by Annie Jocoby
She nodded. “That’s okay if I do. I hated being locked up before, of course, but I know that I can survive it. If I can survive seven years in the Pen, I can survive anything. But go on.”
“You’re familiar with this whole procedure, of course,” I said. “But I’ll go ahead and tell you anyway, just in case you had forgotten what happens. The next step, after you are read your charges by the judge and given bond is that your case will go to the grand jury. It’s a secret proceeding, and, unfortunately, I won’t be able to be there. I would expect an indictment, after which you will be formally charged. After that, it’s just a matter of getting the case ready for trial. The whole thing is going to hinge on the testimony of the expert witness that I plan to call to the stand.”
She didn’t say anything, but stared out the window. “I know. You explained all that to me. It just scares me. What happens if the jury doesn’t buy my story? And what is going to happen to Slade? He helped me get rid of the body.”
“Mom, don’t worry about me,” Slade said. “I’m sure that I’ll be fine. In fact, I plan on coming clean with the prosecutor who will be on my case. I’m going to tell the prosecutor that getting rid of the body, as opposed to going to the authorities, was completely my idea. That doesn’t mean that you won’t be in trouble, too, but hopefully it will mitigate the damages.”
I hoped that Slade was right about that. He faced some serious prison time if things didn’t go his way. Obstruction, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse…there were so many serious charges that come from doing what they did to Hugh.
Slade grinned. “Hey, maybe I can draw Raphael as my prosecutor again. It would be like old times.”
I put my hand on his leg. “I know that you want to make light of this, because that’s what you do. But you have to face the fact that what you did was very serious. I hope that you understand that. You might end up serving some time for it.” My heart sunk to my shoes as I realized that. Granted, he wouldn’t be serving life in prison. At most, he might serve a few years. I hoped against hope that he was right – that he would somehow beat these charges and perhaps end up with only probation or something along those lines.
“If I do, I do. In the meantime, I better get my publicist on this. Once this shit hits the fan, so soon after the last fiasco, I would imagine the media is going to be all over it.” He shook his head. “I can handle whatever happens, though. To me, at least.” He closed his eyes briefly and rapidly reopened them. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to shut my eyes like that.”
“It’s okay. Are you okay though?”
I closed my eyes and tuned into his vibrations. Just as I thought, his cheery and chipper demeanor were all for show. He was extremely worried about his mother. I didn’t feel that he was worried about his own situation, though. I only felt that he was concerned about Margot.
“I’m fine,” he said. “As I told you, don’t worry about me. After what I went through in my formative years, I can handle anything at all. Once you’ve seen your mother shoot your father dead, anything that comes after it is a piece of cake.”
We drove along, and ended up at Slade’s Malibu home. I let Bella and Gigi out of the SUV and immediately put them into the penned are of Slade's enormous estate. “I’m a little tired,” he said. “Too tired to drive all the way back to San Diego. I hope you don’t mind if we spend the night here.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” I said. “As you said earlier, you’re soon going to be bailing out our firm. I don’t think that Harry will want to fire me when the future of the firm is going to be riding on your largesse. I’m sure that I can take off a few days.”
I knew that I would have to be back in San Diego soon, though, as I was going to have to pay my respects to Malcolm. A part of me hated to do that, but another part of me, the part that was fond of him before I found out what he did, really wanted to go to his funeral.
We walked into the beautiful home, and I was, once again, struck by the size and beauty of it. The walls of windows, the skylights, the view, the amenities – all of these things were what I marveled at the very first time I saw this place all those months ago. So much had happened since then. It almost seemed like a whirlwind, and it definitely seemed surreal.
Margot went into a downstairs bedroom. She didn’t have a change of clothes with her, but Slade explained that he always kept some things for her in this particular room, because occasionally she would come and stay with him throughout the years.
Slade and I went into his enormous bedroom, and I lay down on the bed. Was it really just that morning that I punched Derek at that luncheon and then got really drunk? Again, it seemed like ages ago. One thing was for sure, it had been a really long day. One of the longest days I’ve had in awhile.
Slade came over to me, lifting up my shirt. “I know that you’re very tired,” he said. “So I’ll try to behave myself, as much as it’s completely difficult to do so whenever I’m around you.”
I sighed. I wasn’t necessarily in the mood, but, as Slade gently rubbed his hands on my breasts and stomach, I started to feel the familiar tingle. “You don’t have to behave yourself,” I said. “After the day I had today, I feel that this would be a beautiful coda.”
He smiled. “That’s one of the things I love about you. You can use the word ‘coda’ properly. I can’t say the same about most of the women I’ve dated.”
I laughed. “Just what kind of women have you dated?”
He rolled his eyes. “You know who I’ve dated. Charlotte, for one. But I’ve also dated just about every actress and model in Hollywood. None of them ever held my interest like you have, though.”
His hand went from my belly and on down to my nether region. As his finger stroked inside of me lightly he whispered, “What do you want tonight, Serena?”
