Guilt by Association (7 page)

The sight of the young girl brought me back to Susan’s father. “Old Frank’s a piece of work, though, isn’t he?”

“A real dick,” Bailey agreed. “He’s the type who yells his own name when he comes.”

I shot her a look. “Must you? Now I’ve got that picture in my head.” I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the image of Frank
Densmore in the throes.
Yech.

Bailey shrugged.

She had an inborn gift for the gross-out, but growing up with three older brothers—not to mention working with cops—had raised
her game to Olympic levels.

I deliberately turned off the image of Densmore and considered what bugged me about him. It wasn’t just that he was a control-freak
know-it-all; it was that no matter what was going on, it was all about him—even his daughter’s rape. But, to be fair, I had
seen some genuine concern for her. And if he’d bought his way into Vanderhorn’s inner circle just to get special attention
for his daughter’s case, that was some evidence of real devotion—albeit in a sickening, influence-peddling sort of way. And,
as it turned out, the sort of way that worked.

“You ever notice how rich people’s clinics are called ‘health centers’?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Bailey replied with a smirk.

After a moment, her expression darkened. “Tell you what, Knight. If Luis isn’t our guy, we’d better find something to work
with in Susan’s bedroom, because otherwise this case is looking like
a dead body in a locked room.” Bailey’s tone was sullen as she continued. “By the way, have I thanked you yet for getting
me into this?”

“No, you haven’t. But you’ve always been the ungrateful type,” I replied.

Bailey gave me a sideways look.

“Still, we do know one thing,” I said. “The rapist definitely knew the Densmores. There’s no way anyone who hadn’t been in
that castle would know how to dodge the security patrol and find her bedroom.”

“And do it in the middle of the night,” Bailey added.

It was nearly 8:00
when Bailey pulled up to the Biltmore. I was tired, hungry, and ready for a drink to smooth out the last frayed edges of
my hangover.

“Feel like a short dog?” I asked.

“Maybe several,” she said as she parked in a loading-only zone.

We got out, and I deliberately avoided Rafi’s eyes as we approached the door. The valet was already not a big fan of mine,
since I almost never drove my car. This wasn’t going to make my stock rise any higher with him. Angel, the doorman, saw me
skulking past the valet stand and smirked knowingly as he let us in.

As always the sheer beauty of the hotel lobby struck me afresh: the stained glass set into the soaring dome ceiling, the ornately
cut Lalique chandelier, the plushness of the huge Oriental rugs spread over dark henna-colored marble floors. In the far corner
next to the bar, the soft rain of a waterfall fountain spilling over an Italian-tiled wall lent a soothing grace note to the
opulent ambience. Walking into the lobby always felt like I’d been enfolded in the embrace of a Rubenesque duchess.

To my right stood a group of very blond middle-aged couples beside a mound of luggage bearing Lufthansa stickers. Adorned
in clunky sandals, black socks, and Bermuda shorts—deliberately
snubbing both L.A. winter and fashion—they waited as their leader tried to claim their room reservations in a thick accent
that the clerk was struggling mightily to decipher. I nodded to Tommy, the night manager, who gave me a brief smile and a
wave. As he moved toward the clerk, I heard the group leader’s voice grow louder. Though it never works, everyone tries to
scale the language barrier with volume.

I pulled open the heavy, darkly tinted glass door of the bar and felt the familiar hush created by thick carpets, soft lights,
and rich upholstery. The door closed slowly behind us as we stepped into the cool, quiet darkness. Frank Sinatra sang “Witchcraft”
over the muted tinkle of glasses, and I took in the scene as we moved toward the bar.

A group of four older men in conservative dark suits huddled in one of the forest-green leather booths to the right of the
fireplace. In the middle of the room sat two young bare-legged women in tight, expensive suits, sipping cosmopolitans on one
of the overstuffed sofas—either lawyers or hookers trying to look like lawyers.

My buddy and favorite bartender, Drew Rayford, was drying a manhattan glass as Bailey and I climbed onto the leather stools
at the end of the long, brass-trimmed mahogany bar. We sat beneath a photograph of a famous jockey, the horse’s bridle in
one hand and a winner’s cup in the other.

