To outsiders, her choice of career probably seemed absurd for a woman who needed certainty, but Jules found it the opposite. For her, knowledge was power. Case law provided precedent and interpretation. Jury consultants took care of a potential weak link in every trial process. Judges could be second-guessed. Statistical likelihood could be measured, and Jules left little to chance. That was one reason she worked for Sagelblum; her personal philosophy was a perfect match for the firm’s business model. Carl sometimes joked that if he wasn’t married to his job and she wasn’t queer, they were made for each other. Her ruthless logic and his killer instincts made for a lethal combination they exploited to the max. She seldom questioned the choices they made, the cases they fought, or the clients they accepted. In the past, she had been guided by a single ethic she truly believed in—that everyone had a right to the best possible defense. No exceptions.
In a perfect world, the accused was perennially innocent and the lawyer defending him was a hero on a quest for the truth. But in reality, someone had to do the dirty work. Guilty, remorseless assholes stood in courtrooms every day of the week, and so far nobody had come up with a surefire means of identifying them. Such a litmus would be nice, a color code to flag the bad guys in every case.
Perhaps that would make it legitimate to dole out a different quality of defense for different people. Certain categories of undeserving offenders could be denied any defense at all. What did society owe those who betrayed it—the serial killers, child molesters, rapists? But where would the lines be drawn? Was a sliding scale possible in a justice system inherently flawed by its human component? Would gay people get defended?
Despite high-minded goals, an enviable constitution to uphold, the checks and balances of an appeal-court process, and the presumption of innocence, the playing field would never be level. Some people would always receive more “justice” than others, especially those with cash or celebrity. Attorneys stricken with occasional bouts of conscience because they sold their services to the highest bidders could do penance by working
pro bono
and donating to legal-defense funds for the deserving. Jules did not feel noble or self-righteous about her own forms of “giving back.” She did not kid herself that making a few minor sacrifices would maintain karmic balance or score points with the man upstairs. Sometimes it was just easier to do the right thing than to know she hadn’t.
She took her hot chocolate from the microwave, poked some marshmallows into it, and sat down at the small Shaker-style table in the windowed recess next to her kitchen. She did not turn on the floodlights in her garden, but stared out into the velvet darkness and thought about Rhianna.
Justice had served her poorly. In a case like Rhianna’s, where hard physical evidence was virtually absent, the facts could not speak for themselves. The trial was little more than an adversarial contest between prosecution and defense played out in front of an audience who voted more on emotion than on reason. For her part, Jules could have backed out and faced the professional consequences. But she had only wounded Rhianna; Carl would have obliterated her.
Jules sipped her warm drink. She could justify her decisions any way she wanted, but she still felt like shit. Rhianna would never see her actions as the lesser of two evils, as an attempt to shield both of them as best she could. Rhianna had to live with the consequences. Her rapist was set free, and she knew, just as Jules did, that he had not seen the error of his ways.
Oatman was only three hundred miles from her bungalow in the Hollywood Hills. Maybe she would just get in her car and make the drive. If she showed up on Rhianna’s doorstep and asked for ten minutes of her time, would she be turned away? She could be in Oatman by nine a.m. if she left soon.
The thought of seeing Rhianna made her quiver, and Jules felt demeaned by this involuntary response. Was the face slap not enough to quash her Pavlovian arousal? Did she need to subject herself to a further humiliating episode? Where was her pride? She vacillated, teetering at the periphery of a helplessness she found unacceptable. That this part of her psyche could exist, despite every accomplishment, every triumph, appalled her. She did not crawl for any woman, under any circumstances.
Feeling disgusted with herself, she considered a painting on the wall, an oil reproduction of Gustav Klimt’s
Goldfish
. She saw just enough of Rhianna in the red-haired nymph provocatively displaying her rear to recognize how morose she had become since the episode in the parking garage. She was pining. Feeling sorry for herself. She felt diminished, uninspired by her work, depressed by a soul-shrinking vision of the future.
She had a terrible fear that she would turn forty, or fifty, and look back on a life shaped by a wrong decision she would regret forever. Cowardice was unbecoming in anyone. In herself, it was unforgivable. This is not over,
she thought. Rhianna would probably refuse to hear her out. Maybe she did not believe, as Jules did, that they owed it to themselves to find out who they could be to each other. But Jules was not ready to give up. To live with herself, she would have to try again.
Go back to bed, she thought, but her feet carried her to her workstation and she logged into her e-mail to see whether anything urgent had arrived since the previous afternoon. The messages were routine. Various motions copied for her to vet. Tedious reports. Briefs. An indictment or two.
She clicked on a message from Gilbert Desjardines.
Word is your man Brigham put a tail on Ms. Lamb. Damonique knows the dude—Notorious Hard. He’s got some juice in the neighborhood. Sounds like he gave out a name and address. Arizona. That’s what she heard.
Jules stared at the screen and listened to the labored hum of her computer, a desktop that had so far cheated its planned obsolescence. She kept meaning to replace it, but she never found the time to surf through computer sites, comparing alternatives.
She read the message again, this time without letting her thoughts wander. The full impact of the words hit her. Werner Brigham now knew Rhianna’s new name and her location. It would only be a matter of time before he decided to renew their acquaintance.
*
Rhianna waved Bonnie and Lloyd farewell, hoisted Alice higher on her hip, and tugged at Hadrian’s collar.
“Let’s go see the lambs,” she told her charge.
