An Equal Justice Read online

  PRAISE FOR CHAD ZUNKER

  “A gritty, compelling, and altogether engrossing novel that reads as if ripped from the headlines. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. Chad Zunker is the real deal.”

  —Christopher Reich, New York Times bestselling author of Numbered Account and Rules of Deception

  “Good Will Hunting meets The Bourne Identity.”

  —Fred Burton, New York Times bestselling author of Under Fire

  OTHER TITLES BY CHAD ZUNKER

  The Tracker

  Shadow Shepherd

  Hunt the Lion

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Chad Zunker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542043083

  ISBN-10: 1542043085

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  To Alan Graham, who walked me into “the camp” thirteen years ago and opened my eyes to another world, and to the staff of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, who are changing lives every day and being changed in the process.

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONE

  The streets are a difficult place to live and a brutal place to die.

  No one understood this more than Benjamin “Benny” Dugan. At sixty-two, he’d been living on the streets for more than fourteen years. It had been booze and drugs and the loss of family connection that had initially pushed him in that direction. A quick and destructive spiral down a path of addiction and depression. Dozens of arguments that eventually led to complete separation from the only family he still had left. A gradual drift across a vast country before he finally settled on the streets of Austin.

  However, it was in this city that he’d been unexpectedly embraced by the boys in the Camp, a secret community of other homeless men like him where he’d found refuge and then restoration. The boys had helped him kick the drug thing six years ago, had gotten him squared away with Jesus, and had given him a renewed sense of purpose.

  The streets had become home. Benny was at peace with that.

  But not tonight. A beloved brother from the Camp had gone AWOL on them. Benny was out late searching for him. Unfortunately, he had to do this exercise every few months when one of the new guys suddenly went missing for a day or two. It was part of the recovery process. Very few got through the program without facing setbacks. This time it was Larue, his young black friend who’d shown so much progress during the past year. As he searched for Larue, Benny prayed it was simply miscommunication and not something more serious—like Larue’s demons again taking root and ruthlessly pulling the kid back into the darkness.

  Larue’s drug was heroin. The kid hadn’t had a choice—it had started at birth with his heroin-addicted mother. She’d been killed by a pimp when Larue was a kid, and he’d bounced through foster care before jumping the system. Heroin was the worst and most addictive drug on the streets. It was so lethal that breaking the chains of bondage took more than counseling and therapy—it took a supernatural act of God. Which was why the boys had been regularly praying over Larue ever since he’d joined them a year ago.

  The prayers had seemed to be working. Which made tonight all the more concerning. Larue had been scheduled for kitchen duty, but he’d never shown up. No one had seen or heard from him all day. The kid had proved to be responsible, so they all feared the worst. Every member of the Camp was out on the streets of Austin tonight, searching for him.

  Benny had already checked two of Larue’s old hangouts. The kid used to sleep over by the basketball courts near UT’s campus, where he’d try to hustle his way into a few bucks by playing pickup basketball games with college students. Larue wasn’t by the courts. Benny also tried the sidewalks around the public library, since Larue had recently become obsessed with researching all the great black musicians. But he had no luck there, either.

  As it neared midnight, Benny tried a third possibility. There was a place on Sixth Street called Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar—a sing-along joint with a stage that held two baby grands, where two of the city’s best ivory ticklers would try to outplay each other. Larue was a talented pianist. He could play like nothing Benny had ever heard before—without ever having taken a formal lesson in his life. Larue had a special ear for music. Benny and the boys had pitched in to buy him an electric keyboard from a pawnshop. The kid was magic with it. The boys could listen to him play for hours around the campfire. Benny had started calling him the Mozart of the Streets, which everyone thought was funny—mainly because Larue had never even heard of the great composer. Larue had mentioned to Benny in private that he wanted to try out for Pete’s stage one day. Larue said he’d been listening to the other players while hanging in the alley behind the bar. The kid felt that if he practiced enough, he might be able to get a gig there and finally make some real money.

  Turning into the alley behind the bar strip, Benny walked around the usual dumpsters and debris. He could hear a variety of different music pouring out of the nearby bars. Pete’s back door was two bars ahead of him. Benny turned around when he thought he heard someone walking behind him. He searched, but no one was there. He kept moving forward, looking for any signs of Larue. He said another desperate prayer. Come on, kid.

  A second noise from behind startled him, sounding like the bumping of a cardboard box. Benny spun around again. He saw no one approaching. Just shadows. He wondered if, in his old age, he was starting to lose his sharp eyes. They had served him well, first in the navy, and even more so out on these cruel streets.

