Read The Last Justice for Free Online Page B

around the bench, he tripped and fell, smacking the floor hard. McKenna was already on his feet when the father scooped the boy up, hugging him tight as if trying to absorb the pain into himself.
    It was these unexpected reminders that hurt the most. McKenna thought of a game he used to play with his four-year-old, Colin. He would grab his son and squeeze him and say, "I'm stealing all the good in you. I've got all the good in your heart now." Colin would giggle back, "You can't steal my good. I grew ten jillion gazillion back." McKenna smiled for just a moment before the familiar pain wedged itself in his chest.
    I'm stealing your good.
    Ten minutes later, he was buckled into his seat on the plane. He checked his BlackBerry e-mail, an every-ten-minutes fix he couldn't do without. Isabel used to call it his "crackberry."
    After Colin died, the "crackberry" comment lost its playful lilt as McKenna spent more and more time at the office. Being at home-or with Isabel, for that matter-simply reminded him of his staggering loss. Work was a legal drug that allowed him, for brief moments, to escape the pain.
    Then, when Isabel, too, was snatched away from him, he needed a new fix. He found it in bourbon, the same third-shelf stuff his foster parents used to drink. It had been thirty-two days since his last drink. Not because he had found God or AA or his senses, but because the alcohol reacted adversely to his medication for the brain-splitting migraines that had come back in recent weeks.
    He closed his eyes for just a moment, then woke to the bump of the wheels hitting down at Reagan National in D.C. He rolled his neck and reached for his BlackBerry. Scrolling down, he noticed an e-mail, marked urgent, from Kate Porter, his right hand at the office. It read, "Friend at Washington Post called me. Wild story. We need to talk A-S-A-P."
    McKenna immediately dialed Kate's direct line at the office. She answered on the first ring.
    "Hey, it's me," he said. "What's the emergency?"
    "I can't talk now," she said in a low whisper. "Meet me at my place."
    "Your place? Now? What's going-"
    "Go," she said, and hung up on him.

    McKenna paid the cabbie and walked up to Kate Porter's condo building in D.C.'s Adams Morgan neighborhood. The area, known for its nightlife, eclectic restaurants, and sporadic violence, was more urban than most of the lawyers at the Office of the Solicitor General would tolerate. But then, that was Kate: brave and unpredictable. A tall red head with disarming freckles and a girl-next-door smile, she also was an amazing legal talent. A Chicago Law graduate and former Supreme Court law clerk, at thirty-eight she already was a star in the D.C. legal community, and as McKenna's principal deputy, she was the number two person at the OSG.
    McKenna pushed the buzzer next to the building's front door. Kate had more than once offered him a key of his own, but he had declined. She never asked why-she didn't need to.
    "Jefferson?" a voice bellowed out of the speaker next to the door.
    "Kate, what the hell is-" The buzz of the lobby's electric door latch cut him off.
    McKenna was barely inside her condo door when Kate blurted, "My friend Margo works at the Post. She called and said I needed to be prepared for something big and unpleasant. Then Sarah got a call from a reporter. He wanted a comment on a story that's coming out tomorrow, and FBI agents came and wanted to speak with you. They were at the office when I left."
    Kate seemed to be having trouble catching her breath. "The Post is running a piece that says you took a bribe when you were a judge. They say your former law clerk was the source for the story, and that you're under investigation for the clerk's murder. They think the bribery is somehow connected to Black Wednesday. They say Griffin Nash arranged the bribe. They know we identified Nash and Nevel Industries in our report to the commission."
    McKenna stood shell-shocked for a moment. Trying to rein in his racing