| |
Cleo stopped in front of the glass doors to look at the gold painted words Bonner and Bonner, Attorneys at Law. She hadn’t been to Danny’s office in a long time. Back then, there’d been no and Bonner on the door, but she supposed it was inevitable that his daughter would join his firm.
Was that a twinge of jealousy she felt? Like there was any doubt. She pushed on the door and entered the office. It practically smelled of money with original art on the walls and thick carpets.
She was ten minutes early for her appointment, so once she let the receptionist know she was there, she took a seat in the reception area of Bonner and Bonner.
At the height of Danny Bonner’s career with the Clark County District Attorney’s office, he’d been considered for a judgeship but had been passed over. Cleo wondered if the reasons had anything to do with her mother. Would an illicit affair with a showgirl have been enough to sink the career of a man said to be a brilliant jurist?
Not that she knew for sure there’d been anything going on between them, but they’d been friends—or at least friendly—and Annaliese had never understood the fuss people made about sex, so the odds were good that “friendly” included some additional benefits.
Denied the judgeship, Danny Bonner left the DA’s office, started his private practice, and become one of the most sought-after—and expensive—criminal lawyers in Las Vegas.
His daughter was a few years older than Cleo, but Cleo didn’t know her. With a private school education, Kathleen Bonner had always been destined for a privileged life.
As far as Cleo was concerned, having Danny for a father gave Kathleen more privileges out of the gate than most people ever got.
According to her mother, Cleo’s father had been some guy Annaliese had met at the casino. A weekend fling had ensued. By the time Annaliese realized she was pregnant, she couldn’t remember the guy’s last name or where he’d been from. If she’d ever known those things in the first place.
So many of the kids at her school had been from broken families, not having a dad around hadn’t bothered Cleo. That changed when she was fourteen and Annaliese brought Danny into their circle. Something about him had made her want not just a dad, but a dad who was, well, him.
She’d never figured out why he had that effect on her when none of Annaliese’s other men did. Maybe the difference was Kathleen. Having already been through his own daughter’s adolescence seemed to have given Danny the ability to put Cleo at ease and to make her want to please him.
How would her life be different, Cleo wondered, if she’d had a dad like Danny?
From the depths of her purse, her phone trilled. As she pulled it free, it trilled a second time, louder without the muffling effect of her bag. Her face heated. Somehow it felt inappropriate in here. Like farting in church. She answered without looking at the display.
“It’s me,” Willa said in response to her hello.
“Is something wrong?” Cleo asked, keeping her voice low.
“Well . . . I . . .”
Cleo heard her take a breath.
“The police are here with a search warrant,” Willa said in a rush as though ripping a Band-Aid from a wound. “What should I do?”
Cleo nodded to herself. They’d expected this. After Annaliese’s arrest, Alec had stowed their laptops, voice recorders, and notes in the trunk of their rental car, so they couldn’t be impounded by the police. “Cooperate,” Cleo said. She hoped they didn’t leave too big a mess. “Where’s Jada?”
“She’s working on a jigsaw puzzle.”
Cleo winced. Jada was a bit of a savant when it came to puzzles, and they seemed to center her, but having her in the middle of all the activity a search involved was risky. “Do you think you can convince her to sunbathe on the patio until they’re gone?” That would keep Jada from having to watch them carry Annaliese’s things out of the condo.
“I’ll try. Some sunshine would do her good anyway.”
“Great. I’ll be home”—how long would this conversation with Danny take?—“In an hour. Maybe two.” She hoped they’d be done by then.
As she disconnected, the receptionist’s phone buzzed. The woman lifted the receiver and listened, then ushered Cleo into Danny’s inner sanctum.
He rose and came around his massive desk to give her a hug.
For a moment, she let herself melt into it the way a daughter would, but she pulled back before it could get awkward, reminding herself he really wasn’t anything more than her mother’s friend and, at this moment, her attorney—and maybe the only thing standing between Annaliese and a long prison sentence.
