by Gabi Moore
“That apartment complex in Belmont you said to look into? Well, trying to find out who’s actually behind that development is like getting blood from a stone. I don’t know why he’d want to hide something like that, but whoever owns it is doing his best to keep it secret.”
“The Belmont property is just one of many. I knew he was having trouble with the deeds a few months back. We’re just looking for weak points.”
“Well, I think I found a weak point. Or four of them.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever heard of a sugar baby, Dean?”
“Go on…”
“Well, at least four of the new apartments there have been fobbed off in the last two weeks alone, all to young women, right? I track one of them down; she says Jeff’s been keeping her for a year, paying all her college, her rent, that kind of thing. She says a couple days ago he calls her up and offers her this brand new apartment as a gift. The crazy thing? I found three other girls with the same story,” he said and pulled some stapled and dog-eared documents from a briefcase.
I tried to make sense of what I was looking at.
“Now get this,” he continued, “I question the girl, right, she says Jeff and her barely even see each other, they don’t have sex, nothing.”
I nodded.
“He’s using them…”
“Yup. They think they’re his little thing on the side, but actually he’s offloading these properties on them.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know, man. And I don’t know why he’s doing it now.”
I pushed the documents back to him over the table. My father had indiscretions, everyone in our family knew that. And he had about a million side projects, I knew that too.
“It’s not illegal to give someone a luxury apartment as a gift, though. Suspicious as fuck, but I don’t see how we can use this.”
“Well, I’m not done yet. These chicks didn’t want to speak to any lawyers, they were all scared, especially since our man’s been all over the news the way he has. But one of the woman, right, Leigh Patton, she wanted to know more. She said she’d lost contact with Jeff but that some other men had reached out to her and told her to keep quiet. But Dean, she wants to testify.”
“She does? Testify what?”
I felt like I had just broken into my father’s secret drawer and was reading a personal journal of his that I was never meant to lay hands on. It was all too much. For the first time I noticed how tired Charlie looked. This was absolutely above his pay grade. If I had been paying him. I suppose that everyone at this table had their own personal vendetta against the almighty Jeff Cane that went beyond money. Nora was listening quietly, but I knew nothing was escaping her attention. For a moment I felt like we were some kind of budget X-men knockoff, and her super power was understanding all those hidden, unspoken nuances of the situation that she seemed to see so well.
“She says Jeff admitted to her that he had wanted to kill his wife for years. She said… ah man, I don’t know how to say this,” he said, and cast a glance at Nora, still listening intently.
“Just say it. I’m not shocked by him anymore, trust me.”
“She said that he had asked her to …play a game.”
The little café was heavy with silence.
“It’s sick man, I don’t know, but the game was that he would pretend to kill her, right? Like he was rehearsing or something. She said he was really twisted, made her do these really twisted things. She called it off when he started to call her Elizabeth.”
I could hear the men in the distant corner arguing quietly in what sounded like Greek. When I looked to Nora, her head was dropped and her eyes were closed. It looked like she was trying to ignore a sound only she could hear. I reached over to touch her shoulder.
“You OK?”
She smiled weakly.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I know you and him… ah shit, this is all very awkward,” Charlie said, and guiltily held his hands up in front of him.
“No, it’s OK. Really” Nora said.
“He’s a fucking monster,” Charlie blurted. They made eye contact.
“I know what he is,” she said quietly.
Charlie shrugged and frowned.
“No offense, Nora, but I don’t think anyone really does. I think this whole saga with Jeff is much, much bigger than any of us know. I tried to find out as much as I could without arousing any suspicion. Even a hack like me can see that he’s got a lot to hide. He’s definitely up to something, something big. I just don’t know what.”
Nora looked out the window with the same thousand-yard stare she’d use whenever we were out on the open road. Maybe it’ll sound distasteful to you, but all I could think about was fucking her again. It was like she was a drug, and every hour I spent away from that intoxicating body made me thirstier for her.
Charlie was pulling out more documents from his briefcase, more folders.
“There are so many shell companies, Dean, so many fronts. This one? I tried to look into this one a little and found out the CEO is registered under the name of this random woman in Puerto Rico. She won’t answer my calls, but I did some sniffing around and she’s the ‘president’ of hundreds of companies like that. There are actually no board members, nothing. It’s just a scam. He’s got at least a dozen companies like that, but the thing is the books are all dead. Some of them link to dead Swiss accounts, some were opened five years ago and then nothing.”
“What’s he trying to do?”
“I don’t know, but a lot of the paperwork leads to Elizabeth, particularly to PPD, this data security company in the UK. Plus she had him in his will, but then removed any mention of him two days before she was stabbed.”
“Elizabeth didn’t have any money, though,” I said.
“Exactly. But I don’t think that’s what your father wanted from her.”
More silence.
For a man like my father, sex was just another game. People were just businesses to manage. Human lives were just capital to be pushed back and forward to his own advantage. And sex was just a particularly effective weapon when it came to getting what he wanted. It made me sick to look at his life, to look at him and know that he was my father, and shared my name. I would have done anything to take a razor to that link and slice the “Cane” off my name once and for all.
