Suspicion of Betrayal (17 page)

"Ask him about Wendell."

"I will."

"When?"

"I'll call him this week."

"Before Friday," she said. "I'm getting Wendell's documents Friday, and I need some clue what to look for."

"All right!
Que pena.
You are too much. Now, that's enough of this." He leaned forward and grabbed her hand and kissed it before she could pull it back. He had shaved, and his mouth was soft on her knuckles. He spread her fingers out on his upraised knee and shifted his thigh to place the engagement ring in a shaft of light that made the blue-white stone twinkle. "I think,
mi vida,
that I need to move in here right away, not wait till we're married. Being apart has created too many misunderstandings between us."

"You told Detective Novick that you live here already."

"This is my house," Anthony replied softly.

"Ours."

"Of course. Ours. You don't think that's a good idea?"

She shook her head. "Karen isn't ready."

"Gail, in less than two months I will be sleeping in this bed every night. She needs to get used to it. You treat her like a baby. You spoil her. I think you're afraid to make a mistake and then she'll want to live with her father."

"Not now, Anthony. Not with this custody case going on—"

He made a short laugh of dismissal. "I am tired of letting that case dictate what we do, when we do it—"

"That case
is about my daughter!" Gail took her hand off his knee. "On Thursday Dave is taking Karen to see the psychologist. You and I will have to talk to him too, soon enough. Oh, sure, if Dr. Fischman goes against me, I can hire a rebuttal witness. A dozen of them. No problem. But it scares me, Anthony. The judge appointed this man, so he'll give greater weight to what he says. The judge knows that expert witnesses can be bought, and he knows you have money. What is Fischman going to see? A woman who spends sixty hours a week working on her law practice. And Daddy? He's teaching Karen how to play tennis. They go sailing. He reads her stories. Mom just doesn't have time. Mom loses her temper, but Daddy's always smiling."

"Ahhh." Anthony slid forward, and the sheets rustled. He leaned on one arm. "Is this why you're in such a mood?" He brushed her hair out of her eyes.

"This isn't a
mood
!”
Gail found herself shaking, not from the cool air coming from the fan. "Maybe he's right. Maybe he's a better parent. He's there for her, and I'm not."

"That's bullshit. What does Charlene say?"

"She says there are no guarantees."

"What does that mean?"

"It means Dave could win."

"You didn't tell me this! Why?"

Gail smoothed the folds of her nightgown, which lay rumpled across her lap. "Maybe I was in denial. No. The fact is, sweetheart, you get crazy when I mention his name."

"Is that so? Well, perhaps—my love—that is because I see more clearly than you do." Anthony was angry but keeping his voice perfectly calm. "I wasn't going to mention this tonight, but I will. You told Detective Ladue that it wasn't possible that Dave vandalized your car, because he was with Karen. No, Gail. He wasn't."

Startled, Gail whispered, "How do you know?"

"She told me. While you were getting ready for bed, I talked to her. Well, Karen, what did you do tonight?" His voice lightened when he spoke Karen's words. "Oh, I watched
Titanic
on video. Did your dad watch it with you? No, he had to go to a meeting." Anthony waited for a reaction from Gail, who only stared back at him. "Don't worry, I was subtle. She won't feel that she has talked about her father behind his back."

"I can't believe he would do it."

"Where was he, then?"

"He had a meeting. She said—"

"Such a good father, leaving a young girl alone after dark."

"Dave never does that. She must have been with a sitter. Did you ask?"

"Why do you keep defending him?"

"Because I
know
him."

"You know him and not me."

"Anthony, please! This is why I didn't talk to you." She grabbed her pillow and swung her legs off the bed, but before she could stand up, Anthony's warm arms were around her from behind. He rose to his knees, leaning over her.

"Don't go." He kissed her cheek.

She turned her face away. "If you think, for one second, that I am still in love with Dave after what he has done . . . Leaving me. Deserting Karen for six months. Then trying to take her away because he's jealous of
you.
If you think"—her voice broke—"that I could want him after that—"

"No one will take her away from you."