“Rachel, Bailey,” Drew said, nodding to each of us. I could feel Bailey heat up next to me as she nodded back at Drew. He
looked particularly elegant tonight, in dark slacks and a white shirt and black vest that emphasized a disgustingly narrow
waist. The white collar provided a sharp yet stunning contrast with his black skin, and the single diamond stud he wore in
his left ear glittered as he moved through the soft light emanating from behind the bar. Tall, gorgeous, and smooth as silk,
Drew had too many options when it came to women. Unfortunately for them, his priority was opening
his own upscale bar one day, and he intended for that day to come sooner than later. Socializing was last on his list. As
a result, I had a feeling no woman saw him half as much as I did.

“Ladies?” he asked.

“Glenlivet rocks, water back,” Bailey replied.

“I’ll have a Bloody Mary,” I said.

“I see,” Drew said with a small smile.

A Bloody Mary at night meant only one thing—hangover time—and no one knew it better than Drew. It’s the downside of living
here. Everyone knows me… and my habits. I rolled my eyes. “And we’re having dinner,” I added.

“Well, good for us. I’m guessing you’ll be wanting this too,” he said as he scooped up a glass of ice, filled it with water,
and put it on the bar in front of me. I waited until he’d moved off to get the menus and our drinks. I slugged down most of
the water in one long gulp and pushed the glass over in front of Bailey, not wanting Drew to know that he’d accurately assessed
my condition—seriously, couldn’t I have some privacy?

“I feel used,” Bailey said, giving me a sidelong glance.

I reached for the silver tray of snack bowls that Drew filled with something different every week. Tonight’s offerings were
kalamata olives, endive, and spicy almonds. “You heard anything about Jake Pahlmeyer’s case?” I asked Bailey as I treated
myself to an olive.

Before she could answer, Drew brought our drinks, then gave us the menus and spread large white napkins out on the bar in
front of us.

Bailey looked at him for a beat. “Thanks,” she said with a slow smile.

Drew looked back at her for what seemed to me an obnoxiously long time. “You’re very welcome,” he said with a little smile
of his own before he moved down the bar.

I almost groaned out loud. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?” I whispered. “He’ll boink you once and then bounce you out.
You do
remember that I live here, and you’ll have to keep meeting me here after it’s over?”

“What makes you so sure he hasn’t ‘boinked’ me more than once already?” Bailey took a sip of her whiskey. “Besides,” she said
matter-of-factly, “nobody bounces me out.”

If I took this any further, I’d wind up with either too much or too little information. Neither option appealed to me, and
besides, I had bigger fish to fry at the moment.

“Whatever,” I said dryly. “So tell me what’s up with Jake’s case.”

“The FBI has officially moved in,” Bailey replied.

I took a drink of my Bloody Mary. The first sip went down like oil in a rusty engine. I inhaled deeply and finally began to
relax.

“So now that the Feds are in, are you guys out?” I asked.

“Not yet. We’re ‘cooperating’ with them.”

“Who’s the liaison?” I asked. Usually, when agencies worked together, each one had a point man to make coordinating the work
more efficient.

“Hales. You know him?”

“We’ve met,” I said noncommittally, taking another pull of my drink.

Bailey caught my evasive tone. “Tell me you’re not one of them.”

“One of what?”

“Don’t give me that ‘one of what’ crap. One of his babes.” She took a long sip of her drink. “He’s got a friggin’ fan club
of panting pussies,” she said, her mouth twisted in disgust.

“That’s lovely, Emily Dickinson.”

“Call ’em like I see ’em,” she replied. She popped an almond into her mouth.

Bailey’s “grossitude” notwithstanding, this meant that if Toni was right, Hale’s interest in me was no cause to pop out the
Dom—it was just another day that ended in “y.” Never one for crowds, I decided I could take a pass on joining Hales’s Hotties.

“Please,” I said as I reached for another olive. “Have I ever been anyone’s ‘babe’?”

I looked at Bailey, who conceded the point. “Not that I’ve ever seen.”

“Right.”

I told her how I’d met Lieutenant Graden Hales. Bailey nodded, serious for a moment. When I’d finished, I drained what was
left of my water and attacked the Bloody Mary again.

Bailey looked at me speculatively. “He may be a little too popular for my taste, but I have to tell you, Hales does seem like
a good guy,” she said as she lifted her glass. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to try and move past Daniel.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I
had
moved past Daniel, that it’d been a year since I’d broken up with him. But I knew what Bailey meant, and although I hated
to admit it, I knew she was right. It hadn’t been a clean break. Daniel Rose, a world-class criminal defense attorney, had
become one of the most sought-after Strickland experts—lawyers who give expert testimony on the competence, or lack thereof,
of other lawyers—in the country. I’d met him when a rapist-murderer, whom I’d gotten life without parole, had tried to get
his conviction overturned by claiming his lawyer was incompetent for failing to present an insanity defense. I’d put Daniel
on the stand to refute his claim, and from our very first meeting, I could feel the electricity in the air between us. I’d
had no idea that he’d felt it too until the day we won.

