“Murder,” he says, his lips tightening. “And don’t ask me who he killed. I don’t want to talk about it.” He scrubs the light stubble on his jaw. “I really don’t want to talk about it.” He refills his glass.
We’re not celebrating. He’s come to swim in the sea of guilt Faith is splashing around in, and I get it. Defending a killer sucks. Thankfully, Faith isn’t a killer, but the guilt is killing her. I don’t really understand guilt. I don’t feel it. I do something. I did it for a reason. I own it. And so I only know one way to help with it. A good fuck, which Abel is on his own on that one. And a good drink. I stand up and round the counter, open a cabinet above the bar, and pull out that 25k bottle of booze before returning to the counter, and setting it down beside him. “This and a trip to the club and you’ll forget the asshole you just banked on,” I say. “But tell me again why you stick with criminal law?”
“Because the innocent ones need me and paydays like this one let me help people who don’t have a bank account as big as the likes of that asshole I got off.” He taps the bottle. “You really going to give me that?”
“You need it.”
“I need a trip to the club to get fucked ten ways to next Sunday, but I was never going to take that bottle, man. But hey. I’ll work for the sentiment behind it.” He opens his briefcase and pulls out a file. “The gift documents and the dummy documents,” he says, setting the file on the counter. “But seriously, man. What the hell are you doing with this woman, Nick?”
“Protecting her.”
“Protecting a woman who might be a killer.”
“She’s innocent.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because I know and you know when I say I know, I know.”
“Like I knew my client?”
“I know Faith personally now.”
“Yeah well, you’re fucking her and that tends to cloud a man’s judgment.”
“Not mine. You know that.”
“And I’ve never known you to mix business and your personal life.” He taps the file. “And these documents tell me you’ve either lost your fucking mind or you’re brilliantly working a woman who doesn’t know she’s being worked. And you can tell me either way. I’m cool. You know that.” He removes the lid from the scotch.
“She and I just downed a bottle of Macallan No.6 together and she’s in my bed right now.”
He’s about to pour another drink and sets the bottle down, looking stunned. “You shared your No. 6 and she’s in your bed?”
“Yes and yes.”
“You don’t share your No.6 or your bed. What happened to keeping your women confined to the club?”
“Faith isn’t going to the club,” I say, once again wishing I’d never bought the damn place. “Ever.”
“So she’s vanilla and you’re chocolate, and that shit will get old.”
“Faith is not fucking vanilla,” I snap.
He arches a brow. “Got it. Not vanilla. Not going to play with you at the club. Does she at least know it exists and that you own it?”
“No,” I say. “Now focus.” I slide the notepad I’ve been writing on in front of him. He scans it and his gaze rockets to me. “Faith is dangerous? When did your father say that Faith was dangerous?”
I open my briefcase and set the note in front of him. He studies it for several long beats before he glances at me, “You’re sure Faith—”
“Faith is not a killer,” I say tightly. “Assume I’m right on this because I am. Now. Where does that note lead you?”
“That your father wanted the winery, or something else, and she was in the way of him getting it.”
“Exactly my thoughts,” I concur. “But Meredith Winter. He was paying her. I can’t make sense of that in my head.”
“He clearly infers that Meredith was dangerous, as Faith was more dangerous but the tone also infers that he had Meredith under control.”
“It’s almost impossible for me to conceive of my father paying someone off. But the evidence supports just that.”
He refills his glass. “What if he was getting something in exchange?”
“But what?”
“Ownership of the winery?”
“Faith would have had to sign off on that,” I remind him.
“Thus why she was a problem,” he says. “Or more dangerous to his plan than her mother. He had Meredith pinned down, but not Faith.”
“But the bills were not being paid,” I argue. “Meredith received a million dollars from my father and allowed a section of the vines to go untreated, and therefore become damaged.”
He thrums fingers on the counter. “Could she have been trying to get Faith to sell? You know, making it seem that the winery wasn’t worth owning?”
“Faith was working at the winery. She knew how well it was doing.”
“And yet the bills weren’t being paid?” he confirms.
“Correct,” I say, “and finally, after trying to get her mother to come clean with her about what was happening, and failing, Faith took action. She hired an attorney and tried to take the winery from her mother.”
“I can’t say that I blame her. What was her mother’s response?”
“She hired my father who nickel-and-dimed Faith into giving up.”
“I’m not sure that disproves my theory about Meredith wanting her to sell. Did she ever directly ask Faith to sell?”
“My understanding,” I say, “is yes. But all of this gets more interesting. I paid the bank off. You know that. And they still plan to hold up the execution of Meredith’s will while they get the property appraised.”
“Ouch. That’s not good. They have to have a document that says if it’s under the value of the note, they can take it,” he agrees. “Which would make anyone who signed an agreement to that royally stupid, but it happens.”
“Obviously I get my own appraisal, but why would the bank want a property that is under the value of the note anyway?”
“And why would your father want it?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “There’s something about that property. Something that got your father and her mother killed.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” I say, sticking the note back in my briefcase. “And I’d get my bank to buy out her note, but obviously, the bank isn’t going to let that happen, if they feel they may own it outright, and with some back-end benefit we don’t know about.”
