“You don’t have a case, Kevin. They’ll throw this case out before it even makes it to court.”
“Not true.” He rests his head against the wall, hands on his knees. “I know I’ve got a case. I have thirty witnesses willing to testify to the change in my behavior after those hypnotherapy sessions. I have brain scans that show a change in my patterns. You know I have a case; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. And I can tell that you’re threatened by this case. I can see it in your eyes. You’re running scared.”
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s all very simple. All I want is all your money.”
“I don’t have that much. Certainly not enough to make this case worthwhile.”
“Don’t lie to me, Bill. I’ve seen your property portfolio. Ten homes, three apartments, and two offices in Downtown. And I’m not even talking about your shareholdings. You have more than enough to make it worthwhile, and you’re not the only money I’m chasing. Your wealth will be a nice tidy sum, and it’ll keep people off my back.”
“There are easier ways to get money.”
“I’ve tried those ways, but when you have the LAPD watching your every step, you have to do things legitimately. That’s not my forte.” He runs his hand through his hair. “And this is revenge for refusing to defend me a second time.”
“I refused to defend you a second time because you’re filth and I wanted nothing to do with you.”
“Perhaps.” Kevin shrugs. “But this is called karma. And it’s coming for you.”
“I know you’re preparing for what’s coming for you.” Bill growls, leaning down onto one knee, closing the distance between them again, his nose almost pressing into Kevin’s. “This is a pre-emptive strike.”
“C’mon now.” He laughs. “I have nothing to prepare for. I’m an innocent man. I always have been.”
“You’re not innocent. You’re dirty, low, and rotten. You’re scum, Wu.”
“Even if the case is thrown out, your reputation will be destroyed.” Kevin smiles, moving to Bill’s side, and standing up with an elegant sway. He flattens out his pajamas again. “Even if we don’t get anywhere with this case, people will doubt your abilities based on what’s reported in the media. You know that this case will be the end of your career as you know it.”
“You’ll be in prison before then.” Bill’s fist clenches, ready to strike. “For the murder of Tiffany Lee.”
“Who said that she was even dead?” Kevin laughs.
“The person that’s willing to testify against you.”
“Who would possibly be brave enough to do that?”
“Terrance Marshall.”
Kevin doesn’t respond.
That’s a win for Bill. From Kevin’s reaction, he can see that Terrance might be the key to his attack.
“And I remember how you were a meticulous note-taker. You would have recorded everything, including all of your brothel operations. The cops may not have found it, but they have rules.” Bill steps closer. “I don’t.”
Kevin’s eyebrows pop up. “Clever. Very clever, Bill. But it’s a pity that those notes were burned a long time ago.”
“I doubt that. You have a fear of fire – that was the first thing we discussed in the hypnotherapy sessions. You didn’t want to change that. You were comfortable with your fear.”
“Again, that’s very clever. I can see that you’re going to be quite the formidable opponent.” He waves his finger in the air, surprised by the statements. He enjoys going toe-to-toe intellectually with bright people. “But unfortunately, it’s not applicable to this situation. I had someone else burn those notes for me.”
“Who?”
“I’m not telling you that.” Kevin shakes his head, the smile still stretched across his face. “Now, tell me, how’s your wife? Still dead?”
“Don’t you dare mention her.” His teeth grind. “You mention her again and I’ll make sure you won’t talk for a month.”
“Cancer is never a nice way to go.” He throws his hands up in surrender. “Now tell me, what are you going to do next? Snap your fingers so that I am under your hypnotic control again? Guide me to do things I don’t want to do?”
“You know that hypnotherapy doesn’t work like that. You know that I couldn’t possibly have that level of control over you.”
“We’ll see what the court thinks about that. We’ll let them make a decision based on the facts.” He moves backward from Bill’s towering presence. “What could you possibly hope to achieve by coming here?”
“Withdraw the case.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll find out how dangerous I can be.”
“Ha! Dangerous? I don’t think so. You can’t threaten me.” Kevin laughs. “I’m untouchable. You can’t—”
Whack.
One quick jab of Bill’s left fist sends Kevin flying to the floor, clutching his chin.
“You can’t hit me!”
“I didn’t.” Bill steps over his opponent. “But if you don’t withdraw this case, then I will hurt you. Badly.”
“Nobody can hurt me!” Kevin snaps back, holding his jaw, feeling the slight trickle of blood come down his chin. “Nothing can touch me after what I’ve been through! Not after losing my daughter. Not after I lost my Amy. Nobody can hurt me.”
“Then I guess we’re going to find out how much pain you can take.” Bill Harvey steps away from the criminal, moving towards the front door. “And I really hope it’s a lot.”
Chapter 15
She swings left.
Then right.
Then left again.
She read about boxing in one of the books that he brought her, how the boys in the story trained to beat a towering tyrant. In the book, they trained by throwing combinations at the shadows, practicing their moves with agile ease.
For the last hour, that’s all she’s been doing.
She skips around the basement, pretending to hit the shadows. She tried to hit the walls first, but her small hands couldn’t take the impact against the concrete walls.
