Temptations - The Complete Series Read online

  Cindy, the girl whose thoughts I had read earlier, raised her hand. “I think that it’s time that we go over his preliminary defense,” she said.

  “We need to get his whole story,” Malcolm said, “Which is where Serena comes in.”

  Cindy gave me the stink-eye to end all stink-eyes. “Serena?” she protested. “I was hoping that I could do the initial interview with the client.”

  I tried to shake off the dark vibrations that she was shooting into me, but it was very difficult. This bitch was throwing me signals, left and right, and I took a deep breath and tried to clear out her negative energy. I was getting better at doing so than I was before, which was why I was, generally, in a calmer head space than when I was growing up and was tormented by the dark energy of others, not to mention the energy, both light and dark, of spirits who were constantly trying to use me as a medium against my will.

  Malcolm raised his eyebrows. “Serena will conduct the interview,” he said. “And Serena, I know that this is going to be an odd request, but please go into that interview blind. I don’t want you to know too much about this guy before you talk to him, so do not do any independent research on him. I need your intuition for this, only your intuition, and if you go into the interview with any preconceived notions, it might interfere.”

  I nodded my head. It had all become clear. Malcolm was one of the few people in the firm who believed in my gifts. He evidently thought that I would be able to get at the truth of this matter, which was going to be crucial. This Slade looked like he would be a glib liar, because he just had that type of demeanor and charm. It was naturally important to know the truth, and I could read Malcolm’s energy, which told me that he thought that I would be able to get at this important truth.

  I took a deep breath, hoping against hope that Slade was able to be read. I sometimes had problems with people who were blocked off from their own feelings, as I had been for so many years. If this Slade had any kind of a defense mechanism surrounding his aura, I didn’t think that I would be able to achieve what Malcolm was obviously wanting me to.

  Of course, if he were a sociopath, I also wouldn’t be able to get a read on the guy. A sociopath, a true sociopath, would be one who was not at all in touch with his or her feelings, namely because they didn’t have true ones. No feelings, no emotions…just void. I had met more than one person like that in my life, and they creeped me out way more than the ones who were exuding negativity. At least with the really negative people I knew where I stood, and I had learned to deflect their energy. With a sociopath….I shivered just thinking about it.

  I stood up, prepared to protest my selection in this matter. “Malcolm, I thank you highly for your vote of confidence. I really do. But I’m the most junior member of this firm. I think that there are much more qualified people than me to handle a case of this magnitude. But I’m very, uh, flattered that you would think of me first.”

  Truth be told, I didn’t want to be the one who would interview this guy, because I didn’t want to be the one who would find that he was guilty. I knew that my law firm needed to know that, because it would direct how the defense would proceed. But I wanted to be far, far away from this case. If I went to meet with this guy, and every hair on my body would tell me that he was guilty, then how could I possibly feel safe? I knew that I was going to have to meet with him alone, too, because if there was anybody else in the room, I might not be able to get a good read on him. I got a good read on Cindy with others in the room, but that was only because she was terrible at covering up her feelings. I had the insight that Slade would not be the same, so I was going to have to really concentrate.

  Cindy smiled. “Okay, Serena has declined. I would like to be the one who will conduct the interview.”

  I shook my head. I knew why Cindy was so chomping at the bit – she was anxious to meet with a man as handsome as Slade. I knew that she was shallow, but I had no idea….But I could see it in her eyes. She looked like she wanted to bed our client right there in the conference room, and she probably would if she got the chance.

  “Serena will conduct the interview,” Malcolm said, obviously not brooking dissent. “And then, once she gathers the information, we will begin preparing our defense in this case.” At that, he signaled that the discussion of Slade Bridgewell’s defense had come to an end. “Until Serena has conducted the interview, it is pointless to belabor this case,” he said. “So, I would like to discuss other matters on our agenda.” Then he looked at me. “Serena, you may wait for me in your office. We’ll go over the specifics of where you are going to meet with Mr. Bridgewell and when.”

  I nodded my head and headed to my office and sat down behind my desk. I had piles and piles of research projects as well as files for other clients who I was going to have to interview, none of which were nearly as important as Slade’s case. Our firm did a mix of white collar and lower-level crime, as well as quite a few mob cases. I didn’t relish meeting with the mob clients, but, at the same time, I usually got along with the wise guys, so it wasn’t such a bad thing. We also took on quite a few high profile cases, sometimes pro bono if the defendant was particularly notorious and broke. Malcolm was nothing if not an opportunist, so, any time he could get his firm into the news, he took it, even if the case brought in no money at all. He figured that such cases pay off in spades in terms of the firm’s visibility, and he was right, of course. His machinations had put his firm on the map.

  I could just imagine how giddy Malcolm was when Slade decided to retain our firm. That was the get to end all gets. This case was shaping up to be one of the biggest murder cases since Casey Anthony, as far as media attention was going. There was even talk that it might blow up into OJ levels, although that speculation was far-fetched. The media circus over OJ was something that couldn’t be duplicated, but this case might give it a run for its money.

