by Belle Ami
“They were candid photographs of me having sex with another man,” she whispered. “In lurid detail; they were obscene and disgusting and unmistakably real. David, I swear to you I have no idea how those photos came to be. I never saw that man in my life. I have no memory of it happening. I would never jeopardize my children, my marriage. Oh, God…help me. I wish he had killed me; it would be better than this.”
She sank to the table, sobbing. Her words continued through muffled sobs. “I tried to tell him that I loved him, that the photos were some kind of aberration, but he was obsessed with them. Whatever love he had felt for me was consumed by his hatred and desire for revenge. I was put on his jet and flown here. I didn’t even get to say good-bye to my babies.” She was drained by the telling, her breath coming in uneven gasps.
David pulled her from the chair and hugged her. Her body was limp, flaccid, and incapable of fighting the terrible sorrow that held her in its grip. He knew what she needed most was the quiet reassurance his strong arms could provide. Minutes passed silently as he held her, smoothing the carelessly cut, ragged strands of her hair. He hoped that his compassion for her would build the will to fight and belief in herself. He fought to control the desire that came unbidden to his loins. She was dangerously vulnerable and needed to be strengthened. He would have liked to kiss away her tears, but he would not take advantage of her. He restrained himself and pulled away from her, his hands still holding her. “Have you heard from him?”
She nodded. “Today for the first time. He told me not to speak, but just to listen. He said that he was suing for divorce and for sole custody of Fallyn and Liam. He made it clear that if I fight him, he would make sure the photographs fell into the hands of the press. He told me to think seriously about whether I wanted my children to one day have access to such filth—not to mention the damage to my parents’ reputations and my own future in the horse world. He told me I would never survive the scandal. Then he told me he felt sorry for me and, because of what we had once meant to each other, he would allow me chaperoned visitation rights.” In anguish, she sought David’s gaze. “I’ve lost them, David. What am I going to do?”
“Not so fast. You haven’t lost them yet.”
“How can you say that?”
“Trust me. I have an idea.”
Chapter 25
The routine of Detective Weiss’s days began to revolve around his visits to Bella Oaks and his time spent with Adelia. He would show up at the ranch every day after his shift. Unless he was working on a case late into the night, he would drive out and have dinner with her, or she would meet him in Santa Barbara, and they would grab a bite.
One evening he brought her a compact disc and the printed lyrics of a Peter Gabriel song that seemed to him to express better than he could what she needed to hear. Often he would see sadness in her eyes, and she would slip away to a place to which he knew he could not follow her. He wanted her to know that he was there for her. She played the song over and over, the words wrapping around her in a protective cocoon.
Don’t give up
‘Cause you have friends.
Don’t give up.
You’re not the only one.
Don’t give up.
The haunting melody and words brought her to tears. He hadn’t meant to make her cry. He embraced her as she cried on his shoulder, her tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt. She could feel his heart beating against his chest. He is so unlike Miles, she thought. There was no flash or ebullience to him, just steadfastness and devotion. It was as if she had been lost at sea and he had thrown her a lifeline. His unwavering friendship and belief in her gave her the strength she needed. She promised herself that she would fight.
Without knowing the significance of the evidence that she had secretly taken from Miles’s office, Adelia had provided what might prove to be her salvation. The e-mails between the board members of Solarian about raising further government funds for a virtually bankrupt company might be enough to link Miles to premeditated dishonest representation, for which criminal prosecution was possible. David had followed the money and the timeline and had woven together a story of influence peddling and crony capitalism gone wild.
During the previous administration, under the auspices of the Department of Energy, the Loans Programs Office, or LPO, had been created to guarantee loans to eligible green-energy projects and innovative technology that could be shown to reduce greenhouse gases. The Solarian board of directors had lobbied the LPO for government-guaranteed loans for Solarian; they were also key supporters of the newly elected president, who was inaugurated while they were waiting for final approval from the LPO. Within two weeks of the new president’s swearing in, despite e-mails from the Department of Energy and the Office of Management and Budget warning that Solarian lacked the proper financing to survive the difficulty of developing innovative technology, the administration had approved and paved the way for the loan guarantees.
If what David and Adelia had unearthed could be proved, it would show that taxpayers’ interests had been subordinated to the interests of private equity. Even now, an additional three hundred million dollars in tax breaks were on track to be allocated to Miles and the other Solarian investors. In other words, Miles and his investors stood to reclaim their losses, while taxpayers would lose, all told, a billion dollars. The evidence on its own might not have been conclusive, but when combined with Lars’s e-mails to the board questioning Solarian’s solvency, his dissenting vote on pursuing more government funds, and his resignation from Solarian on the day of the supposed accident, there were enough facts to put a rope around Miles’s neck, if not for murder, then for illegally obtaining government funds. It would not be easy to prove, and there was a fine line between what was criminally prosecutable and what fell within the parameters of legality. There was no question that ethically and morally the whole thing stank, but questionable ethics and morality didn’t necessarily spell a criminal offense. The law was ambiguous and subject to interpretation.
