Blood Defense Read online

  She finished half her sandwich, then poured us both a glass of wine. “Have some. Do it now.” I took a long slug. “Can you tell me now?”

  I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “God, Michy. It’s so crazy.” I told her the whole story. Just hearing myself say the words out loud made my head spin. “And now I don’t know what to do. If it’s true, I have to get off the case. I don’t think I can handle this. I mean, shit. My father.” For the first time in my life, the word wasn’t just an abstract concept. It belonged to a real person.

  Michelle’s eyes had gotten wider and wider, and by the time I finished, her mouth was hanging open. She was silent for a few moments, absorbing it all. Then she frowned. “Can you even represent him? I mean, isn’t it a conflict or something?”

  “No. If he wants to keep me, there’s no legal reason why I can’t stay on the case.”

  I heard my own words as if someone else was speaking. I still couldn’t believe this was happening to me. It felt like a crazy dream, except I wasn’t waking up. “But I just keep thinking that I finally met my father—and he’s probably a psychopathic killer.” I put my head in my hands. “Who knew that Celeste would turn out to be the good parent?”

  Michelle sat stunned for a moment. Then she gave a little giggle. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but another one escaped—then another. And now the giggles swelled into a long, rolling belly laugh. Between gasps, she said, “Celeste . . . the good . . . parent.”

  Only then did it hit me what I’d just said. I started to laugh and didn’t stop until tears streamed down my face and I couldn’t breathe.

  When we’d both recovered, Michelle stared down at her glass for a long moment. “Okay, let’s talk about what to do now. If you heard anything I said when I first got here, the media is hot after your ass. Someone’s going to find out about this no matter what you do. So if you’re thinking you can keep it quiet by stepping away from the case, I’d let that fantasy go.”

  I knew she was right. “But if I jump out right now, the story will go away a lot faster.”

  “That’s true. Drink your wine.”

  “I already had a little before you got here.”

  “Drink it anyway. You’re way too sober.” I smiled and took a sip. “If you get off the case, that’s a story in itself. The press will want to find out why, and once they dig, they’ll figure out who he is. How will that look?”

  “Like his own daughter thinks he’s guilty.”

  “Right. It’ll screw him hard if you get off the case. And if he really isn’t guilty and he gets convicted, will you ever forgive yourself?”

  I thought about that. Probably not. Not even if he was guilty. “I guess I have to stay on, then.” But if I thought the case had been a high-pressure situation before . . . just thinking about it made my stomach ache. I agonize over all my cases, but the pressure of defending my own father was a bone crusher. Every little detail I missed, every mistake—no matter how small—would keep me awake every night for the duration of the trial.

  And if I lost, every night for the rest of my life.

  TWENTY-THREE

  When I woke up the next morning, I thought about the paternity test. Dale was more than willing to take it, but it would cost money, and there was a much cheaper, faster way to find out if it was true.

  I called my mother. “Why didn’t you tell me Dale was my father?”

  There was a long pause. “So he told you.”

  That did it. I’d pretty much already accepted that it was true. But any lingering doubt was gone for good now. Dale really was my father. “Yeah, he told me. Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I hoped you’d get off the case. Or at least that he’d have the decency not to tell you.”

  “The decency? Why wouldn’t he tell me? Some reporter was bound to figure it out eventually. Thank God he told me instead of letting me get blindsided by the press. But that never entered your mind, did it?”

  Another long pause. “I just wanted to protect you.”

  “From what? The truth was going to come out regardless. You weren’t protecting me. You were trying to protect yourself—and your image. As always.”

  “Well, now that you know, you’re going to get off the case, aren’t you?”

  “No, I’m most certainly not—”

  “He’s a murderer!”

  “You don’t know that. And why did you lie to me about your relationship? Dale wasn’t a one-night stand. You dated him for months.”

  “I did what was best for you!”

  “You mean like you did when we moved in with Sebastian?”

  Sebastian. One of her many boyfriends before she married Jack.

