by Diane Castle
“Why are you here?” I asked. “Really. What do you want? If you ever gave two cents about me, you will not pretend you are here for some romantic reconciliation or an ex-lover’s tryst.”
I could see the muscles in his jaw clench as he considered how to answer.
“The truth,” I pressed. “I do not think it is possible to make it more clear that I am not interested in, nor will I fall for any more posturing, any more seduction, anything that is any part of your act and the hollow façade that is you, at all, anymore. Ever. So what is it? What’s the truth?”
Dorian drew a long breath. The waiter arrived with our drinks. Seeing the almost tangible tension between us, he set them on the table without a word. I downed half my martini in one swallow as I waited.
Dorian cleared his throat. “Well,” he said. “Since you put it that way.”
I sensed that I had somehow hurt him. Somehow wounded his pride by doubting his sincerity, by failing to welcome him back into my life with even a grudging appreciation for the love we had once shared.
I did doubt his sincerity after all, didn’t I? There was no chance that he could possibly be for real. If he had been for real, he would have come after me long before now. Right. Right?
“I suppose I’m here,” Dorian said slowly, “because in a week there will be a motion for summary judgment, which you will not win.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
“I am not here alone,” Dorian said. “I came down with six junior associates and an unlimited, blank-check bankroll, which your puny three-person firm cannot possibly hope to compete with.”
“You’ve always underestimated me,” I said.
“This is not about you, Chloe. This thing is so much bigger than you it’s beyond your comprehension. Even if, by some miracle, you manage to win at summary judgment, my client has enough money and enough power to drag this thing out so long Armageddon will happen sooner than you’ll get to trial. I represent a client who has all but bankrupted the FTC, who has forced the government to drop cases after 20 years of trying for sheer lack of resources and staying power. The government, Chloe. Do you think you’re bigger, badder, and tougher than Uncle Sam? Your boss might pass for wealthy down here, but he cannot stand up to the sheer size of what I am threatening, and neither can you. You and your boss and your perky little paralegal are only three people. We are Big Oil, the very foundation of these United States.”
I downed the rest of my martini and gathered my courage. “Nice try,” I said. “You ought to know by now that your jury voice doesn’t work on me.”
The thing is, it did, kind of. If I had been wearing boots, I’d be shaking in them.
“I’m going to say this once,” Dorian said. “And only once. The offer is off the table as of six p.m. tonight, so I suggest you run it by your client.”
“Spit it out,” I said.
“Three hundred thousand.”
I laughed, almost genuinely. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here to insult me like that. A man died. Two men, actually, a fact about which I think you are acutely aware, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. The case is worth at least a million, and you know it.”
“Do I?” he asked. “Because from where I sit, your expert is dead, your case files are destroyed, and you only have a week to prepare for a new hearing. In other words, you haven’t got a prayer.” He paused. “Unless you’re aware of something I’m not?”
Little alarm bells went off in my head. Was it possible that Dorian was even more evil than I had previously imagined? Or was it that he was involved in something bigger than even he thought was possible?
I leaned forward and searched his eyes. All I saw was the same old Dorian, whoever that was. “You’re asking me if I have a bargaining chip?”
“I’m asking you what your leverage for a counter offer might be. I’m asking you why in the world you wouldn’t take three-hundred and run.”
I had to be careful here. If I let on that perhaps I knew something he didn’t—something big enough to warrant a larger counter-offer—and that information got back to the people who had killed Schaeffer, things could get ugly for me. On the other hand, if I let on like I had no case, Dorian was liable to take the entire offer off the table altogether. After all, there was nothing in writing yet.
“I’m not authorized to take offers or make counters without first speaking to my client,” I said.
I could feel Dorian searching my eyes just as intensely as I had searched his a moment ago. I wondered what he saw. If he saw even a hint of my stress or fear, I would be toast.
“The question is, can you and your client afford to refuse?” He looked me up and down. “I can’t help but notice that you’ve downgraded your wardrobe.”
I felt myself wilting with embarrassment. I knew I should have begged, borrowed or stolen a better suit before meeting him in person. It wasn’t that Dorian was into fashion. My clothes were just another way for him to judge the appropriate amount for his opening offer. I was sure that was one of the reasons why he’d come down here in person instead of just phoning it in. He needed to gauge how well I was doing for myself in my new life with his own eyes. If I had appeared successful, he would have offered more. I silently cursed the house fire and the unknown persons who had caused it, hoping to high Heaven that Dorian would read the anger in my face as anger at him and not at the situation in general.
Dorian was done with me for now. He stood up and tossed a fifty dollar bill onto the table. Knowing him, it was the smallest bill he had in his wallet.
“Six p.m.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his card. “And my number, in case you’ve forgotten it.”
He leaned over and kissed me softly on the cheek, taking care to brush my earlobe and the curve of my chin with the tips of his fingers. I didn’t turn toward him. Didn’t move.
“You could have had it better than this,” he whispered, and walked away.