I kissed his lips. “Just vanilla,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I’m not…”
“I know,” he said. “Neither am I really. But just wait until you see the room I have here. My playroom is one of the most state of the art there is.” And then he laughed. “I’m joking, of course. I do have a nice playroom, but it just has standard equipment, really. But sometimes standard equipment can be the best, you know?”
I had to laugh. “I know. Now, shut up and fuck me.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I’ll get around to it. I just need to feel your soft skin on my fingers just a little bit more.” His hand went to my thigh and stroked it as he kissed the back of my neck. “You have to know me by now. I do things in my own time and in my own way.”
I wasn’t necessarily in the mood for elaborate kink, so I just let the feeling of his skin on mine wash over me. His fingers were making their way up to my breasts, and he pinched the folds of my nipples lightly. The burst of pain that simple act created was exquisite, and I sighed. I rolled over on my back as his legs intertwined with my own. His cock was exposed in all its glory. He lay on top of me, his elbows on either side of my head, as he kissed me slowly. As his fingers touched my arms, I felt the familiar jolt of electricity shoot through me like a lightning bolt. Sometimes I felt the electricity like a gentle wave, and sometimes, like right now, it felt like the earth had opened up and swallowed me whole. I cried out as he maneuvered behind me, his pillowy lips biting and sucking the back of my neck.
I reached behind me and put my hand firmly on his exposed manhood. I gripped it slowly as he groaned. His breath quickened as my stroking became more insistent, firmer and faster. He was behind me, with his hands on my breasts, and I could feel his excitement with my hand. “Slow down,” he finally growled. “I need to come, but I want to be inside you when I do.”
At that, he rolled me onto my back, and he gently sheathed his manhood and slid it inside of me. I was thoroughly wet and ready to receive him, so the feeling of him being inside of me was that of being complete. I simply couldn’t imagine any other place that I would have rather been than right there in that bed with him. His beautiful bed and his beautiful body
were combining to wash away every bit of stress that had occurred that day with his mother and with Derek.
I put his head in my hands and looked him right in the eye. And then, without another word, I kissed him. His lips glided gently over mine as his tongue eagerly explored my mouth. I sighed as I felt him stroking in and out of me for what seemed like an eternity. I wanted it to last for an eternity, too.
He lay down beside me and wrapped his right arm around my neck. I took his arm and put it around my waist and held his hand in mine. It was understood by both of us, I knew, that the love-making wasn’t going to make everything go away. It couldn’t. There was just still so much up in the air, so many things that we were going to have to deal with. Things that I didn’t necessarily relish dealing with. Nonetheless, we were able to find comfort in one another, and that felt wonderful.
I cried out as I released my orgasm, and I knew that Slade did as well.
I needed a buffer against the cold, cruel world, and Slade had provided that for me.
I knew, without him even speaking, that I had provided the same thing for him.
Chapter 8
The next day, it was time to really take action. Slade and I agreed that it was best that Margot turn herself in so that she could get her case moving along. After her interrogation with Officer O’Malley, it was all but inevitable that she was going to be arrested for Hugh’s murder. We just decided to be proactive. It was the best thing for us to do, mentally.
I felt awful for Margot, who was sitting in the back of Slade’s car, as we drove to the police station. “How do we know charges are going to be filed?” she asked nervously. Her hand was on her crucifix, as she clutched it and zipped it along on its chain back and forth.
“We went through this,” Slade said, and we did. “There is no way there won’t be charges filed. And, by the way, I…”
We were almost at the police station when we saw them. Throngs of reporters were standing outside the station. There must have been some kind of tipoff that an arrest of Margot was imminent. There also was probably a tipoff that Slade’s arrest was imminent as well.
Slade groaned, but by then he had become more than used to being at the center of a media circus. “I’ll handle the reporters,” he said to Margot. Then he turned to me. “Do you think we should go ahead and make a statement or just tell them ‘no comment,’ like we always do?”
I hadn’t anticipated that there would be reporters already camped out like they were. I guess I should have seen it coming, after all the media attention that Slade got for his case, but I just didn’t. I felt naïve all of a sudden. “Yes, we might as well get up in front of it,” I said. “We can possibly control the media narrative before the media narrative controls us. I can’t make a statement for you, Slade, of course, since I’m not representing you. You should probably call your own attorney and let him know what’s going on.”
Slade was already on that. “Hey, Jackson,” he said on his phone. “Meet me at the LA police department headquarters on 1st,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you. My car is parked in front of the building on the street.”
Slade then nodded at me and got off the phone. “Jackson will be here in a half hour,” he said. “His office is five blocks away from here, but he said that he’s finishing up an interview with a new client.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t know why we didn’t anticipate this happening. The press is always being tipped off about me.”
I looked behind me at Margot. She was sitting in the backseat just staring out the window. “I’ve never gone through something like this,” she said. “They’re not all here for me, are they?”