Fists next to her chin, arms outstretched with each punch, she bounces around the room until her shoulders are tired. If she’s not going to break free, then she needs to be able to fight back. She’s willing to defend herself, willing to do what it takes.
As she’s prancing around the room, making whooshing noises with each punch, she hears something outside in the yard.
She freezes in her stance, careful not to make another sound.
Despite her increased heart-rate, she’s doing her best not to puff out any extra oxygen.
Moving with the lightness of a skinny teen, she tiptoes to the door, curious about what’s making the strange sound. Although she senses the danger, she can’t resist knowing what’s out there. She’s never been able to resist the pull of curiosity.
“Curiosity may have killed the cat.” She whispers, remembering what she read in one of the books. “But it also discovered penicillin.”
Peering out the gap in the basement door, she sees him, sitting on a rock, slumped forward.
Wondering if that’s where the noise is coming from, she moves sideways, looking for a better angle, careful not to bump anything.
That’s when she hears it again.
He’s sobbing, hiding his head in his hands.
She has never seen him cry before; never seen him be anything other than tough.
Before long, the sobbing stops. She moves back into the darkness, hiding under her blanket. With the blanket pulled up to her eyes, she ponders the future.
If he’s crying, then things must be changing for the worse.
And she should really practice more boxing.
Chapter 16
“A vegan café?”
Private Investigator Jack Grayson is not one to be seen in such places. His muscular arms look more at place in a burly gym full of grunting men than a hipster coffee joint. The shop is dim, cold, and there are posters on the wooden w
alls expressing how evil people are for daring to eat meat.
“It’s on trend.” Bill shrugs. “It’s always good to try something new. Expand your horizons, Jack. Don’t be stuck eating barbequed steaks for the rest of your life. These sorts of places are all the rage.”
“Lentil tacos with spinach and avocado, lightly covered in pumpkin and fennel salsa? That’s all the rage? I tell you what, I’ll be raging after I eat that.”
“Admittedly, that’s probably pushing it too far.” Bill looks around the café, studying the hipster that walks up to them – dreadlocks, lip ring, glowing healthy skin.
“How can I help you men? Are you lost?” The waitress stares at the two men sitting wide-legged and stoic in their stools, not the sort of male domination that she’s used to in her subdued café.
“We’ll take two coffees, the vegan spinach and potato pancakes, and one of the crispy breaded tofu steaks, and a side of kale and quinoa,” Bill states confidently.
The waitress tucks a loose dreadlock behind her ear, moving to process the order.
“You know I went to the doctor the other day.” Jack smiles as the waitress walks away. “Told him I was scared that I was putting on too much weight. So he said to me, ‘Stop eating anything fatty.’ And I said, ‘Really? No more cheeseburgers? No more bacon?’ And he replied, ‘No, you didn’t hear me right. I said – stop eating anything, fatty!’”
“Ha!” Bill laughs, maybe too loud for the quiet vegan café. “Why didn’t the chicken cross the road?”
“Why?”
“Because I ate it.”
“Haha!” Jack laughs equally as loud, slapping the table.
The waitress scoffs as she returns and places two jars in front of them, both filled with organically sourced coffee. Jack is all for recycling, but he would much prefer his glass went through a recycling plant first.
With ripping biceps, and scarred knuckles, Jack Grayson has been by Bill’s side for years, helping him solve case after case. Slightly mentally unstable, the role of investigator suits him perfectly – from quietly breaking into homes to finding a small piece of information hidden on the Internet, Jack flourishes in his job.
Standing as tall as Bill, he dominates most situations through pure intimidation. Tattoos cover his arms, his hair is cropped short, and his shoulders are wide enough to have to turn sideways when he walks through narrow doorways. Not the sort of person you expect to see eating at a vegan café.
He had his first drink of alcohol at twelve, started using hard drugs at fifteen, and was locked up at eighteen, but it wasn’t the life that he wanted for himself. He came to Bill’s hypnotherapy office as a twenty-one-year-old who wanted to change his future and leave a different mark on the world other than a trail of devastation.
Bill taught him that change was about acknowledging and accepting his current circumstances, and recognizing that his choices and mistakes were a part of life. Under Bill’s guidance, Jack learned the value of gratitude, mindfulness, and appreciation, and the change to Jack’s life was powerful. He started a job as a security guard, kicked all his addictions, and went back to part-time school to study fine art. He started painting, and for the first time, he found peace in his life.
Their paths crossed again ten years later when Jack was looking for another job opportunity. When Bill Harvey saw Jack’s name on the application form, he stopped the employment process and hired Jack as his investigator on the spot.
“So, what are your options heading forward?” Jack focuses on the case at hand.
“My only option is to fight the case. If I don’t, my career is over. Even if this case gets to court, my career is done. The damage is going to be done through the media coverage, and Kevin knows that. I’m going to have to play hard and make sure that the case doesn’t get to court.”
