Chapter 27
“But you do not have this so-called ‘testimony of true love’ on paper.” Gabriel paced in front of the witness stand.
Mr. Kletzman, soon to be Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy’s sixth ex-husband, dabbed his forehead. “Of course not! Would you have asked for written statements of everything your fiancée says? She wouldn’t even share her lasagna recipe on paper!”
“Move to strike the witness’ testimony after ‘Of course not’.” Gabriel looked to the judge. “Answer not relevant to the question.”
“Strike the statement from the record,” the judge said. “Mr. Kletzman, please respond to the question and the question only.”
“She wrote me a poem,” Kletzman said.
“A poem! Wonderful.” Gabriel went to the bench and leafed through his documents, holding back a smile. Poor Kletzman—ripe for the taking. And he’d enjoy it. “Filed under evidence as Exhibit C. Permission to bring it forward?”
“Permission granted,” the judge said.
Gabriel mouthed a “sorry” to Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy as a blown-up copy of the poem was exhibited.
“No worries.” She patted his hand. “Honestly, not even my worst work.”
Gabriel read the poem out loud—Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy took quite a lot of freedom with the free verse—and faced Kletzman. “Can you point to anything in the poem that specifies you should be entitled to a part of your wife’s fortune in case of a divorce?”
Mr. Kletzman remained silent.
“The witness will respond to the question,” the judge said.
“L-lines seven and eight. ‘I would give you the sun, the moon, and everything.’”
“Thank you. Exhibit C may be removed. No further questions.” Gabriel sat down next to Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy.
“Is that smart?” she whispered. “Wouldn’t you want to defend that line?”
“It’s clear to everyone how poetry works,” Gabriel said. “Trust me. It has more of an impact if I don’t overexplain it.”
“Well… I do suppose that poem was always a joke.” Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy gave him a small, trusting smile.
“Mr. Garcia can move in for the redirect.” The judge turned to the other lawyer.
“No questions.”
“Very well. We continue after lunch. Court dismissed.” The judge scratched his head as he climbed out from behind the bench. He passed by Gabriel and chuckled. “All that lasagna talk made me hungry.”
Gabriel chuckled back and gathered his papers into a stack. The trial was going well so far, and he’d felt the old exciting thrill as he faced down his opponent—even if Kletzman wasn’t a tough nut to crack.
No, the real worries were all contained outside the case.
Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy nudged him; he packed his papers into the slim briefcase, gave her a nod, and followed with a delay.
Gabriel hadn’t made it two steps out of the courtroom when someone nearly collided with him. Navy blue suit. Silver tie. Gabriel raised his eyes from his shoes—the man smudged the left one—straight into Anderson’s smug, Ken-like face.
“Vane.” Anderson smiled. “I heard you were back. Didn’t think you’d dare come to court already, though.”
“You must be misremembering,” Gabriel said, maintaining steel eye contact. “You were the one who always felt nervous before the court. Remember that mock trial where you puked on—”
“And a red tie, too. You must be feeling confident. Well…” Anderson gave an innocent shrug. “At least it’s not the half-open lotus this time. Although I did hear you and the lovely Ms. Ensfield got back together.”
“Jealous?”
Anderson narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what problem you have with me, besides the fact I’m better than you, and you have to resort to charming smiles and witty remarks to get on the judge’s good side.”
Stay calm.
Anderson was good, no doubt—when he bothered to do any work. And he was even better at manipulation. This time, though, Gabriel would not get manipulated. “Like you said, you are the best. And I learned all my manipulation tricks from the best.”
“Oh, please. I’m not this great nemesis you paint me to be.” Anderson took a few steps around him. “Those pictures? You think I had it in for you? I’d grab anything I could get my hands on. You turning out to be the former Mrs. Sinclair’s lover—that was just a bonus.”
“Which you decided to present in the most dramatic way possible. I see how you meant no harm.”
“Vane, if I meant you harm, I’d let Harvey Sinclair have at you. He suspected something was going on with his wife, but when he saw the pictures, saw it was you… oof.” Anderson tugged at his tie. “Don’t know what was worse, the rage or the jealousy. You should be grateful he doesn’t pack. Ah, well. Case calls.” He retreated down the hallway. “Good luck!”
