Authors: Daphna Edwards Ziman
“Prostitution?”
Gillis shook his head. “She always denied turning tricks, but you know, it’s pretty rough out there. I don’t know what label she wore before I met her—cow, whore, thief. Thing is, I found her, married her, gave her a new life. Saved her from the hellhole she was living in. At least, that’s how I thought of it. But you can’t take the streets out of a person who’s living that life.
“I learned the hard way that she was conning me, too, using my position at the bank to her advantage. I don’t know why she bothered. I gave her everything she needed. But she figured out a way to hit my banks.”
Jake snorted, trying to cover his agitation. “Someone as smart as her? Why
would
she bother? Any divorce lawyer would have carved you up nicely, leaving her a healthy chunk of the fat.”
Gillis looked away. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding contrived.”
“Try me.” Jake sucked on his cigarette.
Gillis’s mouth looked as if he had swallowed a wasp, but he managed to bend it into a negligent smirk. “It’s like they always say: A whore is a whore—it’s all just a matter of price. Don’t get me wrong. She’d been fighting for survival her whole life. You know, her mom
was murdered when Kelly was six. Her dad got life for it and died in prison, after getting stabbed in a prison brawl.”
Jake flicked his cigarette butt with his thumbnail.
Good, you finally told me something I didn’t know
, he thought. He wondered if Kelly ever knew the who and the why about her father’s death. He kept asking questions.
“How was she hitting your banks?”
“Disguised as other people. Passing bogus payroll checks.” Gillis’s tie flapped over his shoulder like a pennant. “Kelly can fool anyone. She’s incredible. Disappears into other people. Once, when she was thirteen, she ran away. Got a job at a Dairy Queen. She was handing burgers to the cops who were looking for her, and they didn’t even notice. Took them three weeks to find her.
“Took me a lot longer than that to find her when she left me—nearly two years. I only caught up with her a few weeks ago. She was under my nose the whole time. I had an army of detectives on her tail. That’s how I found out about her and Garrett. I know she was there the night he was killed.”
Gillis smoothed a hand over his hair. It flapped right back up again. “But I’m not going to turn my wife, the mother of my children, over to the feds. All I’m saying is—” Gillis broke off and rubbed his lower lip with the knuckle of his forefinger. “She can be a force to reckon with—crafty, cold, and calculating.”
Jake tossed the butt to the ground and scuffed it out with his foot. In the bright light, Gillis looked old for his years, a little worn. His jaw, so square indoors in the murky light, was in the slow process of softening. His white collar was tailored snugly around his tan neck, but the skin was a little looser than it seemed at first glance. The pores on his nose were enlarged, and one red capillary feathered across his nostril. His teeth had been whitened, but Jake could see flashes of gold in the back of his mouth when he spoke.
Gillis exhaled audibly, almost a growl. “I’ll say it straight. I’ve got something that could put Kelly behind bars for the rest of her life. I know she’s hoping to get the FBI to dig through my banks. I’m just doing you the courtesy of letting you know in advance that whatever she—and you—work out with them, I can hit hard.”
“What’ve you got?”
“Something that could be viewed as conclusive.”
Jake snorted. “Like what?”
“Like a murder weapon.”
Jake paused to consider. “Then I’d say you have a case but no criminal.”
“You haven’t seen my evidence.”
Jake shrugged, drawing the motion out as he thought. Then he took a gamble and said, as offhandedly as he could, “You know, I used to hate my father too.” It had the instant effect he had suspected it would. Gillis’s face contorted with rage.
“What are you talking about?”
“That morose picture in your office. I only forgave my dad right before he died. Is yours still alive?”
With effort, Gillis pulled himself straight. “That’s not what we’re talking about. I don’t hate my dad.”
Jake just stared at him.
Gillis’s lips tightened. “Yes, he made me feel insignificant, because he wanted to be invisible, unnoticed. He called it humility,” he stuttered. Then, composing himself, he delivered his coup de grâce: “You’re not hearing me. I won’t hesitate to crush both you and Kelly.”
Jake called his bluff. “If you have what you say.”
Gillis transformed suddenly into a four-year-old child. “You don’t believe me?”
Jake simply stared.
“You don’t believe me?” Gillis shouted again.