Except for a little bit more weight in the middle, he looked the way she remembered him. In his mid-fifties, he was going gray with distinguished grace. The jacket of his navy, three-piece suit—probably purchased from some exotic Saville Row tailor—was unbuttoned, but the matching vest underneath kept him looking dapper.
“Have you seen her?” Cleo asked as she sat in a black leather chair. “How is she doing?”
Danny smiled and shook his head as he settled in on his side of the desk. “Your mom. She’s a survivor. To hear her tell it, she’s in jail with a shitload of potential Rockettes.”
Cleo barked a laugh. She should have expected something like that. It wasn’t hard to imagine that, in a week or two, Annaliese would have an orange-clad chorus line of women doing high kicks.
Danny sobered. “I wish someone had called me yesterday when they took Annaliese in for questioning.”
He didn’t say it accusingly, but Cleo flushed anyway. “I didn’t think . . . I mean, they’d questioned her before, right after Sebastian’s death, but they didn’t arrest her.”
“I know. But you had Jada call me then.”
Cleo had been at her new job at The Inside Word in Denver just over a week when Sebastian died. When she’d gotten the call from her mother’s thirty-year-old life partner, Jada had been frantic and nearly hysterical. In hindsight, Cleo should have guessed that all was not as Jada said. Jada was . . . well, challenged. Or to put it plainly, what people had once called simple. From the little Annaliese had said years ago, the result of some early childhood head injury. Cleo had never asked for the details. “Jada told me she’d been arrested.”
Danny nodded as if he’d expected that. He picked up a gold pen and twiddled it in his fingers. “Annaliese is anxious about how Jada’s handling this.”
Cleo’s hand rose to her face, ostensibly to rub her temple, but it was a shielding maneuver, one she suspected criminal lawyers recognized as readily as reporters. She forced her hand back into her lap.
“Jada’s not handling this well. It’s not completely her fault. Liz Morrow is her dance captain.”
“Koblect’s widow?”
Cleo nodded. “Jada has auditions coming up soon.” Showgirls had to re-audition every six months to keep their jobs. “She was at rehearsal when word spread about the arrest. Liz went off on her.”
Danny winced.
“The doctor prescribed tranquilizers. I’m hoping she won’t need them for long.”
“Where is she now?” he asked.
Translation: You didn’t leave her alone, did you? “Willa James is with her at the condo. She’s been a godsend.”
When news of the arrest had spread, the phone calls had started pouring in. That was what happened when someone got broadsided by notoriety. Cleo deleted most of the voicemails without listening to them, but she’d known Willa forever. A retired showgirl like Annaliese and, at one time, Annaliese’s best friend, she now worked as a dresser for El Dorado’s showgirl revue.
Her message, offering to help any way she could, elevated her onto Cleo’s blessing list. She’d called Willa back and asked if she’d mind staying with Jada during the press conference.
“I’d be more than happy to,” Willa had said. “In fact, any time you need someone to stay with Jada, you call me. She’s such a sweetie, and I know she needs someone to be with her. Especially now. I’m just glad there’s something I can do to help, you know.”
No gladder than Cleo was. She trusted Willa. If there was anyone more perfect to keep an eye on Jada when she and Alec were elsewhere, Cleo couldn’t imagine who it would be.
“Hm.” Danny made a note. “I thought Annaliese and Willa didn’t get along any more.”
“They don’t,” Cleo confessed. “But I can’t afford to turn down help when it’s offered.” Nor did she want to rock the boat asking Willa if the gossip about her being one of Sebastian’s on-the-side women was true. “Besides, Jada knows Willa. I couldn’t leave her alone with a stranger right now.”
“I understand,” Danny said. “And it’s your call to make. Annaliese will just have to accept that.”
“Why did they arrest her this time and not before?” Cleo asked.
He leaned back in his chair and swung it slightly from side to side, the pen waggling between the knuckles of his right hand. “Okay, some of what I know is hearsay. I won’t know the full score until we get to discovery, but a couple of things made them decide to arrest your mother. The first is that Koblect drowned in his tub. He’d been drinking and initial speculation was that he was drunk. That maybe he fell into the pool. Or he could have already been in the pool and simply slid underwater. But the coroner also found bruising around his neck consistent with someone holding him underwater.”
