David Ellis - In the Company of Liars

“My worry is that she’ll try to protect me,” Allison explains. “That she might say something crazy.”

Paul’s eyes narrow, divert from Allison. She knows he will not elaborate. For all she knows, Jessica has spoken poorly of her mother to Paul. Paul might be thinking,Oh, Allison, I don’t think you have to worry about Jessica trying to protect you.

But she cannot take the chance. Perjury, obstruction of justice, and perhaps worse could await her daughter. This case is all over the press. If the prosecutors are embarrassed in so public a forum, they might look wherever necessary, including at Jessica, to make things right.

“Was there something in particular you had in mind?” Paul asks. He has chosen this question carefully. Nothing from his end, but if Allison has something to say, this is the way.

“What I have in mind,” Allison answers, “is that Jessica might say she was at Sam’s house that night.”

Paul Riley’s unflappable expression shows the first sign of a break.

“She might say that she killed Sam,” Allison predicts.

Allison remembers it well, that cocktail party two days before Sam was murdered, Thursday, the fifth of February. The Look, she calls it. She remembers Sam, standing across the room, a cocktail in his hand, the look of pure longing as his eyes passed over her, an utter lust that temporarily took hold of him, captivated him as if there were no other person in the room but her.

“Tell me, Jess,” Allison had requested of her daughter, six weeks before that time, last December over lunch. “Tell me about this guy I ‘wouldn’t approve of.’ ”

Paul Riley stares intently at Allison. “And, if I may ask hypothetically,” he tries, “what would be the reason for Jessica being at Sam’s house on that Saturday night?”

“It’s someone at work, Mother, okay? And I’m not going to discuss this.”

She remembers the primitive look in Sam’s eyes at the cocktail party.

She remembers her own position by the bar, having just gotten a drink, seeing the expression on Sam’s face and stopping short, following Sam’s line of vision to a young intern at Dillon & Becker by the name of Jessica Pagone.

Allison takes Paul’s hand. “I’m counting on you to protect her, Paul,” she tells him.

She left that cocktail party immediately, without a word to Sam, without a word to Jessica. She went home and paced her house, did not sleep, as night blurred into early morning. There was no mistaking it. “Someone at work,” her daughter had told her in mid-December, and now she had seen who the “someone at work” was, firsthand. She had seen The Look on Sam’s face.

She showered early Friday morning, February sixth, and drove to his office in the city.

“Where is he?” she demanded. She bypassed the receptionist and hunted him through the halls, looking into each office, calling out his name. But he wasn’t there, they explained. Mr. Dillon was downstate, flew down to the capital this morning for some meetings.

So she went to her Lexus SUV and drove to the capital. He could be at his office or he could be anywhere at the capital, any number of rooms, most of which would be closed to her. No matter. She wouldn’t stop. She would wait, if necessary. She would find his car and sit on it. She would see him today.

First, the office. After two wrong turns, her knuckles white, her eyes clouded by tears, she found the building.

“Where is he?” She ignored the young man who popped out of an office to assist her.

The boy trailed after her, alarmed, no doubt, but she found Sam Dillon in his office and slammed the door behind her.

Sam was on the phone. He was disarmed by Allison’s appearance, the fact that she had traveled down here, the haggard, agitated, hurt expression that Allison knew she couldn’t hide.

Sam made quick work of the phone call and stood up. His lips parted but he didn’t speak. Allison grabbed the first thing she could find-a small pillow, embroidered with the crest of the state Senate, resting on a small love seat in the corner-and hurled it at Sam.

“You prick,” she hissed. “You prick.”

“Whatare you talking-”

“My daughter?” Allison took a step closer. Her throat caught. She tried to calm herself but she couldn’t control the wave of adrenaline. “You’re the guy at work? The one I ‘wouldn’t approve of’?”

“Allison.” Sam came around the desk. “What the hell?”

“This is your ‘ethical dilemma,’ Sam? You can’t decide whether you want to fuck me or my daughter?”

Sam’s face froze, but he quickly recovered. “Now calm down a minute-”

“How could you make me believe that what we had-”

“Allison, I’m not sleeping with Jessica.” Sam dared to approach her, tentatively reached out and took her shoulders. “I’m not sleeping with your daughter. Not now, not ever.”

Her heart skipped a beat. She was perspiring. She wanted, more than anything in this world, to hear these words, to believe them, but his reaction-including his guilty expression-told her that she hadn’t been far off.

She had seen that same look of guilt on Mat’s face when she had paid him that surprise visit years ago at his office and found the young intern sitting on his desk.

History was repeating itself.

“You tell me everything,” she said calmly, through gritted teeth, removing his hands from her, “and you tell me right now. I saw that look on your face last night. And now I know why my daughter wouldn’t tell me about the ‘guy’ she was interested in at work.”

“Sit.” Sam gestured to a chair, sat on the edge of his desk facing her.

“I’m fine standing,” she said.

“That’s all it was,” Sam explained, followed by an exaggerated sigh. “Jessica was interested in me, yes. Yes, she made overtures. Before I met you, Allison. Before that. She’s been working here for a year. I just met you a couple months ago.”

Allison found that she was holding her breath.

“Nothing happened, Allison. Nothing. But yes, she-she showed interest. And I was flattered. Okay? I’m a middle-aged, divorced man and a beautiful twenty-year-old is interested in me. Sure, it boosted my ego. Sure, I probably didn’t discourage it. It was the kind of harmless, flirtatious stuff that happens. But then one night-this is probably, I don’t know, I didn’t exactly mark my calendar-maybe November of last year, she said she wanted to see me outside the office. So I make a joke, right-how about I go into the parking lot?-but she’s serious, she wants to start dating me. I said no, Ally. I said it was inappropriate for more than one reason, and it had nothing to do with you-I didn’t even know you yet. It was inappropriate because she was Mat’s daughter, because I’m almost thirty years older than her, and because she worked for me.”

“And what did she say?” Allison asked, her voice trembling.

“She said-” Sam raised his head, as if to recount the events. “Oh, she said, she couldn’t control two of those three, but she could quit her internship.”

Allison raised her eyebrows, to show she was not finished listening.

“I said no, Allison. Christ Almighty, I said no.”

Allison sat down in her chair, feeling her physical exhaustion for the first time.

“And what’s this,” Sam asked, “about the ‘look on my face’ last night?”

Allison chewed on her lips, cast her eyes downward. “I saw you looking at her at the party,” she answered. “I saw that look on your face.”

Allison types on her laptop, a present from Mat, since the county prosecutors seized her last computer and seem to be in no hurry to return it.