Page 127 of The Right to Remain

“Hold that thought,” he told Andie. “It’s from the state attorney’s office.”

Jack answered. Julianna Weller was on the line.

“Jack, I wanted you to know that your client has been released from jail.”

“I appreciate the update.”

“There’s more,” she said.

Jack braced himself for another ambush, or at least a curveball. “Tell me.”

“Your client came straight from the jail to my office. He’s here now.”

“Why?”

“He says he wants to confess.”

Jack’s grip on his phone tightened. “Put Elliott on the line.”

“He doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Of course he doesn’t, thought Jack. “Julianna, I will be there in ten minutes. Do not speak to my client before I get there. He has a right to speak to his lawyer.”

“Understood.”

The call ended, and Jack quickly shared the predicament with Andie.

“I’m sorry, but I have to go right now,” he said. “Can Max stay with you?”

“Yes, of course. But let me finish what I was saying first.”

“Andie, Ireallyhave to go. My client wants to confess to murder!”

Jack started to push away from the table, but she grabbed him by the wrist. “Which makes what I’m about to tell you a matter of life and death,” she said.

“Andie, I have to—”

“One minute, Jack. Listen to me. Please. Let me do this for you. It might help you finally make sense of all this. And keep your client from making a terrible mistake.”

Jack was on the edge of his chair. He could see in Andie’s eyes that it wasn’t just important. It had suddenly become urgent. Or maybe it was intended to make up for something—some other way in which she felt she was letting him down.

“Thirty seconds, tops,” he said.

“Deal,” she said.

And then she told him.

Chapter 47

Jack’s car screeched to a halt in the parking lot. He jumped out and sprinted past the courthouse to the Graham Building, his mind racing even faster. His client was deep in enemy territory, surrounded by prosecutors, but Jack had no superhero delusions of saving Elliott from himself. He couldn’t even get his client to speak to him, much less stop him from confessing. His only hope was to convince the state attorney that Elliott could deliver only one kind of confession:

A false one.

The young woman at the reception desk directed him to the top floor. The meeting was in a conference room adjacent to the state attorney’s corner office. Jack was still a bit winded from the run across the parking lot, and he paused to catch his breath so not to come across as a breathless, desperate man bursting into the room. Elliott was seated on one side of the rectangular table, alone. Across from him sat Miami-Dade State Attorney Abe Beckham, flanked by Julianna Weller to his right and MDPD homicide detective Osborne to his left. Behind them was a picture-window view of the jail from which Elliott had just been released. No introductions were necessary. The state attorney offered Jack the open chair beside his client.

“Now that we’re all here,” said Beckham, “I believe Mr. Stafford has something he would like to tell us.”

Jack interrupted. “Elliott, I’m going to ask you one last time: Will you please step out with me and talk in private?”