Elizabeth stirred in her chair. I didn’t want to be one of those lawyers who ramrodded people into divorces, but I also knew Elizabeth was an abuse victim, and if they don’t have help, they have a hard time breaking with their abusers. I hurried into the conversational break.
“Noted, but my client is resolved to move ahead with the divorce.” Elizabeth retreated to the very back of her chair.
“Cunt,” May said succinctly.
“Yes, he does seems very loving,” I said in a cool tone. I was amazed I pulled it off. My belly muscles were quivering. There was the faintest musk of wolf in the room, and it was bringing up a whole lot of unholy memories. “Given Mr. May’s refusal to pay basic support during these proceedings, we have no expectation that he’ll honor an order for child support, so we’re going to ask for a lump-sum payment of seven hundred thousand dollars.”
“If I don’t have access to my kids, I’m not giving that bitch a fucking dime,” May said.
“You’ve threatened to turn them!” Elizabeth’s voice spiraled toward dolphin-whistle range. “They’re nine and five. They’re scared of you!”
“Because you turned them against me!”
“And it’s because of these threats regarding the children that we’re going to petition the court for sole custody,” I said, before the fight between them could escalate any further.
“You fucking bitches!” May roared, coming halfway out of his chair. The nails on May’s hands were thickening, lengthening into claws. Phenrod laid a hand on his client’s bulging forearm and was shaken off.
May lunged across the table, his face only inches from mine. I had a real good view of the transformation that was beginning. Elizabeth chittered with fear. I wanted to gibber in terror too, but there was also part of me that was rejoicing—we were going to get everything we wanted.
I gave Elizabeth’s chair a hard shove to the right at the same time that I shoved my chair back from the table. The wheels rolled really well on the stone tile, and Elizabeth’s chair careened away and crashed into the credenza. Glasses, the pitcher of water, and the phone went tumbling to the floor. The glass shattered, and the phone let out a faint, unhappy ting of protest. My escape from May wasn’t as successful, because I only had a few inches. All too soon I slammed against the wall.
The picture above my head bounced and flew off the wall. I cringed, waiting for it to land on my head, but it arced out and hit the table, shattering the glass. Several small pieces nicked my arms and face, but a large shard flew straight at May and sliced across his eye and cheek. Like all face wounds, it gushed blood. He screamed, pressed a hand against the cut, and recoiled away from me, falling to the floor on the other side of the table. Moaning and writhing, he shifted back toward human.
The commotion brought partners, assistants, and security running. The room wasn’t big enough for the crowd. It was like being at a cocktail party from hell—not enough air to breathe and bodies pressed way too close for comfort. Shade grabbed May by the back of the neck, hefted him off the ground, and just held him there.
Gold and McGillary arrived together, and Gold took charge, roaring, “What the hell is going on in here?” He was glaring at me rather than at the bleeding man.
My hand was trembling a bit as I pointed at the BlackBerry, now covered with May’s blood. “It’s all there. It was being recorded.”
McGillary snatched up the phone, wiped away the blood, and casually licked it off the palm of his hand. I found myself wondering if werewolf blood tasted different. And shouldn’t there have been courtesy between monsters? I wasn’t sure where that nasty little thought had come from and hurriedly pushed it aside. McGillary set it to play back. I watched his eyebrows climb up toward his hairline. He offered the BlackBerry to Gold, who watched, then forced a snort of disgust and walked out.
Shade, still holding May, turned to Phenrod, who was just standing there, his expression akin to a poleaxed bull. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call the police right now and have this man”—he gave May a shake—“arrested.”
“Because your associate just won everything she wanted in the settlement. There’s no way we want this played in open court. Whatever you want, we agree,” Phenrod said, this time directly to me. “Now let me get this guy to a hospital to get sewn up.”
McGillary and Shade exchanged glances, then Shade sat May down. Client and lawyer left, the client trailing blood. I was suddenly aware that Elizabeth was crying. I put an arm around her. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s all over.”
