Eddie smiled at her. “Perhaps we’d do some better thinking at the bar?”
Instead of answering his invitation, Caroline looked around the table. Some of the Steering Committee members were so deep into their drinks that she wasn’t sure they’d make it through lunch. Other seats were already empty, their occupants having roamed off to the casinos. And yet, Louis still sat at the table. So did Paul Tiller. And Anton Callisto. All the heavy hitters.
“I can’t. Not yet,” she decided aloud.
“Well, then, I guess I’m staying, too,” Eddie said.
He leaned back and placed a booted foot against the strut of the table.
“I’ll admit I wasn’t too happy when they shipped me off to Los Angeles for this assignment, but recent developments have led me to change that opinion.” He smiled, and the edges of his eyes crinkled up in well-worn smile lines. Even as the smile faded from his face, he maintained eye contact.
Caroline felt heat rise in her cheeks.
Sudden laughter drew her eyes away from the handsome associate.
She found Louis standing at the far side of the table, talking to Paul Tiller. With his short stature and bald head, Eddie’s boss contrasted with Louis’s towering elegance. Paul guffawed while Louis smiled, his features amused but controlled. It occurred to Caroline that she’d never seen Louis laugh. Not outright. The closest he ever came was a sardonic twinkle in his eye, coupled with a dignified grin.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Caroline asked. “Yachting?”
“More like fan boats,” Eddie said. “Paul grew up on the bayou down in Louisiana. His dad was a crawdad fisher or something.”
As Caroline watched the two men, Louis stopped talking. The smile he’d worn faded from his face as his eyes focused on something across the room.
Caroline tracked his gaze.
A man with a long nose that hooked over at the tip stood at the door of the restaurant. His bony countenance reminded Caroline of a scarecrow. He raised his hand to touch his forehead in Louis’s direction, as if he were tipping a hat, then he turned and walked away.
Caroline turned back toward Louis, who stared at the now-empty doorway to the restaurant. His face wore an expression she’d never seen before. An expression startling in its intensity. And its passion. It took her a moment to place it.
Hatred.
“What was that about?” Caroline asked, her eyes still trained on Louis, trying to imagine the cause of his hatred. Even after he turned his attention back to Paul Tiller, Louis’s preoccupation was written in his eyes, which kept flicking toward the doorway of the restaurant where the stranger had disappeared.
Eddie slowly shook his head. “I have no idea.”
The hairs at the back of Caroline’s neck rose. With sudden certainty, she needed to know the reason for the strange man’s appearance.
She rose from her chair to make her way to Louis.
But her phone rang in her purse.
Distracted, she answered without looking at the caller.
“Hey, kiddo.” Uncle Hitch’s voice came on the line.
Caroline cringed, wishing she’d screened the call. But it was too late now.
“Excuse me, Eddie,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
She jogged out of the restaurant’s doors and ducked into an alcove where she could hear well enough to have a phone conversation.
“I can’t talk now, Uncle Hitch,” she said into the receiver. “I’ve got some things I need to do here.” Like figuring out what the heck just happened back at the table, she added silently.
“Your mom decided to go camping with Elaine,” Uncle Hitch said. “She told me to check in with you once a day. I think she’s worried about me.”
Caroline stayed silent. Her uncle already knew she was worried about him, too.
“I just wanted you to know I’ve only had six drinks today,” he said. “That’s already one less than at this time yesterday . . . I’m getting sober.”
“Have you gone to a meeting?” Caroline asked.
“You know I hate AA.”
“It’s going to kill you someday, Uncle Hitch,” Caroline said quietly. Not that it would matter. Not that the former police officer and soldier cared what she said.
“Now wait a sec—”
“We can talk later. I’ve got to go,” she finished and hung up before he could reply. She didn’t want to hear his lame excuse for why he needed a drink.
