Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (6 page)

I walked him to my pantry but he was too short to see what was
up there, so I picked him up to let him have a look.  He draped his arm around
my neck while he took his time and scoped everything out, then he pointed to
the Oreos.

“Can I have some of those?”

“Grab em,” I told him.

He took the package and clutched them to his chest, then he
cupped his little hand over my ear, and why he whispered I don’t know, but he
said, “When I was little I had these crunched up on my birthday cake.”

I carried him to the back room and set him down at the table. 
He took four or five cookies out of the package and stacked them on the table,
then he took the top one, pulled it apart, and scraped off the middle with his
front teeth.  He handed me the outside part when he was finished.  “We can
share these.  You can have this part.”

“You licked all over it!”

“No I didn’t.  I did it with my teeth.”

As much as I liked the kid, I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. 
“Let’s give it to your mom.”

“Gee, thanks,” Maddie said.  She had let the baby down and he
was crawling all over my back room.  I turned on the TV for Oliver, and Maddie
and I took a seat on the couch on the other side of the room.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

Her eyes filled with tears.  “I don’t think I can handle
working there any more, but I can’t afford to quit.”

“Damn it, Maddie.  You can’t cry every time something happens. 
Now take a deep breath and stop crying.”

She took a couple of deep breaths, and when her bottom lip
finally quit quivering, I continued.  “Did something happen after you got back
from lunch today?”

“No.”

“Then what brought this on?”

“It’s just the whole thing.  The comment about my husband’s accident
really got to me.”  She looked at me and I could tell she was fighting not to
cry.  “How long is it going to take the EEOC to investigate my charge?”

“I don’t know.  It could take a while.  We could agree to
mediate if Datacare did, but I’d rather take them to court.   I think you’d end
up with a lot more money if we did that.”

“I don’t know how long I can take it.”

“Deal with it as long as you can, and if you’re forced to quit,
we’ll allege it was a constructive discharge.  If it comes to that, you can
work for me, so you’re not going to be out on the street.  You do know how to
type, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” she said, attempting to smile.

“One more thing.  You need to change your hairstyle.”

“I like my hairstyle.”

I shook my head.  “It’s got to go, Maddie.  It makes you look
like a slut and we don’t want a jury thinking that you were asking for whatever
you got.  And don’t you
dare
start crying on me again,” I warned.

“I’m not!”  She looked away and was quiet for a minute, then
she looked back over at me.  “If I didn’t know that you were trying to help me,
I’d think you were a real prick.”

“I am real prick.”  I pointed to her hair.  “The sooner the
better.”

The baby came crawling over and pulled himself up on my leg and
I shooed him over to Maddie.

“Anything else?” I asked her.

“It might be nothing, but I overheard Larry talking to his
supervisor today . . . something about a tape.  When I walked in the room, they
stopped talking and I got the feeling they had been talking about me.”

“Do you think it was about the tape recorder I gave you?”

“I don’t see how they’d know about it.”

I could tell something was gnawing at her. “Tell me what you’re
thinking, Maddie.”

She lowered her voice.  “What if he has it on tape.  The time
we had sex.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.  They just looked guilty when I walked in
today.  It’s just a gut feeling.”

 “I think you’re reading too much into it, and I think you’re
worrying about nothing.”

“You’re probably right.”  Maddie got up off the couch and
picked up the baby, then walked over to where Oliver was watching TV.  “Let’s
go home baby.”

An Oreo-faced Oliver looked at Maddie.  “Mom, your face looks
like this,” he said, and he made his lips into a thin line that looked exactly
like Maddie’s.

Maddie smiled at him.  “Mommy’s a little upset sweetie, but not
at you.”

“Okay,” Oliver said happily.  He came over and took my hand and
held it as I walked them to the door.

When we got outside I pulled him aside and knelt down so that
we were eye level.   “You have a really nice mom.  You be extra nice to her,
okay?” I told him.

“Okay, Samuel,” he said smiling.  He wrapped his arms around my
neck and hugged me, then he ran off and joined Maddie.

“Thanks, Samuel,” Maddie said.

