Buying Time (2 page)

“Is everything okay?” Deidra glanced back at him over her shoulder.

His wife had good instincts, at least about him. Waverly eyed the knife in her hand. He had a mental image of Deidra accidentally chopping off a finger when she heard what he had to say.

“I love you,” Waverly said, not in an effort to sidestep her question, but because it was how he truly felt.

“Ditto.” She smiled, then waited.

Waverly had wanted Deidra from the second he spotted her walking out of a store on pricey Rodeo Drive weighed down with shopping bags. Instinct told him there was little chance that a woman like her would give a guy like him a second glance. He had only been in Beverly Hills for a meeting with an opposing counsel. Risktaker that he was, Waverly turned on his charm and, to his surprise, it worked. Too bad that same skill couldn’t get him out of his current fix.

He took a bottle of Chardonnay from the refrigerator and poured a glass for each of them. “What if I decided not to practice law anymore?” he began.

The pace of Deidra’s chopping slowed. “I thought you liked being a lawyer.” She placed the knife on the counter and turned to face him. “What would you do instead?”

He shrugged and cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking about insurance investments.”

Deidra put a hand on her left hip. “Insurance? That doesn’t sound very exciting. Can you make any real money from that?”

Waverly shrugged again. “I hope to find out.”

According to a guy he’d met at a legal conference, he could make a bundle in the viatical business. Waverly had no idea what a viatical was, only that it had something to do with insurance. He had an appointment to talk with the guy in a couple of days.

He could tell that his wife wasn’t happy about his possible change of professions. The men in Deidra’s life before him had given her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Waverly now worked hard to do the same, often placating her with promises of better things to come. Deidra enjoyed the prestige of being a lawyer’s wife and was banking on Waverly eventually landing a case that propelled them to the big leagues.

“This doesn’t mean we’ll have to put off moving, does it?” Deidra asked.

Waverly had agreed that she could start house shopping as soon as his next case settled. But even if he saved every dime he made for the next thirty years, he still wouldn’t be able to afford the gated communities where Deidra wanted to relocate.

“Maybe,” he said.

She was about to complain, but apparently noticed the angst on his face and retreated.

Waverly took a sip of wine and debated delaying his planned conversation with Deidra until he was absolutely certain about his situation. The written decision from the State Bar Court could arrive any day now. There was a slim chance that he might be hit with a suspension rather than disbarment. He’d hired Kitty Mancuso, a sixty-plus, powerhouse mouthpiece whose client base consisted exclusively of rich, white-collar criminals and lawyers who’d screwed up. If anybody could save the day, it was Kitty.

“I’m going to put on my sweats,” Waverly said, wimping out. “How long before dinner’s ready?”

“Not sweats,” Deidra replied. “Find some nice slacks. They’ll be here at six.”

“They who?”

Deidra smiled sheepishly. “Mom, Dad, and Rachel. Didn’t I tell you?”

No, because if she had, he would have faked a migraine. “Uh, I just remembered a motion I forgot to file.”

Deidra squinted and playfully pointed the knife inches from his nose. “Don’t even think about it.”

By the time their dinner guests arrived, Waverly was seated in the den, insufficiently buzzed and ready for the show. Watching his wife’s dysfunctional family was better than reality TV.

Leon Barrett, Deidra’s pint-size father, strutted in and gave her a kiss on the cheek. He waited all of three beats, then started boasting about his new sixty-inch flat screen. Rachel, Deidra’s older sister, showed off a diamond bracelet a new boyfriend supposedly gave her.

Leon spotted Waverly sitting in the den and made a beeline in his direction.

“How’s the law business these days, counselor?” Leon’s thumbs hung from his belt loops like a cowboy and he rocked back and forth from heel to toe.

Waverly didn’t bother to stand. “I’m making it.”

Leon walked over to the sliding glass door and surveyed their small patio. Waverly wondered what he would criticize first.

“So when are you two going to give up this place for a real home?” Leon joked.

Instead of answering, Waverly reached for his wineglass and took another sip. The thought of Leon Barrett finding out that he’d been disbarred made him want to puke.