“What happened?” She sniffled.
“You’re getting an uncontested divorce, and anything else we want. I’ll write up a settlement agreement this afternoon. Look, while Jake is at the hospital get your kids, pack up, and move. There’s a battered women’s center that will take you in while we get this finalized.”
“But—”
“Just do it!” She squeaked and tried to reach the door, but the crowd was too tight. “Okay, it’s over! Get out of the way!” I ordered. Amazingly, a number of people filtered out of the conference room.
A handkerchief was held out to me. I looked up. It was McGillary. I took the square of fine linen and blotted at the cuts on my arms and cheeks. “You are certainly an … interesting new hire,” he said, and left.
I sat back down and realized I had just won my first case.
* * *
With all the excitement I’d forgotten about our ladies’ lunch. Caroline turned up in the door of my office and gave me one of her cool stares. “You’ve got to stop making a habit out of fighting werewolves. Are you ready?” I stared at her, puzzled.
“Ready for what?”
“Our women’s solidarity lunch.” There was more than a little sarcasm in the words.
“Oh God,” I groaned. “I forgot. I’m not sure I’m up to this.”
Caroline grabbed my arm and hoisted me out of my chair. “Nonsense. And you need a glass of wine. It’s all over the office what you did,” she continued. I dropped my face into my hands. “No, it’s a good thing. McGillary is bragging about you. Practically acting like he invented you.”
“Gold won’t like that,” I said a touch bitterly.
Our girl posse was gathered in the lobby. There were congratulations offered, and many mutterings about male assholes. Caroline had timed our reservation so we arrived before Ryan and the boys. We were ensconced at our table and decided to get a bottle of wine. With fourteen of us, it amounted to a sip each, but that was okay. We were celebrating and declaring war at the same time. We also began to compare notes on Ryan.
Like me, Delia had experienced the cab fare on the table. “Oh, I wish I’d thought of the toilet, but I felt so fuzzy once it was all over,” she said. “I ended up just leaving it there.”
“I felt like I was floating in this romantic dream. Then I woke up and realized I’d been treated like a hooker,” Nancy said, and shame laced the words. Caroline put a comforting arm around her shoulders.
As they talked, I realized their ordeals had lasted many hours longer than mine. Because I’d been fostered, Ryan hadn’t used his mesmerizing power on me, which meant I was fully aware of his rough treatment. I also realized that the game he was playing was dangerous as hell. Had the senior partners known? And if so, why hadn’t they shut him down? I was furious with them for risking us in this way. It was pretty clear now that Ryan was a thrill seeker. He skated on the edge of what was safe. As far as I was concerned, the Convocation, a gathering of senior vampires almost like a court, could execute Ryan, but not these women. They had been victims.
“Hookers would have done better,” Cecelia, big and blonde, declared. “One cheap-ass dinner and cab fare? With our looks and education, we are an escort service’s wet dream,” she added with a grin. And I added charmingly brassy to the big and blonde description.
Juliette, a beautiful black woman who had the soft music of Jamaica in her voice, took a fortifying sip of wine and detailed how Ryan had used a vacuum erec
tion device to get it up when he slept with her.
“Time to puuump you uuuup,” Kathy, a pert redhead, drawled in imitation of a decades-old Saturday Night Live skit.
We erupted into gales of laugher. That’s when Ryan swept in, trailing associates like a cloak. Jane bobbed around the edges of the group like an overactive puppy vying for attention. Ryan froze and the basso rumble of pontificating men stuttered into silence. He glared at us.
The women with their backs to him cranked around in their chairs. We were all looking at him. And then it happened. We didn’t plan it. It was just one of those perfect moments. As one, all fourteen of us lifted our glasses toward him, and then burst out laughing.
Ryan was a man and a vampire. Neither beast can be ridiculed with impunity. He spun on his heel and left the restaurant, shouldering aside and scattering associates as if they were bowling pins.
