by Tiana Cole
“I was just being silly. You’ll learn that about me. And you’re right. Isn’t it maddening as hell when he does that? He’d never make it as an Irishman. We need to speak our minds even when we are being pig headed or just plain wrong. It’s genetic, I think. Still, I’ve known him for years now.”
“Yet, an Irish lawyer probably has developed clever ways to express emotions that aren’t necessarily the ones he feels.”
Kieran broke out in a loud and startling laugh. “Despite what I might’ve anticipated, I see you are the sworn enemy of bullshit. Well, my hat is off to you. And you are right, I was fishing around there, trying to sound you out on the subject of my client.”
“And did you learn anything useful?”
“Oh yes. I did do that. I learned that I don’t want you in court on the witness stand as a hostile witness.”
“So even pretending to be candid, you don’t back off on the flattery.”
Kieran looked shocked. “If I abandoned flattery, what on earth would I say? It’s my stock in trade.”
“I can see why James gets annoyed with you, Mr. Oliver. That act does get a bit over the top.”
“Well, even if my thinking is muddled and my words offensive, my heart is pure.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Pure what?”
His laugh told her that he honestly did seem to like her. “Back to my original point—if James didn’t have a weakness for you, I’m sure he would have shown you the door long ago. Whatever spell you weave on him, intentionally or simply by being who you are, you do it well enough to have gotten yourself and my client in this tangle.”
“James is angry because it ruined his business deal. The marriage is incidental. I think if Elvis had been a phony minister as well as a phony Elvis, the situation would be quite the same, except that he wouldn’t need to pay you a hefty fee to do some paperwork.”
“Perhaps you are right. And here I am being unsociable. Might I pour you a dram of your husband’s fine Irish whiskey.”
The idea made her queasy. “I think I’m off alcohol for a while, but thank you.”
She saw his eyes register something and waited for him to speak. “Well, I think that is rather immoral, but you need to follow your own code.”
“I try to.”
“Are you usually successful?”
“It varies.”
The door opened and James walked in. “Well, I see you two have met.”
“And your darling wife and I are already thick as thieves.” Kieran laughed.
“I see that. I’m just wondering if that is good or bad.”
Deja stretched, enjoying Kieran’s continual reference to her as James’s wife and wondering if he was using it as a dig, or to remind James that this was serious. “I suspect it’s like your lawyer told you regarding me, James. You have to know what outcome you want.”
“I didn’t tell you what he said.”
“No, but I was quiet as a mouse so you could talk with him, and dear Mr. Oliver speaks loudly enough that I heard him rather plainly.”
James shook his head. “Crap.”
“A drop of Irish for you, James?” Kieran asked. “It might do you some good.”
“I’m off booze for a bit,” he said.
“Well, the only value teetotalers add to life is that there is more good Irish for sensible people.”
“Like you,” Deja said.
Kieran stood and went to the bar. “Like myself.”
“I think I like your lawyer, James. If you don’t want to be friends with him, I could use a friend. You can keep the lawyer part.”
“This girl is a darling, James. A real darling of a wife with sparkling eyes.”
“Whose side are you on, Kieran?” The teasing tone in his voice made the question innocuous.
“On the side of truth and beauty, as a true Irishman should be.”
James looked at Deja and scowled. “I think his Irish blood is fake. The closest he gets is in what he assimilated from eating potatoes.”
“Shame on you, James Andrews, disparaging a man’s heritage. And to think I came here to help you out.”
“And where are we?”
“I’ve got a briefcase full of forms and more ideas that you can shake a stick at. But until I know what you two want, I can’t do a lick of work.”
His words startled her. “Us? I get a say?”
“Darling, you do get a say. No one in this crowd will coerce you into anything. I work for James, and I’ll be doing my best to represent his interests, but it’s your future we are talking about just as much as his.”
The look on James’s face was almost comical, as if he hadn’t seen things that way before.
Deja smiled. “That will take some thought.” She smiled at James. “I rather like the way this lawyer thinks.”
James laughed. “I need to go out again. I have another meeting, and you two obviously need time to conspire against me.”
Kieran nodded. “Leaving me here with your lovely wife? That might not be wise.”
“I haven’t used much wisdom lately, and it’s probably a bit late to start. When I get back we’ll go out to dinner.”
* * * *
“The doctor said we can talk now.”
Barbara smiled. “I think she finally satisfied her daily requirement for torture.”
“I take it Deja told you about what happened? About us getting married?”
Barbara looked at him and grinned. “Of course. She tells me everything. And I hope she’s told you everything now.”
It was a struggle to hide his surprise. “You wanted her to tell me?”
“Of course. She should have known better than to do such a thing right from the start. If I’d known ahead of time, I’d have made her see how wrong it was. She told me that that man who said he is your friend claimed it was for a prank, but that was no excuse. Taking money for doing it made it even worse. She wanted to believe it was true and that it was okay.”
“She only did it for you. To get your treatment.”