  After about an hour of looking over files, trying to prioritize them, and doing online research on case law regarding various legal points, Malcolm peeked his head in my office. “Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you about the Slade Bridgewell case.”

  I nodded my head and gestured to my chair, and Malcolm sat down. “I’m not going to beat around the bush,” he said to me. “I’m sure that you figured out why I have chosen you to do the initial interview with Mr. Bridgewell.”

  “Of course,” I said. “You need my particular area of expertise.”

  “Yes,” he said, and I suddenly got the feeling that there was something more to the story. I couldn’t quite pinpoint it, though. There was something that felt just a tiny bit off about Malcolm as he sat across from me.

  But, whatever it was, he wasn’t going to divulge it just yet. “I believe in your intuition, of course, and I always have. I think that you’re uniquely qualified to find out exactly what we’re dealing with regarding Mr. Bridgewell, and then, after you deliver your report, we will know how we’re going to proceed.”

  “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Listen, Malcolm, I hope that you know that my intuition isn’t perfect by any means. True, I do have insight that others don’t, but there are plenty of people who slip in under my radar. I just want to manage your expectations on how much good I’m going to be able to do.”

  “Nevertheless, I expect a full report next Monday morning. You have a week, Serena, to get to know this guy. Find out everything that you can. What makes him tick. How he thinks. How many negative vibes you get off of him, and why. I know that you can do this, better than anybody else in this firm.”

  “Okay,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “When is he coming to meet with us?”

  “You’re going to him,” he said. “I need for you to meet him at his home in LA, and I need for you to stay there for a week.”

  Chapter 2

  I groaned inwardly. “A week. You want me to stay a week with a man I don’t know? I have a life, you know. I’m trying to find a permanent place to live, so I need to close on a house soon.” I looked over
my real estate listings, houses that I was going to visit that week, and felt enraged. “You can’t just upend me like this.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “You don’t have any children,” he said. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

  “I was also looking to get a dog,” I said, which was true. As soon as I closed on a house, I desperately wanted a French bulldog to keep me company. Actually, I wanted two French bulldogs, litter mates, because I firmly believed that dogs were only happy if they had company during the day.

  “Do you currently have a dog?” Malcolm asked me pointedly.

  “No,” I said. “But I have my eye on some dogs that I found out about through a rescue agency, just as I have my eye on a house in Solana Beach that probably won’t be on the market in a week. The owner is motivated to unload it for a song, and it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” The house that I was looking at was a fixer-upper, as much of a fixer-upper a home in Solana Beach could be, which was why it was so undervalued. I had some experience with fixing up older homes, and I had hoped to take on this home as a project. I always had to have a project to keep my mind off of the obsessive thoughts about my past and about the incident I was trying desperately to forget, the incident that happened right before my mother’s murder.

  Hell, I also needed to keep my mind off of my mother’s murder. I was still having a hard time forgiving myself for how foolish I acted when that happened. I was grieving as much as anybody else in my family, but I also was on the verge of a breakdown when it happened. A breakdown that was caused by my rape, and subsequent pregnancy, at the hands of a wealthy tool who was the most popular guy in my high school. That happened, and then my mother was murdered a few days later, and these two incidents spun me into a deep depression that almost took my life. Nobody knew that in my family, of course, because I had just split and totally abandoned them.

  So, I had guilt, on top of everything else, to deal with. I was just learning how to channel my grief, rage, and guilty feelings into productive and positive things – things like running, learning to fix old homes, and….other things that I wasn’t necessarily proud of. Things I was trying to run away from, like an addiction. I had never been into drugs or gambling or any of that, but I did things that were destructive. Destructive to my psyche and destructive physically. And I could already see that my routine was going to be upended by this Slade guy.

  I tamped down the rising panic that was forming in my throat. I could see on Malcolm’s face that he wasn’t going to let me out of this, but I had to try. “Listen, Malcolm, I really just can’t leave town on a dime.” I didn’t want to tell him why – that I was terrified that, if I got out of my perfectly designed routine, I would backslide into the way that I was. And going to stay at the Los Angeles house of a billionaire who was accused of murder would certainly qualify as breaking my routine.

  “I don’t understand, Serena,” he said. “Please help me to understand why you can’t do this.”

  I looked down at my wrists, where the scars had finally faded. The scars on my arms weren’t quite as old as the ones on my wrists, nor were the scars on my legs. Fortunately, my pant suit effectively covered all that up. I shivered as I remembered how I got these marks on me. I hadn’t been brave enough to do all of that to myself, so I frequented an underground club in New York City, where the people, men and women, were more than happy to do these things to me.

  I had left all that behind when I came out west to San Diego. That’s why my life was so structured - running at 5 AM, get to work by 8, home by 6. Hang out with either Michael or Donny - it depended on who was home in the evening - watch some television, go to bed. My life in New York City wasn’t like that – it was crazy and chaotic, and the craziness and the chaos led to my never being able to fully heal myself.

  I was finally finding my center, and now Malcolm was asking me to uproot this.