Gail laughed and pulled in a shaky breath. "I saw her wearing
lipstick,
Anthony. Payton Cunningham was kissing her in the backyard the other night. And one of these days she's going to start her period. Dave doesn't know what that means, not really. She's his little princess, ten years old forever."

"Gail. Gail, it won't happen."

"She needs me. And . . . what would I do without her? What would I
be
?
"

Anthony pulled her around. He made her look at him, and his black eyes seemed to pour into her. "Are you listening to me? Tell that psychologist to kiss my ass. If he throws mud at you, I will bury him in it. That is a promise." He embraced her, speaking softly into her ear. "No one—
no one
—is going to take Karen away from you. Not Dave. Not anyone."

A weakness settled in her chest, and she couldn't catch her breath.

"Do you believe me?"

She nodded.

"Then stop worrying about it."

He kissed her, tenderly at first, taking his time. Lips, cheeks, the point of her nose and chin, each eyebrow and the hollow under her jaw. Then her nightgown was going over her head. He held her bare upper arms and seemed to study the way the ribbons of light played on her body. "How beautiful you are."

She shivered and crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head. "I won't be much good tonight."

He pulled her arms aside and kissed her breasts, one, then the other, drawing the tips into his mouth. His hand caressed her between her legs.

Gail didn't want this, but it was too late. It had been too late when she opened her mouth to tell him what was wrong, because he knew how to fix it. He always knew. She had wanted to remain wrapped in her comfortable blanket of fear and confusion, working out what she was feeling. And now she was feeling this. Not wanting to, but sliding beyond wanting to stop. She could hear the intake of her own ragged breath. Her head had fallen back, her hands clenched in his hair.

He pushed her onto the mattress, pinning her wrists. "No one is going to sleep on the sofa."

She laughed. "I knew you would stop me."

"Oh, is that so?" He moved slowly forward, then slid
down again. Chest hair tickled her belly and breasts. His legs held hers tightly closed, but he was nudging between her thighs. "Is this what you wanted?"

"Maybe."

"I'm burning up. You feel it? You do that to me,
amor. Cuando me tocas se enciende mi cuerpo."

She moaned deep in her throat, wanting to touch him, but her hands were still pinned. Then he parted her legs with his knee and put his thighs between hers, opening her farther. He entered her slowly, then withdrew. She couldn't move.

He whispered against her mouth. "Why can't you give me everything?"

"I do, you know I do." She thought she might scream from wanting him.

"No. You hold too much back.
Yo quiero todo."
He went in farther, only a little.

"Oh, God. Please. Anthony."

He pressed her into the mattress, holding her there, not moving. She could feel the heartbeat in his groin. He had aroused her, and now he waited, making her want him still more. His lips brushed across hers.
"¿Qué me das?"

"I'll give you anything. Tell me what you want."

He told her, and her body caught fire.

TEN

On Tuesday morning Gail rented a plain, mid-size Ford sedan for two weeks, the time it would take the Mercedes body shop to dig red Rust-Oleum enamel out of air vents, replace window seals, trim, and wipers, and do a complete paint job.

During the day, Gail parked next to the attendant's booth in the garage under her office building, in view of the security camera. At home, Anthony helped her clear out the boxes and miscellaneous junk taking up space in the garage so she wouldn't have to leave the car in the driveway. They stacked everything in the dining room, which had taken on the look of a secondhand shop. Her home phone number had been changed. Karen now knew not to pick up unless she saw a familiar name on the caller-ID screen. Gail spoke lightly of these precautions, even giving the caller a name—Bozo—that made him into more of a joke than a threat.

On Wednesday night Anthony drove Gail back to the hospital for a short visit with his grandfather, who was recovering from pacemaker surgery. Not wanting Karen to be anywhere near there, Gail took her to stay with her best friend, Molly, who lived in the old neighborhood. Circling up the ramps of the garage in the passenger seat of Anthony's car, Gail looked through the back window, but no one was following. Smudges of red paint on the concrete showed where she had parked the other night. She could see where her car had been pulled away by the tow truck. The tire tracks grew fainter and fainter until they were gone.

By Thursday morning Gail had begun to relax. She was starting to believe that the calls and the vandalism might have had no purpose other than the thrill of frightening someone. Hers could have been a name chosen by chance from the listings of attorneys in the phone book. She would be careful, of course. She would wait him out. Eventually Bozo would go away.

