I SLEEP THROUGH MY ALARM and wake up an hour late, vowing never to drink again, or let Mick loosen the threads of my carefully woven control.
After taking two aspirin and a long, hot shower, I quickly dress and tackle the thirty-minute commute to the office. On my way, I stop at Starbucks and pick up a macchiato for Lena and a strong Italian roast for myself. It’s just after nine thirty when I push through the office door. “I come bearing gifts.”
Lena’s gray eyes, dramatically outlined in purple kohl today, brighten. “Thanks, Dee.” She takes the cup and removes the lid for an appreciative sip. “I was beginning to think my workaholic boss was going to play hooky this morning.”
“Nope, too much to do,” I reply offhandedly and flip through the pink stack of messages. “Did Thomas Jackson return my call?” I ask, hoping to speak to the Franklins’ attorney before I meet with Dwayde at four o’clock.
“Not yet,” Lena says. She takes another sip. “But something arrived for you ten minutes ago.”
Her Cheshire grin makes me wary. “What is it?”
“You’ll see,” Lena croons. “It’s on your desk.”
The instant I set foot in my office, my jaw drops. Seated in a tall crystal vase, sparkling like diamonds beneath the light, are at least three dozen red orchids and golden calla lilies.
“I’d say yourold friendis on a mission. And you’re the target. That’s Baccarat crystal. It looked expensive, so I Googled it.” Lena lightly flicks the vase with her black-painted nail and smiles at the resounding ping. “See? The real thing.”
I feel my face warm. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“I’m going,” Lena says, raising her palms in mock surrender. “But just for the record, Dee, you’re blushing.”
“Out!” I point at the door, and Lena, chuckling, beats a hasty retreat.
Once alone, I breathe in the bouquet’s fragrant scent and lift the white envelope from among the vibrant blooms. It takes me a full minute to open the flap and remove the silk parchment card. In the loose, relaxed script I recognize as his, he’s written:
Mick had given me the same flowers, tied with a red ribbon, the day after we’d first made love. We’d told my foster parents it was because I’d helped him ace a math test, but it was an acknowledgment of the evening I’d gladly given myself to him—heart, body and soul.
I stuff the card inside my tote bag to keep Lena from seeing it, but unable to resist, I lean in for another sniff. God, I’m so weak. How many other details from our past has Mick filed away in his memory bank that he can whip out on a whim, using them to break down my defenses and seduce me…why? As payback? Or just because he knows he can?
It’s after three o’clock when Thomas Jackson calls. Before Lena put him through I was gazing at the flowers, my pattern off and on throughout the day.
“Ms. Chase,” he booms. “I’ve heard good things about you. It would be a shame if we ended up adversaries.”
“We shouldn’t if your clients have Dwayde’s best interests at heart. I’m open to discussing visitation under the right conditions. But threatening my client with a court order is going to put us on opposite sides of the fence.” Though I haven’t ever been up against Jackson, his reputation precedes him. If there’s one thing he supposedly can’t stand, it’s being bested by anyone—let alone a woman twenty years his junior. But my work is the one area in which I feel total confidence. “Might we start this conversation with all thoughts of a court order off the table?” I suggest.
“Ms. Chase,” he says with a trace of condescension, “my clients are eager to see their grandson.”
“I presume that they don’t wish to do this by force,” I rebut. In Illinois, grandparents don’t have automatic visitation rights. But according to Isabelle, she and Victor are in support of Dwayde seeing the Franklins in a supervised environment. It’s apparently Dwayde who refuses contact. “Given the circumstances, a court order—assuming you’d even be successful—would be inadvisable. Mr. and Mrs. Franklin might end up with visitation, but it would be under duress. Is that the way they want their reunion with their grandson to begin?” I ask, calling his bluff.
Dull tapping, like a pen striking a notepad, echoes through the telephone line.
“Ms. Chase, allow me to point out the pertinent facts. My clients’ twenty-year-old daughter—a very troubled girl, owing to drugs and not to any absence of love from her parents—disappeared with their only grandson when he was four. Determined to find him, they spent a small fortune on private investigators. As you can well appreciate, locating a woman and child on the streets of Kentucky or any other state would be akin to trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack.
“The picture in the paper was their lucky break. Waiting eight long years, only to have their requests denied—twice—would test the patience of a saint. Surely you can understand that they are eager to see the young man.”
“I sympathize with their plight, Mr. Jackson, and might I suggest they sympathize with their grandson’s. Dwayde is not a young man. He’s a child who at the age of nine ran away from his physically abusive and emotionally neglectful mother—your clients’ daughter—a junkie turning tricks to support her habit. After miraculously surviving on the streets alone for more than six months, it was Detective Torres who found Dwayde spray-painting an abandoned warehouse he’d been sleeping in. It was Victor and Isabelle Torres who tackled the system to become his legal guardians and loved away the years of neglect and mistreatment.
“Naturally, he is scared and confused by the sudden appearance of grandparents he says he doesn’t remember, and what’s more, their pursuit of custody.Surely, after reading the psychological reports and statements from his social worker and teachers about how he is thriving, your clients can appreciate the harm they would cause by attempting to remove Dwayde from the security he’s known for the past three years. It would be win-win for everyone involved to drop the case and any thought of court-ordered visitation. We’ll work out terms—”
“Eloquent argument, Ms. Chase,” he says, cutting me off. “But no dice. My clients will neither consider dropping the case nor waiting any longer to see their grandson.”Tap! Tap!“If Dwayde Franklin is not delivered to them at the Waldorf Hotel tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. sharp, they will carry forward with—”
“Save your threats.” I interrupt this time. “Either your clients are insensitive or your advice to them is misguided. Whichever, I will only have Dwayde there tomorrow if it’s in his best interests. And that, Mr. Jackson, remains to be seen.”
I’m still miffed by the conversation and the time pressure for Dwayde when my new client and Isabelle arrive. Without Victor. I hadn’t expected him to come. Typical. He can’t separate the girl who left from the lawyer who can help his foster son. If he’s still anything like the boy I knew, he doesn’t see the world in shades of gray. There are only two sides: black and white, good and bad, right and wrong.
And yet he chucked those very values for his best friend. I believed in Victor’s character, in his integrity, in his brotherly loyalty. It was for that reason that I felt—still feel—his betrayal almost as acutely as I feel Mick’s.
Not for the first time do I consider the emotional fortitude that this case is going to require in order for me to help Dwayde move through the maze of his past while trying to maneuver through my own.