Standing in the alcove, Caroline waited for her foul mood to dissipate. Her uncle’s drinking frustrated her. But even more than that, his unwillingness to do anything about it disappointed her. He’d always been so strong. When her father had left, Uncle Hitch had stepped into the vacant spaces. He’d attended events for her. Competitions. Graduations. He’d helped her learn to drive. But now he was a foundering ship, and there was nothing she or her mom or anyone else could seem to do about it.
When the mood didn’t pass, Caroline headed back to the table.
Maybe she’d take Eddie up on that drink after all, she thought darkly.
But when Caroline arrived at the Committee’s table, she didn’t see Eddie.
Louis, too, seemed to have disappeared.
So instead of sitting back down at the table, Caroline skirted the edges of the restaurant, scanning the vast space. She passed tables of laughing friends, couples long married or newly met, a tableau that played out like colorful fish in a tank that she, separated by glass and oxygen, could not be a part of.
Seeing no familiar faces in the restaurant, she stepped into the lounge.
Unlike the cavernous restaurant, the bar area was long and narrow. Golden light played on the ceiling, shining up through a long slab of quartzite. A row of well-dressed patrons stood against it, sipping drinks from elegant glassware.
As she wove between bar tables, she looked for Eddie or Louis. She saw neither man.
At the far end of the bar, a corridor bordered by velvet curtains opened onto a row of private booths.
Curious, Caroline passed into it, scanning the low tables with diners reclining on Moroccan cushions. When she reached the end of the private booths, she turned around to retrace her steps.
That’s when she saw Eddie. He sat in a nook hung with cobalt curtains that obscured all but his face.
She took a half step toward him, then froze.
He wasn’t alone.
Across from him sat a platinum blonde wearing a burgundy dress with a plunging neckline. The look on Eddie’s face made clear that he wouldn’t be interested in anyone but Ms. Platinum Blonde tonight.
Caroline retreated back through the curtained entrance to the bar with a wave of annoyance. This trip to Vegas pretty much sucked, she concluded. She could think of no reason she should have come.
“What can I get you?” asked the bartender.
“Just some water,” Caroline said, giving the only answer she ever gave.
She knew why her uncle drank. She shared his sensitivity. A sensitivity so acute that she noticed subtle shifts in people’s moods. She startled at faint sounds. She felt the displacement of air in a room. It was a sensitivity that had made her uncle a good cop and that made Caroline good at seeing what others missed. But while that sensitivity could be a gift, it could also spawn worries so profound it threatened to cripple her.
Yes, she understood the attraction of alcohol. She wanted to shut off the sensitivity, too, sometimes. To build a protective barrier between herself and the world . . .
“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer something with a little more to it?” came a voice from beside her.
Caroline turned to see the scarecrow man with the hooked nose leaning up against the bar. Up close, his most prominent feature was a high forehead. Without a hairline, a flock of wrinkles marched up his scalp in jagged furrows.
“No, thanks,” she answered, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck.
“You’re the newest member of the SuperSoy plaintiffs�
� team, aren’t you?”
Caroline just looked at him. How did he know who she was?
“Please excuse my manners. I’m Ian Kennedy. Opposing counsel.” He held out a hand.
Hesitating, Caroline took it.
“I’m Caroline—”
“—Auden,” he finished.
At her surprised look, he said, “I make it my business to know my adversaries.”
He smiled, revealing a tiny gap between his two front teeth.
“I’m new to the SuperSoy case, too,” he said. “I’ll be arguing the Daubert motion on behalf of Med-Gen.”
Caroline stayed silent. This man had yet to explain why he was standing next to her at a bar in Las Vegas instead of working on his client’s Daubert briefing wherever it was that he worked when he wasn’t stalking opposing counsel in high-end restaurants.
“I just happened to be in town,” Kennedy said, smiling innocuously. “When I heard the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee’s meeting was, quite coincidentally, here at the same time, I thought I’d come see the competition for myself. Up close, as it were.”