* * *
David Sullivan was in my office, sitting on my ball chair, behind my desk. Since I was just coming off an hour and a half of women’s empowerment, I was annoyed.
“That is my chair.”
He shrugged. “Get a more comfortable client chair. And by the way, this chair isn’t exactly a bed of roses either. And congratulations on your victory.”
“Small beer for this firm,” I said, with a shrug of my own.
“A win’s a win. I found something interesting.” He held out a scrap of paper torn off a legal pad. I recognized Chip’s round, fat handwriting.
#28 24th Street, Bayonne, NJ, two mil, I read.
“Any idea what this means?” David asked.
I sat down on the client chair. He was right. It was pretty uncomfortable. “Not a clue. Where did you find this? I’ve never seen it before, and I’ve been pawing through those boxes for days.”
“It was stuck on the back of a folder. It would have been easy to miss.”
“‘Two mil.’ That’s got to mean two million, right?”
“Seems logical.”
“But two million what?” I asked.
“Oh, come on, Linnet, you’re not that dense,” David said.
“Okay, I was being deliberately obtuse, because what does it say about Chip if he was scribbling notes to himself about two million bucks?”
“The question is whether he was the payee or the payer,” David said.
“If he was the payer, that would imply Chip was into somebody for two million, and that just doesn’t fit. Chip’s only vice that I could see was food. And I know. I checked on his personal life.”
“The other option is that he was the payee, he was blackmailing somebody. That would explain why he was killed,” Sullivan said.
I shook my head. “I just can’t see that. Chip wasn’t that kind of guy.”
But he was actively working against his client’s interests by helping another claimant to the estate. Was this money he was demanding from the stripper and the daughter once they got control of the company? I just couldn’t see it. Chip had been concerned about putting the power of a private army in the hands of assholes.
I was pretty sure this had something to do with the Abercrombie case, and since it might reveal Chip’s unethical behavior, I wanted David out of the loop. Cautiously I asked, “Did you Google this address?”
“Yeah, it’s a crappy, rundown house in a crappy rundown neighborhood.”
“Did you find out who owns it?” I asked.
He handed over a piece of paper. “It’s a rental property. The owner lives in a condo down in Florida. I haven’t been able to reach them to find out the current renter.”
“You’ve put a ton of work into this. Thanks, but I’ve got to ask—why?”
He rolled the ball chair away from the desk. “I need to get back to my own work. Let me know when you reach the owner, and what you find out.”
He left, and I realized he hadn’t answered the question.
I tried five times to reach John during the afternoon, but every time I got his voice mail. I wanted to send him off to the mysterious address, but obviously he was working on something else.
At six, I decided I’d had enough. Facing down an angry werewolf and dealing with Ryan had me exhausted. I headed to the elevators. A car arrived, the doors opened, and as I met Ryan’s cold-eyed stare, I realized what really confronting him meant. After the day I’d had, I didn’t really want to get into it with him, and from his expression it was clear he wanted to.
“I’ll wait for the next one.” I stepped back. The doors closed, cutting off my view of his expression.
I was on the next elevator when it stopped on the sixty-third floor and Ryan got in with me. I wasn’t sure how he’d done that. Gotten off on sixty-nine and run down five flights? Or had he used some vampire power to know which elevator I was riding?
He got close, invading my personal space. “You’re smart, but not very wise, Linnet. You shouldn’t have picked a fight with me. I can make your life very unpleasant.”
Outrage gave starch to my spine. “Gee, I thought you’d already done that,” I snapped. “Silence and shame were your allies, Ryan, but the word is out now.”
The elevator’s stomach-dropping descent slowed then stopped at the ground floor lobby. The door opened, and I stepped out. “And I know you used your power on those women. If you make a move against any of us, I’ll go to the Convocation.”
“I’m going to destroy you.”
Heat coiled in my chest. I turned back to face him. “Darth Vader threats? Really? And in front of security.” I pointed at the wide-eyed guard at the front desk. “You are so pathetic.”