“You know that your work makes up most of my income. Without you, my career is over as well. We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t.” Bill’s face grimaces slightly as the vegan spinach and potato pancakes are placed in front of him. He never knew that pancakes could be that green. “Kevin Wu was an avid note-taker. He took notes of everything, and I mean everything. He always carried a small notebook with him everywhere he went – little black book with spiral binding down the side. He used to pull it out before we would have a meeting, and he’d be writing notes the whole time.”
“Sounds intense.”
“It was something that his father taught him – life was to be recorded, reviewed, and learned from. He wrote about everything. I would hate to think about how many words he wrote. That man was obsessive.” Bill runs his hand through his hair. “When he came to me for the hypnotherapy sessions, he had early signs of OCD. It was his way of keeping control after losing his daughter. He was very compulsive about some things and quite strange about other things. There was always something a little left field about him.”
“So, you’re suggesting that he took notes about the hypnotherapy session.” Jack’s eyebrows rise as the crispy breaded tofu steaks are placed on the table. “And where does he keep the old copies?”
“He said that he burnt them.”
“But you don’t believe him?”
“No more than I believe that you love kale.”
Jack laughs as two more plates are placed in front of them.
“This is kale,” the waitress states informally, but disinterested. “And this one is quinoa.”
“Kale?” Jack asks as the waitress walks away. “What’s that good for?”
“Your heart. Or your skin. Or your chakras. Maybe your beauty stone. I’m sure it’s good for you in some way.”
“But what does it taste like?”
“Grass.”
“Yum.” Jack smiles as he eats a fork full of kale. “How does yours taste?”
“Like grass and dirt.”
Jack laughs out loud again, placing his fork down onto the bowl full of green pasture. “Look, I’m sure that one day our bodies will thank us for taking care of it.”
“Your liver will never thank you.”
“Maybe not.” Jack laughs again. “What other options do you have?”
“Kevin Wu is implicated in the murder of a young girl, Tiffany Lee. The cold case team in the LAPD recently received a tip-off stating that they saw Kevin and the girl near a local reserve. After two hours, Kevin returned without the girl.”
“The person watched Kevin for two hours?”
“That’s what they claim.” Bill sips at the coffee ethically sourced from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. “Now, it’s not impossible, but it’s a lot harder to sue someone if you’re locked up for the murder of a young girl. Not many people will give you the benefit of the doubt if you’re wearing cuffs in their courtroom.”
“Will that work?”
“I think so. He’ll be so busy trying to stay out of prison that he won’t have time for this case.” Bill places his fork down, taking an extra-long time to chew one of the vegan spinach and potato pancakes. “The guy is a prick, but the evidence is plentiful, and his theory is solid. He’s a very cunning and well-planned man, and he wouldn’t be pressing on with this case if he didn’t think he could win.”
“You think he really stands a chance?”
Bill shrugs. “Who knows what happens in the court of law?”
“You should. That’s your job.”
“But this is something different. Something new.”
“What’s your gut feeling?”
“Like it’s just eaten a whole bowl full of grass.”
“Ha!” Jack laughs. “I meant with the case, what do you think?”
“Without a conviction for another crime, I think I’m in trouble. If he can demonstrate that his behavior clearly changed after the sessions, then it’s trouble. He has brain scans that indicate that his brain patterns changed after the hypnotherapy sessions, and even I found it convincing.”
“But you think that if he’s convicted of another crime befo
re the case gets to court, he’ll withdraw the case?”
“Exactly. It makes it very hard for him to win from behind bars. But the cold case team aren’t scheduled to make a move in this case for the next few weeks, which is after this case is due to be heard. And the LAPD has given up on the prostitution charges.”
“So if we find the evidence that he’s guilty of another crime—”
“Then we save our jobs.”
Chapter 17
“Lunch arrived for you.”
As Bill enters the office, Kate smiles at the man she adores, pointing to the plastic bag sitting at the end of her desk. After spending the morning reading with her son at school, Kate was greeted at the office door by a delivery man, waiting patiently next to his scooter.
As a single mother, juggling her work needs and her family is a constant battle. She knows her son needs her time and attention, but she also has to work to put food on the table. Although she’s paid well for her time, the costs of raising a family continue to rise. And having a deadbeat ex-husband doesn’t help her financial situation.
“Lunch?” Bill questions. “What is it?”
“I don’t know, but it smells like some sort of curry. Whatever you ordered smells good.”
He looks at her confused, apprehensively walking over to the plastic bag. “Who delivered it?”
“A young delivery guy. He was waiting at the front door when I arrived and said it was an order for Bill Harvey. I thought it was unusual for you to order lunch at the office, but then again, nothing you do would surprise me.”
He moves towards the bag. “Was the man Chinese?”
She nods. “Is there a problem?”
“I didn’t order lunch.”
Muscles tight with anxiety, he reaches into the bag and removes the white cardboard box, placing it on the table.
“It smells like regular Chinese food.” Kate stands close to the box, curiosity outweighing her need for safety. “I’d guess it’s fried rice and some sort of chicken.”
Guardedly, Bill opens the white lid.
A Time for Justice_A Legal Thriller Page 7