13.
Sara and I spent the next three hours sorting through files and since Sara was a little on the grumpy side, I did what any rational person would do under similar circumstances. I ordered Chinese. When it arrived she perked up a little. Some people needed alcohol to loosen up, apparently Sara needed fried wontons.
We ate at her desk. Or, rather, I pretended to eat at her desk. We ate mostly in silence.
Interestingly, according to the pictures on Sara's desk, she seemed to know how to let loose just fine. There were pictures of her in a bikini on some tropical isle, of her hiking along a heavily forested mountain trail, of her viciously spiking a volleyball, of her dressed as a pirate in an office Halloween party, complete with massive gold hoops, eye patch and mustache. In the background was Kingsley dressed as a werewolf. I almost laughed.
"You played volleyball?" I asked.
"Yes, at Pepperdine. I tried out for the Olympics."
"What happened?"
"Almost made the team. Maybe next time."
"Maybe next time," I said. "Is Kingsley a good boss?"
She shrugged. "He's kind enough. Gives big bonuses."
"What more could you want?" I asked cheerily.
She shrugged and turned her attention to her food. I tried another approach. "Do you like your job?"
She shrugged again and I decided to let my attempt at idle conversation drop. Maybe she needed more fried wontons.
While we ate, we worked from a long list of all of Kingsley's closed files from the past six years. Seven hundred and seventy-six in all. Kingsley was a busy boy. From these files, I removed all those Kingsley had personally litigated. Now we were down to three hundred and fifty-three. Still too many to work with. From those, I removed all violent crime; in particular, murder defense cases. Now we were down to twelve files.
I told Sara I would need copies of all twelve files. She promptly rolled her eyes.
While we made copies, Sara decided to open up a little to me. Okay, maybe she hadn't decided so much as gave in to my constant barrage of questions. Anyway, I gleaned that she had come here to Kingsley's firm straight from college. Initially, she had loved working for her boss, but lately not so much.
"Why?" I asked, hoping for more than just a shrug. I had the Chinese restaurant's number in my pocket should I need an emergency order of fried wontons.
Turns out I didn't need the number. Rather heatedly, Sara told me in detail the story of the rapist who had been freed because Kingsley had discovered evidence of tampering at the crime scene. She finished up with: "Yes, Mr. Fulcrum's a good man. But he's a better defense attorney. And that's the problem."
I was sensing much hostility here. We were standing at the copier, working efficiently together, passing folders back and forth to each other as we copied them. Sara was very pretty and very young. Any man's dream, no doubt. She was taller than me and her breasts appeared fake, but in Southern California that's the norm and not the exception. She, herself, did not seem fake. She seemed genuine and troubled, and I suddenly knew why.
"You dated Kingsley," I said.
She looked up, startled. "Why? Did he say something to you?"
"No. Just a hunch."
She passed me another folder. I removed the brackets and flipped through it, looking for papers of unusual sizes, or POUS's, that would jam the copier. As she spoke, she crossed her arms under her large chest and leaned a hip against the copy machine. "Yeah, we dated for a while. So?"
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Ask him. He broke it off."
"Why?"
"You ask a lot of questions," she said.
"It's a compulsion," I said. "I should probably see a shrink about it."
Her eyes brightened a little and she nearly smiled, but then she got a handle on herself and remembered she didn't like me. "He said things were moving too fast for him. That he had lost his wife not too long ago and he wasn't ready for something serious."
"When did his wife die?" I asked.
"A few years ago. I don't know." She shrugged. She didn't know, and she clearly didn't care.
"Are you still angry with him?" I asked.
She shrugged and looked away and clammed up the rest of the night. Yeah, I think she was still angry.
We finished copying all twelve files, many of which were nearly a foot thick. Maybe within one I would find a suspect or a clue or something. At any rate, the files would give me something to do during the wee hours of the night, especially since I had recently finished Danielle Steel's latest novel, Love Bites, about two vampires in love. Cute, and uncannily dead on.
So Sara and I loaded up the files into a box and as I carried the entire thing out to the elevator, the young assistant watched me with open-mouthed admiration. I get that a lot.
"Jesus, you're strong," she said as we stepped into the elevator.
"It's the Pilates," I said. "You should try them."
"I will," she said. "Oh, and I'm supposed to remind you that these files are confidential."
