Chapter 71
Reese and I are both staring at Dana, the window in our front living area now her backdrop as we wait for her to answer Reese’s question: Did you? Meaning, of course, did she kill her father. I don’t have to hold my breath long for her answer.
“I did not kill my father,” she hisses vehemently. “You’re doubting me though. You’re doubting me or you wouldn’t have asked. God.” She shoves fingers through her hair. “I can’t even believe this. I thought you believed in me. Why are you defending me if you don’t believe in me?”
Reese lets her finish her rant. “Dana,” he says calmly, “that’s the question every jury member is asking over and over during the trial. I need to ask it with them. I need to find the holes that make people believe you’re guilty and seal them.”
“Reese doesn’t defend people he believes are guilty,” I interject. “If he did, I wouldn’t be with him.”
“Do you believe I’m innocent?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
She looks at Reese. “And you?”
“Yes, Dana. I believe you’re innocent. But what I need from you, is not for you to convince me that you’re innocent. We’re past that. I need you to give me not your best, but the worst of you, because that’s what I have to defend. What can your boyfriend say that will convince the jury that you’re guilty?”
“I’ve been with him two years and my father and I had so many fights in that time,” she says. “I said that I hated him many times. I said that I wish I never had to see him again many times.”
Reese takes that in without so much as a blink. “What I need you to do is go home and type up details on any conversation with him about your father that you remember. I need this tonight because Reginald is flipping, he could end up on the prosecution’s witness list, far too easily and quickly. I need to be ready.”
“Yes. Okay. What about him? Do I still have to play nice with him?”
“I can’t tell you how to run your personal life,” Reese says, “but he’s already betraying you. Be careful. However, I can say this: I’m going to ask him if he had sex with you on the very day he agreed to turn on you. I’m going to use the way he’s treating you to create an impression of a monster protecting himself.”
“Then I’ll be nice to him,” she says. “You know, if you can make him pay for putting me through this, for killing my father, who I might have hated, but was still my father, the only living relative I have, then I’ll keep fucking his brains out. Is someone here to take me home?”
“I’ll call and get someone up here to escort you down,” Reese says, snagging his phone from his pocket.
“Do you want some coffee while we wait?” I ask.
“Yes, actually,” Dana says. “Something warm would be nice. I swear I’ve been chilled to the bone since my father’s murder.”
“Come with me then,” I say, leading her into the kitchen, and thankfully somewhere during our chat, my stomach calmed down.
Once we’re in the kitchen, I let Dana choose her flavor of coffee, as we have several, and as we both doctor our cups with cream and sweetener, she looks at me and says, “Reese really loves you.”
My heart warms. “I really love him.”
“Women flirt with him.”
“Well, he is Mr. Hotness. There’s a fan blog and all.”
She laughs. “Yes. I know about that, but my point is that he doesn’t flirt back.”
She has no idea how much this conversation hits a nerve. Reese is amazing. He’s so very good to me and I hate the idea of Debbie making the world think we’re broken. We are not broken. I shouldn’t care what others think, but I can’t seem to help it. I do. “I’m a very lucky woman.”
“I’ve never been loved the way Reese loves you, obviously, since I’m now defending myself against the man I thought I might marry. Heck, I wanted my father to love me even when he made me hate him.”
“You don’t think he loved you?”
“I guess in the only way he could: by throwing money at me. I thought if I walked away from the money, maybe he’d see me instead. Maybe he’d be a real father. I should have.” She shakes her head. “I need to not go there. I start tearing up when I do. So tell me. What’s it like to have someone who loves you as much as Reese does you?”
“Perfect,” I say. “It’s perfect like he is. Don’t settle. I didn’t.”
“Nor did I.”
At the sound of Reese’s voice I look up to find him in the doorway, and when his eyes meet mine they are warm with love. “Dana,” he says, seeming to force himself to tear his gaze from mine. “Your ride will be here any minute.” The doorbell rings and he says, “Or rather now.”
Dana sips her coffee she’s barely touched. “I hate wasting this. Thank you, Cat.” She sets her cup in the sink.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You occupied my mind. And you’re a good listener.”
She heads toward the door and Reese follows her while she sparks an idea for my column about what is real and what is a fa?ade. I’m playing it out in my head when Reese walks back into the kitchen and steps in front of me, tilting my cup up to take a sip for himself. And as silly as it might be considering all we share, this act of sharing warms me and even goes so far as to heat my skin.
“What do you think?”
“I believe her. You do too, don’t you?” My brows furrow. “Or don’t you?”
“I do.”
“But?”
“There’s something the boyfriend can do to damage her and us. If she doesn’t tell me what it is and I get sideswiped, I’m not going to be happy.”
“Yeah I kind of got that impression, too, but I think having her write out the conversations is good. Sometimes the tough stuff is easier to write down than speak.”
He sets my cup aside. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Okay. Why don’t I like how that sounds?”
“Because I don’t like how it sounds. Basically, your brothers believe that no matter what, arrest or no arrest, Debbie will make a stink with the press. And if we pay her off, she’ll come back for more if we don’t get a DNA test now. She could threaten to go to the press and not give us the test.”
My throat tightens and anger starts to burn in my belly. This is already old. I’m ready to end this. “What do they suggest?” I ask.
“That we find dirt on the attorney helping Debbie and use it to blackmail him to get out of this and take her with him.”
“I think I’m a Maxwell in this moment, because yes, do it. They’re doing it to us. Make it end.” That need to end this builds again, taking root. “You’re trying to save me the pain of the bad press and don’t, you need to know that what I want is to not be held captive. I want this over. Give her the million dollars. I’ll write a couple extra books.” I try to duck under his arms.
He catches me. “What just happened?”
“I just want us to be us again.”
“We never stopped being us.”
“We can’t have this kind of thing hanging over our heads.”
“If we pay her off we will have this hanging over our heads until that baby is born.”
“Not if we sign an agreement,” I argue.
“Give me a week to work with Royce and end this another way.”
“What if she goes to the press first?”
“I’ll start negotiating a deal to buy time. Okay?”
“Okay,” I agree. “A week. Make it end in a week.” I think of the baby and wanting this over with before I tell Reese, and most definitely before he or she is born. “And if we can’t negotiate or bribe ourselves out of this, I need to out her in my column, and we need to just deal with the press and questions. With this trial, her gossip will be filed away secondary to it, and if you win, no one cares about her claims.”
“Cat, what happened? You were okay, but I don’t think you are now. Did Dana say something that triggered this?”
“I’m okay. I’m actually good. I was wallowing and feeling sorry for myself but now I’m back to fighting.”
“You didn’t answer me. Did Dana say something that triggered your change of mood?”
“Just that you’re perfect. And basically that we’re perfect, in not so many words.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. On your birthday that will be very special, if you make this end.” I kiss him. “Go get the door.”
He snags my waist and pulls me close. “What is this gift?”
“Perfect, like us, but we need Debbie to go away, not me. I’m not leaving. I’m not wilting or running. She doesn’t get that power over us. I will out her which was my first instinct. We can handle it. We’re strong enough. You’re well-respected enough. You know it. You’re afraid of how it affects me and us. It doesn’t. So let’s do what we need to and handle it. One week. Let’s deal with this and end this.”
“All right then. We end this in one week.”