Final Judgment

by Marcia Clark

  Bryan grimaced as he stood up, a painful-looking leverage of legs and back, like the unfolding of a rusty accordion. Niko glanced up at him but didn’t move.

  Bryan moved toward the door. “Okay. I’ll leave you be. Thank you for listening.”

  He shuffled out, looking twenty years older than when he’d come in. I actually felt badly for him. I looked at Niko. “What do you think? Do you believe him?”

  Niko poured us each a glass of the pinot noir we’d opened before Bryan showed up. “I guess it’s possible Tanner went rogue. He’s always been more willing to take risks than Bryan. But that’s partly what made them so successful.” He took a sip of wine. “On the other hand, I’ve never seen him go out on a limb to this degree before. So I don’t know.”

  I wondered what Tanner’s side of the story would be.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have long to wait.

  I stayed the night to keep Niko company, but he spent most of it pacing around the house. I dozed off and on, but by the time I finally managed to drift off, it was after five a.m. I didn’t wake up until eight thirty—when I was already supposed to be at the office. My eyes burned and my body ached. I wanted a long, hot shower but had to settle for a quick rinse and then a fast makeup job—just enough to avoid scaring small children. When I walked into the kitchen, I found Niko sitting at the table, hunched over a cup of steaming coffee. The half-empty coffeepot told me it wasn’t his first.

  I poured myself a cup and sat down across from him. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

  His eyes were red and his facial stubble was longer than his usual short coating. He shook his head. “You?”

  “A little more than you did.” I took a long sip of coffee. “What’s on the docket for today?”

  His voice was weary. “I’ve got a meeting with my agent to talk about that cameo in First and For Most and supposedly a meeting with the rep from Jockey to do a line of action wear. But he’s Tanner’s guy, so . . .”

  I took another sip of coffee and felt the caffeine kick in. Thank God. “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. I get it. You’re not in the mood to do more business with Tanner. But didn’t you say your manager checked out that Jockey rep?”

  “Yeah. He did say the rep seemed legit.” Niko stared down at his cup. “You’re right, I guess.” He rubbed his face. “I’m not thinking all that clearly right now.”

  The doorbell rang. Two seconds later, there were three sharp raps on the door. Someone was in a big hurry. I stood up. “Probably breakfast. I’ll get it.” Niko likes to have all his food delivered. I wouldn’t mind, but a) I’m almost never home, and b) it costs a fortune.

  But it wasn’t food. It was Tanner. A very anxious Tanner, and he was in hyperdrive. His hands were on his hips, and he was pacing back and forth across the doormat. The moment I opened the door, he lunged at me as he said, “Can I come in?”

  I barely had the chance to nod before he moved past me into the house. I pointed to the kitchen. “He’s in there.” I followed him in. I wanted to hear this.

  Tanner crossed the foyer in three long, fast strides and dragged out a chair across from Niko. He plopped down, ran a shaky hand through his hair, and talked at warp speed. “Bryan went fucking crazy. The old man just had to show everyone that he still had it. So he goes whole hog for this crazy crypto thing.” His tone was both desperate and incredulous. “Who does that? Everyone knows those stocks are volatile as hell.”

  Niko frowned. “So you’re saying this was all Bryan’s idea?”

  Tanner looked shocked. “Are you kidding? Of course it was! I’d never have sunk all that money into this scheme without a test run.” He spread his hands. “Come on, Niko. You know me better than that.”

  Niko, worn out from a sleepless night and days of emotional stress, spoke with a harsh bitterness. “I don’t feel like I know much of anything right now.”

  Tanner sat back, his expression wounded. “Look, I know I move fast. But I never jump blindfolded.”

  Being a half step away from the situation, I could be a little more objective. And now that the caffeine had kicked in, so had my natural instinct to cross-examine. “How is it possible for Bryan to have moved all that money without you knowing?”

  Tanner faced me, his expression earnest. “We set it up so we’d both have the power to sign on all accounts, in case one of us was traveling and something needed to get done quickly. But we were never supposed to make a move like this unless we’d both agreed ahead of time.” He turned toward Niko. “And it’s never happened before. Honestly, I’m wondering whether Bryan’s kind of . . . losing it.” He tapped two fingers to his head. “You know? He is getting up there.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “He’s fifty-seven.”

  Tanner sat back and blew out a breath. “You’re right. I mean, there is such a thing as early onset. But . . . yeah. Probably not. And I get that he wants to show he’s still”—Tanner used air quotes—“‘The Man,’ but this . . . this was way over the top.”

  I didn’t know what to make of it all. One of these guys had to be lying. But which one? Both seemed equally sure that the other had made the catastrophic investment. Both were equally angry about it. Could there be a third party in this mix? One neither of them knew about? A hacker, maybe?

  But it only took me a moment to see the flaw in that theory. If it’d been a hacker, they wouldn’t be finger-pointing at each other. They’d be saying that neither of them had made the trade.

  Tanner heaved a deep sigh. “Anyway, the most important thing now is to get everyone paid back. The only way to get my hands on that much money is to—”

  “Reinvest?” Niko shot back. “That’s what you were going to say, right?”

  Tanner blinked for a second but recovered quickly. “Yes. Of course. How else?”

  Niko’s gaze was steady and deceptively calm. “And you want me to give you, what? A hundred thousand? Five hundred?”

