CHAPTER FORTY
Lori
Cole perches on the edge of the desk, making it clear he’s in no rush to return to the dining room where our movie star client awaits. “I’m going to call the detective on speaker,” he says, “so that you can start getting used to dealing with assholes like him.” He scrolls through his contacts, clearly looking for the number, and for just a moment I simply admire this man. He’s beautiful, yes, but there is this air of confidence in him that one can only describe as “presence.” He’s confident in the powerful way that most imitate and few master, but it’s inherent to Cole. Or perhaps he simply felt he had to be so perfect from such a young age, it became a learned trait. Whatever the case, you know when he is in the room. His confidence radiates in a way that makes you want to know what he knows, be what he is.
“Here we go,” Cole says, glancing up, and catching me watching him. “What is it?” he asks.
“Nothing work-related. Nothing bad.”
“Well then, I just hope that you’re thinking of the same things I keep thinking about.” He winks, and punches in a number, the ring echoing into the silent room before the detective answers with, “Cole Brooks. I hope you’re on your way.”
“We’re going to need you to come to us to avoid a press bomb,” Cole says. “We’re in a hotel and no one knows she’s here.”
“All right,” he says, a bit too easily, I think, proven by his next comment. “How’s next Wednesday?”
“Today,” Cole says, no inflection in his voice just firm certainty. “As planned. And here at the hotel. This is a courtesy interview, unless you plan to charge my client.”
“I’ve got things to do today here at the precinct that don’t include coming to you,” he replies. “I can give you a courtesy visit to the hotel next week. Actually, I’m not available today after all. I’ll stop by when it feels right.” He hangs up.
Cole grimaces. “That little prick. He’s trying to keep me here to interfere with my work. It’s a game he’s not going to win.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I could call the chief, who I know, but I think we’re going to do what they don’t expect. Go to the police station and issue a statement. Someone will take it.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because then our client looks compliant to a judge, while our detective looks like an asshole who insisted she do this interview today, the day after losing a friend while hosting a breast cancer event.”
“Waller is willing to risk looking that way because he wants to make her uncomfortable,” I assume, “and he wants her to turn on her father.”
“Oh yeah,” he agrees. “He and his cronies might even tip off the press that we’re coming, and just take the pain that comes with it. She’s a weapon in a battle we’re fighting, but don’t understand yet, but we’re going to make it work for us, not them.” He straightens, and catches my hips, walking me to him, before his hands cup my face. “I’m going to kiss you now unless you tell me it’s against the rules, despite the closed door.”
I think of Tara rubbing her boobs against Cole, and of all the men that would have forgotten me for her. But he’s still here, with me, with us. I push to my toes, my intent to kiss him, but he’s already kissing me, a deep slide of tongue before he says, “That was to remind us why we want to end this today and go home tonight.” He sets me away from him. “Let’s go talk to our client.” I reach the door first and open it. I exit directly in front of him to find Tara standing in the living room.
“I got antsy in that room,” she says. “What’s going on?”
“You’re going to make a big deal about going to the police station,” Cole instructs, laying out his plan to set her up to win any future battles.
***
Cole
Lori and I drill Tara for an hour before we head to the police station, where we will show up on my schedule, not anyone else’s, and demand we give a statement. When we’re finally ready, Lori and I do not stay for the clusterfuck of security and covert mission operations it takes to get Tara out of the building, nor do we ride with her to the police station. Once we’re there, inside and secure, we wait. Tara’s car pulls up to the station, and the press erupt over her. Her security does a good job of getting her inside and they have the sense to stay on the other side of the secure area. The press also does a good job of making the station a nightmare.
Detective Waller, a forty-something man, with salt and pepper hair, a tall, broad stature, and a distinctly sharp nose to match his sharp attitude, greets us just past security. “Obviously you’re Cole Brooks,” he says, already looking at Tara, or rather her ample cleavage, a hint of male appreciation on his face. “I see the world knows you’ve arrived here,” he says, greeting Tara and offering her his hand.
“Sorry,” she says, folding her arms under those breasts, and pumping them up. “I can’t shake hands. If I get sick, it throws off a lot of people’s schedules. And this place is very dirty.”
She comes off as a diva bitch, but I don’t know much about MS. She might really need to be cautious. She might really wear that diva badge as a shield, and I can’t say I blame her. Waller glances at Lori. “And you would be?” This time he doesn’t offer his hand.
“Lori Havens,” Lori says and following my lead from earlier, she adds, “Cole’s associate.”
“Associate,” he says smirking. “They don’t make associates the way they used to.”
“I’ll assume that to be a compliment,” Lori replies. “And you have mustard all down the front of your shirt.”
Tara shows good sense and doesn’t respond, nor do I. We simply let him suffer in the moment, when a young pretty associate turns around an insult on him. His eyes flicker slightly, embarrassment quickly banked before he recovers with, “In case I need some later. Let’s get this done.” He turns and starts walking, as I place Tara to my left, and Lori to my right, glancing over at Lori to give her a wink of approval. Her lips quirk, but she says nothing.
A long walk and an elevator ride later, we’re in an interview room, the three of us across from him, a camera in the corner. The drilling begins and with a bang. “How many times have you fucked the deceased, Ms. Knight, prior to him being deceased of course?”
“Six times,” she says, without hesitation.
Waller just blinks at her then says, “Not seven?”
“Six,” she repeats.”
“What about last night?”
“He wanted to fuck,” she says, leaning back in her chair and flipping her hair. “I had to sleep, and that man didn’t sleep at all when we fucked. It was like all night long. I have a charity event tonight. I couldn’t do that last night.”