“Don’t thank me yet.  I haven’t done anything.”

It was no coincidence that Mrs. Howard and the Johnses were
standing out by Mrs. Howard’s mailbox chatting when I left to pick up Landra
for our date.  I swear, they had been out there just waiting for me to leave.
And not only did all three of them stare openly from the minute I stepped out
my door, but they made no attempt to hide the fact that they were talking about
me.  If they had pointed and laughed, it wouldn’t have been more obvious.  But
then, after the mailbox kiss, who could blame them.  It was probably as much
excitement as the neighborhood had seen in years.  I waved without speaking,
and they all smiled and called out
hello
, then went back to talking
about me.

I arrived at Landra’s house promptly at 7:00 o’clock, and she
met me at the door before I had a chance to knock.

“Sara called and told me you were on your way.”

“You’re kidding!” I said in disbelief.

Landra laughed.  “Don’t be mad.  She doesn’t have a lot of
excitement in her life. Let her enjoy herself.”  She turned her back to me in
the doorway.  “Can you do this button?”

The dress was backless and one little button at the neck had
sole responsibility of holding up the top.  It was a little rhinestone button shaped
like a rose, nestled in an antique-looking setting. It was more like a piece of
jewelry than a button, like a work of art, but the buttonhole was too small and
it was a bitch to get the damn thing fastened.  I buttoned her up and stepped
inside in the light and checked out Landra in her evening attire and forgot all
about my nosy neighbors.  “Damn,” I said involuntarily.  She looked like a
goddess.  She was wearing a slim-fitting, long, sleeveless black dress, slit
high up the middle in the front.  Her 4-inch heels brought her within a couple of
inches from my six feet so we were practically eye level. She was wearing
make-up and she had lined her eyes in black, and her hair was a cascade of
these long, loose, ringlet curls all over the place.  The effect was so
stunning that I couldn’t help myself and I had to reach out and touch her
hair.   It was so soft.  I pulled on a curl and when I let go it bounced right
back into shape like a little spring.

“Awesome hair!”  I stood back and looked her over from head to
toe.  There was no way I’d be able to keep my hands off of her with her looking
like that.  Shit, I wanted to bite her neck just looking at her.  And she
smelled good too.  “Damn you look good, Landra.”

“Thanks.”  She hugged me, which only made matters worse. “You
look great, Sam.”  She checked me out in that way that she had.  “Come in.  I
want to show you my house.”  She took my hand and led me through her house to
her living room.  “This is what I want to do to your back room.”

I looked around the room.  She had painted big stones on all
four walls and it looked incredible.  “You did this?”

“Yeah.  Do you like it?”

“Hell yes!  When can you do mine?”

Landra clapped her hands like a little kid.  “Maybe I could
start on Sunday,” she said smiling.  We were standing there right next to each
other and I knew I needed to get out of there before we ended up kissing
again.  She must have read my mind.

“I’d love to kiss you right now, but I’m afraid where it might
lead,” she said.

On the contrary, she didn’t look like she was afraid of
anything.  She was staring into my eyes, just daring me to kiss her.

“Oh, I can tell you exactly where it would lead.  And it
wouldn’t be to your party.”  I was keeping my hands to myself, trying not to
tempt fate, but she was so close and she smelled so good.  I’d been wanting to
run my hand down her back since I’d walked in the door and finally the
temptation got to be too much. I reached my hand behind her and ran my fingers
across her bare skin and immediately I knew I’d gone too far.  She’d been just
waiting to ambush me.  She moved closer and wrapped her arms around my waist,
pressing her body up against mine and she brought her mouth to mine and kissed
me really softly.  She was playing with me again.  It was a cat and mouse game,
and I was definitely the mouse.

She pulled back from me and looked me in the eye and smiled. 
“You’re gonna break my heart, aren’t you?”

There it was again
.  Just when I thought I had her
pegged, she’d come out with an outrageous comment just like that one.  Suddenly
she seemed vulnerable when a second earlier she was a predator.

“Now, why would I do that?” I asked her.

