Kathleen O'Brien - The Cost of Silence

Red had often wondered why on earth Victor used this guy. Sure, Lewis could write a contract so tight even Houdini couldn’t wriggle out of it. But so could Colby, and probably a thousand other lawyers in the San Francisco Bay area alone. And they could do it without giving everyone the dead-eye creeps.

“So, tell me again.” Lewis took a sip of water, the only beverage Red had ever seen him drink. “In your estimation, is Ms. York saying no because she means no? Or because she is holding out for a larger payment?”

“I can’t be sure.” Red had said this five times now, but apparently Lewis planned to keep asking until he got an answer he liked. “I got the impression she really meant it. But it’s hard to be sure. She’s…complicated.”

The calamari hovered a few inches from Lewis’s lips. “Complicated how?”

Red shrugged. “I don’t know. She looks like the girl next door. And she lives simply, almost…” He thought of the squeaky clean, threadbare apartment. “Well, let’s just say that if she’s a gold digger, she’s not a very good one. Plus, you can’t help sensing that there’s this sweet quality in her personality, in spite of the situation. But she’s got a backbone. She’s far from weak.”

He wondered suddenly what Nana Lina would think about Allison. His grandmother was the shrewdest judge of character Red had ever met. She liked women who had what she called “starch.”

Lewis tapped his cloth napkin to his lips, three times, as always. “Is she beautiful?”

Beautiful? With that short nose and those freckled cheeks? All skin and bones, and wash-and-dry hair? Hardly.

But Red had hesitated a moment too long. Victor set down his fork with a ring of sterling against fine china. “Ah. She is, then. Is that why she’s complicated? Your mind can’t process her properly because she’s simultaneously a beauty and a tramp?”

Red’s shoulders twitched. God, what a judgmental— He knew this was merely how Lewis talked, but still. Red needed to get out of this room. He needed to breathe fresh air and eat something that didn’t look like boiled slime.

A whole hour of this crazy Victorian scenario was too much. Red sometimes wondered whether Lewis put it all on, for fun. Maybe at home Lewis wore a Giants cap and Nikes and burped up his beer while he watched American Idol.

Hell, the guy was only about fifty, Victor’s age. Maybe Lewis had a girlfriend, too. One who—

But no. That was taking even a comedic fantasy too far. If there was a female out there who would date Lewis Porterfield, Red didn’t want to meet her. “I think tramp might be a little extreme, don’t you?” Red was proud of his restraint. “For all we know, she was deeply in love with Victor.”

Lewis raised one eyebrow. “There’s already a new man in her house. Besides, you said she hated Victor.”

“Love can turn to hate pretty quickly.” Red tapped the table irritably. “But I’m not saying she did love him. I’m only saying we don’t know.”

Pause. Then Lewis’s mouth twisted in something that might have been a smile. “And, of course, there’s the fact that she’s…complicated.”

Oh, great. Sarcasm. That was the annoying part about Lewis. He might look like a caricature of a Victorian lawyer, but his brain was sharp and relentless.

Red shoved his plate of calamari away, untouched. “Okay, look. If I had to commit one way or another, I’d say she’s not going to take Victor’s money, no matter how high the offer goes. She needs it, but there was a kind of, I don’t know, steel behind her eyes. She said no, and I think she meant it.”

“Very well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter because we have to follow Victor’s wishes, in any case.”

“What do you mean? I thought Victor’s wishes were for me to make that offer, and—”

“That was plan A.”

Oh, hell. “And what is plan B?”

“We wait a week. If she hasn’t accepted the offer by then, we go back, and we’ll offer her fifty thousand.”

“No.” Red shook his head. “That’s the worst thing you could do. Victor’s main concern was that Marianne and the kids wouldn’t have to find out. I’m telling you, Allison York doesn’t seem like the tattling type. I’d bet my life that, unless we antagonize her, she’ll leave well enough alone.”

Lewis stared at Red a long time before answering. Finally, after another sip of water and three more taps with the napkin, he cleared his throat. “But it isn’t your life that’s in jeopardy here, is it? It isn’t your family. It isn’t your legacy.”

“No, but—”

“We cannot substitute our judgment for Victor’s. He said he wanted us to wait a week, then double the offer. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

“Big mistake. She’s offended by the idea that we want to buy her silence. Besides, the offer itself is offensive. It’s too low, Lewis, even if it’s doubled. Tripled. Given what she’s up against—”

“What she’s up against?” Lewis tilted his head, which, with his hooked nose, made him look oddly like a vulture. The plate of glistening, wormy squiggles in front of him didn’t help. “Sounds as if you feel sorry for the woman.”

“Not really. I simply see the reality of her situation. Being a single mother can’t be easy.”

“Immoral behavior leads to difficult situations.” Lewis sniffed. “She should have thought of that.”

Red’s shoulders tensed. “God, Porterfield. I was thinking this room looked a little Victorian. An attitude like that fits right in.”

Lewis smiled again. “Are you defending her? Interesting. I’m curious about this excess of sympathy. In fact, Redmond, I’m wondering if you might be a touch compromised here.”

“Really? Well, I’m wondering if you might be a touch reptilian. Putting basic human sympathy off-limits is a little cold-blooded, don’t you think?”

Lewis steepled his fingers and stared at Red over the tips. He spoke in a contemplative voice, almost as if he were alone, mulling over a thorny point of law. “Actually, I am not particularly surprised. I told Victor it was risky, sending a man like you to do a job like this.”

Red’s jaw felt tight. “A man like me?”

“Yes. A man with a…shall we say a fondness for a certain kind of young woman? Shall we say a certain vulnerability to their charms?”

Without realizing how it happened, Red was suddenly on his feet. “Shall we say bullcrap?”

Though Red was three times Lewis’s size, the lawyer didn’t show a hint of fear. He lifted one pointed shoulder. “You may call it whatever you want, but I call it a problem. I think perhaps I’d better be the one to deliver the next offer.”

“No.”

“No? Why?”

“Because—” Red caught himself right before he could say the words, because you’re an arrogant jackass, and you’ll piss her off so much she’ll tell Marianne everything just to spit in your eye.

That was what the whole ugly mess always boiled down to, of course. Protecting Marianne. And Dylan. At twenty-eight, Cherry was probably mature enough, and far enough outside the fray, to handle the truth, but Dylan was already messed up as hell. He and Marianne needed some peace. They needed time to heal.

And Red had promised to help make sure they got it.

“Because I’m the fool who vowed to fix this,” he said, pushing his chair in and preparing to get out of this oppressive room. “And I’m going to do exactly that.”

THE MEETING WITH Lewis had left a bad taste in his mouth—and it wasn’t only the thought of that revolting calamari, either. Red went to the Diamante office, hoping to lose himself in some paperwork. The city council had sent over traffic figures for three of the new locations he was considering. They looked good, but he wanted to analyze them carefully.