Sawyer, Meryl

by A Kiss in the Dark

  This was no joke, she realized, a juggernaut of debilitating panic hitting her full force. Someone had planted those earrings in her purse. That person intended for her to be arrested. And she'd played into their hands by leaving her bag at the table. It could have been anyone, but the triumphant glow in Eleanor Farenholt's eyes came to mind.

  Did she hate me that much? All the little digs, the veiled and not-so-veiled insults paraded through Royce's mind. The signs had been there, but she'd arrogantly ignored them.

  "What am I going to do?" she whispered to herself. "Surely, Brent will help me." But even as she said it, she knew it wasn't true. He'd claimed to love her, but he hadn't given her the benefit of the doubt. Somehow that hurt as much as being arrested.

  Didn't her love her? The question kept echoing through her mind as she remembered all the times he'd told her how much she'd meant to him. She'd thought he was a sensitive, caring man—like her father. But tonight he'd sided with his parents—against her.

  At the station she was taken to a large room filled with women waiting to be officially processed. The steel door to the holding cell clanged shut behind Royce. She stared at the rows of metal benches. All of the seats were filled; the only sound was the droning hum of the fluorescent lights. Some women stared at her suspiciously while others looked openly hostile.

  "What's wrong?" she asked herself when no one made a space for her. These women didn't know her, yet they seemed to dislike her. Obviously, they were poor. A hooker in thigh-high boots of worn vinyl. A woman in stained sweats and tennis shoes without laces.

  My dress, she decided after a few seconds. It set her apart as surely as if she'd been wearing a space suit. An expensive gown like hers was as alien to these women as sable coats were to the homeless.

  Like the crowd at the auction they were judging her; only, these women were finding her guilty of being rich. I'm not rich, she longed to scream. I bought this dress on sale.

  Finally, a butter-blond with a body like a tombstone slid over, leaving a space the size of a hand for Royce. She wedged herself into the spot as the blond boldly leered at her, a glare that would have backed down a pit bull. The other women stared, too, even more curious now that she'd been offered a seat. The hefty woman was a leader, she realized. Or someone they feared.

  Facing forward, Royce was conscious of the muscular woman beside her, studying her, cataloguing everything about her. Then she laid a chunky hand on Royce's thigh, fingering the metallic beads on her gown.

  "Stop it." Royce swatted her hand aside, meeting the woman's eyes. They were as black as the roots of her bleached hair, radiating an intense hatred Royce only had imagined existed until this moment.

  "Honey," the blond said, her voice blatantly masculine, "you're as good as dead." She yanked off a handful of beads, tearing the dress, and tossed them into the air. "Count on it."

  Royce vaulted to her feet and marched to the door, seeing the matron through the small window. She knocked, but the guard ignored her. Then she pounded on the door, but the guard didn't look up from the comic book in her lap. Beating on the door with both fists, she screamed, "Let me out."

  Finally, the guard inched open the door, looking every bit as hostilely at Royce as the women inside. Pointing to the blond Royce said, "That woman's bothering me."

  "Settle down, Maisie. I don't want no trouble tonight."

  The guard's placating tone told Royce even the guards were afraid of the woman called Maisie. The door slammed shut before Royce could say another word. She turned, her feet aching in her high heels, and forced herself to look directly at Maisie, instinctively knowing not to show her fear.

  "I'll be waiting for you... inside," Maisie promised.

  Royce went to the corner and stood with her back against the wall, her eyes trained on the door, waiting for the matron to call her so she could be formally booked and put into her own cell. But like the wheels of justice it fed, the booking system was so overworked that it had almost collapsed under its own weight. Women poured into the room, but few were taken out.

  The women on the benches shifted, making room for new arrivals. An outsider. Royce was as unwanted here as she'd been at the Farenholts'. She had no illusions about what would happen to her if she were convicted.

  Time passed. One hour. Two. She lost track, standing alone, her back braced against the cold wall. Her mind, though, was alert, processing the evening's events. Who? Why? Eleanor Farenholt was the only explanation that made sense.

