by Fenton, Liz
“If he needs your perspective on this case, you will give it to him. You need to leave your personal shit out of this.”
“But you want me to get personal, to tell him what it feels like,” I say quietly.
“Jesus, Lila. Wasn’t this like two decades ago? I’m looking for your perspective. Grow up,” he says, and it stings.
I stare at this heartless person as if I’m seeing him for the first time. I knew he wasn’t my emotional sounding board—not by any stretch of the imagination—but I didn’t see him as callous. But maybe it’s because I only told him briefly what happened when he asked whether both of my parents were still alive, and I kept my emotion out of it. Would he have told Adam if he thought I was as affected by it as I am? I guess I’ll never know.
When my mom told me my dad was dead, I sobbed into her lap. I heard her saying it was a teenager who’d had too much to drink. “She was sixteen . . .” My mom’s voice trailed off.
“That’s only three years older than me,” I said.
“I know, honey, I know.”
I looked up at her then, barely able to see her through my tears. “Is she dead too?” I asked.
“No, she has a broken arm, but other than that, she’s okay.”
“She should be dead too,” I screamed.
“Lila, she’s a child.”
“She took my dad. She took my dad,” I sputtered and ran into my bedroom and slammed the door, crying for what felt like hours into my floral bedspread.
“And Greenwood. That case you will also work on,” Sam says, pulling me back.
“I’m not going to know what the hell I’m doing!”
“You’ll have David,” he says evenly.
“Bullshit. I saw the look that passed between you two. He’s going to hang me out to dry, isn’t he?”
Sam shrugs and smiles, and I fight the urge to slap him.
“Don’t you care that I might bungle the case of one of our most important clients? What that might mean for the firm?”
“It’s a tough case that could go either way, even with an expert attorney at the helm. The firm will bounce back. You, on the other hand . . .” He trails off. “It might not be good.”
I blink hard. I’ve always known Sam could be a bastard. I’ve watched him take out plenty of his enemies, whether they were on opposing counsel or in his way here at the firm. But I’ve always been under the solid umbrella of his protection. I suppose that, along with our relationship, is over. I ponder telling him about Carrie. The pregnancy. So he can understand why it needed to end. Help him come to his senses. Yes, I’d be betraying her, but what’s one more notch on the belt? I open my mouth to share her secret, to explain my sudden change of heart, but I stop short. Carrie trusted me with her husband. With her secret. I failed with the first, but I still have a chance to redeem myself with the latter. I have no idea why she hasn’t yet confided in Sam, but she must have her reasons. And I can’t screw her over to save myself. Not this time. I’ll have to try another way.
I walk over to where he sits, my eyes pleading. “Sam. Did we really mean so little to each other? For you to do this?”
Sam takes me in, his eyes scanning mine. “Bennett, that’s what you don’t get. I’m doing this because it meant something.”
And it’s then that I get it. I hurt him.
And now he’s going to make sure he hurts me right back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TUESDAY
CAPTURED
It takes me a second to comprehend what I’m seeing.
Men and women in blue uniforms are standing behind Chief Reynolds, his tall frame towering over the podium, the LAPD emblem proudly displayed in front. I recognize the black-and-white-speckled concrete and large glass doors as the entrance to the downtown Los Angeles police station, not far from my office. Somber faces. Microphones. Camera crews. My heart lifts as I recognize that they must be gathered for me. They are looking for me. Which means they may actually find me.
I gasp as Ethan comes into view, standing back to the right, his full lips in a straight line, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. I ache for him, my body feeling a physical withdrawal, my chest throbbing for every penance, each misstep, every last betrayal hitting me like a strong wave crushing the sand. How silly I’ve been to think I could have both a man like Ethan, who loves me in the gentlest way, shielding me from pain, and Sam, who drew me in with the power he wielded, possessing me. You have to choose, you know. The power or the peacefulness. You can’t have both—at least not for the long term. I understand that now as I watch my husband’s shoulders shake as he tries to stay strong. As I take in the crowd waiting to hear what Chief Reynolds has to say, I’m slammed in the heart by my wrongdoings, sitting here bound in this cold and dirty room, trapped by this animal named Q and worse, by my own thoughts.
