Move to Strike by Sydney Bauer Read Free Book Online Page A

carried a jail time of anything from three to ten years (she had Googled it at 4am). There had to be a way to limit, if not eradicate, the prison time, and she intended to explore this with Jeffrey’s lawyers as soon as she had the chance.
    Finally, she knew that, above all else, she had to protect Jeffrey’s reputation. If Jeffrey was freed, absolved, exonerated, that would be one thing – but unless the real truth behind J.T.’s actions was revealed, the damage could be more damaging than ever. Jeffrey was a relationship expert for God’s sake. He counselled people on
how to bring up their kids
– nurture them, protect them, give them as solid a fucking grounding as possible so that they might lead fruitful, productive and independent lives. He spoke of parent/child relationships, he advised how important it was to swap aggression for understanding, he won the fucking ‘Father of the Year Award’ two years ago – and now his son had popped his own mom without so much as a peep.
    So while Jeffrey had told her not to speak of it, while he had stressed it was a private family matter
never
to be shared – she could not help but think that it was not only in her best interests to tell, but it was her
responsibility
. For Stephanie was gone after all, the problem solved . . . at least from one perspective.
    And so, as the phone rang, its shrill tone cutting a swathe across the silence in her stylish Back Bay apartment, she took a breath and ran her hands through her long dark hair. She closed her eyes and exhaled with force as she decided, then and there, that the ‘truth’ was the only way to go. She would request to speak to Greenburg privately, and allude to him that circumstances were not as dire as they first appeared, and he needed to trust her until she had an opportunity to speak with Jeffrey’s lawyers.
    And then she would speak to Cavanaugh, and then he would understand, and then they would carve out a course of action so that the world would know the truth, and all would be forgiven.

6
    â€˜I told you,’ said Jeffrey Logan, his athletic frame now swimming in the too big, red prison jumpsuit. ‘I was cleaning it. It was new. I’d never cleaned a gun before. I wasn’t sure what I was doing.’
    It was now almost noon. David and Sara had arrived at Boston’s Nashua Street Suffolk County Jail – a huge modern construction on the Charles River across from Bunker Bridge which housed close to seven hundred temporary detainees awaiting trial – at eight. And they had been sitting in the close confines of a whitewashed interview room on the building’s sixth, or ‘homicide’, floor and grilling their client ever since.
    David was trying desperately to put the image of his good friend Stephanie behind him, as he knew, above all else, that his immediate responsibility was, ironically, to the man who had confessed to her murder. But it was clear from the outset that Logan’s story was full of inconsistencies, and so David and Sara had decided that their priority was showing Logan that just because he said he was responsible for the crime, it ‘did not make it so’.
    â€˜Look, Doctor,’ said David.
    â€˜Please call me Jeffrey,’ said Logan, who despite appearing tired, David had to admit, still had that familiar TV sparkle in his eyes.
    â€˜Jeffrey,’ David began again. ‘We hear what you are saying, butestablishing the facts is the only way we can help you. Our problem is that your story doesn’t quite fit together. The details are there, but right now they are hanging like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw.’
    â€˜I . . . I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ Logan replied, shaking his head.
    David took a breath. ‘All I am saying is that this whole gun thing doesn’t ring true – and the problem is, Jeffrey, if
we
can’t see it, chances are a judge, or a