I waited until he disappeared into the halo of daylight that pooled around him when he opened the doors to leave before I took the napkin out of my lap and started sopping up the sweat threatening to stain my collar.
I eyed the money on the table. I didn’t want to take his money. But desperate times called for desperate measures. I asked the waiter to make change and walked out the door forty bucks richer.
CHAPTER 16
I called Gracie from the Caliente bar phone. I hadn’t made up my mind whether or not to advise her to take the offer. According to Dick, the case was worth one to two million. It seemed like he was always settling similar cases in that dollar range. Of course, we already had in excess of six figures invested into the case, and we’d have to recoup our expenses before our client saw any money. And then Dick would take forty percent in fees of the two-hundred-grand that was left over, which didn’t leave a whole lot of money for Gracie in the end. For all that she’d lost, a hundred grand take-home seemed like an insult.
I let the phone ring eleven times before hanging up. No one was home. I would have called her cell phone, except she didn’t have one. She was almost sixty years old and living the small-town life—too old fashioned and entrenched in older days to bother with new-fangled contraptions like modern communications devices. I looked at my watch. It was already four o’clock.
I decided I’d drive back by my house and just check it out on the way back to the office. Maybe there was something left that I could salvage.
When I got there, I wished I hadn’t bothered. Where there once was a house, now only three blackened pieces of wood jutted up from a large hole in the ground filled with ash. The house had been old—it had a pier and beam foundation. Everything had been wood. I had lost everything but my car, which had not been parked in the garage because the house was so old and so small that it didn’t have one to start with.
I truly now had virtually nothing except a set of wheels and the forty bucks in my pocket. Even the clothes on my back really belonged to Miles.
Now what?
For lack of a better place to go, I drove back to the office. I crept in softly, hoping to avoid Dick. I held my breath and tiptoed all the way from the front entrance to my office door, shutting it softly behind me. Miles was waiting for me, working at my desk.
“So?” Miles asked softly.
“He offered three hundred grand, good only until six p.m. tonight.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know. I called Gracie, but no one answered.”
“What else did he say?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, come on!” Miles was mad, and he was getting louder. “I lost my hair for you! The least you can do is not leave me hanging.”
“Shhhhh! You’ll bring Dick in here! I don’t feel like explaining anything right now!”
Miles clapped his hand over his mouth. “Sorry,” he whispered through his fingers.
“What’d I miss while I was away?”
“Dick’s been in rare form, stomping around and yelling at anyone who gets in his way. I’m starting to think he has a soft spot for you, judging from the way he let the fire chief have it for not saving your house.”
I knew better than that. “He’s upset about the files, not me, you doofus.”
Miles shrugged. “Plus, the mayor is all over him for ‘facilitating the destruction of key evidence.’”
“The mayor’s the one who gave the order to send the files to my house!”
“I know, but you wouldn’t know that to listen to the mayor talk. He’s obviously looking for a scapegoat.”
“For crying out loud,” I said. “Have you been able to make any headway on finding another expert witness?”
“Yeah, but they all want time to run their own air sampling tests, which you know could take a year or more. I did find a few who said they’d be willing to rely on Schaeffer’s data, except now we don’t have Schaeffer’s data.”
I did a forehead slap. “Ugh! I can’t believe Dick was too cheap to make Xerox copies of it all!”
“Maybe if he didn’t spend all his money on new cars, he’d have some left for your cases.” Miles sighed. “I think it’s time to face the fact that this case is dead, my dear. Just like Derrick. Just like Schaeffer.”
“It’s not dead. We have a three-hundred-grand settlement offer on the table. If it’s the best we can do under the circumstances, it’s the best we can do.”
I whipped out my cell phone and dialed Gracie Miller’s house again. Still no answer. “I think we might have to go over there and hunt her down. Want to go?”
“Yeah,” Miles said. “Anything to get out of this joint.”
Miles hopped up from my desk and cracked open my office door slowly. He pressed one eye to it to make sure the coast was clear. When he gave me the signal, we crept out.
***
Gracie’s house appeared to be deserted. No car in the driveway, no lights on. We walked up to the front porch and knocked on the door anyway.
We waited. Nothing.
I knocked a little harder, but still there was no answer.
When I decided to upgrade from medium knocking to full-on fist pounding, the door swung wide open of its own accord. There was no one there.
“Gracie?” I called. “Mrs. Miller? It’s me, Chloe!”
“And your favorite paralegal, Miles!” he sang out.
I looked around for Gracie’s cat, named Cat—a friendly long-haired black and white mutt (if cats can be mutts) who had a dog complex. She always came running and rubbed against my legs when I visited, wanting me to scratch her behind the ears, but now, she was nowhere to be seen.
“Cat?” I called. “Here, kitty kitty kitty?” I made little kissing noises into the air, but still no Cat.
“Do you think she’s gone?” Miles asked.
