by Debbie Burke
But had Kahlil made a mistake setting up a call-blocking app on her phone? All his work seemed so precise, calculated. He was anything but sloppy and he knew how badly she needed legal counsel. Surely, he wouldn’t have done anything intentionally to block the lawyer’s calls.
Would he?
She glanced around to see if she had time to sneak outside long enough to call Kahlil back. But servers crowded among tables to deliver steaming lunch plates.
Rosenbaum returned to his seat and immediately joined an ongoing discussion with others at the table. Tawny understood only one in every three words bandied back and forth. She ate in silence, glad to escape the line of fire. The lawyer picked at his food, apparently more interested in talking.
After most people had finished eating, he gestured to an emcee who introduced him, the ham actor eager to take center stage. He strode to the podium, told a few jokes to warm up the audience, then began in earnest.
“Ladies and gentlemen, you already know me and my passion to protect the civil rights and liberties of American citizens who are being victimized every single day by draconian measures law enforcement is wielding under the questionable auspices of the Patriot Act. Today, I wish to tell you the story of my latest client. She is a widow and the mother of a young man serving in the Army. While her son is overseas risking his life to fight terrorists to protect the constitutional rights of every person in this county, his own mother has been deprived of her property without due process by the very same government that sent her young man into peril.
“This lovely woman sitting at my table…” He motioned for Tawny to stand. “Mrs. Tawny Lindholm, ladies and gentlemen.”
Blood rose to her cheeks. She wanted to crawl under the table but bobbed up briefly before quickly dropping back to her seat. Jerk.
“This poor widow,” he continued, “has not been convicted of any crime. She has not been charged with any crime. This woman has not even been accused of any crime. Yet the Department of Homeland Security seized her bank accounts, without notice, without due process, without a shred of evidence against her, rendering her penniless and unable to even pay for her own lunch.”
That son of a bitch! He invites me to this damn lunch then turns it around to make me look like a charity case.
“This very morning, she asked me, ‘Mr. Rosenbaum, will I lose my home to the government?’ Ladies and gentleman, can you imagine an innocent widow with a son in the armed forces having to ask such a question? Look at her! Is she a terrorist? A drug smuggler? A money launderer? A threat to national security? I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, if our government can commit such egregious abuse to a woman as innocent as Mrs. Lindholm, what chance does any citizen have against government entities seizing their life’s work, businesses, homes, and possessions? Are we returning to the era of jackbooted thugs busting down doors and confiscating property in the name of der Fuhrer?”
I’m going to kill him. Tawny hunched low in her chair, burning with shame. She wanted to flee the packed room. The arrogant prick had a lot of nerve, using her, without even asking, as his excuse to make a splash to an audience.
Rosenbaum went on, “Am I being melodramatic, ladies and gentlemen? Over the top? Exaggerating? You may think yes but you do not know my family’s history. My grandmother, my bubbe, was a little girl in Poland in 1939. An innocent child. She was no threat to the government, no criminal, no danger to anyone. Nor were her parents, who had their business and home confiscated by a government they had trusted to protect them. My bubbe was yanked from her mother’s arms.” He gestured as if grabbing a child from the air. “Then taken to a concentration camp. She survived, the only member of her family to live through the Holocaust.”
He leaned forward over the dais, embracing the audience. “I still remember, as a little boy of ten, Bubbe told me her story. She did not cry or beat her breast, just matter-of-factly told me what life had been like for her when she was the same age as I was.”
His voice dropped low, almost whispering into the microphone. “She showed me something she had never shown a living soul before, not even my grandfather. She pulled her lip down and there was a tattoo, her number from the concentration camp.” He paused and wiped his eyes.
Silence reverberated in the room.
“So, ladies and gentlemen,” the booming baritone recovered, “that is why I am passionately devoting my life to defending the citizens of this county from the insidious, creeping abuses I see taking place in the name of national security, victimizing innocents like Tawny Lindholm, as they did my bubbe.”
