Temptations - The Complete Series

by Annie Jocoby

  “Yes,” I said. “Anyhow, it’s getting late. I have to go into the office tomorrow and see how things are going.” This was true – I was going to go into the office and check on everything. I had been Face-timing with the crew the entire time I was in San Diego, and doing as much work from home as I possibly could, but it was time to actually go into the office and meet with everyone.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Was it something I said?” She put her hand on mine. “I was hoping that we could take this conversation to my place or yours. I heard that you have a gorgeous place in Malibu. I would so love to see it.”

  “Maybe next time.”

  She raised her eyebrows again, more suggestively this time. “You’re saying that there will be a next time?”

  I was going to have to play this with finesse. I couldn’t completely shut her down, because she wouldn’t use her media contacts for me if I needed her to. If I could find the information about Charlotte that I was looking for, Sarah could be invaluable to me. Yet, I didn’t want to lead her on. I certainly couldn’t sleep with her – that would be violating what I had with Serena.

  “Of course, there will be a next time. I would really like to get to know you.”

  “I was hoping you would say that.”

  We got up and left the bar. I walked her to her car and gave her a hug, and she tried to kiss me, but I turned my head so that her lips landed on my cheek. She looked embarrassed, and got in her car, which was a Lamborghini. I shook my head. A girl who drove a Lambo wouldn’t want to be a personal trainer in Atlanta. She might have to downgrade to a Chevy or something. Maybe she was all talk, and I was getting my hopes up for nothing. She might just sober up in the morning and wonder what she did, and try to call me and take everything back.

  I was walking a tightrope on this new plan. If everything fell into place, I would have the perfect blackmail scheme for Charlotte.

  It was a long-shot -- at best.

  Chapter 27

  Serena

  We got to my old neighborhood, and walked around. I loved this place and did kind of miss it. I used to live in a brownstone that was right on a tree-lined street. It was a place where I loved to run, especially in autumn, when the air was crisp and the leaves were brilliant. At the moment, it was summertime, and extremely hot, but it was still a beautiful place to live. We stood in front of my old home, and I wondered who was living there.

  “Do you miss it?” Dalilah asked.

  “Sometimes,” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “It certainly is a different vibe than a beach community. There are trade-offs wherever you go, I suppose.” The one thing that I did love about this place was the communal feeling. On my old block was an Indian restaurant, several galleries, a vegan joint and an antique shop. My new neighborhood featured mostly houses on my block, and, across the street, there were mainly bars, restaurants, fast food places, and drug stores. The beach was within walking distance though, so that made up for the fact that my new place had much less of a funky boho vibe than my old place.

  We walked along the streets, passing runners, people with dogs, and others who were just out for a walk. Again, this was an energy that I really missed. There were plenty of people on the beach, of course, but on my actual street, it was pretty quiet. When I stepped out of my new house and got into my car, I didn’t necessarily encounter anybody. On this street, my old street, I would always see somebody when I left the house. That was always a source of comfort for me.

  I sighed. I had made my choice, and I knew that it was a good one. It had brought me to Slade. As much of a mess as that had turned out, I did truly love him. I hadn’t fallen in love like that with anyone else. I hadn’t had anyone else “get” me the way that Slade had. I was grateful for that.

  “Ah, kid,” I said, putting my arm around Luke. “I do miss this neighborhood, but I’m anxious to get back. And I’m really anxious to see what Lars has to say.”

  Dalilah joined us in lock-step. “Serena, we’d like you to visit us as often as possible. As much as Luke and I have had a good time visiting you in San Diego, I think that you’re right. This is the kind of vibe that we really can’t leave, either.”

  I smelled the air, catching the scent of curry. I hated Indian food, really, but this smell still made me feel like I was home. I shook my head. I wasn’t home. Home was in San Diego. Home was with Slade. He was my home.

  I was so conflicted as I walked along that street that day. On the one hand, I felt comfortable here. On other, I was missing Slade and I was on pins and needles.

  I took a deep breath, smelling the air and wishing that things were different. That I was visiting here on a nice trip, and not because I goddamned had to. Not because I was spying on the man that I loved. This was not a nice trip, really.

  A day went by, and then two. I was really on edge because I was going to have to be in Sacramento the next day for the California bar. I was still confident that I would pass it, that wasn’t a problem. Taking it as distracted as I was…that was a problem. And it was also a problem that I didn’t know if I would be back in time. Lars apparently was hot on the project, and I had called him several times. Every time I called, he would just say that he was working on it, and he would get back with me. “This Slade has some really tight security,” he would say. “The tightest security I’ve ever encountered,” which was saying a lot, considering he had hacked into the Department of Defense more than once.

  Luke, Dalilah and I hung out and tried not to address the elephant in the room. We saw movies and drank wine and caught up. We talked about everything under the sun – movies we had seen, politics, current events, gossip – and we tried not to talk about what was really on everyone’s mind. Slade. And, to a lesser extent, Charlotte.

