Silent Witness by Rebecca Forster

semblance of privacy while she took the call that would finish her conversation with Jude Getts.
    ''That was Ruth Alcott's office. She's the deputy DA who caught this case and she's got time to see me now.'' Josie raised the file in her hand. ''So thanks for the information. I'll handle it from here. I don't need any more of your help''
    While Josie filled him in Jude rolled down his shirt sleeves, grabbed his coat and rounded his massive desk. With a friendly pat on her back as he passed Jude said:
    ''Don't be ridiculous. Of course you do.''

    It wasn't just the way he looked that made people on the Strand give Archer a wide berth, it was the way he moved. He walked with his arms by his side and his chin thrust out. His powerful body was propelled forward like a missile seeking a target. Archer moved as if he would not, could not, stop for anything or anyone. He moved dangerously and people watched him pass with more than a little curiosity and a great deal of relief that he had not stopped to notice them.
    His pace did not change when he turned into his building and took the stairs two at a time. Ignoring the pain that shot through his ribs and the incessant pounding in his head, Archer made it up three flights in sixty seconds flat.
    The key caught, the lock gave. He slammed the door open and walked straight on to the balcony. He went back in. And back out again. Three times he did this. Once he hesitated near the tripod. For a millisecond he thought about screwing the camera on, refracting his rage through the lens, calming himself by framing the ocean, the sky, the birds, the beachgoers.
    Fuck it .
    That notion shredded in his mind like a past due bill he couldn't pay. What was the use of trying to feel better about any of this? Archer stormed inside and outside and in again. There would be nothing to see through that lens that he couldn't see without it. A grey day. A doomed day. Nothing to recommend it just as there was nothing to recommend him anymore. The district attorney and that woman from Pacific Park had seen to that.
    The newspaper accounts had been bad enough, but voices speaking against him, using his name in the same sentence as murder, was unconscionable. He was defenseless against the impact of that news conference. Archer had seen his future in the faces of the two men having coffee at Burt's. They kept their eyes Northwest like the pointer on a faulty compass but couldn't help flicking his way, to check him out. There had been doubt in Burt's eyes, too. Burt who never gave anyone shit was suddenly cautious, wondering if it was good for business to have Archer sitting alone looking so damned scary in the back of the place. So Archer left. He paid his bill and he left and as he passed Billy Zuni, Archer wondered if he had been a coward not to stop and look the kid in the eye when he called. But Archer couldn't stop because a kid alive and well was the last thing he wanted to see.
    Archer was on the balcony again, shaking under the weight of his fear and anger. With a great cry he brought his hands down on the balcony wall, gripping it as if it was the only thing keeping him from falling off the edge of the world. Beads of rough stucco bit into him, punctured the skin of his palms before he marched through the house again looking for something to put him out of his misery. Booze. Pills. Not his style. Never even thought about it until now. His service revolver.
    Archer paused.
    Archer headed toward his bedroom. He would find it. He would touch it. He wouldn't use it but he needed to know the option was there. Five more steps. Hard and heavy on the floor. He didn't get far because he stumbled at the sight of Lexi's picture, the small one he kept in the living room up on the bookshelf. Without thinking, reacting to its mere presence, he let loose with another bellow, grabbed it and threw it against the wall. Archer didn't know how long he stood there, his arms akimbo, his breathing labored, but it couldn't