Jake regarded the changed man before him. Perhaps he’d just found a very useful chink in Gillis’s armor.
The wind picked up, and Jake had to strain to hear Gillis whisper his steely threat: “She may be a lot of things, but she’s still my wife!”
Jake’s inner alarm screeched inside his gray matter. This man was a deadly hunter. Jake knew that Gillis would never rest until his prey was in his captivity. So the expert defense attorney chose his next words carefully.
“You’ve hinted a lot, Gillis, but I deal with realities. With things I can touch and see. When you’re ready, call me. Until then … Well, I’m glad we’ve had a chance to talk.”
Jake left quickly, leaving Gillis alone on the roof. But his brain was clanging with alarms. Would Gillis really blackmail him? What did he have on Kelly? Blood? Hair? A shoe print? Could the feds put together a case on Gillis—at least enough to stall him—before Gillis fought back with what he had?
Back in his Mercedes, Jake called Joyce. Upon hearing there was still no word from Kelly, his rage returned. He was risking everything—his career, his reputation, his life—for her. Why was he wasting time sparring with Gillis on her behalf? He gripped the steering wheel to keep the anger from boiling over. He made a deal with himself: Kelly had to contact him by tomorrow morning, or he was cutting her loose.
But he hadn’t gone two blocks before Joyce called him back. “Gillis wants to see you again,” she said. “Right now.”
* * *
On the outside, Nate ’n Al was like every other restaurant in Beverly Hills. Inside, the décor and ambience screamed Los Angeles of another era. Brown leatherette booths hunkered along the walls
and in the center section, around dark laminated wood-grain tables. A counter holding cakes and pastries under plastic domes ran in front of a row of swivel stools. A gaggle of Jewish broads, imported straight from the Bronx, ruled the restaurant, each one down-to-earth, witty, and a know-it-all. Their ringleader was Hot Trudie, everyone’s mama and grandma, a full-breasted redhead whose specialty was tables with kids, Beverly Hills locals, or Hollywood’s seasoned celebrities.
Arriving first, Jake claimed a seat facing the door. Hot Trudie brought him a cream soda and a lean brisket sandwich, but failed—unusual for her—to engage him in conversation. When Gillis entered Jake clenched his fists under the table. He wouldn’t let Gillis see how angry he was.
The men didn’t greet each other. Gillis slid in opposite Jake and swung his handsome head to summon Trudie. He ordered black coffee, then leaned back with his arms spread out, Jesus-on-the-cross-style, on the top of the bench and smiled at Jake.
“Feels like a slap in the face when she disappears, doesn’t it?”
Jake lifted his soda bottle and tipped it toward the glass, but it was already empty. He had to shake it to get one reluctant drop to slip off its mouth.
“I’m just her lawyer. Must be worse for an abandoned husband.”
“Oh, you’re there too. I can see that haze she’s left all over your face,” retorted Gillis as Trudie put down the coffee cup. Gillis ignored her. “You’ll never get used to it,” he said. “I’ll tell you that.”
“Is this what you dragged me in here to talk about? I hate to tell you, but the only depleting commodity I have is my time, and I’m not about to waste much more of it.” He took a bite of sandwich and immediately wished he hadn’t. The meat was unappetizing, and the sauerkraut turned acidic in his mouth.
Gillis watched him chew. After Jake swallowed, he nonchalantly
took another bite, showing the other man that he had an appetite. He took two more bites before Gillis spoke.
“Are you ready to discuss evidence?”
Jake feigned apathy. “Any evidence that you might have in your possession would already be dismissible because of potential contamination.”
Gillis smiled. “I think even you’d be impressed by what I’ve got. Although you might have viewed it differently if you’d seen it before you fell for her.”
Jake forced the meat down his throat and willed it to stay down. He took a long swallow of ice water and signaled Trudie for another cream soda. “Your hinting around is getting boring.”
“I have it right here.” Gillis passed a briefcase to Jake under the table. Jake contemplated shoving it back at him, yet he kept it on the seat next to him and lifted the lid. Inside a zippered plastic bag was something covered in rust-brown powder: a knife, short and serrated like a steak knife, its blade no longer shiny, its handle smeared.
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” growled Jake.
“I tried to warn you about Kelly. She’s capable of anything.”