“Because I like you more than you like me,” she said, then she
stomped her foot.   “I hate it when that happens!”

“Yeah, that’s the worst.  I’m just glad it’s you and not me.” I
ran my fingers through that incredible hair and looked at her.  She was the
most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on.  “We better get out of here
before you attack me.”

Landra threw her head back and laughed.  “Take me to my
party!”  She hooked her arm around mine and walked so close to me all the way
to the car that I was almost tripping over her feet.

The party was held at a mansion in Terrell Hills, an upscale
old neighborhood where a lot of San Antonio’s founders had settled.  It was a
black-and-white affair, with the city’s elite getting a chance to show off
their diamonds and furs.  The smell of perfume and hairspray belted me as soon
as I walked into the large foyer and a woman standing by swooped over to take
Landra’s coat.  I held Landra’s elbow as we walked into the main living area of
the mansion, mainly because I wanted to occupy my hand so it didn’t stray to
her back again.

There was a huge array of foods spread out in different areas
of the house. A woman at one station was making shrimp fritters; another was making
fresh corn tortilla quesadillas.  There were three separate buffet tables, one
serving Italian cuisine, one French and the other Mexican.  The centerpiece of
the main dessert table was a champagne fountain, and it wasn’t the cheap
stuff.  It was surrounded with bite-size pastries, pies and cakes, and
chocolate dipped fruit with bowls of whipped cream and different sauces.  We
made our way around the house talking to a couple of people that either Landra
or I knew, and ended up at a bar outside by the pool.   I got a glass of
champagne for Landra and a beer for myself, then we systematically hit each
food line until we were stuffed to the gills.  We’d settled outside to eat and
we had just finished our third plate of food.

“You ready for desert?” Landra asked.

“Where are you putting all that food?  Do you have a tapeworm?”

“You’ve eaten as much as I have!” she said insulted.

“Yeah, but I’m a lot bigger than you.”

“Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean hungrier,” she countered. 
“Besides,” she said, nuzzling up to me, “I wanted to feed you a strawberry.”

Just the thought gave me an erection. “I’m starving,” I said.  I
took her hand and led her back towards the house, but she pulled me to a stop
before we got inside.

“Thank you for coming tonight.  I’m having a really good time
with you.”  She put her arm around my waist and hugged me, then she looked up
at me like she was about to do something.

“Don’t kiss me right now,” I warned.

“Just a tiny one?” she teased.

I was about to tell her that there was no such thing, when some
guy came up and interrupted us and started talking to Landra.  He was a good
four inches taller than me, which would put him around 6’4”.  I’ve never
considered myself short and I’ve always been in decent shape, but next to him I
felt almost wimpy.

“Hi Landra.  You look great,” he said.  He literally looked her
up and down and it really pissed me off.

“Drake.  This is Samuel Collins.  Sam, this is Drake Reeds.”

We shook hands and I immediately disliked him.  You can tell a
lot about a person by his handshake, and notwithstanding the guy’s size, he
shook hands like a pansy.  His palm was pliable and clammy. I felt like I
needed to wash my hand.

“How do you two know each other?” he asked me.

Landra and I looked at each other then back to Drake.  “We have
mutual friends,” I told him, and I left it at that.  He hung around for a
couple more minutes while he and Landra talked about different people they both
knew, then he left us in search of a gin and tonic.  We made our way back
inside towards the desert table, but were sidetracked again by an opposing
counsel I was up against in a custody matter.  We had talked for a couple of
minutes when Landra leaned in and whispered that she was going to the ladies
room and that she would meet me back there.  I watched her walk off while I
tried to concentrate on what the other lawyer was saying as he harped on and on
about the merits of his case.  Landra walked up the sweeping staircase out of
my line of vision and I was just about to turn away when something caught the
corner of my eye and I did a double-take.  Drake Reeds was heading up the
stairs behind her.

Now, typically, I’m not a jealous man.  And I don’t know if
jealousy was what I was feeling right then or not, but I was definitely feeling
something and it definitely didn’t feel good.  I tried to put the thought of
the two of them out of my mind, after all it was probably nothing, but for some
reason I couldn’t let it go.  I had long-since tuned out my opposing counsel
and I realized he must have asked me a question because he was looking at me,
waiting for me to answer.