“You can try,” he says. “But you’ll have to disclose the bank’s intent to have the property assessed.”
“Agreed,” I say, aware of the liability doing otherwise could represent.
“What does Faith think about all of this?”
“She doesn’t have the luxury of knowing that my father and her mother are linked to truly evaluate the situation as we do.”
“Tell her.”
“If I tell her, she kicks me to the curb, and I can’t protect her.”
“What does she know at this point?”
“She knows that my father represented her mother and that her mother was involved with him.”
“Well then. Both of them are dead and connected. Use that to convince her to exhume her mother’s body.”
“I’m not lying to her any more than I have to. And that plan would lead me to more lies.”
“Then just talk about her mother. Someone wants the winery. Her mother is dead. Have her do an autopsy.”
I shake my head and refill my coffee cup. “Negative again. I’m not putting her through that hell unless my father’s autopsy is suspicious. If there’s nothing to find in his reports, we won’t find anything in her mother’s.”
“While I agree,” he says. “Time is critical when a killer is on the loose, and when does that killer turn to Faith or even you?”
“That PI I hired has someone watching Faith.”
“Does she know he’s watching her?”
“No.”
“Damn, man. I get it. All of it. I know why you can’t tell her, but I don’t envy
you the moment she finds out. Especially the part where you sought her out and fucked her to prove she was a killer.”
He left off the part where I wanted to ruin her. And I have to confess everything to her, in some brilliant way, that convinces her I’m not her enemy. In fact, I am the man, who’s bed, and life, may never be the same again, without her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Faith
I killed her.
I blink awake with my confession to Nick in my mind, the scent of him surrounding me, his bed cushioning me. The taste of the rich whiskey I’d drunk with him is still on my tongue, but it does nothing to erase the bitterness of those words or the way I feel them deep in my gut. I wait for the regret over telling Nick to follow, but it doesn’t exist. I didn’t plan to bare my soul to Nick, but I did, and the fact that I felt that I could, especially with my history with Macom, and my mother, brings one word to mind: Possibilities. Considering Nick and I started with a vow for one night, the place we’ve landed is pretty incredible. And scary. Because I really am naked and exposed with this man. That means vulnerability. That means he could hurt me.
Oddly, my fear of him hurting me served as a mechanism to push me to trust him more. The minute he’d told me he’d paid my debt, I’d panicked. I was feeling emotionally exposed, and then he claimed control over the winery situation that I had failed to control myself. He’d been generous, protective, a hero even, but unknowingly, he’d shifted the financial dynamic between us to resemble the one I’d shared with Macom. The next thing I knew I was throwing out the: I killed her statement, and in hindsight, wanting Nick to prove he wasn’t worthy of my trust. Wanting Nick to judge me the way I was judging me.
And it had not only been a beautiful failure, that lead me to share more of myself with Nick. He understood my choices, and I think believed them to be more right than I do. Even approving of my decision to try to take the winery from my mother, and unbidden, that thought has my mind trying to skip over Nick and go back to that night when my mother died. It is not a gentle memory and I reject it, throwing off the blanket, and sitting up, swinging my legs to the floor, feet settling on the ground. I really need my feet on the ground, but it’s not enough to keep the past at bay.
I’m there, living it, my fingers curling on the edge of Nick’s mattress, my eyes shutting as I return to the winery and that brutal night. I’d just finished being humiliated by a bill collector in front of several staff members. Furious, I’d sought out my mother, and found her in her gardens on her knees, fussing over the ground around a cluster of some sort of white flowers. And the past is so vivid right now that I can almost smell the flowers, bitter and sweet in the same inhaled breath.
“Where is the money, Mother?” I demand.
Of course, she knows what I’m talking about but choses to play dumb, glancing up at me and saying, “What are we talking about, dear?” which only serves to infuriate me more.
“Where is all the money we’re making?”
She pushes to her feet, pulling off her gloves, her hands settling on her slender blue jean-clad hips. “You need to go back to L.A. and let Macom take care of you, because you clearly cannot handle the pressure here. And this is my winery anyway.”
“It will be mine one day and I’ll inherit the debt and problems you’re creating.”
“Oh, so that’s it?” she demands. “This is all about protecting your money. Wouldn’t your father be proud? You finally give a damn about the winery and it’s about money.”
“I have no choice but to care about the debts I will inherit.”
“Like I said,” she bites out. “Go back to your rich artist boyfriend and let him take care of you. This is my world, not yours. I bet your father turned over in his grave when you sued me.”
“He’s in his grave because you fucked my uncle and everyone else that would have you.”
She laughs. “You didn’t even know your father,” she says. “He liked watching me with other men.”
“He did not,” I spit back. “He did not.”
“He did,” she insists, turning away from me and she seems to take a step forward before she falls face first into all of those dozens of white flowers.