  Brent. It hurt so much to think of him, but she couldn't help wondering where he was and what he was doing. Surely, by now he'd realized she hadn't taken those earrings.

  She thought of all the good times they'd had together. Long walks in San Franciso's misty fog. Candlelit dinners. Discussions about current events. He'd claimed to love her, but where was he now when she needed him?

  "Royce Anne Winston," barked the matron, startling her.

  She followed the woman to the processing bay, where her fingertips were pressed against a laser light and a photographer took two shots, full face and profile. The photo gave her a semiembalmed appearance that would have made the Pope look like a serial killer. They confiscated her beaded gown and issued her a Day-Glo orange jumpsuit with the word 'prisoner' stenciled on the back.

  Remembering Val's warning she refused to speak with the detectives. Did she want to call a lawyer? She nodded, then dialed her uncle's number. It was almost dawn but he didn't answer. She whispered a frantic message to his machine. The only criminal attorney she knew was Mitch. Uncle Wally, though, had spent years covering the city. He'd know who to call.

  The rubber slippers she'd been issued flopped against the concrete floor as she was herded down a narrow corridor flanked by cells full of women. The cellblock was more crowded than the holding room; two extra bunks had been shoehorned into cubicles originally designed to hold four. It could have been day or night; in the windowless cavern it was impossible to tell, because they never turned out the lights.

  They stopped at a cell with an unoccupied lower bunk. Inside the women were lying down, trying to sleep despite the undertone of noise and blaring overhead lights. The matron nudged Royce forward, then slammed the iron-barred door behind her.

  All Royce could think about was sleeping until Uncle Wally arrived with an attorney. She angled her body sideways and edged toward the empty bunk.

  "Well, if it ain't the rich bitch."

  God, no, not Maisie. The beefy blond swung down from the top bunk, blocking Royce's path. She mumbled a quick Ave Maria.

  "No room for you, rich bitch. You'll have to stand."

  "That's my bunk." Royce tried to sound tough, but fear was gathering force inside her like a hurricane.

  "Fuck you." Maisie hunkered over Royce, an emotion too intense to be merely hate set on each coarse feature.

  "Guard," Royce yelled. "This woman won't let me in my bunk."

  "Quiet. Aaah, shut up," echoed up and down the cell-block.

  The two guards huddled around the TV at the far end of the corridor never turned around. Royce had another even more frightening glimpse of what her life would be like if she were convicted.

  Forty-eight hours, she thought, gripping the cold steel bars with both hands. The authorities had that much time to formally charge her, then she could post bail and prove her innocence before the preliminary hearing.

  The preliminary hearing. How well she remembered her father's hearing. He'd been innocent and yet a fast-talking attorney—Mitchell Durant—had convinced the judge to order a trial. Papa had been terrified of jail. Now she under- stood his fear, but feeling sorry for herself wouldn't help her.

  She turned and faced the snickering Maisie. Royce barreled into her, sledging her thick belly with a punch that carried all her weight. Maisie staggered backward, more surprised than hurt, and Royce scrambled into the bunk, hoping Maisie would leave her alone.

  Maisie puffed for a second, then sprang at Royce, hurling herself onto the
bunk, landing on Royce like a steel piling. Air whooshed from Royce's lungs and the mattress bowed, threatening to collapse.

  Maisie breathed into Royce's face, hot breath rife with a stale pickle odor. She touched Royce's hair, stoking it almost like a lover. "You've had it, rich bitch," she said in a stage whisper designed to carry up and down the cellblock. "You're dead."

  Royce started to scream, but Maisie's hand latched over her mouth. Intellectually, Royce knew Maisie didn't hate her. This wasn't personal. Royce was a symbol, a woman who had everything while Maisie had nothing. But this subtle realization did nothing to bank the primal fear surging through her.

  "Easy, Maisie," a calm voice came from the aisle between bunks. Strong hands, crowned by a chipped set of false nails, hauled Maisie off Royce, and she looked up at a woman with beet-colored hair and brown eyes ringed with liner like Cleopatra's.

  "Thanks," Royce muttered, still trying to get her breath.