  She sighed. “Oh God. Are we really going to get into all that again?”

  “Sure. As soon as you stop pretending you ever did anything for my benefit! And by the way, why didn’t you have the abortion?”

  “Because I didn’t want one. I just told him that so he’d leave me alone.”

  I knew I should let it go. I already knew the real answer, but for some reason, I needed to make her admit it. “You were too far along, weren’t you?”

  There was dead silence for several seconds. When she answered, her voice was weak. “No.”

  She was usually a better liar than this. I’d caught her off guard. Suddenly I was weary of this whole conversation. No. More than that. I was weary of all of it. Of constantly looking for someone who simply wasn’t there and never would be. “I’ve got to go.” I hung up.

  The weird queasiness I’d felt when Dale told me he was my father washed over me again, and I bent forward, my forehead on my knees. When it passed, I sat up and looked at the clock on the oven. I needed to get to the office. But everything felt off somehow. I couldn’t feel the floor under my feet, and as I glanced around the room, nothing looked the same—my hands, the kitchen table, the phone. What was happening to me?

  I looked at the phone again. And then it came to me. Something had broken free inside me—an awareness of who and what my mother was. It’d always been there, but I’d kept it locked away, where I wouldn’t have to admit the whole truth of it, what it meant. But now that I’d let it all in, I could never unknow it. My mother was a narcissist who’d never wanted me and didn’t even particularly like, let alone love, me. And it didn’t matter what I did, how many of her parties I went to, how many cases I won, how successful I might be. That would never change. As I let the reality of that settle in, a question slowly took shape: Then why keep showing up? Why keep taking her calls, listening to her criticize everything I did, wore, or said—deluding myself that a day would come when the loving mother would appear?

  The answer was unavoidable: there was no point. Nothing good ever came from contact with Celeste. Even our phone calls were like crawling naked across a field of broken glass. Then why not stop? I barely breathed as the simplicity of that answer spread through me. I was an adult. I could choose to stop beating my head on the stone wall. I could fire my mother. As painful as it was to admit that my mother didn’t care for me and never had, I’d known it for a long time. But the realization that I didn’t have to keep trying to fix that, to keep showing up in the hope it would change, was liberating. I felt lighter. It was as though I’d cut the rope around my neck that’d been tied to a barge of misery. A barge I’d been dragging around my whole life.

  I stood up and looked around the room—at the calendar of Mickey Mouse cartoons on the wall, the blue-and-red skull-head magnets on the refrigerator, the yellow oven mitts hanging above the kitchen counter . . . everything—the colors, the shapes—seemed more vivid, brighter. I knew it couldn’t really be this easy, that I’d crash from this strange high soon enough. But for now, I let myself enjoy this unexpected silver lining.

  It was time to get to the office, but I wasn’t ready to see anyone. I needed to be with myself, make sure I knew how I felt. So I took drastic action: I put on my running shoes and went out for a short jog. I didn’t do it often. For me, it wa
s like medicine; I did it only when I had to. But it worked. After the run and a hot shower, I was ready to face the world. I headed to the office.

  When I dropped the bomb on Alex, he was momentarily speechless. His eyes big, he finally said, “Your father? Are you kidding?” I told him I wasn’t. “Are you okay?” I told him I was—sort of. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m staying on the case. But we need to handle this right. My guess is, with all the heat this case is getting, someone’s going to find out sooner or later. So I think we should get out ahead of this and release the story ourselves.”

  “Probably so,” Alex said. “How do you want to do it?”

  I knew what I didn’t want. “I don’t want to make this a six-part piece in Vanity Fair about Samantha Brinkman and her fucked-up life—”

  “As if you’d get Vanity Fair,” Michelle said. “Probably more like the PennySaver—”

  “Whatever.” I shot her a look—though I agreed with her. “The point is, the shorter the better. So I’m thinking television news, where I can squeeze it down to a ten-second sound bite.”