Gabriel stared at his back, working out the nonsensical statement, when Wynona came from behind.
“You were amazing in there.” She smoothed his hair. “How horrible was that poem? But you got Kletzman good. Finishing off the cross-examination without another question—I always did say silence is the most powerful thing.”
Gabriel fixed his hair back. “You’ve never said that before.”
“Have to start one day. So, lunch?”
Gabriel’s stomach grumbled, but his mental barrier pushed against it. “Sorry. I have to run over the closing argument before we reconvene. We’ll be done today if this goes well.”
Wynona puckered her lips. “Fine. Do your best, close quickly, and I’ll take you to dinner.” She leaned in and whispered, “There will be champagne.” With an elegant wave of her fingers, she turned and strutted down the hallway.
As the court reconvened, Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy was called to the stand. Gabriel let the other lawyer do the cross-examination, then went in with the redirect.
“Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy. I’d like to return to the mention of the yoga instructor, Mr. Vanya Petrov. Your husband claims you hired the instructor because you were no longer satisfied with your husband’s performance.” Gabriel looked to the judge. “We’re not talking about yoga.”
A few people in the courtroom chuckled.
“Yes, I did hire an instructor. Not him.” Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy raised her chin. “Despite what may be seen, I am not the youngest anymore, or the most flexible. I thought the practice would only help my marriage.”
“For the record, can you define ‘practice’?”
“Yoga practice. Downwards dogs, cats to cows, the standard stuff.”
“And you did not hire Mr. Petrov specifically?”
“No! A friend mentioned a Vanya, and I asked for her. I thought Mr. Petrov was a woman!”
“Because Vanya can be both a male and a female name.”
“Exactly. And the site I hired him on didn’t specify. Only said ‘Vanya’. I had no intention of making Leonard jealous.”
Don’t know what was worse, the rage or the jealousy. Harvey suspectedsomething was going on with his wife, but when he saw the pictures, saw it wasyou…
Gabriel shook his head. The last thing he needed—Anderson’s voice intruding upon his memories during a trial.
Saw it was you…
“Mr. Vane. Any more questions?” the judge asked, and Gabriel realized he’d been staring somewhere right of Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy for the past few seconds.
He cleared his throat. “Yes. Let’s proceed on to the accusation of you withholding your funds when it came to the combined purchase…”
The P.I.’s list.
Any proof of affair of Mrs. Sinclair with Gabriel Vane.
But if Harvey didn’t know Wynona’s secret lover was Gabriel, how could he have specified that? Anderson hadn’t known beforehand, either.
“It was solely for Leonard’s use. I don’t see why I should pay for it,” Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy said.
“Understood.” Gabriel moved on to the next question.
Believe it or not, I want to help you.
Natalie turned up with this case the day after the dinner party. What had changed then?
Luckily, Gabriel had thoroughly practiced this part of Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy’s defense; he only needed to give her an entry question, and he could rewind back in his head while she answered.
The party… horrible food, seeing Natalie, Wynona came over—
Ms. Ensfield—
Natalie had reacted strangely at that…
The hint about the P.I.’s case—the cue wasn’t Gabriel. It was Ensfield.
Natalie wanted him to see that name.
He shook his head back into reality just in time to catch the end of Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy’s statement. “Thank you. That would be all.” He retreated to his bench. “The defense rests.”
“I knew you could do it.” Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy pinched his cheek as they met outside, after their victory was declared. “You never let me down. Here’s to six!” She raised a hand in an invisible toast. “And maybe soon seven, eh?” She winked.
“I don’t think I’m your type.”
“Oh, no, of course you’re not. You’re too smart for me.” Her laugh was croaky, but friendly. She grabbed Gabriel by the arm and they headed to the exit. “And too valuable. I need you to get rid of all the other husbands.”
A swarm of reporters waited outside; Gabriel made a few quick statements, then let his client take the limelight. Mrs. Ashford-Abernathy fixed her shawl and posed like a Hollywood diva of old as she praised her and Gabriel’s achievements.