Chief Reynolds runs a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair and begins to speak. “Lila Bennett, a well-known criminal defense attorney, was last seen by her assistant leaving her office right here in downtown LA at approximately six thirty Monday evening. She did not show up at home or at work the next day, missing several appearances in court, which is very out of character, according to those who work with her.”
That’s true. I don’t think I’ve missed a court appearance or an appointment in years, once throwing up in a trash can before an important deposition when I had the stomach flu. When I didn’t arrive this morning, Chase was probably fine at first. I can see him texting me, then calling, then finally starting to worry when after an hour or two I still didn’t respond. I was always reachable via my cell. I remember when I interviewed him four years ago, his slicked-back thick blond hair and expensive black suit unable to hide the fact that he couldn’t have been older than twenty-three. But he swore that day that if I hired him, he’d make my life easier. There was something about the way he said it, like he knew he had the job. How he looked me in the eye and held my gaze. His tight grip on my hand as he shook it before he thanked me for my time. I concentrate and try to recall my calendar from Tuesday in my mind. Who did I fail to show up for? But I can’t—the lack of food, sleep, and water have depleted my memory.
An outline of a thought sweeps through my bleary mind like a shooting star. I blink hard and try to grasp it, because I know it’s important. I push a long breath out, and it comes to me: Chase wasn’t the last person to see me—Sam was. Why don’t the authorities know that? Have they not interviewed Sam? Or worse, when he spoke to the police, did he omit that we’d been at Bestia? There are CCTV cameras everywhere—they could figure out we were there together even if he didn’t. Couldn’t they? Did they look at the security cameras in the parking garage of the office? If so, they’d see that Sam and I talked before both leaving at the same time. Is he so intent on protecting himself, worried our affair will get out, that he’d withhold pertinent information that could help the investigators find me? Do I mean that little to him?
I look at Q, who is fixated on the iPad. Who is he? Why does he have me locked in this room? The questions are on repeat in my mind. I want to scream at him, Are you getting off on the fact my disappearance is on the news?
“Have you checked the cameras in the parking garage?” a reporter in the crowd asks. Thank you.
The chief rubs his temple. “They were disabled. The last footage we have is from hours before she was last seen.”
My heart sinks.
Q smirks. “What can I say? I’m camera shy. And I didn’t think you’d want everyone to see you left the garage with your boyfriend. So really, I was doing you a favor.”
“By our count, she has been missing a little less than twenty-four hours,” the chief continues. “Her car, purse, and phone are all missing.”
“Where are they?” I turn and ask Q.
“You really are a stickler for details, aren’t you?” Q rolls his eyes. “I took a nice little drive after I dropped you here. Parked the car on some random street up near the Burbank airport. Street sweepin
g is on Friday, so they’ll probably find it then.”
“You parked it near the airport—”
“To make them question whether you took off on your own? Of course,” he interjects.
“The purse and phone?” I ask.
“Incinerator. Man, you should have seen how stubborn that Louis Vuitton leather was! Took forever to melt!” He scratches his chin. “No wonder it’s so pricey. It’s practically indestructible!”
I cringe at the thought of two very important pieces of evidence to help find me going up in flames. I pray they find the Range Rover quickly and that Q left some DNA in there.
“Why are you already holding a press conference if it’s been less than a day? She’s an adult. What’s to say she didn’t take off, decided she needed some space from her life? Are you really going to use taxpayer money on this?”
A flicker of annoyance flashes in the chief’s eyes, but he clears his throat and begins to answer. “I cannot comment on the decisions we make about an ongoing investigation. But what I will tell you is her family and coworkers are very worried about her and suspect foul play. So we are considering all options.”
“A lot of people suspect foul play when their loved ones go missing and don’t get a press conference hosted by the chief of police himself,” the reporter clips.
