "But Frank's absurd to send you here as silent co-counsel. For what? Didn't he—"

"Erik. Please tell me what's going on. I've never seen you this way."

He turned to watch an elevated train dive underground on its way into Manhattan. "Of the two of you, Ms. Contreras should have been silent. You're the better professional. She lacks your grace. Your perception. Your courtesy—"

"Nevermind that." She turned his shoulders so he had to face her. "Why was a man murdered in your vestibule?"

His face clouded in a grim expression. "He was connected to me. Actually, he was connected to us both."

"You knew him?" Her pulse raced; something wasn't right. "I thought nobody knew who he was. How could—I thought no one could even recognize who he was."

"He had a press pass clipped to his shirt pocket—" he paused.

She tugged her locket along its chain. "…And?"

"God help us, Christine…" He released a shaky breath. "He was the reporter who wrote our scandalous article."

"Huh?... You mean Joe Beck—"

"Shhh! Don't… don't say his name." He raised a long, skeletal finger to her lips. "Never speak the names of the dead until you've taken the proper precautions."

A chill crawled up her spine, despite the sunbeams dazzling her eyes. Her judge was acting very strange, raising more questions than answers. "But… what was he doing at your courtroom? Following up?"

"You're a relentless cross-examiner," he muttered. "I don't know."

It didn't make sense. Erik had only a tangential connection to Becket; why was he falling apart? "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"I've said enough. The more you're involved—"

"I'm already involved, whether we like it or not!"

"I realize that, but I don't want to pull you into this any further." Again he scanned the rooftop behind her, confirming that they were not overheard. They were alone, but he dropped his voice nevertheless. "Look, I spoke with him last week. The same morning his article came out. I called him and demanded he name his source. As you can guess, he refused to tell me anything. I thought I could subpoena it out of him. Jake Ratner's motion would've been the perfect opportunity—"

"But Jake's probably the source! Remember, at the Ortiz hearing, when he said you were favoring me? And he made inappropriate comments at Judge Polini's reception, like asking if I'm going to bang your gavel. He must have seen us afterwards."

"That's an interesting theory. I hadn't thought of that." He pressed his fingers against his dark lips as though he were praying. "It would explain some of what happened this morning… But he was in the courtroom with us; he would've needed an accomplice to deal with the reporter. Unless it happened before he came in, and no one noticed… But probably not."

"Then who do you think is behind it?"

He scowled at her. "You're crossing the line, Christine. Let me handle it. For your own sake, stay out of this—"

"Erik," she cried, exasperated and terrified, "Someone obviously spied on me that night and reported rumors to the press, rumors which ruined my reputation and probably my career, and now the journalist who published those rumors has been killed—murdered and mutilated under this roof, probably while I was in the next room. You can 'handle this' however you want to, but someone is following me, ruining me, and now killing—"

"It's not about you. Not directly. I'm the target."

"Why? because you're the big judge that everyone's after? What makes you so sure?"

"No, it's not like that—" He paused again and cocked his head to listen while he watched the space behind her. He brushed past her, strode back to the stairwell. They had closed the door behind them; he opened it and peered down. Finding nothing, he closed the door and returned to her. Searched the surrounding rooftops. He pulled her away from the parapet, and into the shadows of the wall by the door to the staircase, so they would not be seen. Finally he whispered, "I'm being blackmailed."

She gasped.

"Revenge," he explained with a sad smile. "Unprovoked, of course. His name is Nasr Khan. Once upon a time he was an NYPD detective. Until he was caught taking bribes. I presided over his trial, but because we were friends, I was expected to recuse. I refused, and he took it personally. That was a decade ago, but he reminded me of it again, just after your hearing last week. Nasr knew I had feelings for you—this was before I met you outside the reception—and he basically harassed me, threatened to destroy… destroy my reputation if I didn't recuse from your cases. That's why I told you I needed to work something out before we could… get together. I guess I should have just told you what was going on. He must've seen us in the park later that night."

"You think he killed Beck—I mean, killed the reporter—to shut him up?"

He shrugged his shoulders all the way up to his ears. "It's hard to imagine. Nasr never killed anyone. I don't have enough evidence yet. I don't have any, to be honest. Anyway," he whispered, lowering his eyes, "now you know everything. I've tarnished your pristine reputation. Jeopardized your career. And your life—Christine…" He looked her dead in the eyes. "You have to leave me."

She blinked. "But—"

"Trust me. You need to stay away."

"Erik—"

"If your own welfare doesn't concern you, think what your clients might lose if something happened to you. What about your mission? What would become of our Bronx, hmm? Your work is more important than what's happening with me."

"Y-You really believe that?"

"I do. Please go, before my greed changes my mind."

She didn't move.

"Mira, corazón." He lifted her chin so she had to look at his face. Bright sunshine threw his twisted features into sharp relief and hid his goblin eyes in deep shadow. "Look at me in daylight. Take my word for it, this isn't improving with age. Why risk disbarment or even death for someone to whom you can't possibly be attracted?"

She had no words for an apt reply.

Instead, she leaned forward and answered with a kiss.

His breath caught. Before he could retreat, she trapped his jaw between her hands. Brushed her tongue between his lips until they parted for her. He exhaled a strangled growl and tilted his head to slide his own warm, thick tongue against hers. She moaned right into his mouth, and his body trembled in response. He pulled her closer, fisted his fingers in her hair.

Gouges marred the inside of his cheeks and on the roof of his mouth—surgical scars like trenches in a bombed-out battlefield in his war against fate. A crusade against his own self and the world at large; yet on his breath she tasted all his noble proclamations, his magistrate's mercy, his vigilante verdicts speaking truth to power that a lesser man would have swallowed instead.

She purred deep in her throat. Savored his strangeness until she thought she would faint. Then, gasping for air, she released him and opened her eyes.

His breathing was ragged, his dusky lips swollen, his eyes dark with desire. She had crushed his corsage. His tiepin was caught on the chain of her locket, and his tie dangled between their shaking bodies.

It was a long time before either of them had enough air to speak. Even longer before they could form complete sentences.

"… I… I have to get back to court," he finally said, his voice thick and sultry. He freed his tiepin from her locket with fumbling fingers. "They're probably wondering where I am."

"Let me see you again."

He closed his eyes. "Right now, I still need that adjournment. I need you safe." He kissed her hand, and his heat lingered on her skin.

He turned away and faced the Manhattan skyline as he adjusted his suit, fixed his collar, and repaired his corsage. He smoothed his riotous hair with shaking hands.

When he turned back around, he was her intimidating jurist once more.

"I'm going downstairs. Wait here a few minutes then take the elevator. Be careful. And… Christine, I swear, someday—"

He tore himself away. The door closed behind him with a drawn-out groan.

She exhaled a groan of her own. She still didn't even have his phone number.