Daniel’s testimony had torn the defense ploy to shreds. Within minutes after Daniel left the stand, the judge denied the motion
to overturn the verdict. Daniel had called me at the office that evening to find out how the judge had ruled, and when I told
him, he proposed a celebratory drink. The drink had turned into dinner, hours of talking until the wee hours, and then lunch
the next day. By the end of the week, we had plans for the weekend.

What we had in those first few months was idyllic. Experiencing that kind of happiness was completely foreign to me. Daniel
was my lover, my best friend, my cheerleader—and someone who could give me a game. Challenge, thrills, and comfort, all in
one package. For the first time in my life, I let myself get wrapped up in a relationship with a man instead of holding him
off at arm’s length. I was afraid but filled with wonder—a pale cave creature basking in its first exposure to sunshine.

If I’d given it a moment of rational thought, I could’ve predicted what the death knell of our relationship would be—but I
didn’t want to know. And so the corrosive forces seeped quietly and imperceptibly into my subconscious, then bled out, inch
by inch, into the space between us.

Daniel, being a nationally recognized expert, had speaking engagements and court appearances all over the country. But when
we met, the season for lectures had just ended, so I didn’t realize how much time he usually spent on the road. When the season
picked up again six months later, he was traveling, doing lectures and court appearances that kept him on the road for at
least two weeks out of every month.

Without even realizing it, I began to back away. Suddenly I couldn’t find the time to take Daniel’s calls, then I forgot to
call him back, and on the days he was in town, I always seemed to have to work later than usual—which, given my habitually
late hours, meant that on some nights I didn’t leave the office till nearly midnight. At first Daniel accepted my excuses—a
gnarly case, a recalcitrant witness—but eventually he began to ask if there was something wrong. A very faint voice from deep
inside whispered that there was, but I didn’t want to hear it. Daniel, on the other hand, didn’t have my powers of denial,
so finally, over what was supposed to be a romantic candlelit dinner at his house, he asked me point-blank if I was seeing
someone else. Horrified, I’d sat speechless. When I made
my voice work, I managed to ask him how he could think that. He told me: all the nights I’d been too busy to see him, all
his calls that I hadn’t taken—and never returned. I told him that there was no one else, and that was the truth. But I also
told him that the only reason I’d been so scarce was that I’d been overwhelmed with a double homicide I’d been preparing for
trial. Although I’d wanted to believe that was the truth, it wasn’t.

The truth was, my old scars—the ones that had always screwed up my relationships, the ones I thought I’d finally vanquished
with Daniel—were reemerging. Carla, my shrink, called it a problem with object constancy. Having suffered the early traumatic
loss of Romy, I never learned emotionally that when people leave they also come back. And so every time Daniel left town,
a part of me, on a deep subconscious level, sealed up against the pain of the complete loss my child-self knew was bound to
happen. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. It wasn’t until after we’d broken up that Carla pointed it out and I realized
what had happened.

The saddest part is that even if I had known earlier, I couldn’t have brought myself to tell Daniel. It made me feel weak,
which I hated, and beyond that, I didn’t want to tell him about Romy. Because worse than having to admit weakness was having
to admit guilt.

Daniel and I patched it up, but problems left unresolved never go away; they just hide in dark corners, where they fester
and simmer—and eventually boil over. Over the next six months, Daniel would periodically point out that I was withdrawing
again. I’d make excuses; he’d forgive me. We limped along that way for the rest of that year. But finally, just before Christmas,
I accepted the fact that my demons had defeated me again, and I told Daniel good-bye. The sadness and tears in his eyes pierced
my heart with a physical pain. The year that followed our breakup had rounded the sharp edges of that pain but hadn’t washed
it out. Time and again, I’d notice that I hadn’t thought
about Daniel for a few days and I’d congratulate myself on being over him… until I caught a glimpse of him in the courthouse.
Then all the old feelings, mixed with the despondency of loss, would flood through me, leaving me with an ache so strong it
stopped my breath. Bailey and Toni never argue when I say I’ve gotten past it, but they both know better. I’m hoping that
if I keep on saying it, someday it’ll be true.