DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (35 page)

Daniel shook his head.
 
“No.”

“No?
 
But I didn’t do anything!”

“I told you I know that, Nikki.”

“Then you need to call somebody.”

“I called somebody.”

“Then call somebody else.”

“I called everybody, Nikki.
 
I called the police chief, the commissioner,
the mayor.
 
Everybody.
 
I called everybody.”

“But why can’t they do anything?”

“Because it’s drugs.
 
Because heroin was found at your home.”

Nikki stared at Daniel, as if the reality was
just beginning to sink in.
 
“What are you
saying?
 
I could go to prison?
 
You’re saying I could go to prison?”

“I’m saying we are going to have to let the
process play itself out.
 
We’re going to
have to get you an attorney.”

“But you’re an attorney.”

“I’ll oversee your defense, but for the
record we’ll need somebody on board.”

“But for what?”

“For the trial, Nikki, you know what
for.
 
For the preliminary hearing where
we’ll try to get these charges tossed.”

Nikki once again stared at Daniel, and it was
a steely, hard, frightful stare.
 
“How
long could I get?” she asked him.

“It depends on a lot of factors, honey.”

“How long?
 
Give me the maximum.”

“Hopefully at the preliminary hearing. . .”

“Daniel.
 
Please.
 
Give me the maximum.”

Daniel paused.
 
“If the charges end up being possession with
intent, that is, if a jury decides that you not only had a stash of heroin for
your own purposes, but you had it with the intent to sell it, then. . .
 
Then we’re talking about ten to twenty years,
honey.”

If Nikki was a balloon, she would have
deflated.
 
Life itself seemed to seep out
of her.
 
Daniel reached out to touch her,
to comfort her, but she moved away and stood up.
 
She then walked toward her bedroom door.
 

“Thank-you for everything, Daniel” she
said.
 
“But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Nikki, don’t do this.”

“Good night, Daniel.”

Daniel looked up at the ceiling.
 
It was tough enough.
 
Yet Nikki was ready to shut him out once
again and make it tougher.
 

He got out of her bed and walked to her.
 
She stood there defiantly, her leg shaking,
her arms folded, as if Daniel’s inability to correct this monumental wrong made
everything that was happening to her his fault.
 
And even when he moved to kiss her on her lips, to kiss the woman he
hadn’t kissed in days, she turned her face away.
 
He couldn’t be her hero, so he was her enemy
now.
 
It was
his
fault.
 
His
burden.
 
Another nail in
his
coffin.

Melanie was startled when she opened the door
of her apartment and saw Luke standing there.
 
He had a newspaper in his hand and a look of chilling horror on his
face.

“I can’t talk right now, Luke,” she said as
she tried to move forward, but he pushed her back into her apartment and
slammed the door.

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Melanie?!”

“Now you hold on there.”

He threw the newspaper toward her.
 
She caught it.
 
“Did you see the headline?
 
Daniel Crane’s girlfriend arrested on drug
trafficking charges
.
 
Drug
trafficking charges?
 
And guess what drug
it was?”

Melanie, reading the headline herself,
smiled.
 
“Heroin of course.”

“Yes.
 
And I wonder where that came from?”

“Sit down, Luke.”

“What could you possibly be thinking?
 
Drug trafficking, Melanie?
 
How could you do that to Nikki?”

“I will tell you everything as soon as you
sit down.
 
Now sit down and calm down.”

Luke looked at Melanie, at the way she seemed
to revel in his outrage, but he had to know what in the world she could have
been thinking.
 
He sat down.

“Okay,” Melanie said, sitting her briefcase
on the table, and sitting down too.
 
“Daniel and Nikki have been apart for weeks now.
 
Yet Nikki will have nothing to do with you,
and Daniel . . . dismissed me.”

Luke was floored.
 
“What?”

“He let me go.
 
He fired me.
 
But don’t worry, it makes it harder, but it’s all still doable.”

“What’s still doable?
 
You don’t even work for him anymore!”

“Just hear me out.
 
So they still have their issues, but they
still won’t give anybody else a chance.
 
So I asked myself why.
 
And that’s
when it came to me.”

“What came to you?”

“We miscalculated, Luke.
 
It wasn’t Nikki.
 
It was Daniel.
 
It wasn’t Nikki.”

Luke hesitated, as if trying to figure out
what Melanie had just said.
 
Then he
shook his head.
 
“I don’t know what the
hell you’re talking about, lady.
 
What
wasn’t Nikki?”

“We thought Nikki was the one so in love with
Daniel that we had to change the image of Daniel in Nikki’s eyes.
 
We had to knock that halo off of his head,
remember?
 
Well we did that.
 
Those nude photos did it.
 
The phone call.
 
My mere association with him.
 
They’ve been separated for weeks now.
 
It worked.”

Then she shook her head.
 
“But it didn’t work too because Nikki wasn’t
the problem.
 
Daniel was.
 
He was the one who couldn’t get over
Nikki.
 
He was the one who had this
puritanical image of Nikki that couldn’t be shaken.
 
Yeah, we did part of our job.
 
He ain’t shit in her eyes.
 
But she’s still diamonds in his.
 
Until now.”

But Luke wasn’t following her.
 
“This is crazy,” he said.
 
“You ruined Nikki’s life, you put her in
danger of many years in prison, so you could fuck Daniel Crane?”

“Not fuck him, no.
 
Fuck over him?
 
Yes.
 
Oh, yes.”

