“That’s right. I met him this afternoon at court. He testified for my and Darlene’s client in our case against Byron’s client.” She told him about the judge’s ruling. “Hathaway’s a great looking guy, and he speaks extremely well.”
“Yeah,” Clark said. “He impressed me, too. Let’s hope this signals the end of Darlene and those guys who never put anything on their feet but Reeboks. I’ll say good night now. Chin up.”
“Good night, Clark. Don’t worry. It definitely won’t kill me.” She could say that, but the way she felt gave the lie to it. She plodded up stairs, undressed and went to bed without turning on a light. When dawn broke, she was wide awake.
Byron drove home at an unusually slow speed. He had his child in the back seat, and he could not afford to have an accident. Still, for most of the trip home, he was unaware that he drove. His world had just been shattered. Blown to smithereens. He’d never been so glad to get home as when he finally parked in front of his house, rested his head on the stirring wheel and gave thanks that he’d gotten there without having an accident.
He took Andy from the back seat, locked the car and, with his precious child asleep in his arms, made his way up the steps to his front door. A man wasn’t supposed to seek solace in his child, but right then, he needed love, and the only love he could count on was the love of his son. He put Andy to bed and told himself not to let his mind dwell on the day’s events. But how could he not do it? Less than an hour after he’d made up his mind to ask her to marry him she let him down and all that she had become to him crashed around him, into pieces, unrecoverable like shivers of broken glass.
“I’ll get over it,” he told himself, but he hardly believed it. Somewhere between furious and disconsolate, he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. “Fool,” he muttered and stopped himself just before his fist rammed the mirror. He slept fitfully, arose early and went into Andy’s room where the boy, who usually slept as long as he was allowed to do so, sat up in bed playing with Nassau, the monkey that Tyra gave him.
“Daddy, why didn’t we take Miss Tyra home last night?”
“We did, but you were asleep.”
“Why didn’t you wake me up? I wanted to tell her good night.”
He did not want to begin the day with a discussion of Tyra. “Get up, son. Get dressed and be downstairs in fifteen minutes, and brush your teeth thoroughly.” Andy didn’t see the value in day school, because he was farther advanced than most of the other children. “Can I take Nassau to school with me?
“Leave Nassau on the bed and step to it. I put your clothes in the chair.”
“Yes, sir.”
He should be happy that his four-year-old could dress himself perfectly and tie his shoes, and that he often was able to tie his tie, though he was more likely to need help with it. The boy loved his school uniform and wore it proudly. He drove Andy to school and escorted him to the door. Some parents let their children out of the car, sat there and watched until they were safely inside, but he walked the boy to the front door and waited until he passed the guard. His father always counseled that an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure, and he also believed that.
He got to his office earlier than usual, opened his computer and began a search for the license plate number that he recorded during his confrontation with the man who falsely accused him the night before. When he could find nothing for that number, he made a note to call the stated office responsible for license plates. Chances were that he knew someone there. A call from a client took his mind off the escort service, and he was soon busy revising his brief for his morning court appearance.
Tyra had less success at diverting her attention from the events of the previous night and, at eleven o’clock when she had nothing to show for the two-and-a-half hours she’d sat at her desk, she got up and went to the coffee room hoping that a shot of caffeine would help. She didn’t feel like talking, and when she saw Matt leaning against the door jamb and holding a paper cup to his lips, she turned to go back to her office.
“Hi,” he said. “Haven’t seen you since last week. What’s up?”
She walked back to him. “Nothing special.”
Matt stared at her. “What’s come over you? Say, are you all right, Tyra?” He put his drink down, poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her. “What’s the matter, friend? Can I help?”
“Thanks, Matt, but I’ll be fine. Things are a little rough right now, but as you know, ‘This, too, shall pass away.’”
He patted her shoulder. “If I can help, you know how to reach me.” She nodded listlessly, sipping coffee without tasting it, unaware that he’d gone and she was alone.
One week of detachment from all around her invited the constant solicitousness of Maggie and her siblings, and she had begun to tire of it and to spend increasingly longer hours at her office.
On a Thursday morning, one week and two days after she last saw Byron, she got to work at seven-thirty, made the coffee, got a cup for herself, sat down at her desk and opened her computer. To her surprise, the door opened, and Christopher Fuller stood before her with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Thanks for the coffee. I was wondering who got here so early. What’s the matter? Can’t sleep?”
“What do you want, Fuller?” She didn’t bother to keep the sneer out of her voice.
A smirk sufficed for the smile around his lips, but his eyes flashed hatred. “How are things going with you and the big shot?”
A frown altered her face. Where was this going? “Who’re you talking about?”
“Whitley. Is your thing with him still hot?”
Her antenna shot up. “What do you know about my relationship with Byron?”
The “gotcha” expression on his face reminded her of a teacher who’d caught a student cheating. “I make it my business to know how my competition is faring,” he said, closed the door and left.
“What competition?” she thought. She’d never given Christopher Fuller an iota of encouragement. In fact, she’d let him know that she disdained his advances. Deciding to top off her coffee, she headed back to the coffee room and stopped mid-way there. How did Fuller know about her and Byron? Wait a minute. He was just the type to use an escort service. With bells ringing in her head, she went on to the coffee room and got there simultaneously with Matt.
