by Nancy Bush
She was smart enough to see that Dallas had been unimpressed with her son’s supposed remorse for his crimes. Alastair had managed a mumbled, “I guess it’s against the law,” when Dallas had reviewed the charges against him. The friend wouldn’t go after him on the extortion charges, and most of the rest of his crimes had been viewed as penny-ante . . . except the drug dealing. To date, Alastair had managed to escape the burglary, robbery, and theft felonies, but that was if—and this was the big if—he pleaded guilty to the drug dealing. This was the stalemate they found themselves at, because Joanna wanted him off scot-free. Dallas had tried to explain that the kid, being only sixteen, would likely be charged as a juvenile. It was a miracle he hadn’t been caught before. But Joanna was having none of it.
She said for about the fifth time, “He should never have been hanging out with those other boys. He got talked into trying that awful stuff. Opioids; you hear about them all the time. He wasn’t selling them. He admitted he tried some pills, but his friends talked him into it, and you know how easy it is to get hooked. He should never have tried it. And his father and I are going to make certain that never happens again, I can tell you.”
“Mrs. Creighton—”
“Joanna,” she insisted.
“Your son was caught in the act of exchanging drugs for money.”
“It was a setup. I told you that.”
“It was a sting,” Dallas corrected. “Alastair was followed and caught selling opioids for cash more than once.”
“Whose side are you on? Is this some kind of run-through for court?”
Dallas said patiently, “Your son is guilty of the crime and will probably have to do the time. If he’s truly remorseful, a reduced sentence is about—”
“He’s not going to jail! Or ... that MacLaren school for delinquents, or whatever it is! He’s not!”
“The evidence is too strong against him.”
“I came here for help and all I hear is negativity. Are you going to defend him or not?”
“Only if you understand that he’ll likely be convicted and we can work on the sentenc—”
She threw up a hand and jumped to her feet. “Stop. Just stop. People who matter gave me your name, and if you won’t help him, I’m going to tell them what a disappointment you are. We’ll find someone else who will actually defend him, if you won’t.”
“That’s certainly your prerogative, Mrs. Creighton.”
“Joanna.”
“If you want me to stop working on your son’s case, I will immediately. I understand how hard this is for you. It’s uncharted territory for parents, a really foreign, inhospitable place to find yourself. Your child is in the system. The forces of law and order are coming at you like a steamroller. There’s no escaping them.”
“You don’t know that!” Tears sprang to her eyes.
“If I could give you one piece of advice, it’s to change your focus. Start planning a defense instead of a denial. That’s where you are. That’s reality.”
She wanted to scream at him. It was in her taut face and angry stance. She wanted to blame him for her son’s perfidy. Dallas had been here before. Transference. It was sometimes his lot.
She seemed about to say something more, but in the end, she turned on her heel and stalked out. The door remained open until Billie, his receptionist-cum-secretary-cum-girl Friday—his only employee—came to shut it. She sent him a commiserating smile and slowly closed it.
Dallas sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. He’d been a defense attorney a long time and he’d learned to advise his clients not to tell him whether they were guilty of the crimes they were accused of. He needed to believe they were innocent to give them the representation they deserved. But if their guilt was self-evident—proven, really—there needed to be a come-to-Jesus meeting between him and his client. Dallas couldn’t defend someone he knew was guilty, even if they claimed they weren’t. He was honest with clients about that.
“If you want me to get the best sentence for you, I will. If you want me to defend the case as if you’re innocent, I’ll try to the best of my ability, but you may be better served with a different attorney.”
The result was, sometimes they stayed with him, sometimes they didn’t. He was lucky in that most of his would-be clients understood what he was saying.
That was his rule, and if it lost him clients, so be it.
Or maybe he’d just become jaded over the years. Lately, he’d moved away from criminal defense and taken on other types of cases, his next client a case in point.
Thinking of Layla Crissman, he glanced over at The Oregonian, lying on his desk. One headline grabbed him: ANGEL OF DEATH KILLS LOCAL HEIRESS’S HUSBAND. Layla’s sister, Lucretia Crissman Linfield, was the local heiress and the victim was her husband, John Linfield. The headline almost made it sound like Lucretia was the angel of death, but apparently, Linfield had consumed enough of the Amanita ocreata mushroom, sometimes called by other names, such as the angel of death, the destroying angel, or the death angel, whether accurate or not, to shut down his organs and kill him.
Fifteen minutes later, Billie buzzed him and said, “I’m sending in Layla Crissman.”
“All right.”
Layla walked inside his office wearing a long, flowing black coat over a pair of black slacks and a red blouse. She withdrew a paisley red, yellow, and blue scarf from around her neck.
“Let me take your coat,” Dallas said as she shrugged out of it. He hung it on the antique wooden coatrack in the corner of his office, a gift from his ex-fiancée, who’d complained about how sterile everything in his life was.
“It’s like winter out there. Hard to believe April’s around the corner,” Layla said.
“Hopefully, one of these days soon the temperature will rise about forty-five degrees,” Dallas agreed.