“And she’s got you defending her. The reason she did it is of no importance. Naturally it warms my heart that she wants to help me, but I can’t allow my sister to behave so disgracefully, to trick someone about something as important as love. It isn’t just being married, I told her, it’s the love part that’s important. She didn’t see that she was lying until afterwards. Then she was so ashamed.
I told her the only thing to do was tell you the truth, that she owed it to you and herself to make amends as much as possible.”
“Even if it means you die?”
“I’ve been dying for some time now. That isn’t new, and there isn’t a guarantee that this new thing they want to do will work.”
“The doctor thinks it will.”
“Even so, how could I accept her gift? The cost to the two of you is far too high.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Deja and I were not taught that it was all right to be dishonest with people you don’t know or allow them to be tricked on your behalf.”
“So you are the voice of reason?”
“I’m the fading voice of the things that have to be said. As eldest sister, I take some things on myself. Besides, it was so obvious that she cares for you, and I can’t stand to see her destroy that. And if I won’t be around long, it’s important that I make sure she learns this lesson before I’m gone.”
James noted the pain than he saw in Barbara’s eyes, but this was a new kind of pain. It was that of a caring parent. “You think it is obvious that she cares for me?”
The possibility that Deja might have real feelings for him shot through him. Could she really?
“Well, it’s obvious to someone who knows her. The girl can’t keep a secret for shit. Doing what she did, and seeing that she’d hurt you, was eating the stupid girl alive. Took her long enough to come to her senses, but now, apparently, she decided I meant it when I told her she had no right to do such a thing to save me. I
have no idea if that puts things right between you two, or even what that would mean. At least she seems to be trying.”
“Yes. She came to see me in my room and, as far as I can tell, bared her soul, regarding what happened.”
“And so far you haven’t hit her or walked away from her, so maybe you care for her.”
He laughed. “You are being rather nosy, Barbara.”
“I am, indeed. That’s my job. After all, she is my kid sister. Besides, I’m bored to tears with daytime television. Like it or not, you are my entertainment.”
He shook his head. “This has to be the craziest situation I’ve ever been in. It could make a good movie. And yes, I certainly didn’t like being used, but if I’m honest, this couldn’t have happened unless I was attracted to her—the woman, not the game she played.”
“And realizing that hurts you. There is a loss of innocence, of what might have been.”
“Finding out I was being used hurt, for sure. That bruised my ego in a bad way. There were repercussions that she had no way of knowing about that caused far more pain—both emotional and, to a smaller degree, financial. Now that I understand her motivations, now that I’ve met you, I find it hard to hate her for what she did.”
“Even though you are upset with her.”
“Anger takes time to dissipate. And trust takes a long time to rebuild once it’s damaged.”
Barbara rolled her shoulders back, trying vainly to get comfortable. “Dear James, that sounds very nice and lofty, but I’ll ask you to bear in mind that while I can sympathize, I don’t have a lot of time left, and I have a vested interest in how this plays out.”
“So you are impatient?”
“Damn right I am.”
“So…if you had more time, do you think you could be a bit more patient?”
She laughed. “Sure. I can do that. Buy me a year of time and I’ll be patient as a cat waiting at a mouse hole. Buy me a year of time without pain, or the option of being doped into oblivion, and I’ll make Job seem impatient.”
“Sacrilege,” shouted the scowling woman in the next bed.
“Put a lid on it, Martha.” She looked at James. “That crazy woman prays in her sleep. It’s eerie really.”
“Then I’ll just have to see what I can come up with in the miracles department.”
“Are you good with miracles?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t attempted many. So far the best I’ve done is pull a rabbit out of a hat a time or two.”
“That’s impressive.”
“It would be, except that the way I do it, you have to put two rabbits in to get one out.”
“Not a very cost effective way of doing things.”
“No. But then I guess miracles aren’t cheap.” He bent down and kissed her cheek. “I’ll sneak back for another private talk later.”
“With the miracle bag.”
“I’ll bring it.”
“No rabbits though. They frown on pets in here.”
“Not even a rabbit’s foot.”
He left the hospital feeling like Barbara and Deja were alike in so many ways. He felt badly for Barbara. If there was ever anyone who shouldn’t suffer, it was her.
* * * *
The next day, Kieran came back up to their room. “Are we ready to do anything yet?”
“Still agonizing over things.”
“When you met with Shen Liang, did you tell him about McCabe’s role?” Deja asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a smart and clever man. He’ll do his own research and find out what he wants to know. If I try to feed him leads like that, he’ll think I’m not taking responsibility for my own actions. The way he sees things, and it’s hard to argue with, whatever Alan did, he didn’t force us to marry. At worst he encouraged me to drink and then saw that I met my dream girl.”
Dream girl? She couldn’t tell if that was real or sarcasm.
“I still think there is something else we don’t know,” Kieran said, “something none of us is seeing.”
“At any rate, it’s good news that he hasn’t decided. That means he hasn’t blown me off completely.” He smiled at Deja. “He asked about you.”