“You’re looking a lot brighter,” he said. “How are you?”
“I may be better by the minute.” When he raised both eyebrows, she said, “Would you say Fuller is the type of man to use an escort service?”
“Probably. Why?” Asking for his confidence, she told him of Byron’s encounter with the unidentified chauffer and related her suspicion because of her conversation with Christopher minutes earlier.
“You gotta be kidding. Of course. I hope you didn’t believe that. It’s as thin as onion skin. Prostitutes take the money in advance, and there are no refunds. I hope Whitley gets at the bottom of this. Fuller has hit on every woman who works here. He’s just the type to do something like that.”
“Please don’t mention it.”
“I won’t, but you dig into this and report it. If you need any help, let me know. I imagine this cooled things off between you and Whitley. Sure. That would put any woman in the dumps. Get busy on it.”
She thanked him, and went back to her office, her heart lighter than it had been in weeks. She called the taxi commissioner’s office, reported the limousine’s number, said she wanted to file a suit against the driver, whose name, she learned, was Rodney Fuller. The man was said to drive a private limousine for parties of individuals on such special occasions as weddings, funerals, graduations, but when she dialed the phone number given her, the operator replied, “Pamela speaking. What service is this?”
“Well, well,” she said aloud. “Somebody is going to catch hell.” She told herself not to do anything in a hurry, and a niggling impulse wanted her to call Byron and tell him. But she wanted Christopher Fuller to pay heavily, and
she didn’t know whether Byron would see to that. She decided to think about it until after lunch.
She sat alone in the staff cafeteria eating a tuna fish sandwich. “Mind if I join you?”
She glanced up and saw Matt, though she would have recognized his voice even if she hadn’t seen him. “Any progress with that little mystery?” he asked her.
“You bet. Fuller is our man. His brother has a tie to more than one escort service.”
“I’m sure Whitley will be glad to get that cleared up. What did he say when you told him?”
“I haven’t told him yet.”
Matt stopped in the process of cutting a piece of cheese. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t you reach him?”
“I wanted to think it through. I’ll call him when I get back to my office.”
Matt have her a long and bemused look. “Yeah, but don’t tell him you’ve known this all day and waited till two-thirty to tell him.”
“What? You’re right. In my anger, I wanted to sock it to Fuller myself, but I realize I should let Byron take care of it. Thanks.”
“I’m sure he’ll do a good job of it. Good luck.”
Byron watched his junior partner leave his office crestfallen. He’d been hard on the man, harder than necessary perhaps, but he was in a foul mood, and Ben’s sloppy handling of that case had done nothing to brighten his outlook. When his phone rang, he ignored it. But after a lengthy ring, his secretary answered it.
“Byron, Ms. Cunningham is on line one.” He did not want to speak with her, didn’t want to hear the voice that would trigger in him reminders of his dried up dreams. “She says it’s urgent, Byron.”
“Hello, Tyra, what’s up?”
“Hello, Byron. I have some information that may interest you.” She began by telling him of Christopher Fuller and his interest in her, and he was on the verge of telling her that the matter was of no interest to him when she said, “The driver of that limousine was Rodney Fuller, and among other jobs, he transports workers and their clients for different escort services.”
His antenna shot up. “If you have a pen handy,” she continued, “this is the phone number, and I’ve checked with the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner’s officer.”
He sat forward, “Are you sure your colleague is behind this?”
“I am absolutely positive. He came by my office this morning to gloat, asked me how things were going with you, and I had no idea he knew you and I had a relationship. He said he made it a point to know what his competition was doing. He’s hit on every woman who works here, and if you check, I’m sure you will discover that he uses that service. I’m sorry about that and about a lot of things, Byron. I sincerely hope you’ll make certain that Christopher Fuller gets what he deserves. Here is the information for the person you should contact here at LAC. Good luck with it.”
“I’m going to follow this up today, Tyra, and I’ll let you know the outcome. I want you to know that I…I appreciate your taking the trouble to dig into this. It tells me more than words could have. I’ll be in touch. Uh…Tyra, thank you.”
He sat back in his chair, flicking his fingernails. If she had believed that guy, she wouldn’t have gone to the trouble to find out why the limousine driver made the accusation and the name of the person with whom he was in cahoots. It was something to go on, and he cherished it. Maybe…
Chapter 12
Byron propped his left elbow on his desk and supported his chin with the palm of his left hand. In the practice of law, he’d met a lot of unprincipled people, but he didn’t think any surpassed Christopher Fuller, a man who made a living counseling others. He didn’t believe in “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” but he did believe that criminals should pay for their unsavory deeds. He could sue the man for defamation of character, but he didn’t want the guy’s money; no amount of it would compensate for the pain he endured at Tyra’s lapse of trust and belief in him. He lifted the telephone receiver and dialed the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner’s office.