Coming back from an early motion hearing downtown, Gail rapped on the frosted glass and called out, "It's me." The door buzzed, and Gail pushed it open.

Lynn Dobbert swiveled her chair as Gail walked by. "I'll check for you. Could you hold on, please?" She pushed the button. "It's Theresa Zimmerman—the bad knee. She said you wanted to speak to her?"

"Finally. I left a message two days ago." Gail set her briefcase on Miriam's desk. "Where's Miriam?"

"In the storage room looking through old files. She said you asked her to."

"Oh, yes." Gail picked up the phone. "Hi, Theresa? This is Gail. Did you get my message about the settlement offer? Good news, huh?. . . What do you mean?... I can't ask for more, I already told him eighty . . . Why? Because it's what you wanted."

Lynn rolled her chair back so she could see past the edge of her cubicle. Gail pointed at the phone, then clenched her teeth and made a fist. When the voice on the other end had paused for breath, Gail smiled and spoke patiently. "Well, after the medicals and the costs are paid, you'll net around twenty-eight, which is more than you expected when we first talked. Remember? You said, 'Just get me twenty-five thousand dollars.' "

Gail made an exaggerated motion of choking someone, then smiled again as she said, "Do you recall that list of comparative jury verdicts that I sent you? With your particular injury, and the good prognosis for recovery, we are lucky to get eighty. . . . No. I would not advise it. A jury
might
give you more than that, but they probably wouldn't. Most verdicts in your kind of case come in around seventy. And consider this. Once the complaint is filed, my fees are forty percent of the recovery, not a third. If we go to trial, the fee is fifty percent."

She listened to her client complain about the high fees charged by lawyers, and for what?

"Theresa, I charge according to the standard fee schedule, which you agreed to—"

Lynn was listening intently while Gail paced, a hand on her hip, the phone cord stretching out, then back. "In my best judgment, you should take it. . . . They'll cut the check as soon as we give them a release. . . . Yes, I'll be here all day."

Gail hung up. "She said twenty-five, I got her twenty-eight, and she's complaining."

"I guess it's because you're getting more money than she is," Lynn said. When Gail looked at her, she added, "I mean, over thirty thousand dollars for some phone calls."

"I did more than make phone calls," Gail said. "Lynn, this case didn't require a lot of time, I'll admit that, but I have a few others that are driving me crazy. They all pay the same percentage. That's the system." Lynn was looking at her sideways, still unsure. "It's a business, Lynn. If I don't make money, I'd have to close my doors, and we'd all be out of a job."

"Okay," Lynn said. "Sorry."

Gail crossed the small secretarial area to stand by the monitor on Lynn's desk—a work station on the intra-office computer network that Gail had leased when she thought she had money. "Go ahead and prepare the release. The client is coming in right after lunch, and I'd like to have it ready before she changes her mind."

"A release? I don't know ..."

"It's really not hard. Didn't Miriam show you? Here." Gail leaned over and started to do it herself, then said, "No, you should learn how. Call up the Zimmerman file . . . That's right . . . Now look at the documents list for a release ..."

She watched Lynn's fingers tap hesitantly on the keyboard.

"No, no, that's a release for real estate. This is a personal injury case." "It looks the same."

"Not at all. They're totally different." Gail pointed. "That one. Just bring it into the document you're working on. Merge it with the header on the Zimmerman case."

With a nervous little laugh Lynn dropped her hands into her lap. "I can't concentrate when people stand behind me looking over my shoulder."

"All right." Gail rolled Miriam's chair over and sat down, crossing her legs. She put an elbow on the back and brushed her fingers through her hair. Lynn started typing again. Gail resolved not to say anything unless Lynn hit a wall. She studied the photos, drawings, and clippings taped to the cabinet over the desk. The family vacation in Disney World. A boy splashing in a backyard pool. Another with a cake with three candles. A clipping from Ann Landers, called "A Mother's Prayer." A child's drawing of a flower. And there was Daddy, a big man with thinning brown hair, holding a boy on each arm.