The King of Lies by John Hart Page A

Mills. I had my reasons.”
    “Care to share them?” Douglas asked, crowding me without taking a step.
    “I do not.” He was unimpressed by the anger in my voice. He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied me. I tried to give him my poker face, my lawyer face, but there in the shadow of my dead father’s building, it was hard. I had no idea what he saw, but I knew it wasn’t the calm, collected face I’d once practiced in the mirror.
    “I’m going to tell you something, Work, and I want you to listen well.” I didn’t even blink. “This is the last thing I can tell you as a friend. It’s good advice, so you should take it.” He paused, as if waiting for me to thank him, and sighed when I didn’t. “Don’t fuck around with Mills,” he told me. “I mean it. She’s pissed-off and frustrated. That makes her the most dangerous person in your world.”
    I felt a horrible chill move over me. “What are you saying, Douglas?”
    “I’m not saying anything. This conversation isn’t happening.”
    “Am I a suspect?” I asked.
    “I told you the other day that everybody is a suspect.”
    “That’s no answer,” I replied.
    Douglas rolled his shoulders and looked around the empty lot, up at the roofline, then put his eyes back on mine. He pursed his lips. “Ezra was a rich man,” he said, as if that explained it all.
    “So?” I didn’t get it.
    “Jesus, Work.” Exasperation was in his voice, and he sucked in a deep breath as if to cool his temper. “Mills is looking for a motive and going through the usual suspects. I assume Ezra had a will.”
    “Oh shit,” I said. “Are you kidding me?”
    “Barbara has expensive tastes, and the practice . . .” He paused and shrugged.
    “Come on, Douglas.”
    “I’m just stating the obvious, okay? You’re a brilliant tactician, Work. You have one of the sharpest legal minds I’ve ever known. Hell, you’re even decent in the courtroom. But you’re no rainmaker. You won’t take personal injury cases anymore and you won’t kiss ass to get big clients. That’s what built the practice and made Ezra rich. But a law practice is a business. Even Mills knows that, and she’s been around enough to know that yours is barely solvent.
    “Look. I know you didn’t kill your father. Just don’t give Mills a reason to look your way. Cooperate, for Christ’s sake. Don’t be a goddamn idiot. Give her what she wants and get on with your life. It’s not complicated math.”
    “It’s bullshit math!”
    “One plus one is two. Add six or seven zeros and the math gets even more compelling.”
    I was stunned by his words, and his face had a sharp edge, as if he could cut me open and tell the future in my guts.
    “Ezra had a lot of zeros,” he concluded.
    My insides twisted as if already between his thick, meaty fingers. “Has Mills discussed this with you?” I asked, needing to know.
    “Not in so many words,” the DA admitted. “But it doesn’t take a genius, Work. I know where her mind is going with this. So do yourself a favor. Bend over, take it like a man, and move on with your life.”
    “Did Mills tell you that someone tried to kill me last night?” I asked.
    He frowned at the interruption. “She may have mentioned something about it.”
    “And?”
    Douglas shrugged, his eyes far from mine. “She doesn’t believe you.”
    “And you don’t, either.” I finished his unspoken thought.
    “She’s the detective,” he said flatly.
    “You think I made it up?”
    “I don’t know what to believe.” A simple statement.
    “Somebody pushed that chair down the stairs, Douglas. If they didn’t mean to kill me, they sure as hell meant to do bodily harm.”
    “And you’re saying it’s connected to your father’s death?”
    I thought about the safe and the missing gun. “Maybe. It’s possible.”
    “You should know that Mills doesn’t buy it. She thinks you’re generating confusion, clouding the issues. If I thought you did it, and I’m