Charlie was hurriedly putting the documents back in his briefcase.
“Anyway, we can discuss all of this later, I just wanted to give you the highlights. I’m doing my best, for now. But you guys gotta come back to the city and get ready to testify.”
“Already on it,” Nora said.
We both looked at her.
“Good,” Charlie said.
“Charlie,” I said, “there’s something you should know.”
“Yeah?”
“He sent someone after us. He knows where we are.”
“What?”
I sighed and rest my hand on Nora’s leg under the table. “A day ago. Some guy broke into our motel room and tried to kill us.”
Charlies scowled.
“Nora… she shot him.”
Charlie’s face lost all its color.
“Don’t worry, not dead, just…”
It suddenly became obvious how far Nora and I were along in our bubble, and how weird it felt to admit this bizarre detail to someone outside of the bubble. I could tell he thought I was insane not to mention this sooner.
“She shot him,” he said slowly.
“She didn’t kill him, Charlie. It was self-defense. That guy meant business.”
“One guy?”
“He was armed…”
“None of this shit makes any sense,” Charlie said and rubbed his face.
“Charlie, don’t stress about this.”
“You fucking kidding me? How about while I’m trying to sort things out you don’t go murdering people?”
“Charlie…”
“Sorry, man, it’s just. Fuck. This is ser
ious, you know?”
I grabbed his hand in mine.
“Please Charlie, don’t stress. You got this.”
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
The men at the corner table were on their way out now.
“You, Nora and your mother are testifying, and the case has been brought forward a week. Just stay in one piece, for Christ’s sake, it’s just a week. But we have a case here. We have a chance.”
“We’re accumulating a real Jeff Cane appreciation club here, aren’t we?” Nora said with a wry smile to break the silence.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “I don’t know what tricks he has up his sleeve, but we should assume he’s going to go all out. The media is having a real shit show with this.”
“The pictures?” I asked.
“Pictures? Man, your father’s in super damage control mode. The pictures are the least of your father’s problems right now.”
“Can I get you gentlemen something?”
We all three looked up to see a round, aproned woman, presumably Rose. Before I could speak Nora was smiling up sweetly at her.
“Ma’am, could we please have three slices of your famous cherry pie? We’ve been told there’s nothing better in three states,” she said warmly. The woman smiled.
“Well, it is pretty good. Some coffee?”
For the next few moments Nora, Charlie and I sat in silence and ate pie that was, as a matter of fact, pretty damn good. I was exhausted, but feeling excited to get back to the city. The soft cherries on my fork were so intensely red, and their effect on the tongue so perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, that for a moment I lost myself in the slice on my plate. The pie spilled its bloody guts onto the white china plate, and the sight of it made me irrationally happy.
We did have a good case.
This was bigger than any of us knew.
Chapter 10
Myth: Successful, good-looking men are invincible.
Reality: In the middle of every successful, good-looking man is a soft, gooey center waiting to burst free. No really.
Life, after creeping along as slowly as it had for weeks, suddenly sped up violently. Being back in the city again was weird. Like visiting an old friend I used to be very close to but not anymore, except the old friend was myself from a mere few months ago.
I looked at the stuffed suits walking downtown, crawling like ants through revolving doors and into great glass lobbies. I saw them race around town, carelessly knocking into people as they chatted loudly on their phones, their eyes not looking around them but at the next thing, the next conquest, the next sale or purchase. I saw myself. Had this really been my life?
“I still don’t understand all the secrecy.”
Maeve pursed her lips and scanned round the hotel room, just looking for a spot to place her free-floating disdain. She was no longer impressed with my philanthropic credentials, either. She was a simple woman, clearly, and just the mention of court dates and testimonies had her acting belligerent and suspicious.
“Please, Maeve,” Nora said. “It’s just for a little while. It’s nothing to be worried about, this will all be resolved after the case is over.”
She had more patience that I did. I was getting edgy with the endless conveyor belt of rented rooms. We had arrived this morning and I swear I was ready to tear my hair out wanting this whole thing to be over already.
“Oh, I don’t mind a bit, your sister is an angel, you know that, and she’s always welcome. It’s you two I’m worried about.”
Angelica had said nothing but it was easy to see that she was upset with all the commotion.
“We’ll be fine, Maeve. It’s just important that we all lay low for now.”
Maeve draw-stringed her lips tighter and gave me a hard look. “Well, I don’t like any of this one bit, but you’d better say goodbye to her now and we won’t draw this all out.”
Angelica went to Nora and hugged her generously. Nora gently took her face in her hands and gave her a sweet smile.
“I’ll see you again soon, OK Angie? We’ll paint nails, you and I. But we have to do something important now, so you have to go with Maeve to another house for a little while, OK?”
“Trial of the century,” Angelica mumbled.
I exchanged looks with Nora.
“What’s that, baby?”
“It was a bloodbath,” she said sadly.
Maeve looked horrified. “She’s been watching the damn news again,” she said, and reached to grab her hand. Nora smiled awkwardly and tried to catch her eye again.