“But she could go to prison, Mel!”

“Oh, come on!
 
Even if she’s convicted she won’t do any time.
 
She’ll get probation perhaps, but no jail
time.
 
She’s never been in trouble a day
in her life.
 
But it’ll be perfect for
us, don’t you understand that?
 
Daniel
Crane is ambitious if he’s anything.
 
He
will not sacrifice his career or his good name for anybody.
 
I suspect he’ll hang in there with her
initially.
 
He’ll have no choice.
 
She’ll be depending on him.
 
But then his ambition, and the fact that he
views himself as this great moral man, will take over.
 
He won’t be associated with somebody involved
in drugs, I assure you.
 
Not for long he
won’t.”

“But what difference does his reputation make
now?
 
He dumped you.
 
He fired you.
 
You can’t get to him anymore.”

“I had to rethink my plan, that’s
correct.
 
I needed him to make love to
me, I needed his DNA.”

“His DNA?
 
Why?”
 
Then Luke realized
why.
 
“So you could cry rape and have the
evidence?”

“Yes!” Melanie said without shame.
 
“Yes!”

“But why?
 
What did Crane ever do to you?”

“That’s my business,” she said.
 
“Just know that I recalibrated.
 
And now it’s still a good plan.
 
You saw those headlines this morning.
 
It didn’t say Nikki Graham arrested.
 
It said Daniel Crane’s girlfriend
arrested!
 
Daniel Crane was the
headline!”

“So?”

“So, Luke, Daniel Crane also happens to be up
for the top job at Dreeson, remember?
 
How much you want to bet that not only will he lose that top spot, but
he just might lose his job altogether.”

“Damn,” Luke said.
 
What a
witch
, he thought.
 
“That sounds
great, Melanie,” he said.
 
“It sounds
great for you and your revenge factor.
 
But excuse me if I don’t see how this is such a perfect plan for me.”

“That’s because you’re not thinking outside
the box, Luke.”

“Don’t give me that bullcrap!
 
What box am I supposed to be thinking outside
of?”

“She’s dirty now.
 
Don’t you get it, Luke?
 
You didn’t stand a chance with her because
she didn’t feel you were on her level.
 
Oh yeah, she talked the street talk and tried to walk it too, but why
would she be with a man like Daniel?
 
A
man with background and breeding if nothing else?
 
Because that’s how she sees herself.
 
She shuns high society, but she courts it as
well.
 
And you, my friend, didn’t make
the grade.
 
She didn’t see you as being
on her level.
 
Now she’s on your
level.
 
She’s a little dirty now.
 
She’s been arrested.
 
She’s been to jail.
 
And even if she gets off scot-free, what man
of background and breeding is going to want her?
 
Let’s, as she would say, get real.
 
You, Luke, represents the best of the rest
for her.
 
By my action alone your chances
have increased a hundred-fold, my friend.
 
So before you start accusing me of ruining everything, you’d better live
and learn.
 
I know what I’m doing.
 
I always know what I’m doing.”

Luke leaned back.
 
He was in bed with the devil.
 
He knew it.
 
But he also knew that devil was speaking his language.
 
Nikki never viewed him as her equal, he could
tell that from the first day they talked.
 
He was a little too down to earth for her.
 
 
She
didn’t mind people with rough childhoods, but his might have been too
rough.
 
He was too rough.
 
Nikki was too clean.

Now she suddenly wasn’t clean anymore.
 
But had a little of life’s slush on her
too.
 
He knew Melanie was right.
 
And he also knew he had to have Nikki.
 
He tried to get her legitimately, he tried to
woo her with his charm and personality.
 
But it didn’t work.
 
But Melanie,
in one bold stroke, changed the entire dynamic.
 
Now Luke did stand a chance.
 
And
he decided, right then and there, to take that chance.
 
He had to have Nikki.
 
That’s all he knew. And nobody else was
offering up any other way to get her.

Daniel spent his morning at home, calling
lawyers and private investigators, and talking with the chief of police about
the details of just what kind of case they had.
 
By the time he was showered and dressed and pulling into the driveway of
Nikki’s townhouse, it was late afternoon.
 
And Nikki was still in bed.

She didn’t even move.
 
She just laid there, staring up at Daniel,
seeming to listen passively as he told her that he just hired one of the best
criminal defense attorneys in the country for her, and that he was flying in
today, and that a battery of private investigators were also on the case.
 
Nikki listened, but she didn’t appear at all
fazed.
 
Daniel tried to smile, to help
lift her spirits, but she just laid there, staring at him, as if unable to be
moved.
 

Daniel didn’t go into work at all that
day.
 
He thought he would, he needed to,
but he couldn’t.
 
Nikki was like a zombie
going through the motions of life.
 
He
told her she needed to get out of that bed, she got out of bed.
 
But then she just stood there.
 
She showered because he said she should, she
ate because he cooked her a meal, she sat out on the patio with him because he
asked her to.
 

Daniel was devastated.
 
He smoked a real, non-electronic cigarette,
and sipped wine and stared at Nikki as they sat together.
 
She sat on the patio like some sick old lady
in a nursing home.
 
Given up and left to
die.
 
In one night, one terrible night,
something had happened to Nikki that Daniel never thought possible.
 
She lost her passion.
 
She had lost her will to fight, a will that
he had admired so deeply.
 
He crossed his
legs and doused his cigarette.
 
“Nikki,
don’t do this,” he finally said to her.
 
She looked at him.