Forests of the Night by James W. Hall Page A

best. Norman alwayscomes over to our table. He’s cute. I’d so marry him. He could cook for me every night.”
    The big man nodded, still wearing the bold smile he’d given Charlotte.
    As she studied the man’s profile, his identity finally began to clarify, a shape congealing from the fog. Of course, of course. Jacob Panther. Sweet Jesus Mother of God.
    â€œYou know you look like somebody,” Gracey said. “Doesn’t he, Dad? Doesn’t he look like somebody we know? I can’t think who.”
    Panther turned slowly from the darkness.
    â€œI get that a lot. I must have a common face.”
    â€œAnything but,” Charlotte said quietly. Parker heard and turned in her direction. She set her wineglass down on the arm of a lawn chair, saying, “Norman’s sounds fine. I just need to freshen up. Back in a sec.”
    Parker shot her a puzzled look, but she didn’t field it, didn’t even hold his eyes for an extra tick, not wanting anything to trigger Jacob Panther’s sensors.
    Charlotte ambled to the kitchen, then, when she was certain she was out of sight, she jogged down the hallway past the master suite to the back guest room where she stored her work files and her laptop.
    She sat down at her desk, switched on the IBM, opened the DSL connection, and a second later she typed in the Web address for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With two clicks she was looking at a thumbnail photo of the man on their patio. He hadn’t even bothered with an alias.
    Though the FBI didn’t number them anymore, counting down from the top of the page their blond guest held the eighth position on the Most Wanted list.

Five
    â€œSo I hear you’re one tough son of a bitch,” Jacob said.
    â€œWhat?” Parker stiffened.
    â€œYou’re a rough-and-tumble guy.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    â€œThat’s what Uncle Thomas said. Lots of fistfights, hell-bent to prove yourself. Chip on your shoulder.”
    Parker poured the dregs of his beer onto the dying embers.
    â€œThat’s what he said. Don’t turn your back on Parker Monroe. Only makes sense a guy like you would turn out to be a lawyer.”
    Parker was floored.
    In a profession so shamelessly belligerent, he’d always prided himself on the opposite virtue, an unassuming manner, a quiet though tenacious passion for fairness. In the courtroom he adopted an old-fashioned pace, dawdling, meandering. Unfailingly serene and polite in cross-examinations. When he had no choice but to object to a prosecutor’s line of questioning, he was courteous to a fault. No irony, no sarcasm, 100 percent sincere. A twenty-first-century Atticus Finch. And that, he believed, was the source of his success. He was a man out of time. His hyped-up adversaries with their eye-gouging tactics didn’t know how to respond. Next to Parker either theycame across as grossly aggressive or—by trying to compete with his approach—they assumed a laid-back pose that struck juries as totally bogus.
    â€œWin at any cost.” Jacob was still smiling. “Hiking, felling trees, rope climbing, starting campfires, whatever it was. Had to do it bigger, better, faster. Super gung ho.”
    â€œFunny,” Parker said. “I don’t remember it that way.”
    â€œLike you needed to prove yourself to all those other rich snots, you being the owner’s kid. You had to make up for it some way. That’s what Uncle Thomas said. I’m just repeating.”
    Jacob sipped his beer and stared out at the moonlight glazing the canal.
    â€œI remember a couple of fights. No more than anyone else.”
    â€œNo need to be defensive. I don’t believe he meant it as a criticism,” Jacob said. “I think he admired you for it, ’cause that’s how he felt himself. Out of place. Not one of those prep-school types with their silverware manners. Then,