The chief ignores the accusation, and I’m grateful. Because I didn’t get bored with my life and take off. There was foul play involved, and I’m in serious danger. Q smiles, clearly finding amusement in the reporter’s words, pursing his lips as if he’d say the same thing if he could. The police must know more than they are letting on about my case, because it’s early to be having a press conference. For the police to have already spoken to my coworkers and family. But it’s not about special treatment. The chief and I are far from best friends. I’ve often heard through the grapevine he’s not a huge fan of mine, as we work on opposite sides of the courtroom, me often getting off the very people he’d like to see behind bars. So, to the reporter’s point, why is he holding a press conference? Perhaps it’s because I’m a high-profile attorney and possibly considered a minor celebrity because I’m often interviewed on the local news? Or perhaps the timing of Jeremiah’s high-profile acquittal made me more newsworthy.
The camera pans out, and I spy Detective Sully standing next to my mom. Only I might notice, but I can see the watchful look in his eyes, the way he’s standing, holding his shoulders back. He’s being protective of her—and me. Sully had been my ally in the department for years—he had helped my mom with an unruly neighbor a few years back, and they’ve been friendly ever since. As I see them standing tall just off to the side of the podium, I realize that those two may be the reason for the premature press conference. Sully calling in favors and my mom’s persistence may have tipped the scales the right way. The thought gives me a small sliver of hope.
“If you have any information about the whereabouts of Lila Bennett, please call this number . . .” the chief says, and the camera pans to a blown-up photo of me with a 1-800 number under it. I let out an involuntary chuckle, causing Q to whip his head in my direction. He pauses the video.
“You think this is funny?” he growls, his eyes growing a deeper shade of green, his fists clenching. “Because if you’re having fun, if you think you’re on a fucking vacation, we can make this much more uncomfortable.”
We. There’s that word again. He hasn’t admitted to working with someone, but I highly doubt he’s in this alone. Simply because I’m now sure, after all our interactions, that I don’t know him. I can’t see his full face, but I’ve studied his demeanor, his voice, the things he’s said. I would bet that he’s nothing more than a mouthpiece.
He hovers over me, and I start to tremble. He could be insane for all I know. The type of guy who could snap me in two in a heartbeat, then go to dinner with his friends. What if he loses his patience with me? Is he authorized to kill? To torture? My voice shakes when I speak. “I’m sorry I laughed. It’s the picture they used,” I say, nodding toward the screen, which is frozen on my face, my wide, toothy smile and sparkling eyes a huge contrast to what I must look like now. Actually, if I’m being honest, a huge contrast to what I look like most days. It’s the photo of me in the pink romper in the dressing room at H&M. The one my mom begged me to try on. Tears spring from my eyes before I can push them back. God, what I wouldn’t give to have my mom burst in here and tell me how tired I look and ask if I’ve been eating dairy again because I look a little bloated. I’d do anything to hear a lecture on how milk isn’t good for my digestion and that the gut is the brain of the body. I’ve always told Ethan how much I hate clichés, refusing to use them in my opening or closing arguments, but right now they’re all I can think of—how you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone, how absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Turns out, most of them are true.
Q is still gaping at me, waiting for what, I don’t know. So I keep talking, choking on the words through my sobs. “It’s . . . that of course my mom picked that picture . . .” The silence in the room is starting to suffocate me as I watch Q watching me. Why won’t he say something? Why is he looking down at me, his eyes squinting through the slits in his mask? I start to cry harder now, unable to wipe the tears from my eyes with my bound hands, instead shaking my head and sending my arms plummeting to the floor, the cuffs making small marks on the concrete. I cringe from the pain that sears through my wrists. “I miss her. I lost my dad when I was young, and I’m all she has.”
“I know all about your dad,” Q says, his tone sharp, bordering on scathing.
I jerk my head up at him. Something about the way he says this sounds different from when he brought up the other people in my life he has so much information about.
“How can you possibly be angry at me for my dad being dead?” I ask, something inside me giving me the courage to challenge him.