She already knew about that. Martin had gotten it from a source and shared it with her a few hours before the police had shown up at her mother’s condo. “It couldn’t have been Annaliese. He’d have fought, and she’s not strong enough to―”
“There were also prescription drugs in Koblect’s system,” Bonner said. “The police believe they were slipped into his drink. According to his blood work, enough to make him woozy, especially with the amount of alcohol they found. Any struggle he put up would have been ineffectual.”
Cleo flashed on her mother standing in the kitchen taking a muscle relaxer, but she shoved the image away. Lots of drugs reacted with alcohol. “That still doesn’t mean―”
“And Annaliese admits to being in Koblect’s apartment that night.” He paused, his chair and the pen going still. A look of sympathy crossed his face. “The DA hinted they have something even more damning, but I don’t know what it is.”
It could only be one thing. Cleo braced herself and asked, “Do they have a motive?”
“I got the impression they were still working on that.”
She swallowed. This was going to be tricky. “If I tell you something, is it confidential?”
The pen was back in motion as he studied her. “You were in Denver when Koblect died. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a dollar.”
“What?”
“I need a retainer.”
She dug into her purse, pulled a dollar from her wallet, and placed it on the desk.
“I’m now officially your lawyer. Whatever you tell me is protected.”
She took a deep breath. “Annaliese owed Sebastian money.”
“How much?”
“By Sebastian’s standards, not much. By Annaliese’s—and mine”—she took another deep breath—“a lot.”
“Was the source of this debt any kind of illegal activity?”
She shook her head. “They had some medical expenses, and then Annaliese got sued over a traffic accident. And you know how she was about money.” She never had any to spare. “But it was never supposed to be a long-term debt.”
“I should hope not,” Bonner said. “Was he charging usury rates?”
She nodded. “I knew I could come up with the money she needed, but it took time to convert my assets, so she took a loan from Sebastian.”
“And did you come up with the money?”
“Yes, but . . .”
His lips tightened for a split second, and she could imagine him thinking yes, but was a phrase he heard far too often.
“The money never made it to Sebastian,” she said.
“What happened to it?”
“Annaliese was sick, so she sent Jada to repay the loan, and―”
“And she lost it in the casino,” he said with the finality of someone who’s made an intuitive leap that explained everything.
Cleo nodded, relieved he understood. Too bad the police wouldn’t. “It took me longer to come up with the money a second time.”
“And where’s that money now?”
“In Annaliese’s account. I deposited it from Denver on Thursday, but the bank put a forty-eight-hour hold on it.”
“So she had the money, but she couldn’t get to it before he died.”
She nodded again.
“And when the police investigate her finances they’re going to see that deposit,” Danny said.
“And the one before that.”
“And, I assume, the one she made with Koblect’s money.”
Oh God, yes. Three deposits. Cleo had forgotten to count the first one.
“And the police will want an explanation,” he said.
“I don’t know what I should tell them.”
“The first thing you tell them is you want your lawyer present before you answer any questions. Do they know about the debt?”
“It was a personal loan, so it may not be on the books anywhere. Annaliese says she signed a marker, but I don’t know if they found it.” She swallowed hard. “I know she didn’t tell them about it when they questioned her the first time.” Which was going to make her look guilty as sin when they figured it out.
“I think I’d have gotten a whiff of that by now if they had it,” Danny said, “so I’m guessing not.”
“You think they’d tell you something like that?” Cleo asked.
“Not officially, but I still have friends in the office.” Danny’s smile was closer to a smirk. “In any case, I don’t see any reason we should do their job for them.”
Cleo took a deep breath. When she released it, she felt a little better.
There was one more thing to address, however. “Do you need a retainer for Annaliese?” The question sounded timid.
“Well, if this goes to trial, it’ll be time consuming. And expensive.”
Her heart sank.