Wrinkling her nose at the smell of bullshit, Caroline prepared to deflect questions about the case. Why else would he have followed her into the bar if not to pump her for information?
“I won’t ask you to compromise your case,” Kennedy said, reading her perfectly. “But I think we can both agree that food manufacturers aren’t inherently evil.”
Finding nothing wrong with the statement, Caroline nodded.
“These biotech companies are in the business of fixing problems that plague our cash crops—pests, frost, et cetera,” he continued, laying out each piece of his argument for her scrutiny. “Biotech companies design plants to thrive. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Caroline sat quietly, watching the defense attorney play with his arguments like a cat played with a ball of yarn. But to what end?
“Plants have been hybridized for years,” Kennedy said. “Your grandma’s roses are probably crossbreeds. Those grandifloras and albas growing in your grandma’s garden aren’t scandalous. They’re just combinations of preexisting genetics. There’s nothing new under the sun, really.”
“But not like this,” Caroline said, deciding to play along. There was no harm in it. And if the conversation gave her a preview of Med-Gen’s arguments, that would be useful information for the associate drafting some of the plaintiffs’ opposition to those arguments.
“What do you mean?” Kennedy asked, his eyebrows raised in mock surprise.
“You’ve seen what some of these companies are doing. Taking a gene from a fish and sticking it in a tomato. Inserting human genes into corn. Jamming a spider gene into goats to make Kevlar out of their fur.”
Kennedy clucked his tongue. “Those are extreme examples. You can’t dispute that some genetically engineered traits are beneficial.”
“Maybe so, but you can’t mess with Nature and not expect it to bite you back sometimes. Just look what happened to the plaintiffs in this case.”
“Oh, we can’t be certain of causation. Many of these plaintiffs had preexisting renal conditions. But that’s enough debate,” Kennedy said, waving a hand as if to dispel the tension.
Caroline silently castigated herself for failing to stop the conversation before he had.
“Congratulations on the job,” Kennedy said. “Hale Stern has an excellent reputation. I knew Thompson Hale. He was a very fine lawyer, though he never did pay his associates at the top of the pay scale.”
Caroline didn’t respond to what might or might not have been a veiled attempt to see if she was susceptible to bribery.
“You really could get a job anywhere,” Kennedy said. “Your grades and clerkship were both tops.”
Caroline’s eyes widened.
“Becoming the editor in chief of the Journal of Law and Technology as only a second-year law student was an impressive achievement, too,” he continued. “I can see why Louis wanted you.”
Caroline felt her face flush. Someone had performed research on her. Deep research.
“I apologize for prying,” Kennedy said. “As I said, I like to know my adversaries. You just never know when those adversaries will become . . . friends.”
He smiled his gapped smile again and withdrew a business card from his pocket.
“If you ever decide you need a change, that you don’t like doing the sorts of things you’re doing at Hale Stern, I’d like the opportunity to talk with you. I recognize that young plaintiffs’ lawyers like yourself can be idealistic, but I’d like the chance to persuade you that those of us on the defense side aren’t all evil . . .”
Kennedy trailed off, his gaze traveling over Caroline’s left shoulder toward the entrance of the bar.
Even before she turned, Caroline knew what she’d see.
Louis stood at the entrance. The light of the restaurant behind him ignited his white hair like the halo of an avenging angel.
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you,” Kennedy said, forcing Caroline to turn back toward him. Pressing the business card into her hand, he bowed slightly before turning and walking away.
Caroline swung back toward where Louis had been standing.
But he was gone.
Caroline found Louis waiting outside the bar, cleaning his glasses. As she approached, he looked up. He regarded her quietly with his colorless eyes before replacing the glasses on his face.
“What did he say to you?” Louis asked.
“He said he’s opposing counsel. But he knew all about me. He knew my grades and even some . . . other stuff.” She shivered with a combination of revulsion and paranoia.
“Not surprising,” Louis said.