  "I'm Helen Sykes." The woman plopped down beside Royce. "What brings you to the gray-bar Hilton?"

  "Theft. But I didn't do it."

  "Mitch Durant's the best mouthpiece—if you can afford him."

  Royce told herself there had to be another lawyer as good as Mitch. He was the last person she'd call.

  "How'd you get caught?" Helen asked, resting back on her elbows to keep her head from hitting the bunk above them.

  "I was framed," Royce insisted, lowering her voice, conscious of the other prisoners listening. Why should any of them know her problems? None of them had come to her rescue. She found herself telling Helen the whole story, concluding with "Would I have opened my purse in front of everyone if I had actually stolen the earrings?"

  The clock over the guard's station read seven-thirty when a matron came for Helen. "About time. I got the most worthless pimp in Frisco. I shoulda been outta here hours ago." She gave Royce an affectionate thump on the back and was gone.

  Where was Uncle Wally? She'd been in jail for over ten hours. Why hadn't he come? Maybe he'd spent the night with Shaun, but he always went to Sunday Mass. Surely, he'd come home afterward and check his machine.

  By noon the sense of alarm she felt when Wally hadn't appeared among the legions of relatives visiting other prisoners became full-blown terror magnified by lack of sleep and a growing awareness that she could spend years behind bars.

  Why hadn't Brent come to his senses and realized she was innocent? She recalled the anger in his voice: How could you, Royce?

  "How could I," she muttered to herself. "How could you desert me? That's the question."

  Brent's "undying love" was merely an illusion. She had to accept the fact that she was all alone. He wasn't going to come. He'd never loved her, not the way she'd needed to be loved. With true love came trust. Unconditional trust.

  If he'd truly loved her, Brent would have trusted her. He would have known without having to be told that she was innocent.

  "I need to use the telephone," Royce told the matron when she finally got her attention.

  "You're number sixty-seven," the woman said as she shuffled back to the post where a videotape of last week's soaps was playing.

  It was another three hours before her number was called. She dialed Wally, then rested her head against the wall where every inch was covered by graffiti. She listened to her uncle's recorder. The matron was concentrating on the TV, so Royce covertly dialed Val's number only to get her machine too. She tried to keep the frantic tone out of her plea, but heard it anyway.

  "I'm still in jail. I don't know what's happened to Uncle Wally. I need your help."

  It wasn't until well after dinner, almost twenty-four hours since her arrest, that the matron bawled, "Royce Anne Winston."

  She hurried along the visitors' wing, each room the size of a restroom stall with video monitors hanging from the ceiling, electronic sentinels. She stepped into the visitors' cubicle, expecting Uncle Wally and halted.

  Not Mitchell Durant. The matron gave her a shove and slammed the steel door behind Royce. Mitch stood at a table hardly bigger than his briefcase.

  "Your friends retained me to represent you." He motioned to the chair on her side of the table. "They haven't been able to locate your uncle."

  She dropped onto the seat, knowing her situation was worse than she'd imagined. Val and Talia knew how she felt about Mitch. They would never have hired him unless— "How bad is it? Why haven't they formally charged me?"

  Mitch took the seat opposite her, his attitude detached, professional, without any hint of compassion. "Abigail Carnivali is milking your arrest to get as much free publicity as possible. She's running for DA next year, you know. She loves headline felonies and isn't going to file charges until your forty-eight hours are up."

  Dear Lord, she was in hell. It shouldn't be happening, but it was actually comforting to see Mitch Durant. "Then what?"

  "You'll be formally charged and bail set. There's already been too much publicity in this case to release you on your own recognizance. I'll need your passport and loan info on your house to meet bail requirements."

  "I don't have much equity in the house," she said, her voice surprisingly calm. She hadn't slept in two nights now and found she had trouble concentrating on what he was saying as they settled the details of arranging bail and getting her passport.

  "I'm worried about my uncle," she told Mitch as the matron escorted her from the visitor's room. "Please, check on him."