My thoughts shift at that point to the place they always go after that memory: The funeral, and as expected, the grave site, and the final goodbye. There are rows of filled seats surrounding me, people lined up beside and behind me while rain splatters down atop a sea of umbrellas. Appropriate actually, since my mother loved the rain. It also saves me when I didn’t save her, because no one knows that I’m not crying. But I know. I know so many things I don’t want anyone else to know. Like the fact that as the preacher speaks, I’m wondering how many of the random men here that I don’t know slept with my mother. And how many did my father know, too? Did he like to watch? God. Is that why he tolerated her?
I shiver, wishing I had a jacket, my thin black dress doing little to offer me shelter. There just isn’t shelter I can find anywhere. My grip tightens on the umbrella I’m holding, which someone gave me. I don’t know who. I don’t even remember how it got into my hand. I just keep remembering the moments before my mother had died. The speech and time ticks on for what feels like an eternity, while time has now ended for my mother and my father. I’m alone in this world, and as the rain begins to fall with a fierceness rarely rivaled, the crowd scatters, a few people try to speak to me, but soon, I am alone here now, too.
Everyone is gone, and I walk to the casket and just stare at it. I go back to then, to those moments in time, reliving the fight with my mother, the moment she’d tumbled forward. My knees are weak and so is my arm and I can’t seem to hold onto it. I don’t want to hold it anymore so I don’t. I just can’t. I drop to the ground and let the force of the rain hit me, my black dress instantly wet, my hair…
“Faith.”
At the sound of my name I turn and Josh stands there. “Josh? How are you here?”
“I wanted to be here for you.”
“Where’s Macom?”
“I’m sorry, Faith. He’s not coming.”
“Good,” I say, “I told him not to come. I don’t want him here.” And knowing how he operates all too well, I add, “Being my agent doesn’t require that you do funeral duty. I don’t like that kind of plastic friendship and I don’t want it in my life or career.”
“Faith—”
“Go home, Josh,” I say and needing to escape the obligatory sympathy from him and everyone else, I start to run toward my car.
My cellphone rings, jerking me back to the present, and I grab it to ironically discover Macom’s number on caller ID, feeling as if I’ve willed a ghost of my past into the present. I hit decline, noting this as his third call and I really want to block the number. I’m about to do just that when my cell rings in my hand and this time it’s Josh’s number. I answer immediately, “Why is my agent calling me on a Sunday?”
“To tell you not to answer Macom’s call.”
“You’re a little late since he’s called three times.”
“Holy hell. Please tell me he didn’t get in your head about the L.A. Forum show.”
“I didn’t talk to him,” I say, well aware of why he is concerned, since Macom pretty much declared my work an embarrassment the last time I wanted to submit. To protect me, of course. “And even if I had, I’m in the show.”
“And I’d prefer you get there feeling confident.”
“Why exactly is Macom calling me?”
“To give you advice you don’t need.”
My mind goes back two years, to me standing in my workspace, in the home I’d shared with Macom, while I’d proudly revealed new paintings. Certain that my work on the three pieces would finally capture the L.A. Forum’s attention.
“Stunning,” Josh had said, motioning to a Sonoma mountain shot I’d so loved. “This one,” he’d said. “It’s one of your best yet.”
“Absolutely not,” Macom had said, shoving his hand through his spiky dark br
own hair before motioning to the three paintings. “These are not what they’re looking for. None of them. You’ll look like a fool.”
The words had been like knives in my heart, and I’d instantly doubted myself, questioning why I was even picking up a paintbrush any longer.
“I respectfully disagree,” Josh had argued, daring to go against his moneymaker Macom.
Macom’s gray eyes had flashed. “Who is the star of that show for the second year running? Not my fucking agent, I’ll tell you that. I’ll help Faith pick her submission.”
“Faith?”
At the sound of Josh’s voice, I snap back to the present. “He doesn’t get to shove me back down a rabbit hole, Josh,” I say vehemently. “I’m not that girl anymore. I was never that girl. I was simply lost in Macom’s translation.”
“Yet you let him choose your show submissions over and over, and you received a rejection in response over and over.”
I think back to every rejection I’d gotten and Macom’s replayed response: It doesn’t matter, baby. Paint for you, not them. I pay the bills. You don’t need them. You have me. Like I didn’t need my own success because I had his.
“That man shuts you down,” Josh adds. “You didn’t paint after you left him. Not until a few days ago.”
“Because I wasn’t going to paint until it was for me again,” I say.
“And if he gets in your head again, how long will it be before you get there again?”
“I’m past him. And this show is for me.”
“And what about Nick Rogers?”
I frown. “What about him?”
“Is he still distracting you?”
“You mean, inspiring me?”
“I take that as a yes. And I thought you were painting for you?”
“I am.”
“And yet, one man convinced you to stop painting. Another convinced you to paint again.”
That assessment hits me hard. “That’s not—”
“I need to know that you’re a painter no matter who is in your life or what is going on in your life.” His line beeps and he curses. “Macom’s calling me. I’ll handle him. You avoid him. And paint. Fuck the winery, Faith. Be a damn painter.” He ends the call and I grimace. Fuck the winery. He knows I can’t do that, not with the money connected to it, but it doesn’t matter to him. It’s not his money. My art could be. It’s a thought that reminds me that Nick understands why I can’t walk away from the winery, and yet, he pushes me to embrace my art.
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