“What do you mean? Who is he?”
“Remember what I said about it being highly unlikely that Dr. Heller’s death was a hit?” Louis’s voice was so quiet that Caroline almost couldn’t hear him over the background din.
Caroline nodded.
“Ian Kennedy’s presence increases the odds I was wrong,” Louis finished.
Caroline’s stomach twisted.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Kennedy is a rare and dangerous animal. He has a well-earned reputation for making his clients’ problems disappear . . . by any means necessary. He knows no rules. He has no scruples.” Louis paused, and his gaze darkened. “He’s a fixer.”
Caroline waited in silence for her boss to elaborate.
“Those of us in the legal profession are generally honorable, if not always decorous,” Louis said. “But Kennedy is quite the opposite. He may be decorous, but he is the very opposite of honorable.”
“You’ve had experience with him,” Caroline surmised. That much was obvious.
“I lost a huge case because of him. My key witness disappeared on the eve of trial. I’d heard of Kennedy’s reputation, of course. I knew the stories. But it wasn’t until my witness came to see me, a year after that case was dismissed for lack of evidence, and told me what had happened to him, that I realized all of the rumors about Kennedy are true.”
“What did Kennedy do?” Caroline asked.
Louis paused, as if weighing how much to tell her.
“My witness told me he’d come home to find a man with a gun sitting in his living room. He promised my witness that he would never see him again, but that he’d be watching. All the time. Every time this witness dropped his children off at school. Every time he tucked them in at night, this man said he would be watching. He threatened to come for my witness’s family if he dared to set foot in the courthouse.”
Caroline swallowed hard. While she’d seen witness intimidation in movies, she’d never heard of it happening in real life.
“These tales follow Kennedy around like ghost stories that lawyers tell to younger lawyers to keep them up at night, wondering if they should have gone into another profession,” Louis said.
“You’re saying he had something to do with Dr. Heller’s death,” Caro
line said, wanting to disbelieve the words even as she uttered them.
“I’m saying it’s . . . possible,” Louis allowed. “Kennedy will stop at nothing to win—wiretaps, bribes, witness intimidation. Possibly even murder if the price is high enough.”
“So, what do we do?” Caroline asked.
“What do we do?” Louis repeated the words slowly. “People like Kennedy never act directly. They never leave any tracks, and they never get caught.”
Caroline’s stomach twisted as she considered his words. Words that made it sound like she’d stepped into one of those nightmarish movies she preferred not to watch. Let alone live.
“Personally, I’d like to continue,” Louis said finally. “I’d like to continue looking for that missing article. But I recognize that Kennedy’s presence is worrisome.”
Worrisome. It seemed like an almost criminal understatement.
“Kennedy doesn’t have a reputation for targeting lawyers,” Louis went on. “After all, that sort of thing would leave fingerprints, and it wouldn’t help his client’s cause since there’s always another lawyer there to take over. So I believe we’re safe continuing our work. Quiet inquiries into the location of the article shouldn’t attract anyone’s notice, either.”
Caroline heard the truth in Louis’s words. Her boss certainly believed what he was saying, but did she? How much did she trust her mentor’s evaluation of the potential risks in this arena that bore no resemblance to courtroom proceedings?
“I don’t want you to do anything you’re uncomfortable doing,” Louis continued, anticipating her misgivings. “I could put you on another matter, if you prefer.”
Caroline weighed the invitation. Louis was the best litigator in the city, if not the West Coast. His name commanded respect. She’d been lucky that he’d taken a chance on a tech nerd who’d decided to change careers . . .
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Good,” Louis said with a curt nod and a hint of a smile. “With Kennedy involved, we have no margin for error. Our brief must sing. Dale will get a chance to hammer home our arguments at the hearing, but by the time he takes the podium, the judge will have most likely made up his mind based on the briefs. I want to see an outline tomorrow morning.”
Doubt (Caroline Auden Book 1) Page 10