  Michelle nodded. “And make a friend. Smart move. Which reporter do you like?”

  “I’ll give this one to Edie. Tell her to meet me in front of the courthouse at eleven thirty.”

  Michelle scrolled through the press contacts on her computer. “You heading downtown?”

  I nodded. “I’ve got to tell Dale I’m keeping the case.”

  I started to head out, but Michelle held up a hand. “Don’t you think you should call Lisa before this hits the airwaves?”

  I paused, one hand on the doorknob. “Lisa? Why?” Then it hit me. Lisa Milstrom was my half sister. I actually had a sibling now. I’d so wished for a brother or sister when I was a kid. I remembered how jealous and lonely I used to feel when friends complained about being tortured by their younger this or older that. This wouldn’t be the same; Lisa and I hadn’t lived together and never would. But it was a connection, and I liked it. “Right. I’ll call her from the car after I talk to Dale.”

  It felt strange, uncomfortable, to see Dale now. The problem was, I didn’t have time for these feelings. I had to focus. I was his lawyer, and defending him was going to take all my energy. I hadn’t told him that I’d met Lisa, and I decided that I wasn’t going to do it now. One revelation at a time.

  I got into Beulah and tuned in to a jazz station. Wayne Shorter’s “Night Dreamer” came on, the perfect salve for my overworked psyche. And traffic wasn’t bad. I made it downtown by ten o’clock. I’d resolved to keep this meeting short and to the point.

  Still, I headed into Twin Towers feeling a little shakier than I wanted to. When they brought Dale out, he looked pale and drawn. We picked up the phones.

  He studied my face. “Are you going to stay?”

  “Yes.” He closed his eyes and exhaled. I told him I was going to release the story myself. “I don’t know what that’ll mean for you in here, but brace yourself.”

  “Thank you, Samantha. You told your mother?” I nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment. “That had to be terrible. I’m sorry . . . about all of this. Well, not all.” He gave me a warm look. “But I can’t imagine how this has been for you.”

  “Funny, that’s exactly what Celeste said.”

  “Really?”

  “No. For her, the words I’m and sorry have never come up in the same sentence. So thank you. But now we’ve got to get down to work. Your preliminary hearing is next week. I’m going to go see the people on Chloe’s show today. Do you have any names I should look for in particular?”

  Dale had been watching me with concern. But when I shifted into work mode and asked for names, he went along with it. “If you mean the names of anyone she had problems with, I don’t. But if you’re thinking about looking for her dealer . . .” He shook his head. “I still don’t. I’d just guess that it’s someone on the crew. I wouldn’t think any of the cast members would want to risk it.”

  “Or be bothered. They make enough money; they don’t need to deal on the side. We might try to see Kaitlyn today, too. Any tips? Dos or don’ts?”

  Dale sighed and shook his head. “I saw her only a few times, but she seemed very sweet. She’s a much softer person than Chloe. But good luck getting her to talk to you.”

  “I know. We’ll see about her.”

  I told him I’d be back tomorrow and headed for the courthouse. On the way, I called Lisa and told her she had a new sister. Hearing myself say the words felt almost otherworldly strange, and Lisa took a few beats to wrap her head around it. But she recovered and grooved into the idea pretty quickly. “Cool! Hey, maybe I can come watch you in court.” I wasn’t sure this case was the place to start, but for now, I just said that’d be great.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When I got to the courthouse, Edie was already out front with her cameraman.

  “Samantha, thank you so much for giving me the story. I’m dying of suspense. Michelle wouldn’t say what it’s about.”

  I smiled. “Ready?” She nodded. “Dale Pearson is my biological father.”

  Her jaw dropped. “Your what?” I nodded. Edie immediately turned to her cameraman. “Roll it. Let’s go!” She let me make the announcement, then asked, “So you knew when you took the case, right? I assume your mother must have told you.”