There was something charmingly untidy about Layla. That artistic, bohemian thing he normally found a turnoff but that came so naturally to her that it made him smile. She’d signed a document she was now regretting signing, and he was in negotiations with the other party, Neil Grassley, a man Dallas had met on more than one occasion—and had never been impressed by—and he was trying to help her out. He’d done a bit of surface investigation into the man when Layla had come back to him with a new wrinkle—more like a crevasse—in the pending lawsuit.
Now, she leaned forward in her chair and asked, “What’s going on with Neil?”
“Still working that out.”
“How long will it take?”
“Hopefully, we’ll have some answers soon.”
Dallas had hired his younger brother, Lucas, an ex-cop, a guy with a colorful look at life, so colorful that Dallas had encouraged him to become a novelist when he had shown an aptitude for writing but who’d chosen to become a private investigator instead, to look deeply into Neil Grassley’s life. Lucas had already given Dallas a preliminary study on the man, but after Grassley had offered thirty thousand for his and Layla’s baby, Dallas had turned to his brother for more help.
Grassley had been fighting Layla tooth and nail for full custody, and legally, he had the upper hand, so it was strange that he’d offered her so much money, even if it was a blurted comment with no serious follow-through, as it seemed to be. Since the benefit where this had taken place—and Layla had learned his new girlfriend was pregnant as well—Grassley had ramped up both his attacks and his coercion to get what he wanted ... which was currently in question, as he had done an about-face and was now, as they would say in an earlier century or two, wooing her.
“Grassley is still proposing marriage to you?” he asked.
She flushed, shook her head, then said, “Yes.”
“And he’s not involved with the pregnant girlfriend anymore, as far as you know?”
“Says it’s over. And he knows I wasn’t involved with Ian.”
Initially, Grassley had caught Ian living with Layla and had shouted that he was going to use that against her, tha
t she would be an unfit parent, living with a man who made no bones about the fact he used recreational drugs. But he’d had a swift change of heart, apparently, and now seemed to believe Layla’s contention that Ian was couch surfing. Grassley had become a suitor, a swain, practically begging her to come back to him. Ian, apparently understanding that he was a liability, had reluctantly moved on.
When asked what happened to the pregnant girlfriend, Courtney Mayfield, Grassley had said he’d made a mistake with her and it was over. Layla had asked about the baby to come, and Neil had said he and Courtney were “working it out.”
Layla had pressed him on that issue, but he hadn’t fully explained. She wanted to know what was really going on, and she’d come to Dallas for help. Dallas, too, was interested in Grassley’s motives. The man was all over the place ... and his decision-making was erratic, to say the least.
“Where are you on the marriage proposal?”
“I told him I needed more answers about Courtney and the baby. He said there wasn’t anything more to tell. I was going to deny him and keep on fighting for split custody of Eddie, but now things are getting weird. Did you see about my sister?” She glanced at the newspaper.
“I did.”
“She thinks she’s going to be accused of murder.”
“Of poisoning her husband?”
“Which is crazy! There’s no way. Everything feels ... out of control. And Neil . . . came by last night and demanded an answer. After all this time, all the terrible things he’s threatened . . . How can anyone have that kind of change of heart?”
“It’s not usually the case,” Dallas agreed.
“He told me he doesn’t even want a prenup. He just wants to marry me, have our child, and live happily ever after. He actually used that term. Happily ever after. He’s up to something.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of trickery that I can’t see? Doesn’t make sense, except . . .”
“Except?” he asked, when she stopped herself.
“I want to say it’s just to beat out Jerome Wolfe . . . but that’s too childish and bizarre to really consider, isn’t it?” She peered over at him.
She had told him that some kind of verbal pissing match between Wolfe and Grassley had occurred at the benefit for the Friends of the Columbia River Gorge, held at the Crissman family’s lodge in Wharton County. It hadn’t sounded like the kind of thing that would generate such a strong reaction, but he was always surprised at what humans could get up to and their reasons for it.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.
“He’s kind of pressuring me,” she said. “He is pressuring me,” she corrected herself. “And . . . even though I don’t trust him, it makes me kind of happy. It’s lots better than fighting and heading for court.”
He wanted to tell her it was no reason to say yes to him, but he kept his lips closed. She was working through Grassley’s abrupt about-face in her own way.
To that end, she mused, “If I actually say yes . . . maybe I could use the money for my sister’s defense . . . and I would get my child.”
“Kind of drastic.” For all his good advice to himself to steer clear of her decision-making, Dallas couldn’t contain himself.
“I don’t love Neil. I don’t really like him that much,” Layla admitted. “And I’ve never been totally practical. That’s more like my sister. But I think we’re going to need money for my sister’s defense. I need to help her, and I’d be helping myself, too.”
“You don’t know that she’ll be accused of any crime in relation to her husband’s death.”
“No. I don’t.” She half-smiled. “Do you ever just know something, though? Kind of, you know, feel it? Like you can see it happening, even though you think it’s maybe not plausible? That’s the story of my life.”
Dallas nodded. He was still formulating a response when she popped out with, “So, will you represent her? I’ll find a way to pay you. She didn’t kill her husband.”
