Lovers and Takers (35 page)

Roni began heading out of her office door, calling Jake’s cell phone again.
 
Kara was right behind her.
 
This was like a nightmare, Roni thought, as she hurried to minimize what could be Aubrey’s motive, caught on his best friend’s camera, for murder.

After spending time at the jail with Aubrey, and talking with Police Chief Willie Suarez, he made his way back home to be with Pam.
  
Dena was with her all night, but abruptly left early this morning when she saw Roni come down the stairs with Jake.
 
But her jealous girlfriend act was a joke to Jake, who knew it couldn’t possibly be real. And even if it was, he thought, that was her problem.
 

Besides, he was still reeling from how he almost fell for her Delilah routine so easily.
 
All she had to do was take off her clothes and offer up her sex.
 
And he almost ate it up.
 
He could kick his own ass every time he thought about that night and how the only reason he didn’t go all the way with Dena was because she called him the wrong name.
 

But then he thought about Veronica, and all of that strife and contention left his body.
 
She was the real deal, he was convinced of it.
 
He loved talking to her, being with her, and making love to her.
 
He loved her.
 
He said it and he meant it.
 
And the earth didn’t collapse, or the sky fall.
 
Because Roni was nothing like Dena, and he wasn’t going to treat a wonderful person like his beautiful girlfriend as if she and his ex-wife were the same.
 
Roni, he was beginning to fully understand, deserved far better than that.

And he loved the way she was willing to take it slow, he thought, as he turned onto his street and made his way toward his home.
 
He adored that patient spirit about her.
 
She’d been badly burned before, so she knew how it scorched you in ways that gave you a lot of hesitation when it came to starting up a new relationship.
 
Especially one, he thought sadly, that had already hit a snag.

He loosened his tie. Roni understood, as he did, that there would be bumps along the way.
 
What he did with Dena was their biggest bump to date, but the way Roni handled that foolish act on his part made him love her even more.
 
She was nobody’s fool, and he knew she wasn’t, but she had the capacity to see beyond the façade of perfection and find him.
 
He didn’t deserve to still have her.
 
After what he did with Dena, she would have been completely justified in kicking his ass to the curb.
 

But she didn’t do that.
 
She agreed to give him one day at a time to prove himself worthy of her love.
 
And he was determined to prove it in spades.

But as he drove through the gate of his estate and made his way along the winding drive to his front door, all of those wonderful feelings he had toward Roni turned into that grating anxiety he always felt when Dena came around.
 
Because Dena was back, with her Rolls parked where he normally parked, along with two other cars behind hers.

 
Here goes
, he thought, as he got out of his car, removed his tie completely and placed it in his coat pocket, and made his way to his front door.
 

Dena was seated on the sofa beside Pam, who seemed to have pulled herself together considering her emotional state last night.
 
Also in the living room were two other people, a white man in a wrinkled white suit, and a black woman in oversized heels.
 
When Dena saw Jake walk around the foyer and enter what she now considered to be her domain, she smiled as if they were friends from way back.
 

“Well hello there, Jake,” she said enthusiastically, undoubtedly to put on that
we’re the Huxtables
act around her assembled guests.
 
“Come on in!”

“Thanks for inviting me into my own home,” Jake said with no enthusiasm, to her immediate dismay.
 
Her two guests looked away from her.
 
He walked over to Pam, and she stood to greet him.

“Hey, Daddy,” she said, embracing him.
 
“You saw Aubrey?”

“I saw him, yes,” Jake said as they stopped hugging.

“Ma didn’t think it was a good idea for me to go to the jail.
 
But how is he?”

“He’s concerned, of course.
 
But he’ll be okay.”
 
He smoothed down her long hair.
 
“I don’t want you worrying about that.
 
Your brother’s a big boy.
 
He can handle this.”

“It’s just so distressing.”

“I know, sweetie.”

“Who would ever think that Aubrey would kill somebody?
 
He wouldn’t do that!”

“I know,” Jake said again and hugged his daughter again.
 
Then he sat beside her on the sofa, his arm still around her waist.
 
Dena loved the picture: father and mother with daughter in the middle.
 
She smiled again.

“Jake, I want you to meet Harvey Weimann and Lucy Kentucky, two of the best attorneys this country has to offer.”

Jake had heard of both of them, especially since they often appeared as legal analysts on CNN or MSNBC.
 
He also knew that it wouldn’t be Dena without trotting out the big names to represent her as she sought to turn her son’s arrest into a media event.
 
Not that it wasn’t already a media event,
but Dena was probably determined to make it THE media event of the season, complete with television appearances by her.
 
Jake was determined to keep his son’s life out of such slimy hands.

And Dena was off, sitting there singing the praises of the two attorneys, making it clear that she wanted them, not some nobody like Veronica Wingate, to represent her son.

“They guarantee,” Dena said, “that Aubrey will be completely exonerated.”

“That’s correct,” Harvey said with confidence, and Lucy nodded agreement, too.

But Jake wasn’t buying it.
 
“And how do you plan to guarantee an exoneration?” he asked the two attorneys.

“Because we know what we’re doing, Mr. Varnadore.
 