I walked away, the wheels on my case chuckling over the seams in the tile.
12
A few days after the May affair, I began getting casses assigned to me. They weren’t big, and they weren’t terribly important, but they were mine. It also meant I was busy and so hadn’t headed to New Jersey, since I still hadn’t reached John. But that was about to be rectified. I’d decided to go on my own.
Today, I was waiting for a Mr. Joylon Bryce, due in at 2:00 p.m. I was feeling guilty, because exercise hadn’t been high on my list of priorities for almost a week. I kept a bag with workout clothes under my desk in the hope (so far unrealized) that I would either exercise in lieu of lunch, or go to a gym after work. I decided to spend my lunch hour at a nearby gym.
I ended up on a rowing machine next to a woman who insisted on critiquing my technique for the entire time, and then as I was headed toward the dressing room for a quick shower, after my sweat-inducing workout, I heard a female trainer advising her client that she really needed to hit the gym at 5:00 a.m. before she went to her office. “It will be painful for the first week, but then it will just put you in the zone.”
“Yeah, the zone of total exhaustion,” I muttered to myself. The locker room smelled of sweat, steam, hair spray, and perfume. I ran through the shower, styled my hair with one of the provided hand hair dryers, put on my makeup, and headed back to the office. By the time I walked back through the summer heat I needed another shower.
My stomach was sending up emergency signals to my brain. Hey, we’re empty down here. I stopped in the kitchen for a big glass of water, averted my eyes from the half a donut that remained in the box, and went back to my office.
I worked a bit on an environmental case I’d been assigned and then it was two o’clock and Mr. Bryce arrived. He was in his forties, with graying brown hair, bright blue eyes, a long face, and a prominent nose. He was also in a wheelchair. I jumped up and hurried around the desk to push the client chair out of the way.
Once Bryce was situated in front of my desk, we exchanged handshakes. “Ms. Ellery,” he said in a clipped, upper-class British accent.
“Mr. Bryce. Nice to meet you.” I returned to my chair.
Norma inquired about beverages. Mr. Bryce went with a Coke. I asked for coffee. She left.
“Now, Mr. Bryce, what can I do for you?” I picked up a pen and prepared to take notes.
He h
ad a slim black attaché case tucked between his hip and the arm of the chair, which he pulled free and laid on the desk.
“I just purchased the license to run a venerable old riding facility in Brooklyn, and a pair of developers are agitating the city to turn over the land to them. I’m determined to resist. Would this be of any interest to you at all?” he asked rather anxiously.
“Oh, definitely. I’ve ridden my whole life, and everybody always forgets quality of life in this town in favor of the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.” I broke off, blushing. “Sorry, didn’t mean to go on a rant.”
“Quite all right. I prefer to have someone with passion handling the case, and Mr. Ishmael thought you might be the right person for my little problem.”
“Do go on.” I waved the pen.
He continued. “It was built in 1867, it’s on some prime acreage, and the pond scum—”
“Meaning the developers?”
“Yes. They’re telling the city they could be making so much more tax revenue if the property was changed into high-rise offices or condos.”
“Developed by the pond scum, I presume?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
“Does the pond scum have a name?”
“The Kellog Group.”
I wrote it down. “Is the city going to try eminent domain?”
“I think that’s where they are going.”
“That’s not good news, because it may be tough to beat. The Supremes handed down a case a few years back, Kelo v. City of New London, that basically gave a city the power to condemn land for just such a purpose.”
“Oh, dear.”
He looked so upset that I hastened to add, “But that case caused such an uproar I’m not sure a city, even Brooklyn, would want to risk it. Is there community support for the stable?”
“Very much so. People like to walk through the woods on the property, and jog and ride bikes on the riding trails. The current management wisely banned motorized bikes, since some horses find bicycles quite terrifying enough, but I digress. It’s powerful business interests that find us offensive. And I do have something that might be of help.”
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