“Let’s talk about investigating Neil before we go on to your sister. You need to know what’s driving him. Also, what’s in his contract with Courtney Mayfield, if there is one. I’ll have Luke check it out, and I’ll have him look into Jerome Wolfe, too.”
“No. I know all about him.” Her voice was cold.
Dallas considered. Layla had alluded to something that had happened between them when she’d taken a ride home with Wolfe after the benefit, but she hadn’t been specific. What she’d said was that she had a nose for loser men. She’d also noted that Wolfe was in negotiations to buy the lodge and Layla was against the sale.
Now, he told her, “If Grassley gives you a deadline, let it expire. I want to see how this plays out a bit.”
“I don’t want to fight Neil anymore. I just want my child. And I want to help my sister.”
“Just give Luke some time to look into everything. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know anything.”
“Will you meet with my sister?”
“We can certainly schedule something. I need to talk to her, personally, if this is her case, not yours.”
“Well, um . . .” She glanced at the clock above Dallas’s head, between the two windows that today were looking out on a cold, blustery day. “I told her to give me twenty minutes, and then to show up.”
“Here? Today?”
At that moment, Billie buzzed him and said, “Uh . . . Ms. Crissman’s sister is here? Lucretia Linfield?”
Dallas didn’t have another meeting scheduled this afternoon. Layla’s was the last of the day. But he almost wanted to protest on principle when he registered the tension on Layla’s face.
But ... what the hell.
“Send her in,” he told Billie.
The door opened, and Dallas’s first impression was that the slim woman who walked so tentatively through the door was a pale copy of herself. Her skin was blanched and her hair lay straight, as if brushed down and forgotten. Her hazel eyes sober and a bit unfocused. She had a black purse slung over her shoulder and one arm kept it clamped hard to her torso. Her dress was black, too. Unrelenting black, which only washed her out further. There was a delicateness to her that appealed to his own sense of chivalry. He was always fighting his personal need to help damsels in distress.
He thought: This is the practical sister?
She reminded him of someone he’d once known, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“Hello,” he said, coming around the desk and extending his hand to her. He saw Layla’s eyes stray to her while she hesitated briefly, then carefully clasped his hand. She stared down at that union as if there were something fascinating and just a little bit horrifying about their two hands meeting.
“Dallas Denton,” he said.
And she said, after a hard swallow, “Lucy Linfield.”
“I don’t know if it’s knowing Layla or if you just seem really familiar. Have we met before?”
She looked up at him, searching his eyes, and said, “I would have remembered.”
* * *
Lucy was living in an alternative universe. Or a nightmare. Or some kind of dark comedy where she was the central joke. Had to be.
He didn’t know her. He wasn’t acting. He didn’t remember her at all.
He didn’t remember you right after it happened, so why did you think he would now?
And John was dead. Her husband gone. Just ... gone. She couldn’t get that into her brain yet, into her memory. And now this investigation . . . It was all so surreal, but it was happening. Her life was changing, as her mother, Sandra, who was still here, kept reminding her. Sandra had learned of John’s death and was still here, thinking she was helping, but was she?
Layla was talking. “. . . hoped you would take her case. They’re trying to say on the news that she’s a black widow. Killing him for his money. But she wouldn’t hurt a fly, right, Luce?”
She was being called on to corroborate Layla’s plea.
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“That’s right,” she said, barely able to get the words out.
Layla had browbeat her into meeting with Dallas Denton. Lucy had done everything she could think of to put her off, then had broken down and confessed that Dallas was Evie’s father. She was too dispirited to lie about that when John was dead and the authorities were building a case against her. No one had said as much, but she could tell. And it was just terrible. Awful. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
And then Layla had said, quietly, just so Lucy could hear, “I always knew it was Dallas. That’s why I went to him in the first place.”
“How? How did you know?” she’d cried.
“Because you told me about that night right after it happened.”
“I didn’t name names!”
“You did enough for me to piece it together. Whenever his name came up on a case, you asked a lot of questions. Lucy, you’re not sly. You go in feet first every time.”
“But that’s a leap, to think he was Evie’s father.”
“I’m good at leaps,” she’d answered.
And she was. Layla was intuitive in a spooky way. Had always been. Lucy knew it for a fact, and oh hell, what did it matter anyway? Layla had known the truth and set her up with Dallas, and here she was and he didn’t remember her.
You should just walk out. Turn around and head out the door.
She should never have listened to Layla. She should never have held onto a strange hope that he might help her. What had she been thinking?
“Tell me what happened,” Dallas said. He’d walked back around his desk but was still standing, waiting for her to take her seat.
“At the benefit?” Her voice was dry and raspy.
“And before, if you think it’s pertinent. Give me a snapshot of your marriage and why the police think you could have had anything to do with your husband’s death.”
Lucy turned blankly to Layla.
Dallas said, “Layla, maybe you should step outside? Attorney-client privilege.”
“Oh.” Layla, who’d taken a seat, slowly stood up, her eyes on Lucy. “You okay?”
Lucy nodded jerkily, and Layla, after another long moment of consideration—maybe she was rethinking this crazy idea—left the room with a “I’ll be right outside.”