“They’re building some new homes in The Estates,” Leon continued. He always referred to Palos Verdes Estatesas
The Estates
. Waverly figured he’d moved there just so people would think he lived on an estate.

“If you’d bought over there when I told you to, you’d have nothing but money in the bank.” Leon owned a small construction firm that had done well, in part, because he was a major tightwad.

The wine was doing nothing to reduce Waverly’s irritation level. Too bad his own father was dead and gone. Henry Sloan wouldn’t have just thought about telling Leon Barrett to kiss his ass, he would have done it.

The evening plodded painfully along as it always did. Deidra’s father and sister talked nonstop about themselves while Deidra’s mother Myrtle, smiled and nodded like a big bobble head.

“I have to go to Paris at the end of the week to interview a bunch of obnoxious designers,” Rachel said, feigning annoyance. She was a fashion editor for
Vogue
. Like her sister, Rachel was a good-looking woman, but she lacked Deidra’s talent for capitalizing on her beauty.

“I hate you,” Deidra exclaimed. “I’ve been dying to go back to Paris.”

“Why don’t you come with me?” Rachel prodded. “I’ll be there three weeks. It’ll be fun.”

Deidra gave Waverly a hopeful look.

Having Deidra out of town for a few weeks would give him time to get a backup plan in place. But the funds for a ticket to Paris didn’t exist. His face must’ve conveyed that.

“If you can’t afford it,” Leon said facetiously. “I’d be glad to pick up the tab.”

Waverly smiled across the table at his father-in-law. “That’s a very generous offer.” He paused to take a sip of wine. “And we’d love to take you up on it.”

A razor-sharp silence whipped around the table. No one was more dazed than his blowhard father-in-law. Leon Barrett frequently offered to share his money, but never actually parted with any. Waverly thought the man might actually choke on his toothpick. Deidra shot Waverly a look hot enough to scorch his eyeballs, but he pretended not to notice.

Pleased with what he had just pulled off, Waverly got up and retrieved another bottle of wine from the wine rack.

The minute her family walked out of the door, Deidra went off.

“What in the hell was that about?” she shouted. “How dare you let Daddy pay for my trip?”

Waverly headed back to the den with Deidra on his heels. “Well, he
did
offer.”

“He’s offered to pay for a lot of things, but you’ve always refused. Are we having money problems? Because if we are, I need to know.”

“Cases have been a little slow coming in, that’s all.”

“So slow that you can’t come up with four or five grand for a trip to Paris?”

Four or five grand?
He wanted to laugh. “Look, I’m working everything out. Just give me some time.”

“Well, you better figure something out fast because this is not what I signed up for. We were only supposed to be living here for a few months and it’s been two years. I’ve never lived in a place this small before, but I did it for you.”

Small?
Their townhouse was more than two thousand square feet.

“And now you’re telling me that we’re basically bankrupt.”

“We’re not bankrupt.”
Not yet.

“If we can’t blow a few grand on a vacation, that’s bankruptcy as far as I’m concerned,” Deidra barked. “And please don’t embarrass me in front of my family like that ever again. If we’re having money problems, I should know about it before they do.” Deidra stalked out of the kitchen.

Waverly opened the cabinet over the bar, grabbed a fifth of brandy and took a gulp straight from the bottle. His wife’s little tantrum was really uncalled for.
But what the hell?
He had never expected to keep a woman like Deidra happy forever.

Too bad he hadn’t listened to his father. After divorcing his third wife, Henry Sloan swore off pretty women.
Way too much work
, he’d told his son.
Find yourself a basic broad and she’ll ride with you until the wheels fall off.

Waverly chuckled to himself. Right now he could use a woman who could hang, because the ride was about to get rocky.

A
ssistant U.S. Attorney Angela Evans entered a conference room on the eleventh floor of the federal courthouse on Spring Street and slapped a thick stack of papers on the table. The rest of the newly formed task force was already assembled.

“Hey, Angela, what are you trying to do, blind us?” Zack Hargrove, another AUSA, shielded his eyes with his forearm. “How about turning down the wattage on your ring finger?”