Jake could not believe he was sitting in Nate ’n Al with a half-eaten brisket sandwich on his plate, looking at the murder weapon that had killed his best friend.
“Concealing a murder weapon puts you in the hot seat.”
“Friends in the Las Vegas PD gave it to me. They can help me spin it in any direction I want.” Gillis waved his hand airily. “Besides, murder weapons go missing all the time. You, of all people, should know that.”
Jake flipped the lid down on the briefcase. Kelly’s words ran through his head:
He’s the smartest man I know.
What did Kelly know about this? Jake cleared his throat. “This could be anything. Blood from a pig, a prostitute, a little old lady.”
“If that’s how you want to describe your best friend, or should I say ‘deceased best friend,’ that’s your business,” Gillis said sarcastically.
Jake literally bit his tongue to keep it under control. “And the rest of it—”
“It’ll check out. Believe me. His blood. Her prints.”
Jake, his mind frying, looked at Gillis, minutely shaking his head.
Gillis spoke quickly. “You get her back to me, or I’m going to turn this in.”
Jake opened his mouth to speak, but Gillis cut him off.
“You’re thinking, ‘What good does that do him?’ I’ll tell you. It guarantees that
I
get her, Brooks. Not you. Not Garrett.”
“The feds shot Stacy Steingart. They aren’t about to reopen the investigation—”
“Let’s play a ‘what if’ game for a minute … What if Stacy and Kelly grew up in the same foster home? What if they fought their way to freedom by sucking and fucking and ultimately selling each other out to the nearest bidder … yet living in the same hellhole, leaning on their pathetic sisterhood for dear life … What if they’ve both hated men to such a degree that killing Porter was a joint act of revenge?”
Jake’s eyes tightened just enough for Gillis to notice. He smiled broadly, like a hunter before the kill.
“Believe what you want.” Gillis reached across the space beneath the table and took back the briefcase. “At any time I decide, a judge is going to see a bloody knife with DNA that matches your best friend and prints that match your client.” Gillis stood up as Trudie was sashaying by, placing Jake’s cream soda in front of him. He grabbed her elbow, stuffed a twenty-dollar bill in her palm, and patted her behind. Trudie whipped out the money, saw it was a twenty, and winked at Gillis as she slid it down her bra.
“Anytime you want a kinda home-cooked meal, you come and get it right here. Trudie’ll look after ya,” she purred.
Jake watched Gillis leave, his body frozen by shock but his mind flying through the possibilities. How would he get himself out of this? And Kelly?
Gillis wanted to play “what if.” But all Jake could think of was everything that could possibly go wrong. What if … Murphy’s Law hit them in the face?
EVEN FROM THE SKY, AS THE PLANE WAS LANDING in Houston, Jake could sense the humidity he was about to face, the kind of moist heat that penetrated your body and your brain, demanding that you be still and blanketing you with weariness.
When Jake reached the rental car he’d reserved, the first order of business was to turn on the AC full blast. Only when he had cooled down somewhat did he dial his phone and put it to his ear.
“It’s been what?” he shouted as he turned the key in the ignition. “By whom?”
The file clerk at the Child Protective Services office drawled in a bored voice, “The file was pulled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
Fuck.
Jake snapped his phone shut and started driving. Since Gillis took off from the restaurant, Jake had been working every angle he could think of, investigating every connection between Kelly and Stacy Steingart. He had hired private investigators to do the research
and activated his contacts in Nevada and Texas. The FBI had beat him to it, though, and now they had Steingart’s file from her time as a foster child.
Jake put his hand out to keep a stack of folders and manila envelopes on the passenger seat from sliding to the floor. At least Joyce had been able to provide him with public record documents about Gary Gordon. They detailed an extraordinary revelation: The foster father had been investigated on suspicion of having raped one of the foster daughters in his care. Since she was a minor, the pregnant victim was unnamed, but the time frame matched the years that Kelly had lived at the Gordon house.
No longer trusting Kelly, Jake nonetheless felt a stab of compassion for the horrible life she had endured. He didn’t know whether Kelly or perhaps Stacy was the victim; while he didn’t wish that brutalization on anyone, he prayed it hadn’t been Kelly. According to the documents, it had been concluded, thanks to DNA evidence, that Gordon had been unjustly accused. Gary Gordon had been exonerated.