  Maybe he was just imagining things. He’d been understandably jumpier than usual the past couple of days. Exhaling, Benny pressed forward. Pete’s back door was just ahead of him. Then he heard a clear male voice call out from directly behind him.

  “Benjamin Dugan?”

  Benny twisted around, peering into the darkness. He spotted the outline of a man walking up to him. The man wore a black leather jacket, his hands in the pockets.

  “You Benjamin Dugan?” the guy asked again, stopping ten feet away.

  Benny nodded but i
mmediately regretted it. Benjamin? No one had called him by his full name in over a decade. The name actually sounded foreign to him, like some other guy. He was just Benny, not Benjamin. As the guy stepped closer, Benny suddenly recognized the short white hair and gasped. They’d found him. A shiver shot up his back. His chest tightened and threatened to put him immediately on the pavement. He couldn’t believe it. They’d found him. He’d been so careful. The plan had seemed perfect. But he’d clearly underestimated their reach.

  “Jesus,” Benny said out loud. It was a true call for help, not just an expression of shock. Staring into the man’s hard eyes, Benny knew he was about to pay the ultimate price. He was too damn old to run. And he wasn’t close enough to even give the man a fight.

  It was over. He’d gambled and lost.

  Standing there, Benny felt a strange peace wash over him. In that moment, he didn’t regret his decision. He knew he’d do it all over. He’d risk his life again for the boys at the Camp and so many others who were still living and dying on the streets every day. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends. Benny began to whisper the words that had compelled him to go through with all this in the first place.

  The white-haired man slipped his hand out of the leather jacket and pointed the long barrel of a gun right at him. Benny closed his eyes, continued to pray, and never felt a thing.

  But he heard angels singing.

  TWO

  Six weeks earlier

  David Adams arrived in Austin at dusk on the first Saturday of fall.

  Downtown was bustling with its usual energy as he slowly cruised the streets. The party crowd was as thick as ever in the bars along Sixth Street. David had enjoyed the bar district immensely the previous summer during his so-called internship. Lots of parties, live music, good food and drink, pretty coeds, and late nights. David knew those days were mostly behind him.

  Hunter & Kellerman’s palatial law offices were on the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh floors of the pristine Frost Bank Tower in the heart of downtown, just six blocks south of the Texas Capitol building. Parking his truck at the curb along Congress Avenue, David sat there and listened as the worn-out old engine let out a deep sigh. Before leaving Palo Alto, David had asked a local mechanic to check out his truck and let him know if he thought it would even make it all the way to Texas. The old guy had actually laughed and told David he’d better say an extra prayer. With a satisfied smile, David thought about calling him up and saying, “How you like me now?”

  Getting out of the truck, David felt physically exhausted from the two-day drive but emotionally energized. He was finally here. Was he smiling like an idiot? Because he felt like it. The offer from Hunter & Kellerman had been 20 percent more than his other two offers, which came from big firms in San Francisco and New York. Plus a $20,000 signing bonus. The bonus check was more money than his mother had earned most years while raising him and his sister in Wink, Texas, a small town of a thousand just west of Odessa—the middle of nowhere. A check worth even more than the dump of an RV trailer where they’d lived nearly his whole childhood—minus the four months they’d secretly slept in the van in the parking lot behind the old Baptist church because his mom had missed too many trailer payments.

  Of course, every firm wanted him. US News & World Report had just ranked Stanford number two on their list of top law schools. David was top ten in his class and had been within striking distance of top five. Hell, he’d have been drawing his sights on number one if not for the countless hours he’d had to put in each week behind the bar at the Dutch Goose. David had excelled in mock court, even leading his trial team to victory at the National Mock Trial Competition last year. He was bright, hardworking, and hungrier than most. The partners at H&K knew this about him—they’d done their research. They were probably already hedging their bets that he’d break all rookie billing records. With the bar exam already under his belt, David was eager to roll up his sleeves, get started, and prove them right.

  Staring up at the tall steel-and-glass office building, he smiled wide again. The building sparkled with power and affluence. He left his duffel bags and boxes in the back of the truck bed, figuring someone would have to be really desperate to steal his crap. He practically danced into the spacious lobby of the Frost Bank Tower, found the elevators, and punched the button for the twenty-sixth floor. Staring at himself in the reflection of the shiny elevator door, David licked his fingers and tried to smooth out his hair. He’d changed into a clean pair of pressed black slacks and a crisp long-sleeve blue dress shirt in a gas station restroom right outside of town.