Next, Rosenbaum reeled off cases that he displayed on PowerPoint, talked about decisions, case law, and appeals, while Tawny huddled in her chair, feeling eyes on her from surrounding tables. Finally, he wrapped up his speech to enthusiastic applause. Lawyers waved their hands or pushed forward to ask questions. In the shifting movement of the crowd, she took the chance to slip out of the ballroom, head down, past people staring at her.
She hurried through the lobby and out the doors to the parking lot. Pausing to lean against a pillar, she sucked in gulps of cold air and let the chill breeze cool her seared face.
That son of a bitch. Paraded her problems in front of a hundred strangers like she was a trashy lowlife on reality TV.
After five minutes of deep breathing, she made a decision and hurried to the Jeep. Screw him. Screw the meeting with his buddy Max. She’d had enough of this lawyer feasting on her misery like a buzzard. She was going home.
Then she realized she’d left the tote bag with the money and her laptop under the table.
Damn!
She pounded the steering wheel but knew she had to return.
Gritting her teeth, she hurried back to the ballroom, where a few lawyers still lingered, chatting. She pulled the tote bag from under the table and started to leave when Rosenbaum caught her.
“Where have you been? The appointment is in twenty minutes. We barely have time to get there.” He loomed above her, glowering.
She spread her feet in a boxer’s stance. “Forget it. It’s off. I’m sorry your grandmother suffered what she did but you had no business blabbing my private problems to a ballroom full of strangers without my permission. Isn’t what I tell you supposed to be confidential? You humiliated me just to give you an opportunity to show off to a captive audience. I don’t care what a big hotshot you are, I don’t want anything to do with you.”
Rosenbaum glared at her for several seconds. She didn’t break eye contact, even though her heart pounded in her ears and she was shaking.
Abruptly, he dissolved into laughter, guffawing so hard he grabbed a chair for balance.
She watched in amazement. Was this jerk laughing at her? He was beyond a jerk. She stalked away.
“Wait! Mrs. Lindholm! Tawny, please.” His long legs quickly caught up to her and he planted himself in the doorway, blocking her exit. Laugh lines still creased his face but he held out his hands in supplication. “I’m sorry. I truly am. You’re dead right. I had no business sharing your story. I get carried away sometimes.”
“Oh, really?” She started to push past him.
“Look, I know I’m an asshole. But I’m an asshole on a mission. I really believe I can help you. You’ve gotten screwed big time. That’s what I’m fighting against, the little guy versus a bullying government. The Patriot Act was the worst piece of legislation ever passed in this county. If I can overturn even part of it, my life’s work will mean something. I’ll have made a difference. I’ll have saved other people’s bubbes from tyranny. Will you give me another chance?”
Did she believe him? Was he sincere?
His dark eyes bored into hers. She read something there, the light of a crusader.
A sincere asshole, she decided. “All right.”
He linked arms. “All right, then! Let’s go kick some federal ass.”
As they walked to the parking lot, Tawny asked, “This morning, how did you recognize me among all those people?”<
br />
He grinned. “That’s easy. You were the only one in the hotel without gleaming sharp teeth.”
Chapter 12 – Dumbfounded
While Rosenbaum’s Mercedes purred through traffic across town, he said, “You have the video of the woman posing as you?”
“Yes,” Tawny answered. “On a thumb drive in my bag.”
“Where’d you get it?”
No way would she mention Lupe Garza’s name to this big mouth. “I won’t say. It would break a confidence.” She stared hard at him.
He got the message, all right, but quickly moved on. “Your house has been broken into and your car tampered with.”
She nodded.
“It’s clear enough you’re being set up. When did you first hear from your son about this supposed kidnapping?”
“About a week ago.”
“What else strange has happened in your life in the last few weeks?” He ticked off items finger by finger on the steering wheel. “You got a new phone, supposedly from your son. You met this guy who’s helping you with the phone. Was this before or after the bank transactions happened?”