Percy waved as she approached the barn. “Howdy.” He knew her real name now, but he hadn’t tried it out yet.
Rhianna smiled. “Guess why we’re here.”
Chuckling, Percy opened the doors to the lamb pen. “Milk’s warm,” he said, dipping a ladle into a small heating vat.
Alice’s chubby little legs wiggled, and Hadrian swung his head from side to side to dislodge the stalactites of drool weighing from his mouth.
Percy filled a plastic nursing bottle and pulled a rubber nipple over the top.
“That’s not for you to drink,” Rhianna said as Alice clutched the lamb feeder to her chest. They’d been through this routine a few times since the six orphaned lambs arrived.
Percy filled several more bottles and carried them over to the front of the pen, where he rigged them on a suspended frame for the lambs to enjoy. He lifted the smallest of the woolly creatures over the gate and sat down on a bench nearby, gently holding it on his knee so that Alice could offer the milk. As the lamb suckled and wagged its tail, Hadrian patrolled the area for droppings to sniff. When he’d snuffled all he wanted, he plodded to Rhianna’s side and leaned against her, crooning with pleasure as she scratched his back.
“Got the new targets.” Percy pointed at a bundle of male half-silhouettes propped against the barn wall. Each had a bull’s-eye over the chest.
“Maybe I’ll try the .38,” Rhianna said.
She hoped there would be no need to become an expert at putting bullets into the heart zone of Percy’s new targets. Two of Lloyd’s shady acquaintances had gone to Denver to have a conversation with Werner Brigham.
Rhianna wished she could be there to see the expression on his face when a couple of menacing thugs told him it was time to act right. She could almost see him licking his thick lips. He would probably offer them money to go away. Bonnie said, if he did, they were going to rough him up and talk about what their boss wanted them to do if he wasn’t cooperative.
Rhianna adjusted the angle of the bottle so that Alice could hold it more easily and bent down to kiss the little girl’s soft hair. Earlier this morning, she’d been jumpy as the Mosses packed their Lexus SUV, preparing to leave, but she felt calm now. Percy was going to sleep in a room off the den, so she wouldn’t be alone in the house, and she would have Hadrian on her bed. He couldn’t hear and his sight was almost gone, but Bonnie was convinced the ageing mastiff would defend his family.
Lloyd had unlocked the gun safe and put Percy in charge of the weapons. Intellectually, Rhianna had accepted that the chances of Brigham finding her and breaking into the house were remote, but her emotions were still raw and her flesh still crawled every time she thought about him sitting in the courtroom ogling her like a hyena. She kept her borrowed .22 in a concealed cavity Lloyd had built in her headboard. All she had to do was slip a hand behind her mattress and the gun was sitting there, loaded and ready.
Percy touched her shoulder lightly. “Looks like she’s done.”
The lamb was snuggling back in his arms and Alice had dropped the empty bottle.
“I was daydreaming,” Rhianna said. Knowing the wizened ranch hand would get a kick out of her anger, she added, “Actually I was thinking about blowing Werner Brigham’s brains out.”
“Now you’re talking.” His eyes glowed like the deep blue prairie sky.
“Thanks for teaching me how to shoot, Percy.”
He got to his feet and lowered the lamb down into the pen. “You’ll get there,” he said.
Rhianna grinned over this fulsome praise. Percy seldom remarked on her efforts, probably because she hadn’t been able to hit a target twenty feet away until the past two days. She bent to pick Alice up when she heard a car and took the toddler by the hand instead. The Mosses didn’t get a lot of visitors, unless they were hosting a party. Parcel deliveries only occurred in the afternoons.
“You expecting company?” Percy’s hand was on his holster. He sidled toward the barn door.
Rhianna stayed behind him, her heart beating hard. “No.”
With infinite caution, they both peered out from the shadowed interior.
A dark gray Mercedes CLS550 idled in front of the house. The driver was slouched over the wheel.
“That him?” Percy asked, drawing his gun.
“No.” Rhianna lifted Alice and said, “Would you please take her out back to the playground for a few minutes? I’ll handle this.”
Percy holstered his weapon, and Rhianna transferred Alice to his shoulders for a piggyback ride. As the two set off around the corner of the barn, she slid her hand under Hadrian’s collar and crossed the yard to stand a few feet from the car.
Something was wrong, she thought as soon as she saw Jules’s pale face. Her throat dried with apprehension. At the same time, her limbs quickened with hungry life and a red-hot current skittered upward from her core. She knew she was blushing and immediately looked away, but the telltale color invaded her cheeks regardless.
“Rhianna.” Jules started toward her. “Thank God.”
She looked exhausted and her unease was palpable. Rhianna could not summon the will to ask her to leave. At a loss, she asked, “What are you doing here? Did you drive from Denver?”
“No, I’m back in L.A.,now.” Jules aimed a SmartKey at the Merc, locking it by remote. Her eyes glowed onyx against the weary pallor of her face. “Can we talk inside?”
Rhianna wanted to muster anger but she couldn’t; in her heart, she was crazily happy to see Jules. “Okay,” she agreed.
Jules’s gaze swung back toward the road.
Rhianna felt painfully conscious of Jules behind her as she opened the door. She took several nerve-wracking steps into the hall, and the atmosphere in the room suddenly felt airless and oppressive. Her mouth got even drier. Her gaze was drawn to the blue-black sweep of Jules’s eyelashes and the smooth translucence of her temples. She yearned to take a step forward and fall into her arms.