It frightened Adelia to think of what Miles’s reaction would be when all of this was revealed to him at the custody hearing. She didn’t want to destroy him, but would not lose her children to him either. Like a poker player, she would have to be very good at her bluff. Whether or not she would actually find the will to turn in her evidence, if need be, to the government was beyond her knowledge. She would face that bridge when she got there.
It was still a couple of months before they would appear before Judge Masters to finalize the divorce and decide custody. In the meantime, she and David had a lot of work to do to prepare for her day in court. Together they had worked on a strategy, and after, thorough due diligence, they had hired a top-notch lawyer to represent her. Bradley Adelman had a towering reputation as a guardian of women’s rights, particularly when the opposition was a wealthy husband hell-bent on revenge. He had trumped his opponents nine times out of ten in ugly divorce battles where the husband had held the upper hand. Adelia was not looking for money; she was solely concerned with retaining custody of the children.
When she was served with the divorce papers, she had been devastated to learn that Miles had hired Seth Goldman to represent him. She had considered Seth and Maggie to be her friends and felt wounded that they would turn against her and take sides. She realized business was business, but Seth’s recreant behavior hit her hard. In the meantime, David was keeping her busy compiling the secret file that would ultimately be handed to Miles in the courtroom. With David at her side, she would stand up to Miles and the blackmail he was using against her.
Pennsylvania’s law on the matter of child custody was solely directed to the best interests of the children. Bradley Adelman had made it clear that it was important that Adelia not disparage Miles in any way, through any medium, including telephone, texting, and social media. The courts tended to favor the party who was most certain to encourage and promote interaction of t
he child or children with the other parent.
As far as relocating the children to California, Adelia knew that would not be a possibility, even if she prevailed and won custody. Quietly working with a real-estate agent, she had already bought a horse farm in Bucks County, sight unseen, where she could continue her breeding business and where Miles would have easy access to his children. She didn’t blame him for what had transpired. Her sadness at the dissolution of their marriage and the love that they had shared had broken her heart. His ability to simply write her out of his life was a painful reminder of the changeability of the human heart. She knew all of the evidence condemned her, but she also knew that Miles should have considered that she was telling the truth and had been framed. That Miles was incapable of forgiveness was a telling character flaw. David had raised the possibility that Adelia had been drugged and targeted by criminals. In any case, he believed her when she professed that she had no knowledge or memory of the incident in which she was violated. David felt certain that she had been entrapped and raped.
The platonic nature of her relationship with Detective Weiss, free from the ambiguities inherent in a sexual liaison, allowed the friendship to develop slowly and without pressure. He was careful to keep his feelings and his behavior circumspect.
If Adelia ever wondered about the reason for David’s devotion to her, she never let on. Occasionally, in an unguarded moment, she saw a longing in his face to reveal the depth of his feelings. However, in order to preserve the status quo, she never showed any interest in what might lie hidden behind his gold-flecked hazel eyes. She did not encourage or discourage him, but instead thrived on the companionable nature of their relationship. Instead of the highly charged, dangerous liaison of her marriage, she found a safe harbor in David, who demanded nothing more from her than to see her rehabilitation to the woman he had met years before.
He tended her as if she were a garden. His quiet strength and belief in her could not help but be rewarded. She blossomed beneath the rays of his sun. Her beauty was amplified by her resilience and focus. Adelia lived her days with the sole intent of being reunited with her children. She no longer moped and cried at their loss, but instead she grew in determination to reclaim and keep them. It had become the sole focus of her life, this battle to win custody.
A hot, dry summer afternoon greeted Detective Weiss as he drove up to Bella Oaks. The drought and arson-set fires of two years before were merely a memory. The rains had been plentiful this year, and there was still a trace of green on the distant hillsides that rolled up against the San Ynez Mountains. Around two o’clock that morning, Detective Weiss, unable to sleep, had tried to make sense of his feelings for Adelia. His porch had provided a quiet retreat as he stared into the moonless aerosphere. It had felt like an omen when a Taurus rocket, launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, had streaked across the heavens, its exhaust plume illuminating the dark cloak of night. Mesmerized by its trajectory through the starlit skies, he had held hope for his own unrequited love. For the time being, it was enough to know that his friendship had made a difference in her life. There would be time enough in the future to make his feelings known. It was only as he watched the spectacular display of the arcing rocket that he admitted to himself that what he felt for Adelia was love.
He walked to the riding ring, where Adelia was jumping one of her fancy mounts. This was the woman he had first encountered, strong and confident, ready to chase her dreams to the end of the rainbow. He smiled as he watched her fly from one jump to the next until she landed, bringing the horse to a trot and then a walk. Her athleticism and ability to become one with the horses never failed to amaze his layman eyes.
Flushed and breathless, she approached. Beaming, she removed her riding helmet, revealing damp, flat curls and a face burnished gold by the sun. “Hi, David. Are you up to taking me to dinner? We could go to the pier. I’ve ridden a dozen horses today, and I’m warning you, I’m starving!”
“Watching you eat is the highlight of my day. The pier sounds great.”