  Finally, the call came from Lars. “Oh my god,” he said. “I can’t even believe it, but I got it. I’ve been working around the clock. I can’t believe the number of security protocols he has. He must be one paranoid son-of-a-bitch.”

  I was excited, yet apprehensive. “He has a reason to be paranoid,” I said. “But you got it? The video?”

  “Yes. It’s hard to tell who was beating that poor chap to death, but I was able to isolate it, and you can tell who is underneath that hoodie very well. He tried very hard to hide his face, but I was able to make it very clear. It is clearly not Slade. I don’t know who it is, but it is not Slade.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. The long nightmare was almost over. Maybe. I knew that this would only buy some time. There was going to be a long process of authenticating this video and “proving it up,” for the prosecutors and the judge on the case. But if I provided this piece of evidence, at the very least, the judge would suspend Slade’s guilty plea. That was all that I really wanted – to buy some time for him. And I did it. I did it. I let out a long breath.

  “What about Charlotte? Were you able to find any information about her?”

  “Oh god yes. That was fairly easy. Talk about a walking nightmare, that one.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling more and more excited. “Tell me about her.”

  “I got her psychiatric records, and the girl has been unhinged since the age of 12. She was a part of a murder’s club when she was in 7th grade. She and some friends killed a teacher. She only served time in the juvenile hall, because her lawyer convinced the jury that she was bullied into doing this. From the sounds of it, though, I would say it was the other way around. It’s really crappy, but, somehow, she only served about 3 years in the juvenile hall, and her record was expunged. She must have had an amazing attorney.”

  I felt excited. This was really getting somewhere. “Did you get your hands on her diagnosis?”

  “Yes. Borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. In other words, it sounds like there is no cure for her. I know something about psychiatric disorders, and I know that if you have either one of these particular ones, you don’t come back from that.”

  I wondered if anybody in
Hollywood knew the truth about her. And I also wondered what would happen if anybody found out the truth. Would she be able to find work again if everyone knew that she was dangerous, and she had been from a young age? I knew that starlets got away with all kinds of things…but not really. The ones who really went off the rails, such as Lindsay Lohan, couldn’t find work, no matter how talented they were.

  Even if she couldn’t be pinned for the murder of Jordan, with these records, I could certainly ruin her in the chosen profession. “What else did you find out about her?”

  “That’s enough, really. I think that you can do a lot of damage with these psychiatric records.”

  “Yes, I certainly could.” I rubbed my hands together, feeling, for the first time in a long time, a sense of relief. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, finally. “Thank you so much, Lars. You’ve done some amazing work.”

  “Well, it was a challenge getting that video. Even for me. One thing is for sure, this Slade really didn’t want that video being found. Or anything else being found, for that matter.”

  I knew that he was right about that. He found it, though. Now, I was just going to have to figure out how to use it judiciously.

  And I had to pray that Slade didn’t hate me forever for finding it and using it.

  And pray that I didn’t pay the consequences.

  Or Slade’s mother.

  Chapter 28

  The next day, with a copy of the video in hand, I got on a commercial airline and headed to Sacramento. I said goodbye to Luke and Dalilah with a hug, and said goodbye to New York City. I had to face my life back in California, and I was going to have to do it alone.

  They were sad to see me go, of course. Despite the dark cloud hanging over our heads the whole time I was visiting them, we did have a good time. We talked until late in the night, and I got to know little Olivia, who was growing every single day. I was going to miss them, but, at the same time, I was looking forward to this next part of my life. I was going to take down that psychotic woman Charlotte, and I was going to get Slade off the hook. It wasn’t going to be clean, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. I knew that going in. But, it was going to happen, and that was all that mattered to me.

  Dalilah tried to convince me to take Ryan’s plane back to California, but I begged off. “I’ve been flying commercial all my life, and I’m not about to stop now,” I said. “I love you for offering, though.”

  “Well, be careful. You’re messing with an obsessive, psychotic woman. It’s not going to be easy. Believe me, I know. I’ve been where you are.”

  “An obsessive psychotic woman who is going down,” I said. “And she’s going down hard. I might be going down with her, though. That’s the price I may have to pay, and I’ll pay that willingly.”

  At that, I got a cab, after saying my goodbyes to my brother and future sister-in-law, and I flew to Sacramento for my Bar Exam.

  That weekend, I took the Bar, and I knew that I probably passed it with flying colors. I was slightly rusty on certain areas of the law – constitutional law was one that was always changing, because the Supreme Court was always making new rulings – but, by and large, I knew what I was talking about. The multiple choice portion took the entire first day, and these were difficult questions regarding the core areas of law – criminal, property, constitutional, torts and contracts. The second day was the essay portion that covered state law and also common law. I wrote and wrote and wrote on the essay questions, and I really had to think about the multiple choice answers, but I felt that I did the best that I possibly could.

  After it was over, I boarded a plane for Los Angeles. I was finally going to face the music, and I was dreading it. Slade had warned me, again and again, not to meddle with his affairs. I therefore knew that Slade wouldn’t be the first person I would be seeing.

  I was going to pay a visit to his prosecutor.

  Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

  The second I touched down in Los Angeles, I made an appointment to see Slade’s prosecutor. His name was Raphael De Los Santos, and he had a reputation for being a hardass. This was all going to be difficult, I knew, because Raphael was salivating about bagging a big Kahuna such as Slade. He was not going to want to accept this evidence. That was a given. He was in the papers already, as the California Bar was recognizing him as the one who brought Slade to his knees. I wished that I would have been dealing with the federal prosecutor, because she was much easier to handle than Raphael was. But I wasn’t dealing with her. I was dealing with Raphael, who had Slade’s case, and I knew that I was in for some brow-beating and intimidation.

  I got to his office and knocked lightly on the door. He wasn’t expecting me, so I didn’t know what kind of reception I would get. He looked up, his dark brown eyes regarding me warily. He was behind a stack of files and was poring over one when I showed up.

  “Serena, “he said. “I’m surprised to see you. What’s up?”

  “Raphael,” I began. “I need to postpone Slade’s guilty plea.”

  He shook his head. “No can do. Unless you have Jesus himself to testify on his behalf, that guilty plea is going ahead as planned. Is there anything else I can do to assist you?”

  I cleared my throat. “Trust me, when you see the evidence I have that will exonerate Mr. Bridgewell, even you will dance.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I doubt it.”

  I showed him my flash drive. “This will change your mind. Trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you, but that’s really beside the point.”

  “Me?” I asked him, pointing to my chest. “I can’t imagine why you don’t trust me.”

  “I don’t trust you because I’ve been in touch with the federal prosecutor’s office, and they’ve informed me that you’ve already tried to pin this murder on two different mobsters. It’s not their MO, and I don’t see the motive. So, whatever you have better be a smoking gun, or there is no way that I’ll ever allow you to interfere with Mr. Bridgewell’s guilty plea.”

  “Just let me show you what is on my flash drive,” I said. At that, I popped the flash drive into my computer. “I have the part of the video that was missing; the part that proves that Slade had nothing to do with Jordan’s murder.”

  “Right. Listen sweetheart - if you think that I’m going to give up on prosecuting Slade, then you’ve got another thing coming. He’s going down for Jordan’s murder, and rightfully so. As I said, unless you have testimony from Jesus himself, testimony that exonerates Slade, then I will have to respectfully ask you to leave my office. I have files to look at before the next arraignment docket.”

  I booted up the computer and waited. I held my breath as I watched Raphael’s reaction to what was unfolding in front of him. At first, he looked annoyed and bored, because the beginning of this portion of the video was Jordan, who was working in the lab, apparently peacefully. Soon, a hooded man showed up, and Raphael cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. The hooded man took a baseball bat and whacked Jordan, who was standing right in front of him, holding up his hands. Jordan looked stunned and started to crumple to the ground, but he grabbed onto a table. He looked at the hooded man with a look in his eyes that said bewilderment and shock. He started to yell for help, but the hooded man whacked him again, this time aiming for his head. The hooded man didn’t stop, however, as he savagely pummeled poor Jordan, again and again and again. Eventually, Jordan crumpled completely to the ground, and he was soon still.

  The hooded man then went over to Jordan and felt for his pulse. He apparently was satisfied that Jordan was gone, and he left.

  I looked over at Raphael, who looked like he was thinking. He had his pencil to his mouth, and he was staring at the computer, which now had a blank screen. Finally, he spoke. “Okay. Listen. There are many issues with this video. Number one, you can’t really tell who is whacking Jordan. Number two, I’m going to need to authenticate this. You could very well have taken the video of Jordan’s murder and h
ad it cleverly doctored.”

  “You have this video taken to a professional and have it blown up and isolated. You will clearly see who is doing the whacking. Hopefully, that same professional will be able to tell you that this video is authentic and not doctored. Now, I don’t know how long it will take you to do all of that, but I hope that you and I can agree to at least postpone Mr. Bridgewell’s guilty plea until you can have a chance to do your due diligence.”

  He sighed. “Why did you have to do this? I was this close to finally closing this beast of a case.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes. How dare I try to free an innocent man. How dare I try to keep a man out of prison for the rest of his life for something that he didn’t do.”

  “Don’t get on your high horse. Okay, I’ll agree to postpone that guilty plea. I’m not going to guarantee you anything, though, until this video is authenticated and I can identify who this hooded figure is.”

  “Thank you,” I said, standing up. “My team will…” I shook my head. My team will what? Malcolm was the guilty party. He wasn’t going to agree to this continuance. I couldn’t appear in court until I got the results of the Bar Exam back. I was going to have to tell Raphael something, and I didn’t know exactly what. “Actually, could you just ask for the continuance?”

  He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. “Why? You know that the judge is going to want to speak with both parties before he’s going to approve of any continuance.”

  “You’ll see why when you blow up that video recording.”

  He looked perplexed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I took a deep breath. He was soon going to find out that Malcolm was the one on the video. I might as well just come out with it. “Malcolm murdered Jordan,” I said.

  He looked stunned. As if somebody had punched him in the gut. “What’s that supposed to mean?”