The entire team—Zack, a paralegal, two case agents, and a junior attorney—erupted in laughter.

“Alright everybody, that’s enough.” Angela pretended to chuckle along with them. “This is really getting old.” Her three-carat, princess-cut diamond was still the butt of jokes even though she’d been wearing it for almost six months.
Would it ever stop?

She actually considered the ring embarrassingly pretentious, but her fiancé, Judge Cornell L. Waters, III, was all about the show. So she quietly concealed her disdain and responded to his proposal with a soft
yes
, when she was actually thinking,
I’m not so sure
.

“So where’s my wedding invitation?” Zack asked, refusing to lay off.

A pretty boy with blue-green eyes and well-moussed blonde hair, Zack enjoyed being the center of attention. As usual, his Ralph Lauren suit and Italian shoes made him look more like a big firm partner than a government lawyer.

Angela winked at him. “Your invitation’s in the mail.”

She took a seat at the head of the table with a confidence gained from nearly a decade of putting criminals behind bars. First as a deputy district attorney and now with the U.S. Attorney’s office. Tough, smart and passionate in her professional life, her personal life was another story.

“Let’s get started.” Angela’s hair was a crinkly mass of natural curls that resembled a limp afro from a distance. Her narrow face and wide brown eyes were striking enough to grace the cover of a fashion magazine.

She eyed the box of Krispy Kreme donuts in the center of the table. It wasn’t even two o’clock yet and she only had nine Weight Watcher points left for the day. One donut would wipe out seven of them. Maybe stuffing her face with donuts was the easiest way out.
Sorry. Couldn’t shed the twenty pounds. Have to call off the wedding since I can’t find a dress that fits.

Angela directed her attention to Tyler Chen, who’d just joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office after three years at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. “Tell us what you found out.”

“The U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Las Vegas, New York and Miami are close to returning indictments against a company called The Tustin Group,” Tyler began. “The company is pressuring terminally ill people to sell their insurance policies.”

“Sell them?” asked Salina Melendez, a paralegal who was attending Southwestern Law School at night. “Who would buy somebody’s insurance policy?”

“An investor,” Tyler said. “It’s called a viatical settlement and it’s sort of like a reverse mortgage. Except these companies trade in people, not property.”

Angela nodded. “Say, for example, you’re dying and you’ve got a policy worth a hundred grand,” she explained. “A viatical broker will go out and find somebody willing to pay you a portion of the face value. All you have to do is name the investor as your beneficiary. After you die, the investor collects the full value.”

“Six months ago,” Tyler continued, “one of The Tustin Group’s principals began operating in California under the name Live Now, Inc. It stands to reason that if they’re pressuring people in the other states, they’re probably doing the same thing here. Main Justice wants to make this a multi-district indictment.”

“Sounds like a sad way to make a buck,” said Jon Rossi, a case agent with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. He was a forty-plus, rail thin, vintage car enthusiast. The AUSAs always worked their cases with agents from one of the federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI or DEA. “But then again, if the people are dying and need the money, maybe it’s a good thing.”

“It would be if Live Now was playing it by the book,” Angela replied. “But they’re targeting people too sick to know what they’re signing and convincing them to take peanuts for their insurance policies. Once we catch them in the act, it won’t be hard to get an indictment.”

Criminals didn’t realize that no matter what the offense, the feds could usually nail them on mail, wire and internet fraud charges since they routinely used these methods of communication to further their fraudulent operations.

“I wish this case had more pizzazz,” Zack sulked.

Angela ignored the comment. Zack was still put out that she had been selected to head up the task force even though he had a few more years of practice.

“Any complaints filed yet against Live Now?” asked Jon.

“Just one.” Angela pulled a document from the stack of papers in front of her. “It’s actually a little strange. The daughter of a woman who sold her policy through Live Now claims her mother was murdered and thinks the viatical broker or the investor are responsible. Says they killed her to get a faster return on their investment.”

Zack had been staring off into space, but immediately perked up. “How did the woman die?”