“I’m sorry.  I thought I recognized someone over there.  What
was the question?”

“Tuesday.  Can you meet Tuesday to discuss it?”

“Sure.  Yeah, Tuesday’s fine.  Just call Penny and let her know
what time.”

I hate talking business at parties and I finally managed to get
away from the guy.  It had been a good 15 minutes since Landra and Drake had
disappeared.  I made my way back to the bar and got another beer and was headed
back to where Landra told me she’d meet me, when there was a tremendous noise
outside like the sound of breaking glass and immediately afterward, a
collective roar of people yelling and screaming.  I headed in the direction of
the commotion to see what had happened and I could see that there was someone
lying on the ground beside the pool and people were looking up and pointing
towards the second story of the house.

“Call 911!” people were shouting.

Apparently someone had fallen through the upstairs window and
there was glass all over the patio.  I could see a pool of blood underneath the
person’s head and his legs were all twisted and contorted on the pavement. 
When the realization hit me, my blood went cold and my heart started thumping
so hard I could literally feel it through my shirt.  I was moving backward the
first 10 feet or so while things sunk in, then I finally got my shit together
and turned around and sprinted across the patio, through the house, and up the
stairs as fast as I could go.

“Landra!”  I was shouting frantically before I even reached the
top of the stairs.  I stopped and got my bearings and headed in the direction
of  the room from where Drake had taken the dive.   “Landra!” I kept calling
out.  There were so many rooms in the damn house that I was in and out of four
of them before I came to the room with the broken window.

She was sitting on the bed when I came in, holding the top of
her dress in place where it had been ripped and she seemed to be in some
catatonic state, rocking back and forth.  She was trembling, staring out into
nothing, and she had black eye makeup running down her cheeks from crying. 
Both of her upper arms had red welts on them and I could clearly make out
finger marks on the right one.  I wanted to run over and hold her, but I wasn’t
exactly sure what she’d been through and I was afraid my approaching her would
freak her out.

“Landra, it’s Sam,” I said.

She didn’t respond and I couldn’t tell if she even knew I was
in the room.  I could hear people coming down the hall so I waited until they
got to the doorway and I held up my hand and motioned for them to be quiet. 
There were three men and a woman, and all of them stepped into the room and
took in the scene. I noticed for the first time that a chair was overturned and
that a large vase was broken on the floor.  The woman gasped at the sight of
Landra, and took off downstairs saying that her friend was a doctor.  I turned
my attention back to Landra.

“Everything’s okay, Landra,” I told her.  “I’m just going to
come over there  beside you.”  I walked slowly across the room to the bed and
then I knelt down in front of her.  “Landra, can you hear me?”

She wasn’t responding, and it was starting to scare me.  I
reached out and tilted her chin up so that I could look into her eyes.   “Landra,
its Sam.  Come on, now.  You’ve got to snap out of this.  Come on, Landra.” 
Nothing. 
“Landra!” I said louder.  I took her by the shoulders and shook her and the
jolt did the trick.  The vacant stare was replaced by a look of confusion, then
immediately by stark realization of what had just happened.  She broke down
sobbing uncontrollably.  “It’s okay, Landra.  Everything’s going to be okay.”

“He tried to rape me,” she sobbed.

“It’s okay.  He’s not going to hurt you any more.”

At that point, two policemen walked in the room.  The elder
took one look at Landra and picked up his radio and stepped back out into the
hall.  The second officer approached us and I got up and took off my coat and
wrapped it around Landra.

“How is she?” the officer asked in a hushed tone.

“I don’t know yet. She needs to get to a hospital.”

“I’m going to need to ask her some questions.  Are you her
husband?”

“No.  I’m her friend.  And her lawyer,” I added.  “You can talk
to her after she’s been checked out by a doctor.”

Landra had been sitting there staring at the floor, still
crying, but she looked up when I said that.  “No, it’s all right.  I’ll talk to
him.”