She lifted her chin and closed her eyes, trying to remember. Recent weeks had been such a whirlwind of turmoil and confusion. “I guess about the same time.”
“You just meet this guy. He fiddles around with your phone. And all hell breaks loose at your bank. Is that what you’re telling me?”
An uncomfortable itch started creeping up her neck. “Do you think they’re related?”
“And then your son is supposedly kidnapped? All at the same time? Well, duh.”
Tawny pressed back against the leather seat, as if pushed by an invisible hand, stunned as the sequence of strange events popped into sudden, nauseating focus.
Until this moment, she had not realized that every crazy episode in the past few weeks had occurred since she met Kahlil. Starting with the first flick of his finger across Lucifer’s screen, a line of dominoes began to crash down, knocking every aspect of her life into chaos.
But how could that be? The man had been so tender and empathetic. He knew her mind better than she did herself. He understood her loneliness and fears. She had fallen for him and he for her.
Hadn’t he?
What if it was all an act?
Was he somehow involved with the mysterious money appearing and disappearing in her account? Was he setting her up to the feds?
Was he in league with the woman who looked like her?
“Earth to Tawny.”
She jerked back to the present with Tillman Rosenbaum. She tried to concentrate but a black shadow kept drifting in front of her eyes.
“We don’t have much time. Let’s keep moving here,” Rosenbaum said. “You contact Albritton. He reaches out to me. I try to call you and your phone rejects my calls. This call-blocking app finds its way onto your phone without your knowledge. Obviously, someone is trying to keep you from obtaining counsel.” He turned to face her. “What the hell is wrong with you? You look sick.”
Sick? Beyond sick. Inside her, something shriveled and contorted in death throes. Her heart. Trust. Beliefs. Faith in her own judgment.
Lunch threatened to come up. She pressed an arm across her stomach, while her hand clamped her mouth shut.
Dammit to hell.
“What is it?” Rosenbaum pulled into a parking place and shut down the engine. A light dawned in his eyes. “That phone guy. You’re involved with him.”
Ashamed, Tawny nodded.
“Really involved.” Not a question, a statement of fact.
“Yes.”
He unfastened his seatbelt. “Come on, we’re late.”
Did she have to go? She wanted to stay in the car, hoping for waves of nausea to subside, for the shock to wear down its sharp edges, grinding against her heart.
With leaden feet, she plodded beside Rosenbaum into the Federal building, up the elevator, down the hall to an office. Dizziness made her sway.
Pull yourself together. Don’t pass out. Focus.
In a conference room, Maximillion Grosvenor and Tillman Rosenbaum greeted each other like two cobras, shaking hands, but never taking their eyes off each other. Grosvenor was much shorter, on the heavy side, with glasses and a bald head fringed with reddish hair. He probably had freckles as a kid. Now he looked hard, cynical, suspicious.
They sat at a long table, Grosvenor on one side, Tawny and Rosenbaum opposite.
“First, let’s get one thing clear,” her lawyer said. “Is my client under arrest?”
“Not at this time.”
“Has she been made aware of charges against her?”
Grosvenor folded hands across his stomach. “Formal charges have not been filed.”
“How about informal charges?”
“Your client is under investigation because of suspicious banking transactions.”
“Did you give her proper notice her accounts were being seized?”
Grosvenor shifted in his chair. “I’d have to check my files.”
Rosenbaum slapped the official letter on the table. “I’ll save you the trouble. You did not! You left this with the bank manager who held off giving it to my client until she physically showed up at the bank to find out why her money was unavailable.” He yanked the paper back. “Cut the crap, Max. She has no criminal record, no ties to organized crime, not even a traffic ticket. Why are you targeting her?”
“I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”
Rosenbaum jumped to his feet. “Fine, you play Billy Badass. Tomorrow morning, I’ll file a complaint stating that you executed the seizure without proper notice and without due process of law, in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Come on, Tawny.”