After a while, the crowd cleared. Gabriel was sitting on the steps leading to the courthouse when Wynona caught up with him. “Here you are. Now that I have you all to myself—dinner?”
He didn’t move.
“Babe, what’s wrong?”
“I met Anderson earlier.”
“Ugh. Condolences. But you don’t have to think about him.” Wynona’s voice was light as she tugged on his sleeve. “Ignore him.”
He could. And he could ignore the little needles that wanted to burst the bubble he’d tried so hard to keep. The discoveries he’d made regarding the P.I.— he could let them rest, move on, force himself back into his life.
There was only one problem: he didn’t think this was his life anymore.
He was like the Wright-Maxwell comet, torn asunder and pulled back together again, looking the same on the outside, but changed fundamentally within. His new nature no longer fit this life. Pieces remained—such as him still loving his work—but they had been enveloped by new experiences and changed perceptions.
Ignoring those changes would be the fastest way to madness. This time, he wouldn’t let Wynona off the hook. He’d prod. “I suppose he’s only making more stuff up, anyway.”
A sliver of worry flicked through Wynona’s eyes. “What did he say?”
“That Harvey was using your family’s accounts to pay for his stuff. Fund whatever crazy new scheme he thought of, buy cars, that ugly boat of his—”
Wynona laughed. “No way. Do you think I’d ever let Harvey get access to our accounts? How do you think he got so broke by the time we divorced? He had to pay for everything himself.”
So that was it. Ensfield.
Not Harvey.
Wynona.
Could it be true—that all this time, she was behind the reveal? It made no sense; she wouldn’t have done it, harmed him as well as herself. But before Gabriel had started to care about the more fulfilling aspects of his life, he’d been good at living on facts. Still was. And Wynona had just told him a condemning fact.
He faced away from her and fixed his eyes upon a sleek glass building across the road. “You hired the P.I.”
“The—what?”
“Neither Harvey nor Anderson knew we had the affair—only suspected you were doing something. And yet, the detective was hired specifically to take pictures of us. And he was paid by you.”
He stared her down with a gaze he usually spared for his closing arguments.
“I—I—” Wynona stood, paced, bit her nail. “Okay, fine! I did it!”
Gabriel nearly lost his balance. “You did?”
“I was only thinking of us.”
He stood. “How is outing me, making me almost lose my job, thinking of us?”
“It wasn’t supposed to go down that way!” She passed a hand through her hair. “I intended to wait until the trial was over, then give the pictures to a paparazzi in exchange for an exclusive story on us. We’d get loads of publicity and money. Only that asshole Anderson found out and took the pictures to use them for his gain—and I couldn’t do anything!”
“How about warning me?”
“What would that have solved? He already had the pictures.”
Gabriel went over to a column and leaned on it, lowering his head. “Regardless of when the pictures came out, you knew my career would be endangered. I could’ve been disbarred!”
“So?” She walked to him and reached out a hand, but halted as he drew back. “Babe, look at you, your pace. You’re almost worse than Harvey when it comes to work.”
“It’s my job,” he nearly spit. “I signed up for this. What am I going to do—throw everything up in the air when the clock strikes five, clients be damned?”
She pursed her lips. “No, but a vacation wouldn’t be wrong. And that’s what we could’ve had. Don’t you see? I’d be free to do what I want and you could finally relax.”
“You already got a bunch of money from Harvey by winning the case.”
“I didn’t get as much as I thought. The prick really was broke.”
He shook his head in disbelief. “Then why did you stay quiet after the scandal broke?”
“The plan was for us to get through it together. I tried talking to you, don’t you remember? But you insisted on disappearing, and your company efficiently buried the whole thing. I don’t know how they got to the judge and the P.I. who had the photos, but those were gone, too.” Wynona crossed her arms over her chest and tapped on her elbows. “I’d look like a bitch if I dragged it out again. Like I’m using it for attention.”
Gabriel cocked an eyebrow.
“I only had the best intentions.” She clasped his shoulders, but he shook her off. “I love you. Is it so wrong I just wanted to be with you?”