“Hello, Ken. This is Byron. Can you verify this for me, please? It’s a personal matter, and it’s very important.” He related in detail the purpose of his call. “What? The guy mis-represented me.” He took notes while his friend and fraternity brother talked. Fifteen minutes later, he hung up, satisfied that he had the information he needed. So officials suspected Rodney Fuller of being a part of a prostitution ring, and of covering it with one general transportation vehicle used for parties, weddings and other occasions. But he used his other cars to transport girls to and from their johns. Mr. Fuller had given himself the task of embarrassing him in order to destroy Tyra’s confidence in him. Christopher Fuller would rue the day he conjured up that scheme.
Using his official stationery, Byron wrote letters to the Legal Aid Center and to the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner in which he accused Christopher of orchestrating the deed, explaining the man’s motive for doing so and pointing out that he had never seen, spoken with or met Christopher Fuller. He had the letters notarized and mailed them. If he didn’t get satisfaction, he’d take the matter to court.
He should have felt better about it, but the pain remained. He still went home to his four-year-old son every night to explain why he hadn’t brought Tyra back to see the child or taken him to see Tyra, and he still tossed in his bed nightly aching for her. He knew she didn’t think that of him, but trust in him hadn’t been paramount in her thinking about him. It was now, he knew, because that incident had forced her to think, but she’d already delivered those awful scars. He tried to edit a brief he’d prepared for a court session two days hence, but he pushed it aside. Dammit, he loved her. He packed the brief in his briefcase, telling himself he’d get to it later, told his secretary that he was leaving for the day and went home.
He opened the door. Not a sound. Momentarily alarmed, he relaxed and slumped into a dining room chair. For a moment, he’d forgotten that at two-thirty, Andy hadn’t come home from school and in fact Jonie had gone to pick him up. He went to the kitchen, looked first in the refrigerator and then in the freezer, didn’t see anything interesting and decided to take Andy and Jonie out to dinner. He wrote a note to Jonie, taped it to the refrigerator, got his brief and a bottle of beer and went out on the back porch to work. His cell phone rang.
“Byron, can you speak with Clark Cunningham?” his secretary asked him.
If anything had happened to her, he’d… “Sure, put him on. What’s up Clark? It’s good to hear from you.” He said the latter as an afterthought.
“I’m fine, I hope. I’m trying to track down Tyra.”
He bolted upright. “Tyra? Man, what are you talking about?”
“Maggie said she left home this morning at the usual time, dressed as if she was going to work, but she’s not at her office and she doesn’t answer her cell phone.”
“She called me around ten-thirty this morning, but she didn’t mention leaving her office.” He thought for a second. “But I can’t see any reason why she should have mentioned it. What’s going through your mind, Clark? Is that all Maggie said? Did you call Darlene?”
“Naw. I’ll call Darlene as a last resort. She is so full of drama that she’d alert the White House. Maybe I’m overdoing it, but while I can understand her leaving work early— I’ve done it myself plenty of times—I can’t see why she doesn’t answer her cell phone. I’ll be in touch.”
After checking Tyra’s office phone and her cell phone and being unable to locate her, Byron contemplated his next move. Now what? How was he supposed to work when Tyra could be in danger or worse…? He didn’t want to think of alternatives. He went on the Internet, found the Legal Aid Center’s Web site, and checked its roster to see whether he knew any of the staff members. When he saw Matthew Cowan’s name among the volunteers, relief spread over him the way water spreads over even land. He wasn’t bosom buddies with the man, but he knew him well enough to call him.
“Cowan speaking.”
“Matt, this is B
yron Whitley. I’m calling you for a favor. Have you seen Tyra Cunningham today?”
“Why, yes. I spoke with her at length shortly after ten this morning, and I saw her in the staff cafeteria at lunch time. She must be in her office.”
“She doesn’t answer there nor does she answer her cell phone.”
“Wait a minute. I’ll walk around there.” A minute later, Matt said, “She isn’t in her office, the coffee room or her supervisor’s office. I’ll check the staff lounge.” He returned a minute later. “The guard said he hadn’t seen her since she came to work this morning, and she’s not in the lounge. The women’s room is empty, because the light is green. I don’t know what else to tell you. Wait a second. This may take a minute longer.”
After two full minutes, Matt spoke to him. “I checked the one place I knew she wasn’t likely to be, but these days, you can’t tell. She’s not in this building. I won’t mention this unless she’s missing from home tonight. Okay?”
“Okay, Matt, and thanks. I’m in your debt.”
“Not at all, man. Tyra’s been a good colleague to me, and I appreciate your interest. Good luck.”
Byron hung up with a suspicion that Matt Cowan knew how Tyra felt about him, assumed it was mutual and had done his best to put him at ease. Had she confided to Cowan her unhappiness about the break in their relationship? He’d said he would check the one place he didn’t expect her to be, and logic said that meant he checked Christopher Fuller’s office. Hmm. So Fuller had a reputation among his colleagues. He rubbed his forehead. Where was she? He had to wait until her family’s dinnertime, and he didn’t see how he could stand it.
After her conversation—if you could call it that—with Byron, Tyra paced from one end of her office to another, pushed papers around on her desk, went to the coffee room and decided that coffee wasn’t what she needed. On the way back to her office, she tapped on Lyle Riddick’s office door.
Finding Mr. Right Page 19