“Oh, I’m not upset with you about that,” he says, letting his statement float there between us like a balloon that’s about to fly away if one of us doesn’t grab it.
I do. I can’t help myself. “Oh?” I question, deliberately making my reaction as neutral as possible.
“I know your dad lost his life to a teenage drunk driver who got off with barely a slap on the wrist.”
“True,” I say simply and try to disregard the sharp jab to my heart. “You could have googled that. Big deal.”
“And maybe I did,” he says, then moves his head side to side, his neck cracking in the process. “But what I don’t get, Lila, what is so very odd to me, is why you didn’t become a prosecutor, taking on the drunks and the thieves and the murderers who get away with so many bad things. Why you chose to represent the accused. The ones who may or may not have been guilty. It’s odd to me, your choice. Maybe your dad didn’t mean anything to you? Money mattered more? Prestige?” He stares at me in a way that causes me to turn my head. “Am I right?” I hear him say.
I press my lips together as hard as I can and close my eyes, suppressing a scream. My first year of law school, when I wasn’t yet sure what type of law I was going to practice, my mom came to my apartment in Marina Del Rey to catch up. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, as I’d been slammed with papers. She brought two bottles of rosé and takeout from my favorite deli. She suggested we stay in for the night and chat and watch Sex and the City—it was a Sunday night, when groups of girls gathered around their TVs watching HBO. In hindsight, I should have known she had an agenda. Showing up with two bottles of wine on what would have been my dad’s fifty-sixth birthday. Another date that had somehow escaped me until she pointed it out. It was that evening she told me about his many affairs. We were into the second bottle of wine and watching the season finale—the one where Carrie first meets Aleksandr Petrovsky, or “the Russian,” as we’d come to know him. Then she blurted it, or at least it seemed like it had popped out. Maybe the Russian’s reputation for sleeping around gave my mom her opening.
It felt like someone was sitting on my chest, pressing all the air out of my lungs. I could barely breathe, let alone respond. My mom took my silence as an opportunity to keep talking. And over the next several minutes, as I heard about fling after fling—this one emotional, that one physical—the image of the man I had idolized during the twelve years I knew him and in the ten years since his death was forever tarnished. I could not polish him up again. My mom had started crying at some point, but I was numb. Feeling as if everything I knew had been a lie. Worried she was going to reveal something about herself that would also ruin my image of her. I chose criminal defense shortly thereafter, deciding you never really knew anyone.
“You’re not right, Q. Not by a mile, but you could never understand.”
Q opens his mouth, then closes it. His eyes harden, and I wonder, When he leaves me here, who is waiting for him at home? Who are his friends? Who is his family? Does he have a wife or girlfriend who is oblivious to this side of him? A mother or father who thinks the world of him? Or is he all alone, his dark side having pushed everyone away?
Before I can ask him, he taps the iPad, and the video begins to play once more.
“There is a reward, and the family spokesperson is going to give more details.”
The camera pans over to Ethan, so close that I can see the lines etched on his forehead. He hasn’t slept.
I flinch slightly. Again, my actions are hurting him. Guilt mixes with fear and anxiety, and I close my eyes for a moment to retain whatever composure I have left.
My mom has moved and is now standing next to Ethan, his dark-blue shirt freshly ironed, tucked into his favorite pair of gray pants, the belt I gave him for his birthday last year wrapped around his waist. Seeing him hits me hard. My heartbeat speeding up as I take him in—dressed for the cameras, dressed for me? Wishing desperately I could read his mind—know what he is thinking as he leans into my mom. She has her arm around him, almost as if she’s propping him up. And I realize, as I take in her peach sweater and navy-blue pants, that I have forgiven her for telling me. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice, but it was the one she felt she needed to make. I can certainly relate to making bad choices. I bite my lip to keep from bursting into tears again and decide that having the people you love most being so close, yet so far away, is the worst kind of torture. I’d much prefer some waterboarding right now. My chest bursts open, and I force myself to steady my breathing. There’ll be time to fall apart later, when Q leaves—if he leaves. I’ll cry until there are no tears left, if I can.