He sat back in his chair and stared at her as though trying to read her bank balance from her face.
“You impoverished yourself coming up with the money, didn’t you?”
She let her breath out slowly. “Yes.” Would he foist them off on a lesser attorney now?
“Why?”
“Why?” she repeated. The question didn’t make sense at first. Annaliese was her mother, the only family Cleo had. For so many years, it had been just the two of them. As crazy as her mother sometimes made her, Annaliese had taken care of her. Aside from their different ways of seeing the world, her mother was a lioness when it came to her cub. She’d have stood defiantly against the world to protect her daughter.
And then she’d have told Cleo to stand up straight.
She wasn’t sure Danny would understand her answer, but it was the only one she had.
“She’s my mother.”
He nodded slowly, a smile turning up the corners of his lips and approval in his eyes. “Good answer. I like being on the side of the angels.”
She wondered if anyone had ever seen Annaliese as an angel before. She didn’t think it was likely.
Then his smile turned feral. “Besides, I don’t like getting warned off a case.”
She was sure she looked confused. “You were warned―”
“The DA called to tell me this case wouldn’t do my career any good.”
Her heart sank. They thought they already had Annaliese convicted.
“Don’t look so discouraged,” Danny said. “This is good news. I scare them. They want Annaliese to have a public defender, so they can steamroll her.”
She wanted to believe him but was afraid to get her hopes up.
“We don’t have the money this is going to cost.” She hated pointing that out.
“Annaliese and I’ve been friends a long time, Cleo.” His lips quirked into a half smile. “You were just turning into a sulky teenager, remember?”
Yes, she remembered. She smiled back at him, glad to feel someone was on her side. Maybe she could count on him even if they couldn’t pay him.
“I haven’t done any pro bono work yet this year, and if this turns into a high-profile case, that’s PR money can’t buy.”
The unspoken end of that sentence was even if we lose, but she was grateful he was too kind to say it. Especially since she had no other viable option. “We’ll still need money for bail though, won’t we?”
“There’s no guarantee they’ll set bail, and if they do . . . Well, it’s a capital case. It could be as high as a million dollars.”
She lost the ability to breathe.
“Of course, a bail bondsman would only cost you ten percent, but you’d get nothing back when she goes to court.”
“When will you know?” Cleo asked. As if it mattered. Ten percent of a million was a hundred thousand dollars and still out of reach.
“They have to arraign within forty-eight hours of the arrest, not counting weekends, so it’ll be Monday. I’ll try to get it down to something in six figures, but I can’t promise anything.”
Of course he couldn’t. “She’ll be there at the arraignment, right?”
He looked down at his desktop, and Cleo’s heart stuttered. There was something almost guilty in the way he wasn’t meeting her gaze.
His tongue clicked off the roof of his mouth before he spoke. “She doesn’t want you there.”
Not wanting him to see the sudden welling of tears, Cleo turned her gaze to the side window, glad now that he wasn’t looking at her. A flock of finches chased each other past the window.
How could her mother not want to see her? She’d given up a job she’d sweated blood to get and taken another she wouldn’t have wished on her worst enemy simply for the fat signing bonus, all because Annaliese was drowning in debt and family stuck together.
“She’ll try to call you,” Danny said, his voice soft with understanding, “but she won’t have access to a phone until they finish processing her into the jail, so it probably won’t be until after the arraignment.”
The promised phone call felt like a consolation prize. She nodded without looking at him.
“The call will come collect,” he said. “Be careful what you say. All those calls are recorded.”
She nodded again.
“One last thing. Annaliese sent a message for Jada. She wants her to carry on as though everything is normal, to go to work when she’s scheduled and to remember her promise.”
Cleo cleared her throat and straightened her spine, grateful Danny was willing to pretend he hadn’t seen her almost break down. “What promise?”
“She didn’t say. Just that Jada would know what she meant.”
Was it selfish to wish her mother had sent her a message, too? Something other than stay away? She tamped down the gnaw of jealousy and thanked Danny for his time.