That came as a surprise. “Why is in interested in me?”
“Hard to tell. I don’t know if his interest is you personally, or in how I’ll treat you, what we do.”
“Then it’s good we haven’t done anything yet,” Kieran said. “He’ll see that you aren’t reacting without thinking.”
James laughed. “So that has me not reacting without thinking to something that was me acting without thinking.”
Kieran shrugged. “It means you are behaving well for the moment; there isn’t much we can do.”
“Do you want to start the annulment?” Deja asked. “I thought you were bringing the papers.”
Kieran nodded. “I have them, but I think we have to be careful of making it look like we are trying to sweep a mistake under the carpet.”
James slapped his back. “Even if that’s exactly what we are doing.”
“Especially if that’s what we are doing.”
Deja let her mind drift back to her conversation with Alan at the diner. “And what is Alan McCabe going to do while we sit and think? When I told him I’d go to the press with the story he was livid.”
“I would imagine that ultimately he decided you going public could actually help his case. Anything that brought the marriage back into the news, associated my name with some sort of juvenile behavior, would hurt my case with Liang.
Even if you named him as setting it, that wouldn’t make a great deal of difference—the point, as far as Shen Liang is concerned, is how I behaved. Trying to shrug off the blame on anyone else would play into Alan’s hands. Once he realizes you don’t intend to make good on the threat, he’ll look for some way to get it into the news.”
“Or, if he thinks Liang knows of his involvement, he might do nothing else and hope he did enough damage.”
James laughed. “I doubt he’ll be able to resist a chance to kick me while I’m down. He’ll want to make certain not to leave anything to chance.”
Kieran made some notes on a legal pad. “I guess that beyond what we are doing, which isn’t much of anything, there isn’t much we can do to turn this around?”
“Not really. I haven’t been able to think of anything that could put a positive spin on things. That’s one reason I’ve resisted the temptation to do much at all—I have no idea how anything I do might be interpreted.”
That was when Deja realized that there was something she could do. She couldn’t let James know, but she could put a few words in the right ear, even if it was out of public view. There was no guarantee her idea would make any difference, but it was the only positive thing she could see to do. So she had to try.
“I need to run an errand,” she told them.
“What errand?”
“I’m still employed at the diner. When all is said and done, I’ll need that job. I want to run over there, get my paycheck and talk with Jerry, who manages the place. He’s been so nice about shuffling my schedule around Barbara’s treatments and I promised to keep him informed about how she’s doing.”
“Sure, as long as you promise to come back here,” James said. “Today, I mean. Don’t disappear like last time. You had me worried.”
The idea he worried about her made her feel good. “I have my things in the other bedroom. I won’t take off on you again.”
Kieran held up his phone. “And I, James, thought to get her phone number. If she doesn’t get back, we can call and ask where the hell she is, and what she wants for dinner. Important shit.”
“That’s why you get the big bucks, Kieran. You’re the detail man. Where would we be without details?”
Deja liked the interplay between the two men. A lot of what had been toxic when she’d heard them over the phone was gone. Maybe after the incident with Kieran’s sister, they’d s
tayed apart, for proximity seemed to be healing a number of rifts.
She thought about her plan. It was a good gamble and would move things toward resolution. She needed to get the problems with James worked out, find out what he expected from her, and just get it done. Then she could get back to trying to find the money for Barbara’s treatment. After all, that where this entire mess started. Getting that money was the entire point.
CHAPTER TEN
Shen Liang’s puzzle strategy had James thinking of people differently—in terms of pictures. Looking at Kieran, sipping his ubiquitous neat Irish whiskey, dressed in his impeccable suit, handmade shoes and carefully knotted tie, he knew the image was deliberately offset by the dark stubble on his chin.
The man cultivated his image precisely. He was a careful man and a thorough lawyer. His hourly rate reflected that thoroughness. But the Irishman had once told him that he also believed in the Japanese idea that everything you created should have a deliberate imperfection.
He had explained his theory to James when they were both starting out. “In art, it avoids the hubris of attempting perfection. In law it gives the other side an apparent weakness to attack. Works for me either way.”
Now James watched Kieran and saw the complete picture of the man for the first time. His brain filled in the blanks—his concern for his sister, and his anger at what he saw as James’s shabby treatment of her, his desire to be the perfect lawyer, as well as look like one, and his friendship, which was made clear by the fact that he’d come to Las Vegas without being asked.
As James watched, Kieran became aware of being studied. He put his glass on the coffee table and sat back. “So, where are we?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? I’m not entirely sure.”
“What about the girl?”
“What about her? She’s here, and willing to cooperate.”
“Which means what?”
“She’ll sign whatever you and I ask her to.”
Kieran crossed his legs and pointed at his Italian leather briefcase with his toe. “I called my local contacts and we have a number of options. As to what is the best thing to do, well, I don’t know the whole story. I have to say that the woman is impressive—not at all what I expected, considering what happened.”