She jumped off the horse, raised her stirrup irons on the saddle, and loosened the girth. “I’ve been thinking that I should be more worried than I am about next week’s adversarial hearing in Doylestown. Miles will be a formidable opponent, and he’s dead set on hurting me. I just want to put all of this behind me and get on with my life. It’s been months since I last saw my children. They’re growing up without me. All I want is to hold them in my arms. I’m so grateful that you’re going to be there with me.”
“You shouldn’t be worried; we’re going to beat this thing. I want to be there by your side when you hear the judge award you custody.”
They circled the ring to cool the horse down before walking to the barn and handing the horse over to Rodrigo.
The late-afternoon sun burned low in the sky as they walked. Rays of sunlight filtered through David’s auburn curls as she turned to watch his reaction when she spoke. “Sometimes at night, when I lie in bed, I think over everything that has happened. David, I know that your friendship is the reason I’ve been able to go on. I need to say this, to say thank you. Because of you, I have hope…I…I mean, I believe that I will get Fallyn and Liam back. I can never thank you enough, David—”
He turned to her, his face in shadow, the sunlight forming a halo around him. “Stop, Adelia…you don’t have to thank me. There is a saying in Proverbs, ‘That which makes a man to be desired is his kindness.’ I saw you hurting; I had no choice but to help you.”
She reached for his hand as the deeper meaning of his words filled her. “You never cease to amaze me.”
“How about you get showered? I’m famished.”
Santa Barbara in mid-September sparkled with the luminescence that had made it a favorite setting for the California Impressionists. The temperate climate had long ago assured its status as a colony for wealthy industrialists, who built grand mansions in the hills above the Pacific. Adelia and David ate clam chowder at the Harbor Restaurant, watching pelicans dive into the open blue water and emerge with their gullets filled with fish.
“I’ve been thinking, David, about how you know everything about me and my life, while I hardly know a thing about you. If this friendship is to proceed on an even footing, I think you’d better fill in the blanks.”
“There’s not much to tell. I was born in LA into an Orthodox Jewish family. My father is a rabbi, and my early years were spent studying in a yeshiva. A nice, Christian girl like you wouldn’t know what that is. A yeshiva is an institutional Orthodox school where students study the Talmud, which is a collection of ancient rabbinic writings on Jewish law. The words of the Bible come as naturally to me as breathing the air, and as you know I quote them often. My life was pretty much preordained. I would marry a girl of my family’s choosing and become a rabbi like my father.” He watched as the waves rolled into shore, their power evanescing into froth and foam as they broke on the beach.
“What happened? Obviously, you’re not a rabbi.”
“No.” He laughed. “Certainly no rabbi. There was a girl who lived in the neighborhood. To me, she was Sarah, Leah, and Rachel all rolled into one, a biblical queen. She was the woman of my dreams—beautiful, good, and smart. She had been betrothed since childhood to another boy at the yeshiva. We were all good friends. Secretly, I was madly in love with her, but I never revealed my feelings. I burned for that girl, but I knew that it could never be.
“Then one afternoon we found ourselves alone together. At first, we behaved as our roles dictated—nothing out of turn. But when we brushed against each other, all of the power and desire that had been so well hidden demanded to be known. It was as if Pandora’s box had been opened. We were guilty of the same desire. She wanted me as much as I wanted her. Before we knew what had happened, she was in my arms. Her kisses seared me, and I knew that I had to have her. In my mind, the fact that we loved each other superseded a childhood betrothal and be
ing forced into a loveless marriage. We swore eternal love to each other…that nothing could turn us asunder.” David paused, as if spellbound by the recollection.
Adelia took his hand and pressed it, encouraging him to go on.
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he continued. “Anyway, I was wrong. There was no room in this dictated society for noncompliance. The strict adherence to law and tradition did not embrace the desires of the heart. Our families went meshugga, totally crazy. We were forbidden to speak to each other or even to look at each other. Her wedding to the other boy was rushed into overdrive. You could say the seeds for my departure were sown. I would have been condemned to live my whole life seeing her and knowing that she belonged to another.
“The night before the wedding, I climbed her fire escape and knocked on her bedroom window. We were like Romeo and Juliet and just as doomed. I kissed her and begged her to run away with me. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave her parents or the insular world that we lived in. That was it. I left. My only hope is that she found peace and happiness in that marriage.”
“But you see your family, don’t you?”
“No, never. When I left, I abandoned my history and the law. My father tore his shirt and mourned my death. It was as if I had died. When I left the community, I left the world.”
“Oh, David, that’s horrible. I can’t even imagine it. I’m so sorry.”
He clasped her hand tightly in his. “Don’t be sorry. It all worked out for the best. I am who I was meant to be. It was God’s will. It turns out my yeshiva background prepared me ideally for detective work. The Talmud that I studied so intently encompasses the entire corpus of civil and criminal law. In its illumination of all of man’s deeds and capabilities, it throws open the window into the nature of man and fosters the importance of an investigative mind. Amazing, don’t you think?”