  As Mitch had predicted it was almost midnight the following night—just short of forty-eight hours—before she was formally charged with grand theft. Mitch quickly satisfied the bail requirement by surrendering her passport and the deed to her heavily mortgaged home.

  Clad in the beaded gown that had once made her so proud, she stood in the release bay, looking for Wally. During the proceedings she hadn't been able to talk to Mitch, but she assumed Wally would be waiting for her. Mitch walked in, his briefcase in one hand. The shadow along his jaw said he hadn't been home since early that morning.

  "Did you call Shaun Jamieson? What did he say about Wally?"

  "No one's seen your uncle since the auction." His hand on her waist, he guided her down a deserted corridor. "Where are we going?"

  "Out the service entrance. The press is in front."

  Wise move. A brief glimpse in the mirror as she'd changed out of her prison jumpsuit had confirmed the worst. Hair hanging in unkempt hanks. Dark circles that had cost Richard Nixon an election. The only reporter she wanted to see was her uncle.

  In the back alley a group of homeless men were guarding Mitch's expensive Viper. He gave them money, then helped her into the car. Her dress rode up, exposing more of her thighs than she would have liked, but she was too tired to care. The last time she'd had a full night's sleep had been the night before the auction—almost seventy-two hours ago.

  She settled into the glove-leather seat, the supple curve cradling her like welcoming arms. She closed her eyes and didn't open them until the sports car stopped. Expecting to be home, she was startled to find Mitch had parked in front of Joe Mama's Pizza.

  "I'm starving," Mitch announced. "I've been waiting for your release since four." Inside, the aroma of pizza reminded her how terrible prison food had been, and she ordered calzone and black coffee while Mitch had a combination pizza—no anchovies. She sipped her coffee and ate the calzone left over from the Stone Age.

  "Get some sleep," Mitch said between bites. "We'll get together tomorrow and decide how to proceed."

  She took a head-clearing breath, so groggy she couldn't concentrate. She'd hoped to postpone this discussion until later, but saw it wasn't possible. "You know how little money I have. I can't afford you."

  "I'm willing to reduce my usual fee. This case is going to generate a lot of publicity. That's worth more than money" —he gave her an odd look—"to a man planning a political career."

  The fires of ambition she'd carelessly overlooked when they'd first met years ago had become a conflagration,
but she had no intention of letting him use her to further his career. "I appreciate what you've done, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to continue to represent me."

  "Why not? You won't find anyone better."

  "True, but you know how I feel about you."

  "You hate me." He flashed his ruthless grin. "We can build on that."

  "Very funny, Mitch. You know what I mean."

  "Tell the truth. You're afraid of spending time with me, afraid you'll fall in love with me."

  "What? Don't be ridiculous. I want a lawyer I'm comfortable with—someone I respect."

  The word respect detonated on impact. In the frigid depths of his eyes she saw unadulterated anger and maybe even hurt. He had her back in the car without giving her a chance to finish her coffee. They drove toward her home in silence charged with a cross-current of anger.

  She half wished she could modify what she'd said. She was grateful for what he'd done—although she was certain her friends had paid him well—but she didn't respect him after what had happened with her father. How could she possibly work with him?

  "Let me out here," she said as he drove up in front of her house. "I have a key hidden around back. I can get in." They'd kept her Judith Leiber bag and its contents as evidence.

  "I'll make sure you're safe inside."

  Too exhausted to argue she led him around to the back and switched on the outside lamp. It flooded the small garden with bright light, revealing clusters of cheery pansies and a weeping willow.

  Below the tree was an empty rabbit hutch. It was wobbly with age, but she couldn't bear to throw it out. Like all of her father's woodworking projects it was far from perfect, but they'd made it together years ago. Then Papa had taken her to select a lop-eared bunny she'd named Rabbit E. Lee.

  The pet store had failed to mention how long rabbits live, and Lee had been frisky the day she'd kissed him good-bye and left for college, entrusting his care to her father. Older, slower, but just as loving, Lee was still alive after college when she'd lived in her own apartment. By then, though, he was her father's pet. Papa would sit under the tree writing his column in longhand, feeding Lee carrots.