She stood and followed, scampering to keep up with his long strides, her mind trying to tread water in a dark, bottomless sea. When they were alone in the elevator, she asked, “You’re going to file a lawsuit for me?”
“Damn straight. If they haven’t charged you, I’ll petition the court to release your money.”
The elevator jerked and she grabbed the hand rail for support. “Will they?”
“Depends on the judge. I’ll argue your clean record, not a flight risk, no ties to terrorism, blah, blah, blah. But meanwhile, we have to get to the bottom of who’s setting you up and why.”
“Shouldn’t Grosvenor or the FBI be investigating that?”
“Should and will are two different species. Max is a government bounty hunter. His job is to fatten the coffers. He doesn’t much care who he takes the gold from, as long as he gets the gold. But I wanted him to see you, see what he’ll be up against if he insists on pushing it. He’ll have to sell a jury on the idea you’re a ruthless criminal. I don’t think he wants to do that. And when the media gets a look at you, well, ‘Katy, bar the door.’ He’s sunk.”
“Media?” This freight train was picking up speed, dragging her life along with it. She wanted to jump off.
He sighed with exasperation. “Cases are tried in the media. You’re a drop-dead gorgeous widow whose rights are being trampled by the oppressive feds. You’re media-genic. They’ll eat you up. You won’t be able to change channels without seeing your face. You’ll be tweeted all over the planet.”
Tawny clung to the rail as her knees threatened to buckle. “I don’t want to be famous. I just want my money back.”
“Doesn’t matter what you want.”
The truth of his words smacked her. She had lost control of her life, her emotions, her destiny and fate.
How phony those last words rang now.
The elevator door opened. They stepped out and left the building. Tawny’s head swelled with pain, while Rosenbaum’s step had a jaunty spring to it. He was even smiling. What the hell? How could he be so cheerful when her life lay in shambles?
At the Mercedes, he opened the passenger door for her. She looked up at him. “You love this, don’t you?”
“Absolut
ely. If I didn’t, I’d be nuts to keep doing it.”
She shook her head. “How does your wife stand you?”
“She doesn’t. We’re getting divorced.”
Tawny instantly felt crummy for sniping at him. “I didn’t mean…”
He shrugged. “I already told you I’m an asshole. It’s no secret, especially not to my wife.”
Tawny slid into the leather seat and he closed the door. When he climbed in the driver’s side, she touched his arm. “I really am sorry.”
Again, the flicking hand. “Forget it. My only regret is the kids.”
“How many do you have?”
“Two girls and a boy, fifteen, fourteen, and eleven.”
“Tough age for their parents to split up.”
“Any age is a tough age for parents to split up.” That sounded like the voice of experience. She wondered if he still wore his wedding ring in hopes of reconciling.
They drove in unaccustomed, though welcome, silence, but the momentary distraction of the lawyer’s personal problems didn’t last. The sick feeling returned to Tawny’s stomach.
She couldn’t turn away from facts that pointed to Kahlil as the cause of this horrible mess. He’d betrayed her, used her, played her as a patsy, pigeon, mark, all those names Rosenbaum had called her. She’d welcomed Kahlil into her body and soul. She had been blind. Naïve. Pitiful.
Long ago, her father had pronounced her “beautiful, but dumb.” For years, she tried to overcome that haunting label. Kahlil’s sweet, seductive words almost convinced her that she was smart. But her father had been right all along.
Rosenbaum parked in the hotel lot. “Let’s go in for a drink. I want to see that video.”
The last thing Tawny wanted was a drink.
In the bar, they sat in a corner booth. It was quiet and empty, too early for happy hour. The server brought ginger ale to settle her stomach and a single malt scotch for him. She opened her laptop and played the video for Rosenbaum. While he watched, he asked, “You can prove you weren’t in Helena on these dates, right?”