I poked my head into Gracie’s bedroom. Clothes were strewn everywhere. The closet door was wide open, and it didn’t look like there was much left in it. I went to the bathroom and opened her medicine cabinet. It was empty, too. And the litter box was gone.
“It looks like she packed up and left in a hurry!” I yelled at Miles.
Miles’s voice came back to me from the kitchen. “Hey, come here! Look at this!”
I went into the kitchen to find Miles holding an envelope.
“It was taped to the refrigerator door,” Miles said, handing it to me.
It had my name on it. Miles and I looked at each other, alarmed.
I opened it, pulled out a sheet of paper, and started to read aloud:
Dear Chloe,
I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I couldn’t, on account of I knew you’d try to stop me. I figure by the time you get worried enough to come around looking for me and find this note, I’ll be long gone. I would have left it at your house, but I couldn’t, on account of you ain’t got a house no more. Everybody in this here town’s talking about how that nice Dr. Schaeffer’s dead, and how you’d be dead too if that nice detective hadn’t been there to save you.
“Hey!” Miles interjected. “What about me? What am I, a hill of beans? I could have saved you too, for all they know!”
“Old lady Ellason is probably telling everyone Nash carried me out of the house naked. You can’t blame ’em for not noticing you.”
I continued to read.
It ain’t my business what you were doing with that nice detective in your house at three in the morning without a shirt on, honey, but you take my advice and be more careful, you hear?
“Great,” I said. “What’d I tell you? The Kettle tongues are all wagging.”
“On the upside, it’ll probably be really easy for you to get a date now, if you want one. Everyone will think you’re easy.”
I ignored him and kept reading.
A nice girl like you has no business attracting bad gossip. It’s the last thing you need, especially with arsonists and killers out to get you. Anywhoo, I figured that since they killed Dr. Schaeffer, and since they tried to kill you, all this stuff might be related to my law suit and I might be next. Well, I can’t wait around for that to happen. When this all settles down, and if you’re still alive, we’ll talk about what to do next. I’m sorry I can’t tell you where I’m going, but I figure if I write it down in this letter, somebody bad might find it just as easy as you. I’m sorry honey. Take care of yourself, and we’ll talk soon. Love, Gracie
I let loose with a string of expletives that might even have made HBO producers feel squeamish.
Miles, however, was unphased. “Wow, Chloe. I didn’t even know you knew any of those words.”
I ripped up the letter into a bunch of tiny bits, and then ripped the tiny bits into even tinier bits and threw the pieces over my head. A pretty obvious possibility had escaped me until now. All this time, I thought the violence was about the files. But what if it wasn’t just about the files? What if it was about my life, too? After all, we hadn’t found anything in the files that confirmed motive.
But why would anyone want to kill me? I didn’t know anything worth killing for!
Maybe they didn’t know that I didn’t know.
Holy Mary, Mother of God. “We have to go see Nash,” I said. “Now.”
I raced back to my car, Miles hot on my heels. The tires screeched as I tore out of Gracie’s parking lot and around the corner of the main road to the police station.
CHAPTER 17
“She thinks they’re trying to kill me,” I explained to Nash, my voice a little louder and a little higher pitched than I intended it to be. I wanted to stay cool, but my flesh burned and my insides felt like jelly. I needed to reapply lidocaine gel to my injured tissue, but I’d left it at Miles’ house by accident this morning.
“Hmm,” Nash said, leaning back and propping his boot-clad feet up on the desk. “I hadn’t thought of that, but it’s possible. After all, if there was incriminating evidence in those files, they can’t be certain you’re not aware of it too.”
�
�But I’m not! I don’t know anything!”
“That’s not entirely true, is it?” Nash said. “You know lots of stuff. You sure schooled me last night on a few things.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But that’s all public knowledge.”
“Public record maybe, but not public knowledge.” Nash took a sip out of the coffee cup on his desk. “But you’re right. Killing you wouldn’t make any of that information go away.”
“What about me?” Miles asked. “I don’t know just as much as she doesn’t know. And I was in the house, too.”
“Has anyone tried to kill either of you today?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Dorian Saks tried to give me a heart attack on purpose this afternoon, and I’m not sure he’s not going to get away with it.”
“Dorian Saks?” Nash asked.
Miles rolled his eyes. “Her ex fiancé. New opposing counsel in the PetroPlex case. And a whole lot of other things, too, apparently. Don’t ask.”
“Don’t tell,” I said, prompting a second eye roll from Miles.
Nash rubbed his eyes with the base of his palms and yawned. If he were at all interested in my sordid romantic past, he sure didn’t let on. “Well, it wouldn’t hurt to arrange protective custody for the both of you.”
I groaned. “Just what I need. A bunch of police types shadowing my every step, stirring up the gossip mill even more. I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“Well, if you don’t want me around,” Nash said, “all you have to do is say so. But I did save your life last night, and I might come in handy again.”
My jaw dropped. “Wait, you? You’re the protective custody detail?”