Temptations - The Complete Series Page 12

  I knew what he was saying, because I felt it the first time that we kissed as well. The connection, the heat, the passion. I felt like I was being consumed by him, and that feeling was there from the first time our lips met. My fingers involuntarily went to my lips, as I was remembering what it felt like the first time we kissed.

  I sighed. I could feel my resolve breaking down, in spite of myself. Still, I managed to protest some more. “No. You can’t have me. Not like this.”

  He nodded his head. I could feel that he was defeated, but, as I closed my eyes, I knew that he was feeling that his defeat was only temporary. He recognized that he was possessing me, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. I might have won that battle, but he was going to win the war.

  “Okay,” he said. “You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He shrugged his shoulders as I started to protest. “It’s not a problem. I have a sleeping bag.” At that, he disappeared into a room and shut the door.

  I shook my head and waited for Slade’s driver to arrive with my dogs. After he got there, I would take the dogs and go on home. To my home, not this beautiful home that was allegedly mine.

  Within fifteen minutes, the driver arrived. He brought the dogs into the house, along with their kennel. Bella and Gigi excitedly greeted me, their tiny bodies wriggling with delight. I stooped down, and let them kiss my face. I closed my eyes, and thanked the man, Raphael, for bringing the dogs to me. “I would give you a tip,” I said. “But I don’t have cash.”

  Raphael nodded his head. “That’s fine, Senora. I’m not allowed to accept tips.”

  I thought that I knew why Raphael couldn’t accept tips – probably because Slade paid him so much that tips weren’t necessary. Of course, that could be just a hunch, but Slade struck me as someone who would pay his help handsomely.

  Raphael left, and I went out to my SUV. I put the kennel in the back and the dogs in the kennel. And then, without even telling Slade, I left.

  Chapter 12

  The next day, I got up early for my run. It had been several days since I had gone for my usual run, and I was already feeling rusty. As my feet pounded the pavement, my lungs were burning and my ankles were on fire. I was pushing myself faster than I had ever pushed myself, and it felt amazing. This is the healthy kind of pain. What Slade represents is the unhealthy kind.

  I had no idea if I could continue to resist him, but I had to. I had to; at least until I was able to get a good handle on whether or not he was good for Jordan’s murder. I knew that Jordan’s widow was coming into the office that day so that Malcolm and everyone could talk to her about what she knew. I hoped that she wouldn’t look at me like I was a total freak when I asked her if I could have an article of Jordan’s clothing. That was the only thing that worked for me anymore, as far as speaking with the dead. It used to be that I couldn’t get their demands out of my head. But, ever since I’d willfully silenced them, talking to these spirits was difficult for me.

  Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to figure out the truth about Jordan, and that would help me make up my mind about Slade. Malcolm was right about there not being a firm rule in California about attorneys having sexual relations with clients. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but be worried that sleeping with Slade would open me up to a malpractice claim, which would, in turn, open me up to an ethics violation.

  One thing was for sure – everything was against my relationship with Slade. Not that I had a relationship with him yet, but, if I ever wanted to pursue it, there were just too many hurdles to get over.

  I ended my run and hopped in the shower. After my shower, I walked the dogs and prepared to take them to their day care. As I was putting them into my SUV, I ran into Donny who was just waking up and putting his surfboard on top of his car.

  “Hey,” he said, seeming surprised to see me. “When did you get back?”

  “Last night. Don’t ask.”

  He smiled. “I won’t, but I have to admit that I’m very curious about last night. What was up with that empty house?”

  “He just bought that house and wanted to show it off. He hadn’t had time to get furniture in there though.”

  “I see.” Donny just stood there in the driveway for a few seconds. “Well, I’ll see you later.”

  “I’ll be home for dinner.”

  “I work. But we’ll catch up with each other soon.”

  At that, I drove off to drop the dogs off at the day care and then onto work.

  I got into work, and Jordan’s widow was already there. I saw her in the conference room, talking to Malcolm and some other lawyers. She was a slight blonde woman, attractive and casually dressed. I knew that she was a scientist, a researcher at the University of California-San Diego, after having gotten her PhD in molecular engineering from Stanford. Presumably, Stanford was where she had met Jordan.

  I went to my office and sat down at my desk. I reviewed the files of some of the cases I was working on for the firm, prioritizing all of them. At the moment, I was merely doing the work up for these files, as I couldn’t appear in court for any of them until I passed the bar. That exam was going to be in June, another month away.

  I was reviewing the file of a mobster who was accused of arson when the meeting with Jordan’s widow, Jane, was over. Jane tentatively knocked on my open door. “Serena,” she said. “Malcolm told me to stop by your office. He said that you wanted to see me.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said as I stood up. I gestured to the chair in front of my desk. “Please have a seat. Can I get you some water? Our firm makes amazing strawberry water.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “I drank so much water in that meeting with the partners that I’m surprised I’m not floating away, as my mother would say. But thank you.”

  I nodded. I felt awkward, as I had no idea how I was going to ask Jane about what I needed.