“You don’t love me,” he said after a pause. “I don’t think you ever did. And I never loved you. We only thought we had something because it felt good. Better than what he had without it.”
“You’re telling me how I felt?”
“No, you’ve shown me how you truly felt, by planning a scandal!”
Wynona huffed, walked a few steps away, then turned to him again. “You’re going to throw me into the same group as Anderson, aren’t you? Arch-nemesis. Never to be forgiven.”
Gabriel walked to the edge of the steps. The arch-nemesis group. Yes, that was a special one. One for the unforgiven.
But as he thought about it, as the first bout of rage and shock cleared, no long-lasting, ever-biting hate remained. Anderson had been right. He didn’t care about Gabriel—hell, in law school, he didn’t even bother to remember his name! He wasn’t put on this Earth to torture him. Gabriel ascribed him way too much importance.
And so he did to Wynona’s scheme. It didn’t matter. It truly didn’t.
Wynona sniffled, although even that had seemed practiced—too perfect. “You’ll never forgive me, will you?”
“Actually…” He turned to her. “I do.”
She tilted her head.
“I forgive you. And Anderson. And whoever else needs it.” Gabriel shrugged, then laughed at the pleasant, light, shimmering feeling in his chest. “Because I don’t care! I don’t care what any of you did.” In truth, neither Wynona nor Anderson were most in need of forgiveness. Because the head of the arch-nemesis club—it’s always been Gabriel, himself.
He strolled down the steps. “We’re not going to dinner, obviously. And I’ll return whatever clothes you left at my apartment tomorrow. Consider whatever we have…” He made a vague hand motion between them. “Canceled.”
“But, Gabriel…”
“I’m done. I’m done with all of you.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and took a deep breath. Was that how it felt to finally let go? To forgive himself?
All the past months, he’d been telling Ida of how she had to let go of her anger—and praised her for doing so. Who would’ve ever thought it would be so easy to do it himself?
He clutched his chest. The shimmering feeling. The dinner, Rosalie, lighting the candle at Ida’s grave…
I’ll just have to take care not to forgive anyone and pop you out ofexistence before we can bring you back to life.
Ida.
No.
***
“Really. He’s opening with the French Defense.” Ida booed the TV screen. “Everyone learned that when they were ten! Don’t you know any better?”
Beside her, Shawn munched on tortilla chips with sauce, ignoring her as always.
“We’ll tell him we were right when he loses, won’t we, buddy?” she said. She’d never paid much attention to chess before. Interesting. A hundred and thirty years with all the time at her leisure, and no chess. It was an exciting game. Thrilling. Made hours pass like minutes. If she could over-analyze every move, she’d never have to think of anything—anyone—ever again.
A warm, fuzzy feeling started in her chest. No, that wouldn’t be from the hot sauce she’d haunted earlier. She looked down, but as expected, nothing had changed.
The feeling spread—into her stomach, shoulders, progressing into arms and legs—
She shot up. She knew this. The dinner, Rosalie, Gabriel lighting the candle at her grave…
She flew up through the ceiling into the second floor, and into her bedroom. Her fingers trembled, energy almost unstable, as she struggled to draw the contract out of the folder and put it on the bed.
The ball of light and warmth inside her grew stronger and stronger, a supernova ready to explode. Panicked, Ida jumped to the single condition left on the contract. Forgive, previously written in black ink, turned into a blood red… then started to fade.
Gabriel. He did it.
A mix of feelings rushed through her body, as if it was trying to process them all, remember them for the last time before she’d pass through. Happiness—after all this time, he’d done it! Sadness, fear—she didn’t want to go, not like this. Was it possible that even after a century, she wasn’t ready? So many foods she’d never haunted. Movies she’d never watch. New tenants she’d never meet—and neighbors she’d never see again.
Life was a singular experience, whether as a proper human or a ghost.
Thankyou, Gabriel. And sorry, Shawn—I did want to watch at least one more chess gamewith you.
Ida took a deep breath and smiled at the contract as the word disappeared from the page.