“Don’t you worry, OK baby? It’s all OK, nothing bad’s going to happen to anyone. There’s a bad man doing bad things, and Nora is going to make sure he stops and doesn’t do them again, OK?”
God, I loved that woman.
Angelica nodded her head slowly, grabbed Maeve’s hand and pulled her out the front door, but not before giving us both a look so sour it could curdle milk. They left, and Nora and I stood alone for a moment.
“I see Maeve’s been watching the news as well, huh?” I said.
She sighed and shrugged.
“I don’t blame her,” Nora said. “She thought I was an interior decorator. With CNN going on like they do, I might as well add ‘Whore of Babylon’ to my resume next, right?”
She laughed, but her eyes were sad. I pulled her in close and hugged her tightly. When I moved in for a kiss, though, she twisted her face away and I could tell that she was fighting back tears.
“Hey,” I whispered and grazed my knuckles gently against her cheek. She sniffed hard and tried to wriggle from my grasp, but I wasn’t going to let her get away without at least trying to cheer her up.
“I’m sorry. It’s just …I’m so tired. I had another nightmare last night,” she said. I held her and kissed her forehead.
“It’s going to be over soon, Nora. Just stay strong for me.”
There was nothing to do for these last three days but wait for the court date. I had desperately tried to keep her away from the paparazzi, away from a TV and the fever pitch the media had reached about this case. It was like watching a big-time boxing tournament, only in one corner of the ring was a celebrated Silicon Valley billionaire and on the other, my little Nora, weighing a whole 110 pounds and with a head full of black roots to match the black bags under her eyes. It would be the underdog fight of the century. A bloodbath indeed. But I needed her head in the game.
I kissed her quietly there in that anonymous hotel room, as we both waited for our fate. We had come a long, strange way together. She pressed her head to my chest and I soon felt quiet tears seeping into my shirt.
“Nora, you’ve done nothing wrong here, remember that,” I said to the top of her head.
“Oh really?”
I knew seeing her sister always made her feel guilty.
“Come on now, I know the world is attacking your reputation right, but you can’t let any of that stuff get to you, OK?”
“Yeah,” she said but I could hear the misery in her voice. I turned her face to mine.
“I’m serious Nora. You’ve committed no crimes. You simply got involved with the wrong man. And with me by your side, you have the best chance in fighting back. He’s not going to make you take the fall for anything, do you hear me?”
“I just don’t know anymore, Dean, I –”
“Nora listen. My father is the one charged with murder, not you. We have one of the toughest DAs in the country on this trial, and his defense attorneys right now are only banking on the jury finding your involvement distasteful. That’s all. With luck, you won’t even be called to the stand, and the investigators will go on your behalf.”
“But you heard what Charlie said. They’re going to drag me through hell. They’re going to make me describe what I did with him…”
“Then you describe it. Fuck it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Their defense is weak, and they don’t even know about Leigh Patton yet.”
She pul
led from my arms.
“I don’t care about that shit. None of it matters, don’t you see? All the jury will see is that I’m the dirty prostitute who ruined a good man’s life. It doesn’t matter what the facts are.”
She was crying again. I went to her, took her hands in mine and kissed them.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that, ever,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.
“Maybe they’re right, you know? Maybe Maeve is right and all those tabloids are right and I’m an amoral whore. Who would believe someone like me?”
“I would,” I said. “I do.”
I don’t know how, but by some magic I was on my knees before her, her hands in mine. We exchanged nervous glances, and before I knew it, the words fell from my lips.
“Nora, marry me. Be my wife and stay with me and let me love you like you deserve to be loved,” I said quickly, as though the sentence had been piled away somewhere inside waiting for release. She stopped crying and stared at me in astonishment.
“You’re crazy,” she whispered.
“Maybe. But marry me anyway.”
She pulled her hand from mine and brought them to cover her eyes.
“So you can rub it in your dad’s face? So you can get a rise out of him by running off with the one woman you weren’t supposed to get involved with?”
I took a step back, reeling.
“Nora, please, don’t say that…”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”
I reached for her hand again but she pulled back.
“It’s too fast. All of this is too fast. The trial is in three days and I’m--”
I grabbed her and held her close and her voice trailed off again.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I just… I mean it, though, Nora. With all my heart, I mean it. But let’s forget about it for now. I didn’t mean to stress you.”
“Just kiss me,” she said, and so I did.
That we knew how to do. No matter how crazy the last few weeks and months had been, that was one thing that was constant: our bodies fit together in a chemical reaction that never seemed to end. I was always ready for her, always willing and there to answer any and all of her body’s needs. We tumbled softly to the bed and she yielded and let me kiss her stressed tears away. She had wanted to go to the salon to fix her hair, to go to the beach and relax, to get new art supplies to paint again, to go outside and walk in the daylight. But I needed her to stay here, where at least she was safe. I wouldn’t feel happy letting such a beautiful creature walk a world where I knew that monster was free. Until I saw his face behind bars, I didn’t want to take any risks.