  “Um, Serena,” Jane said. “I see your face. Malcolm explained it to me and I know why you want to talk to me and it’s okay. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily believe in psychic powers. I’m a scientist. I only believe what can be proved. But, at the same time, I don’t know how it could possibly hurt, either. If there’s even a tiny chance that giving you an article of Jordan’s clothing can help your firm crack the case, then I’m all for it.”

  I felt relieved. “You mean you don’t think that I’m a freak?”

  She smiled. “No. Listen, I think that anything is possible. And I know that your firm is going to need all the help it can get to solve Jordan’s murder. God knows that the police aren’t helping out with it. They have their man, Slade. They’re dying to put him behind bars because it will make their force seem so important.” She rolled her eyes. “God forbid they might actually do some work on the case.”

  “It doesn’t help that Slade is so prominent,” I said. “And that the tabloids and press have been all over this case from the start. That will make the police look even better if Slade is convicted, but it certainly won’t help us get to the truth.”

  “No, indeed it won’t.”

  “Now, I can’t guarantee that I will get to the truth either, even if I am somehow able to communicate with Jordan. But, with any luck, I might be able to at least get a lead.”

  She smiled. “Feel free to come to my house this evening. I’ll be home after 6. You can select any article of clothing you wish, although I don’t know if I have anything that he has worn that I haven’t washed.”

  “That’s okay if his clothes have been washed. The energy remains, no matter what.” I paused and placed my hand over hers. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I want you to know that. I can’t imagine what you must be going through.”

  She bowed her head and wiped away a tear. “It’s been difficult. I mean, Jordan had his problems, that was for sure, and he wasn’t willing to deal with them. I know about mental illness, and it was frustrating for me to see that he wasn’t willing to tackle his. But he didn’t deserve what happened to him. Nobody deserves som
ething like that.”

  I nodded my head. “If there is anything that I can do….”

  “Just help your firm find his killer. That’s all that I ask.”

  I took a deep breath and sat back in my chair. “You’re sure that Slade didn’t do it?”

  “No. I’m not sure about anything. He certainly could have done it. Just because he’s unusually handsome and wealthy doesn’t mean that he’s not capable of something like this. But I don’t like that the police aren’t even trying to find somebody else. I know this case, and I know that they have nothing on Slade except for the fact that he was at the scene when the cops got there, and that he had motive as well as access to the lab, where nobody else did, except Jordan. The fact that a significant portion of the surveillance recording is missing doesn’t help his case either.”

  “When you put it that way, it does look bad for our client.”

  She nodded her head. “But as a scientist, I know better than to trust my first instinct. There are always multiple explanations for any one thing, and it frustrates me that the police aren’t even trying to make other inquiries.”

  I looked out of the window. “Well, they don’t know what direction to go in. It’s not even just a case of finding a needle in a haystack; it’s that there is nothing to go on at all.”

  “Well, hopefully that will change, if you can communicate with my husband. Hopefully, you can manage to get something from him, and then your firm can go in another direction in finding out who really did this.”

  “Yeah, but will the police go in another direction as well? They aren’t exactly keen on believing psychics most of the time.”

  “There’s the rub, but I guess you will cross that bridge when you come to it.”

  I smiled. Jane was certainly a level-headed, nice woman. She was so eager to help, and I appreciated that immensely.

  We said our goodbyes, and I arranged to see her at 6 that evening at her house.

  In the meantime, I had to work up a mafia case. We were defending Santino Bianchi, who was the high up in one of the most powerful families in the Southern California area. He had been accused of setting fire to a rival family’s place of business, which was a deli in one of the poor areas of town. The deli was a front, of course, for the illicit business, so Santino did that neighborhood a huge favor. But that wasn’t a defense, of course. What complicated matters further was that Santino was good for the arson and a whole host of other crimes. Our firm was attempting to get him to turn state’s evidence against the people above him, but, thus far, he wasn’t willing to do that.

  It was my job to see him and try to talk to him about the value of turning evidence against his boss. Of course, there was an offer on the table where he could go into the witness protection program for the duration of his life but Santino wasn’t much for that offer, for a variety of reasons.

  I called him at his restaurant, where he spent most of his time.

  “Santino’s, can I help you?”

  “Yes, could I please speak with Mr. Bianchi?”

  “Hold please.”

  I looked at the clock, realizing that it was 10 AM, therefore, I wasn’t catching him during the lunch rush and hopefully he would be able to talk.

  A gruff voice was next on the phone. “Santino Bianchi, what can I do for you?”

  “Santino, this is Serena Roberts. I’m one of the lawyers working on your case.”

  “Oh, yeah, yeah. You convince that persecutor to drop those charges yet?”

  In spite of everything, I smiled when he referenced the “persecutor.” I wasn’t at all sure if that was a Freudian slip, or if Santino was trying to be funny. Perhaps he didn’t know the difference between the word “prosecutor” and the word “persecutor.” I found it funny, though, because that was what defense attorneys often called prosecutors. “No, of course not. I do need to see you about their latest offer, though.”