  That was exactly what I figured people would think: that I took the case because I felt sorry for my guilty, estranged father. Or that Dale had hired me because he knew I was his daughter. So I had my story ready. “Actually, no. My mother doesn’t follow this kind of news much, and she never suspected that Dale might be the fling she had in college. And Dale and I didn’t figure it out until after he hired me and I started reviewing his background.” Edie asked about my mother and Dale, how they’d met and how long they were together. “Didn’t Dale know he had a daughter somewhere?”

  The question played right into my hands. I needed to make it clear that Dale never knew about me so people wouldn’t think he was a deadbeat asshole who’d abandoned a pregnant girlfriend and her baby. “Dale never knew about me. By the time my mother found out she was pregnant, they’d broken up.” I had to push down the gag reflex to add, “She didn’t think it’d be right to obligate him to take care of a baby they’d never planned to have.”

  It was total bullshit, but I had to make Celeste sound noble so she’d go along with my story. When we finished, Edie thanked me with shining eyes. “Thank you, Samantha. I really owe you one. This is going to be huge. So just for your sake, a word of warning: if you don’t want to spend the next week giving interviews, you’d better lay low.”

  “That’s the plan.” And we both knew that piece of advice wasn’t just for my sake. By telling Edie I didn’t intend to talk to anyone else, I’d just given her an exclusive. Now everyone would have to credit her and piggyback on her footage. “I have news about the case, too.”

  She turned to the cameraman. “Are you still rolling?” He said he was. She turned back to me and raised her microphone again. “Do you have some new development on the case?”

  Time to make use of Chas. “I have evidence that someone else came to Chloe and Paige’s apartment late that night.”

  Edie’s eyes widened. “Can you tell us who that person is?”

  “Not yet. But we will soon.”

  “I assume your witness must be someone in the building. Who is it?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information just yet. But again, I will. Very soon.”

  “Thank you!” She turned to the camera. “For those who just tuned in, that was Samantha Brinkman, the attorney who’s representing accused murderer Dale Pearson, with some incredible news.”

  Edie took another few seconds to wrap up, then grabbed my hand. “Thank you for this. And congratulations on finding your father. That’s fantastic!”

  “Thanks.” I turned to go.

  “Just tell me off the record, who’s the new witness? I promise
not to tell.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Okay, just promise you’ll let me be the first to know when you go public with it.”

  I didn’t want to commit, so I just smiled and trotted away. I had only a limited number of party favors to pass around, and I needed more than one reporter in my corner. Plus, I didn’t want anyone finding out that my new, secret star witness was a loadie who’d probably dreamed the whole thing.

  I headed out to meet Alex at the Warner Bros. studio lot in Burbank. The plan was to see if someone on Chloe’s show could give us a lead on who’d been her dealer. But no such luck. I couldn’t tell whether they really didn’t know or just weren’t inclined to tell me. Either way, that line of inquiry was a bust.

  The one thing everyone did seem to know was that Dale was my father. Edie’s piece had already aired as “Breaking News!” and apparently, it’d gone viral. Every single person I talked to stared at me like I was a circus freak and “just had to ask” what it was like to have a murder suspect for a father, and did I “think he did it?” It didn’t take long for me to get sick and tired of it, and by the third interview, I snapped and said, “Yeah, he did it. And I hear it runs in the family.” The witness’s eyes got big and round. I sighed. “No, I don’t think he did it.” Alex suggested that from now on, I stick with a simple “No comment” and let Michy handle the press calls for a while.

  But I did find out that Chloe might’ve been seeing one of the young writers, Geoffrey Brocklin. No one knew how serious it’d been, but they’d spent a fair amount of time together on the lot. He might’ve had an idea who was selling to Chloe, but he wasn’t around. He was off writing a script. We’d have to track him down when he came back.

  And I showed everyone photographs of the jewelry that’d been stolen in the burglary. No one had ever seen Chloe wearing anything that pricey. Alex and Michelle had checked out every photo they could find of Chloe—at press parties, A-list parties, and wrap parties. She wasn’t wearing the jewelry in any of them.