As we explained to your wife---”

“My ex-wife, and please don’t forget that.”

Harvey glanced at Dena, who was easily perturbed, but he kept on smiling.
 
“As we explained to your ex-wife, sir, we have both successfully tried a number of
stand your ground
cases here in Florida.
 
And what your son did at Troy Brackston’s apartment is a classic stand your ground defense.
 
It has never been
more clearer
to us.
 
This case is a slam dunk.”

“
A slam dunk
?” Jake asked.
 
“How in the world is this case a slam dunk when Aubrey killed that man inside his own home, and he already admitted to the police that he went there because of an incident they had earlier?”

“That won’t be a problem,” Harvey said.
 
“Trust me.”

“Trust you?” Jake asked.
 
“You want me to trust you with my son’s freedom, and I don’t even know you?”

Harvey was not accustomed to this kind of blowback.
 
Especially not from a man of Jake Varnadore’s esteem.
 
“What I mean, sir, is that you have got to trust my professional judgment.
 
I’m sure a man of your status has heard of me, and the kind of successes I have had in the past.
 
And not just me, but Lucy also.
 
We know what we’re doing.”

“Have you seen Troy Brackston’s body?” Jake asked them.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, we have.
 
Photos of the body, of course.
 
We haven’t seen the actual body.”

“Well my son’s attorney has, and---”

“Your son’s attorney?”
Lucy asked, and she and Harvey both looked at Dena.
 
“We were under the impression that we were your son’s attorneys.”

“You are,” Dena said.
 
“Jake is simply talking about some girlfriend of his who couldn’t begin to handle a case of this magnitude.
 
The two of you are his attorneys,” she made clear.

Jake, however, said nothing.
 
He knew who was going to run this show, and it wasn’t either one of them.
 
But he wanted answers for his son’s sake, all the same.
 
“When you saw photos of Brackston’s body,” he asked, “did you notice the wounds?”

“Yes, we did,” Harvey said.
 
“But that only helps our case.
 
Various wounds on a body proves that there was a struggle and Aubrey didn’t simply slice him from behind or
something
 
like
that.”

That was what Roni pointed out to him last night.
 
“And what if there are no such wounds on the body, which, incidentally, there isn’t.
 
What does that prove?”

“There isn’t?” Harvey asked, confused.
 
“I thought for certain,” he said, pulling the photos out of his bag of tricks, as Jake saw it, or briefcase as it actually was.
 
When he looked at the photo, with Lucy looking too, he nodded.

“Ah, you’re right,” he said.
  
“But that’s fine, too.
 
The knife appeared at the last second, we will argue, and therefore it was
kill
or be killed and Aubrey acted accordingly.”

Dena smiled at Harvey’s quick comeback, but Jake wasn’t buying this dog and pony show at all.

Outside of Jake’s estate, Roni, with Kara in the passenger seat, drove her Taurus up to the security compound.
 
The guard came out, with clipboard in hand.

“Is Mr. Varnadore in?” she asked.
 
“I’m here to see him.”

“Yes, ma’am, he’s here.”

Roni sighed relief.
 
“Could you buzz him and ask if he would see me, please?”
 

“No need for that, Miss Wingate.
 
Mr. Varnadore has already given us orders that you are to be permitted onto his property without explanation, no matter what time of day or night it was.
 
It’s the first time in my ten years here that he has allowed such a privilege.
 
So congratulations ma’am, and have a good day.”

“You too,” Roni said, unable to shield her shock.
 

The electronic gate slid open, and Roni drove on in.
 

But if Roni was shocked, Kara was beyond shocked.
 
And she couldn’t take her eyes off of her older cousin.
 
She always thought Roni would be nothing more than a temporary diversion for Mr. V., an ally to Kara’s cause to wrangle Aubrey.
 
Now Kara was the one on the outside looking in, and Roni was the one with all of the special privileges.
 
That was
so
 
not
fair, she thought, as they made their way to the main house of the Varnadore estate.

NINETEEN

The doorbell rang as the attorneys continued their charm offensive, and Dena was perturbed.
 
“Who would be ringing a bell?
 
Security didn’t notify us of a visitor?”

Hudson came from the back of the house and hurried to the front door.
 
He opened the door and then came back around the foyer.
 
“It is Miss Veronica Wingate and Miss Kara Wingate, sir,” he said.

“Let them in, Huddie,” Jake said, thrilled to know that Roni was here.
 
His butler quickly obliged.

“Oh, Jake,” Dena said.
 
“This is not the time for amateur hour.
 
We have reputable attorneys here.
 
We don’t need some legal aid person.”

But Jake ignored her and rose to his feet as soon as he saw Veronica’s face.
 
“Hello, babe,” he said, going to her.
 
“I was going to phone you.”

“I tried to phone you repeatedly,” she said as they kissed.

“What’s up?”

Roni shook her head.
 
“It’s not good,” she said.

“Aren’t you going to introduce your guests, Jake?”
Dena asked, feeling left out.

“Welcome to the firing squad,” Jake whispered to Roni, prompting her to smile, as he escorted her, with Kara behind her, into the lion’s den.