“No, they’re probably mainly here for Slade. Slade has been a huge ratings-grabber for the better part of a year now. With the charges being dropped against him in Jordan’s case, the media obviously wants to grab onto another scandal involving him.” I shook my head. “They’re such vultures. I wish that they would, for just one second, imagine what it would be like to be Slade. Hunted. Never left alone. Made to answer for something that he had zero involvement with. Pronounced guilty until proven innocent. The media had been terrible to him the entire time his murder case was active, and I knew that there would be no apologies, either directly to him or on the air to their viewers.”
“I know,” Margot said. “I was always infuriated by the things that they said about my boy. They always told the viewers that he was guilty, in so many words.”
I sucked in some air and blew it out in frustration. Now the media actually had something on Slade. Granted, it was much less salacious than murdering your business partner. And it happened when he was just 18. Regardless, it was a felony, there was no doubt about that. I wondered if the media was going to be just as relentless about this case as they were about Jordan’s murder.
In about a half hour, just as Slade said, a man appeared at the door of Slade’s car. He was a tall and incredibly handsome black man with a completely bald head. He was dressed in a very high-dollar suit and sported a Rolex watch on his left wrist. He rapped on the window and Slade put the glass down. “Jackson,” he said. “As I called you to tell you, I’m going to be in trouble for what I did with mom’s attacker 10 years ago. I’m assuming that those reporters are for me. I need for you to make a statement to them, because we need to get out in front of all of this.”
At that, Slade gestured for me to get into the backseat with Margot. Jackson came around and got into the passenger’s seat. He turned around and grinned at me. “Hello, I’m Jackson Prejean. I’m Slade’s personal attorney. And you are?”
“Serena,” I said, shaking his hand. “I was one of the attorney’s on Slade’s murder case.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I understand that you managed to get that video over to Raphael just in time. At least that’s what the media is reporting.”
“When did the media start reporting about Slade’s case?” I asked.
“It’s hitting the papers this morning, and the pundits have been all over it. Everybody is still trying to establish motive for Malcolm doing that. It really has become an even bigger story now that there is a central mystery to be solved. Nobody can quite figure out what happened. Nobody knows why Slade was ready to plead guilty and why he retained the killer as his attorney. I’m sure that there’s a piece to this story that everyone isn’t getting.”
“There is,” Slade said. “But I can’t tell you about that right now. I can only tell you when the attorney-client privilege will be valid.” Since Margot and I were in the car with Slade and Jackson, there wouldn’t be attorney-client privilege between the two of them. That privilege would only be valid if there was just the attorney and the client in a closed room when nobody else was around.
“What else is the media reporting?” I asked Jackson.
“Well, the media has been all over Malcolm now. All of his dirty laundry is coming out. His gambling addiction, his ties to the Garancino family, his visits to brothels. All of it.”
I hadn’t heard about Malcolm visiting brothels, but it fit. “I feel awful for his wife and children,” I said. “If this whole murder wasn’t tied to Slade, Malcolm’s involvement wouldn’t even be a thing that the media would have noticed. Now they’re going to have to live with the shame of what Malcolm did, along with grieving his death.”
Slade shot me a look, and I knew what he was thinking before he even said it. He was worried that the media, in digging around, would be led to Charlotte somehow. If they did too much poking around, they might establish that connection. If they did, Charlotte would be a loose cannon again. If she had nothing to lose, then she would be absolutely dangerous.
“So, what is your statement going to be to the press?” Slade asked Jackson.
“Since you’re not going to try to cover up what you did with your mother’s date, then it’s just a matter of trying to turn the narrative around to become sympathetic to you. That’s going to be difficult, because people are naturally squeamish about people gett
ing rid of corpses. The fact that this guy’s disappearance was something that was well-covered by the media when it happened…” He shook his head. “That doesn’t work in your favor at all. We’re going to have to lay the groundwork for a self-defense claim for Margot, and it starts with this unofficial press conference.”
“I understand,” Slade said, but he gave me a look, and I knew that he was absolutely worried. I closed my eyes and felt immediately that his worry was more for Margot than for himself. “So, what is your statement going to be?”
“I’m going to get on top of the story. I’m going to tell the media that you were very young when this happened, and that your loyalty to your mother led you to do what you did. I’ll explain that you felt that your mother couldn’t get a fair trial for Hugh’s killing, and that you knew that his homicide was an act of self-defense. I’ll explain that all that you wanted was to make sure that your mother didn’t spend the rest of her life in prison.” He cracked his knuckles, which was a gesture that I was often guilty of myself. “It’s all about framing in these cases. If you can frame a crime in a way that makes the defendant look sympathetic, then half the battle is won right there.”
I nodded. I knew that was important – framing an issue. If the media framed Slade’s involvement as just covering up a murder, then it would be uphill for Slade to get a more positive message out. But if the media went along and framed Slade’s crime as simply being the actions of a scared teenager who wanted to protect his mother, then the sentiment would much more be on his side.
“Do you think your framing will work?” I asked Jackson.
“Yes, especially since I have a close contact with the LA Times. If we can get the largest paper in Los Angeles to report the story in the way that I want them to, then we’ll have a much easier time of it. Most everyone will follow suit.”
“What about the 24-hour news channels? They’re the ones who incited the media riot around Slade the last time.”