  I took a deep breath, and found that there was no way that I could tell him the truth. He would freak out completely. He probably would never trust me with a major case, that was for sure. “I just think that you need to send a seasoned investigator to talk to Mr. Bridgewell,” I finally said. “And, besides, I need to study for the Bar Exam. It’s coming up in another month.”

  He shook his head. “You got this. You passed New York, which is just as hard as the one here. And you did quite well on it, too.”

  “Even so, I don’t feel confident,” I said, which was a lie. I felt more than confident that I could ace the exam. Malcolm was correct – I passed the New York Bar with flying colors, and I barely had to study to accomplish this feat. I had no doubt that I would do the same with the California Bar. But I didn’t want Malcolm to know this. I needed him to believe that I had to stay around to study, not go gallivanting up to Los Angeles to stay with this Slade Bridgewell.

  “I’ve heard nothing from you yet that will change my mind,” he said. “You’re going to Los Angeles, you’re going to interview Mr. Bridgewell, and that’s that.” Then his face softened. “I understand your reluctance. I really do. But, Serena, you have a gift. You might or might not be able to get a good read on this guy. If you don’t, you don’t. But I need your insight. The last thing that I want is to defend this bastard, only to find out that he’s guilty as hell.”

  I cocked my head. “What does that matter? We defend guilty as hell people all the time. That’s what we do.”

  “Even so,” he said, “I need to know. I usually don’t, but, in this case, I do. I don’t want to be a laughing stock like OJ’s Dream Team was after they got him acquitted.”

  “They weren’t laughing stocks,” I said. “They were admired and revered. They did the impossible, getting off a guy who was guilty as the day is long.”

  Malcolm stared out the window. “It just wouldn’t be good for the firm’s reputation. Ordinarily, you’re right. I couldn’t care shit less if the client was guilty or innocent. But this case is too big, Serena. If we get him acquitted and then he goes and does it again…” He shook his head. “There would be hell to pay.”

  I suddenly understood. “Your fancy friends might not invite you to so many parties if that happened, would they?” I shook my head. I had no idea that Malcolm was so concerned about his image and his social standing, but he apparently was.

  He looked embarrassed. “I don’t care about all that, but my wife does. She’s trying to be a doyenne.”

  I nodded my head. “Good reason,” I said sarcastically. I was going to fall on my sword so that his wife could save face at the Country Club. I shook my head.

  It looked like I was going to be going to Los Angeles to meet with this asshat Slade, no matter how much I protested. I could always quit, but this was a very prestigious firm and they handled a multitude of complex and interesting cases. The cases were interesting enough that I might, just might, be able to continue to try to forget about my inner wounds by concentrating on them. Besides, I had to admit that I was intrigued by this Slade case, and I really did want to be a part of it.

  I wanted to be a part of it, not be in the middle of it.

  But it was beginning to look as if in the middle of the Slade case was where I was destined to be.

  I hadn’t met the guy, but I already despised him.

  Chapter 3

  I packed up the Beemer and prepared to meet with Mr. Bridgewell, but I first had to do something for me. In a small act of rebellion, I called the French Bulldog rescue and arranged to meet the two Frenchie sisters who were rescued from a dilapidated home that was serving as a puppy mill. As I was telling Malcolm, I had my eye on these dogs, and I felt like I couldn’t wait to get them. Donny and Michael were going to kill me, no doubt, when I brought them home, but I would burn that bridge when I came to it.

  I had to admit that there was a large part of me that wanted to piss Mr. Bridgewell off. He was just sooooo special that he couldn’t be bothered to come to the law firm like a normal person. No, I had to kiss the ring, and I resented it thoroughly. If
he had been a normal guy, my life wouldn’t have been uprooted. I would be talking to him at the firm, perhaps over dinner, and my comfortable, safe existence could continue on. But no…he was an entitled jackass, and I had to go to him.

  If I had to go to him, then I was going to put him out just a little by springing these two doggies on him. So, I went to the house of the lady who was fostering the two little dogs, Bella and Gigi. She lived in an elaborate beach house in La Jolla, which was an upscale beach community. I often went to the La Jolla Cove to watch the sea lions, who fascinated me to no end. The animals were not afraid of humans in the least, and they would sun on the rocks and let people take their picture all day long. I often got close to the sea lions, but, one time, one of the sea lions literally barked a warning at me, and I backed off.

  If I would have thought that I was bothering the animals, of course, I would never get close to them. I always felt animal suffering in my bones, even more than the suffering of humans, so I never would distress an animal in any way. But these guys more than held their own against the onslaught of fascinated people, and they genuinely didn’t seem to mind the attention. So I often found myself going to see them and hang out with them. That’s when I knew how desperate I was for a pet of my own, which led me to the Frenchie rescue and Bella and Gigi.

  My plan was to get the two dogs, head down to the shores to see my sea lion buddies, and then head up the Five towards LA. I would get to this Slade jackass’ house around 10 PM that night, and I hoped that I would be inconveniencing him in some way. I would be mightily disappointed if I showed up there and he was just waiting for me. I wanted to catch him in some compromising position or with a guest or, better yet, trying to sleep. Then I would ring the doorbell and piss him off, which would delight me to no end.