He starts drilling her about where they met, how they met. Where she was last night. When she saw him last. It’s all building up to some bombshell. I feel it. I know how these things roll out. “Did you ever do drugs with the deceased?” he finally asks.
“I don’t do drugs, detective,” she says. “I’ve never done drugs.”
“You were in rehab last year.”
And there it is, bombshells starting to land. “For pain killers from an injury,” she says. “And it’s quite embarrassing.”
“If this gets out,” I tell him, “we’ll sue the department.”
He smirks. “Good luck proving that one.” In other words, he’s covered his bases.
Tara sits forward. “You little—”
Lori catches her arm. Tara inhales and sits back, never finishing her sentence.
Waller smirks. “Did you know the deceased as a drug user?”
“He smoked weed, if that counts,” she says. “I hate the skunk smell weed gives off and he kept it away from me. Even when he was writing his book, and he was all fucked up about revisiting the past, sex was his thing, not drugs.”
Lori suddenly stands up and walks to my seat, leaning down to my ear, “I’ll be right back.” Her hand is on my shoulder and she squeezes, and I get it. She thinks she knows something. She needs to check it out.
She exits the room and Waller leans toward us. “Have you ever given any drugs to the deceased?”
I don’t like this question. “State his name,” I say. “This constant reference to ‘the deceased’ could mean anyone.”
He grimaces and repeats the question. “Did you ever give David Curry drugs of any kind?”
“Advil. Maybe Excedrin. Nothing more.”
He reaches in his pocket and sets a bagged prescription bottle on the table. “We found this on his bedside table.”
Holy fuck. I reach for it before she can, reading the Vicodin label dated a year ago. “I didn’t give this to him,” she says to me. “I swear to you, Cole.” She looks at Waller. “I didn’t give this to him and I wouldn’t have even given up my pills back then. I was addicted. I wanted every one for myself.”
“We’ll let you get out of this,” he says. “We’ll make a deal. You give us your father, we’ll give you privacy and freedom.”
I laugh. “You’re a piece of work. The man took it from her. Or she dropped it. Not to mention there is no cause of death or toxicology report.”
“That’ll take weeks,” he reminds me, looking at Tara. “Weeks of bad PR, but a good amount of time for me to talk to your mother. She wouldn’t take down your father last year, but now, she’s protecting her daughter.”
Tara leans forward. “Leave my mother out of this.”
“Even if he has Vicodin in his system,” I say, “you’re going to have a hard time proving a year-old prescription was the source.”
Lori walks back into the room and kneels beside me. She holds out her phone and is showing me the cover to David Curry’s book when Waller asks, “If you didn’t give him the pills, how did he get them?”
Lori’s eyes go wide, and she says, “I know how.” She tabs through pages on her phone and then lets me read a section of the book. It takes two paragraphs for me to decide I’m really falling the fuck in love with this woman. “Read it to him,” I order.
She stands up and starts to read:
“It was a dark time in my life, like a cloud hovered just above me, waiting to rain down more and more despair. Everyone thought I was on top of the world but I was in hell.”
“What does that have to do with the damn pill bottle?” Waller grumbles.
“He was suicidal,” Lori says. “There’s every reason to believe he killed himself.”
“He never said suicidal.”
“He all but said it,” Lori argues. “A jury will see that.”
“And yet the press hasn’t said a word about it. Not even they read that as suicidal.”
“This book is two years old and it’s one paragraph,” Lori argues.
“Exactly the point,” Waller counters. “But even if he did kill himself, your client gave him the drugs to do it.”
“I didn’t give him those drugs,” Tara growls. “He had to have stolen them from me.”
“Tell a jury,” Waller says.
I stand up. “This interview is over.”
“Wait!” Lori says. “just—give me a minute.” She holds up a finger. “His own words,” she says, and reads: “I even went so far as to hoard pills. I collected them. I knew that one day, I’d need them. One day it would all be too much.”
She lowers her phone. “He took them from her.”
“Oh, thank God,” Tara says. “Or not. Damn him. Damn all of this.” Tara gets up and says, “I need air,” and leaves the room.
Waller smirks. “He didn’t say he took other people’s pills. That’s not enough to shut me down.”
“In other words,” I say, “you plan to torment her through the press, and jeopardize her career, unless she makes up a fantasy about her father to end this.”
He holds out his hands. “I just want her to tell the truth.”
I press my hands on the table, and lean toward him. “I will sue you, your boss, the city, and everyone in between if you slander her or release her private medical history. No one else has it.”
“I’m sure with TMZ and the random tabloids, someone is looking. Offer her the deal. Her for her father.” He looks at Lori. “Choose your sides wisely. It would not be smart to start your career on the wrong side of the law.” It’s a threat to go after her and he looks at me. Our eyes hold for several beats, and he adds, “If you don’t offer her the deal, you will look suspicious, like you aren’t protecting her interest over her father’s. If you do offer her the deal, and she takes it, you look like you represented a crook and took down police officers, all in the name of a criminal. If she doesn’t take the deal, and her world ruptures, you become part of the internal bleeding. Good luck.” He smirks and walks toward the door.
“Waller,” I say.
“Yes, Brooks?”
I don’t even turn to look at him. “Your friends thought they beat me, too. They’re in jail.” Now I look at him. “Good luck. You’re going to need it.”
He stares at me again for several hard beats. “I’m not them,” he says, and he leaves.
Lori steps to my side. “Now what?”
I glance over at her. “He threatened you,” I say. “In other words, he just ensured that I’m not done until he’s done.”