"I'll guard them with my life."
Outside, in the crisp night air, Sara said, "I sure hope you find out who shot Knighty." She caught the indiscretion and turned beat red, her face glowing brightly under the dull parking lot lamps. "I mean, Mr. Fulcrum."
I smiled at her slip. "I do, too."
She thanked me for the Chinese food, seemed to want to tell me something else, thought better of it, then dashed off to her car. I watched her get in and back out and drive away. Just as I shoved the box into the minivan, the fine hairs at the back of my neck sprang to life. I paused and slowly turned my head. My vision is better at night. Not great, but better. I was alone in the parking lot. Check that; there was an old Mercedes parked in a parking lot across the street. A man was sitting there, and he was watching me with binoculars.
I slammed the minivan's door and moved purposely through the parking lot, crossed the sidewalk, stepped down the curb and headed across the street.
He waited a second or two, watching me steadily, then reached down and gunned his vehicle to life. His headlights flared to life, and before I was halfway across the street, he reversed his Mercedes and tore recklessly through the parking lot. As he exited at the far end, turning right onto Parker Avenue and disappearing down a side street, I was certain of two things:
One: he had no plates. Two: those weren't binoculars.
They were night-vision goggles.
14.
With the files in my backseat and thoughts of the night vision goggles on my mind, I called Mary Lou around 10:30 to thank her for watching my kids.
"I'm still watching them," she said sleepily.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Danny never showed up," she said.
"Did he at least call?" I asked.
"No."
I was on the 57 freeway, but instead of getting off at my exit on Yorba Linda Blvd, I continued on to Mary Lou's house two exits down. Yeah, it's nice to have family close by, especially when you have kids.
"I'm so sorry," I said when she opened the door. "I didn't mean to stick you with the kids all night."
"Not your fault. I love them, anyway. Tell me you at least made some headway on your case."
"Some headway," I admitted. I left out the part about Kingsley being a werewolf but did mention the guy in the parking lot.
"Maybe he was just some creep," said Mary Lou, frowning. "I mean you are, after all, a hot piece of ass."
"Always nice to hear from your sister," I said.
"I say don't let it worry you."
"I won't," I said. "I can take of myself."
"I know," she said. "That's what worries me."
With the kids in the backseat sleeping, I called Danny's office. He wasn't there; I left a voice mail message. Next I called his cell phone and he answered just before it went to voice mail. He sounded out of breath. Something was wrong here and warning bells sounded loud and clear in my head. I did my best to ignore them, although I couldn't ignore the fact that I had suddenly gotten sick to my stomach.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Working late," he answered huskily.
"You doing push ups?" I said, trying to smile.
"Just ran up a flight of stairs. Bathroom on this floor isn't working."
"You didn't pick up your work phone."
"You know I never pick up after hours."
"You used to," I said.
"Well, honey, that was before I became so goddamn busy. Can I call you later?"
"Even better, why don't you come home."
"I'll be home soon."
He clicked off and I was left staring down at my cell phone. If it was possible, he seemed to have been breathing even harder by the end of the conversation.
It was past midnight, and I had worked my way through more than half of the twelve files when Danny finally came home. He stopped by the study and gave me a little wave. He looked tired. His dark hair was slightly disheveled. His tie was off. The muted light revealed the deepening lines around his mouth and eyes. His eyes, once clear blue and gorgeous, were hooded and solemn. His full lips were made for kissing, but not me, not anymore. He was a handsome man, and not a very happy one.
"Sorry about not picking up the kids," he said. He didn't sound very sorry. He didn't sound like he gave a shit at all. "I should have called your sister."
"That's okay. I'll make it up to her," I said. There was lipstick on his earlobe. He probably didn't think to check his earlobe.
He said, "I'm taking a shower, then hitting the hay. Another big day tomorrow."
"I bet."
He stood there a moment longer, leaning against the door frame. He seemed to want to say something. Maybe he wanted to tell me about the lipstick.
Then he slid away, but before he was gone, I caught a hint of something in his eyes. Guilt. Pain. Confusion. It was all there. I didn't think I needed any heightened sixth sense to know that my husband of fourteen and a half years had fallen out of love with me. We all change, I suppose. Some of us more than others.
After he was done showering, I listened to the box springs creak as he eased into bed and I set down my pen and silently cried into my hands.