  “Not interested. I’ll take this fucking thing to trial. Fuck them if they think that I’m going to risk my life by rolling on Joey or anybody else.”

  “Joey” was Joseph Bianchi, who was the head of that family.

  “Mr. Bianchi, we’re working very hard on getting a better offer, but, right now, the prosecutor’s office knows that you’re good for this arson, and they have you dead to right. We have no leverage here.”

  “Don’t call me again until you have good news.” At that, he hung up the phone.

  I sighed and put my head on the desk. Sometimes I questioned the wisdom of getting into criminal defense. It was a thankless job, and, unfortunately, with the federal cases, there was very little leeway for our clients. The feds didn’t mess around, that was for sure, and they didn’t tend to file charges unless they were very, very sure that they would stick. Santino’s case was no different. The feds had done their due diligence on this case, and all the evidence clearly showed that Santino was guilty of this arson. They had DNA evidence at the scene, as well as wire-tapping evidence where Santino verbally admitted to the arson to somebody in his organization. The ‘piece de resistance’ was a grainy cell phone video that somebody had recorded of the incident. The video unfortunately clearly showed Santino throwing a Molotov cocktail at the building and then running away.

  With all that evidence, Santino was lucky that he wasn’t facing life in prison. Yet he expected that the prosecutors were just going to drop the charges. Not going to happen.

  Malcolm came into my office. “What are you working on?”

  “The Bianchi case. I’ve been reviewing his file, and I gave him a call. He’s still not willing to sing, though.”

  Malcolm shrugged, “Can’t say that I blame him. We all know what happens to mafia rats, even when they’re put into the witness protection program.” He paused. “The grand jury returned an indictment against Slade,” he said. “That was expected of course, but it does make things more serious.”

  I nodded. “Am I allowed to watch news coverage of this case now? After all, I don’t think that my empathic powers are going to work for him anyhow, so I don’t think that news programs prejudicing me are going to be a problem anymore.”

  “Sure, go ahead, but, fair warning, the news coverage hasn’t been pretty. And it’s only going to get worse now that the grand jury has returned an indictment. Of course, the old joke about indicting a ham sandwich still holds true for the most part, but that doesn’t make our jobs any easier.”

  I knew that Malcolm was right, having been privy to grand jury proceedings. The district attorneys simply had too much sway over grand juries, and this case, especially, was going to end up with an indictment. It was too bad these proceedings were so secretive, because I would have liked to have been there to witness what kind of evidence the prosecutor’s office had against Slade.

  I felt nauseated, because, like it or not, I couldn’t get Slade out of my mind. He was now formally charged with murder, as the indictment represented the formal prosecution charging document, and yet I couldn’t get his touch out of my head.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  “Well,” Malcolm said, “I just wanted to let you know about Slade’s indictment. Carry on.”

  For the rest of the day, I did client intake interviews, legal research, and worked on three appellate briefs. I was able, for the most part, to put Slade out of my head. But I had to admit that I was depressed that he didn’t try to contact me all day. After all, I had left his house without a word after he told me that he had bought that house for me. Apparently, he didn’t even care enough to find out what had happened to me.

  Egads, Serena, you’re going to be that girl? I hated obsessing over men, who were still inscrutable to me, psychic powers or no psychic powers. I realized that I was playing a game, really, because I wanted to be with Slade more than anything, yet I was pretending that I couldn’t care less about him. And this game was backfiring, because he didn’t call me when I had hoped that he would, and I was afraid that he might not ever call me. He might ha
ve been so insulted by my reaction to his generous gift that he might have given up on me.

  I wanted to be with him, despite the real chance that he might have committed a brutal murder.

  I packed up my things and looked at my watch. The clock read 5:15 PM, and I had to be at Jane’s home in La Jolla in forty-five minutes, which was going to be tricky with rush-hour traffic. The traffic wasn’t nearly as heavy in San Diego as it was in Los Angeles, but it was heavy enough. So, I headed down the elevator and out the door.

  I called the doggy day care and explained that I wasn’t going be able to get Bella and Gigi until later, and they were extremely accommodating. I was grateful for that.

  Just before six, I arrived at Jane’s home. It was tudor-style, with the pitched roofs and dark trim over white siding. It was surrounded by mature palm trees and was within walking distance from the beach.

  I approached the door, and Jane opened it before I even got the chance to knock or ring the doorbell. “Come in, come in,” she said, leading me into the foyer. On the right of the foyer there was a narrow stairway, and on the left, there was a small sitting room with a grand piano, a flat-screen television and a small couch. “Here are some of Jordan’s clothes,” she said, giving me a garbage sack full of clothing. “I was going to take them to the Goodwill, but I’m really happy that you’re going to use them to good effect. At least I hope that you will use them to good effect.”

  “Me too,” I said. I had to admit, though, that I was feeling extremely nervous about doing this. Perhaps it wouldn’t open up the floodgates again, but perhaps it would. I thought about all the torment that I had gone through before, with the spirits never quite leaving me alone, and I shuddered.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked me, as she opened up her back screen door and let a golden retriever into the house. The dog came up to me sniffing and wagging her tail.