  When the elevator doors opened, David took a deep breath, exhaled, and then confidently stepped into the grand lobby of the richest law firm in town. The wealth showed everywhere—from the assortment of leather chairs, plush sofas, expensive lamps, and sprawling rugs to the oil paintings covering the walls. The best of everything. Although it was already seven on a Saturday evening, a friendly receptionist was still planted behind the front counter. She greeted David by name and told him that Thomas Gray would be right out to see him.

  Two minutes later, Thomas stepped out from around the corner. A slender man in his midthirties with short blond hair and an easy gait, Thomas wore gray slacks and a white button-down with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. David had been paired with the attorney last summer on several easy projects. An eighth-year associate out of Columbia Law, Thomas was a true family man with a wife he adored and two young daughters. There were pictures of his two girls all over his office. David had found Thomas to be more pleasant than most of the other cutthroat hard-asses he’d met during his time with the firm the previous year. David was grateful that the man had been assigned to him as his first-year mentor.

  Thomas smiled. “David, welcome.”

  They enthusiastically shook hands. “Good to be here.”

  “How was the drive?”

  “Long but good. I’m ready to get to work.”

  Thomas laughed. “Slow down, Mr. QB. No work until Monday.”

  “Okay.”

  David had played a year of college ball at Abilene Christian before tearing up his knee. Because of that, he’d been a ringer on the firm’s flag football team last summer—something that had given him a leg up on the other interns in the popularity department.

  “We need to get you over to the dinner,” Thomas said. “But do you want to take a peek at your new office first?”

  David shrugged, tried to be casual. “Sure, I guess.”

  His mentor laughed at him again. “Whatever. I know you want to sprint down the hallways to it. I remember this moment like it was yesterday. Come on!”

  Thomas led him around the corner and down a long hallway lined with spacious attorney offices. H&K’s associates’ offices were twice as big as those at the firm in New York. Lights were out in most of them, but a few associates were still at work. Thomas opened a door near the end of the hallway, flipped on a light switch, and ushered David inside. Although he tried to act cool, David felt like a kid on Christmas morning. Goose bumps shot up his arms. A contemporary wooden desk sat in the middle, two plush leather guest chairs in front of it, with an entire wall of matching mahogany shelves off to his right. But he couldn’t take his eyes off the big window. Walking over, David stared down as the sun set over Lady Bird Lake, the gorgeous stretch of the Colorado River that snakes through downtown Austin. There were a lot of folks on the running trails right now. David grinned from ear to ear. It was an impressive view and an impressive office. He kept wanting to pinch himself.

  “Not bad, huh?” said Thomas, stepping up next to him.

  “Not bad at all.”

  “You can even see the bats from here.”

  “Seriously?”

  Thomas pointed down toward the Congress Avenue Bridge. David had watched the bats last summer. It was a cool deal. About a million Mexican bats lived under the bridge. Every night near sunset, they emerged all at once, like a black cl
oud, and headed out looking for food.

  “Try out the chair,” Thomas suggested, spinning the brown leather executive chair. He walked around the desk, plopped into a guest chair, put his feet up on the corner of the desk. “We just got these in this week. I heard Lyons tell Jaworski they each cost three grand. Imported from Italy. We basically live in these chairs day and night, so the firm wants us comfortable.”

  David couldn’t believe he’d just dropped his butt into something worth $3,000. He’d been using a metal folding chair in his rented garage apartment the past two years.

  Thomas hopped up. “The firm has a room booked for you over at the Four Seasons. You can stay there until you find yourself a place to live. You got boxes in your car?”

  “A few.”

  “I’ll send a couple of clerks down and have them brought up. Let’s get to the restaurant. Things have kicked off already.”

  David and Thomas walked a couple of blocks over to Ruth’s Chris Steak House, where the firm was hosting dinner in a private room. The entire litigation group was there, along with wives, husbands, boyfriends, and girlfriends. The dinner was an official welcome to the firm’s three new hires before the partners began squeezing the billable life out of them. The addition of David and two others grew the overall litigation group to forty-five attorneys.

  David spotted William Tidmore standing across the room from him. The previous summer, David had interned with Tidmore—an obnoxious jerk from Yale—and couldn’t stand the guy. Tidmore came from money and made sure everyone knew it. Last summer, he’d driven a fancy BMW and never missed a chance to try to make David feel like a lower-class country bumpkin. Tall and skinny, with pale skin and perfectly combed blond hair, Tidmore was already rubbing elbows and kissing the asses of two of the partners.

  H&K had also hired Claire Monroe, a short, plain-faced, red-haired gal who had graduated number one in her class at New York University Law. Claire was sharp and cunning. David was certain she was three times smarter than he was. But she did not annoy him or threaten him to the same degree as Tidmore. David knew he could outwork Claire.