  Tanner, completely missing the note of sarcasm in Niko’s voice, said, “Probably five hundred thousand. You know what Warren Buffett says, ‘Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.’ Everyone’s scared right now, so it’s time to be greedy.”

  Niko pushed away his coffee cup. “Yeah, you know what else Warren Buffett said? ‘Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.’ Seems to me that pretty much sums up you and Bryan. I don’t believe for one second that Bryan did this without you knowing. You both fucked up big-time. And now you expect me to trust you with another half a million? Are you insane?”

  Tanner’s face turned red, but he set his jaw and pressed on. “You can afford to support your mother. And maybe you’ll be able to bail Tom out—or at least keep him from going bankrupt. But what about all the others? What are they going to do? You can’t carry everyone.”

  I could see Niko struggling with the truth of what Tanner said. Niko had recommended Gold Strike to quite a few people—me included. But I have a deep and abiding aversion to financial investments of any kind. It’s not based on anything as intelligent as research or experience. It’s just that I don’t trust anyone. To me, giving someone else money to invest is just an invitation to rip me off. Not a particularly sophisticated attitude, but I am who I am.

  Niko shook his head. “You’re not going to persuade me to throw that much money at you, so stop with the guilt trip. Find some other investors to go in with me and show me an investment plan that isn’t based on the fever dream of some millennial with a Ouija board. Then I’ll decide.”

  Tanner took a deep breath, then nodded. “Okay. It’d be faster if I could just work with you—and it’d be more money in your pocket, but if that’s what you want to do . . .” He put his hands on the table and stood up.

  Niko gave him a hard look. “It is.”

  I waited for the door to close behind him, then said, “You’ve gotta hand it to him. He’s got brass balls.”

  Niko slouched down in his chair and folded his arms across hi
s chest. “The problem is, he’s right. The only way to bail out everyone is to find a hot new investment.”

  “Yeah, but who’s going to want to invest with them? One—or both—of these guys has to be lying.” It seemed entirely possible to me that both Bryan and Tanner were in on the crypto stock buy—and that both of them were lying about who’d made the deal now that it’d gone belly-up.

  Niko nodded, his features haggard. “You’re right. But I don’t know any other brokers.” He stared into his coffee cup. “They’ve made a lot of good calls up until now. If I could figure out who’s telling the truth, I’d probably go ahead and put in the money, just to give everyone a shot at recouping some of the loss.” Niko sighed. “But which one . . .”

  Was really up for grabs. At first, Bryan—with his kind, fatherly expression—had persuaded me that Tanner, the reckless young Turk, had gone off the rails. But Tanner’s sharp, angry denials, his assessment that Bryan had wanted to make the big move and prove himself to their clients, were persuasive, too. Then I remembered the chip that’d fallen out of his pocket when I met him at Bryan’s place. I’d done some checking on it. “Did you know Tanner’s in Sex Addicts Anonymous?” The words embossed on the chip, From Shame to Grace, made up the SAA tenet.

  Niko had been staring out the window, lost in thought. He looked at me now with a confused expression. “What?” When I repeated what I’d said, he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, he said he got it so he could go to meetings and score.”

  I shook my head. “Seriously?”

  He gave a small shrug. “I’m not sure it’s true. Sometimes he just bullshits to get a rise out of people.”

  But what someone jokes—or bullshits—about can be telling. The question right now is, telling of what? A true sex addiction that he was embarrassed to admit? Or was he not bullshitting at all? Was he really just preying on vulnerable women who were trying to get their act together? If so, he was as bad as the pusher who goes to Nar-Anon meetings to sell dope.

  But if he was a sex addict, would that mean he was more likely to act impulsively, as Bryan claimed? Or if he wasn’t, if he was just a disgusting predator, would that mean he was a more deliberate strategist who—even though a pig—was not the type to jump off the cliff without looking?

  I thought of one way to get closer to the answer. “Why don’t I get Dale to check these guys out?”

  Dale Pearson is a senior homicide detective with the elite Robbery Homicide Division in LAPD. One who also happens to be my father. A fact I didn’t discover until he hired me to defend him in a double murder case.

  Until then, I hadn’t known that my father was even an identifiable person, because Celeste, my piss-poor excuse for a mother, had always told me that my father was just a one-night stand and that she’d never known his name. The truth was, she and Dale had been dating for months. But shortly after she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d also learned he had no money—so she dumped him and never told him about me. Why? Because a pesky ex-boyfriend who wanted to share custody would’ve gotten in the way of her quest to snag a billionaire. So she’d lied to me about Dale all my life. For Celeste, the truth is never a must. It’s just one alternative.

  Anyhow, I won the murder case against Dale. Actually managed to prove that someone else did it and got it dismissed. Now, we have an . . . interesting relationship, with some unpredictable traits in common. Some might call them quirks. Most would call them . . . something else. And we do lean on each other for help now and then. So we have a relationship. But I’ll never be able to do the whole “my heart belongs to Daddy” thing. I don’t know whether that’s because I never knew him growing up or whether I’ve lost the ability to make that kind of connection. Or whether he’s a little too much like me. Whatever the reason, ours is far from the traditional father-daughter dynamic.

  Which is why, to me, he is, and always will be, Dale Pearson.

  I’d brought up the possibility of bringing Dale in to help Niko because he’d have access to Bryan’s and Tanner’s background information. That might give us some clues as to which one was lying.

  But Niko didn’t like the idea. “The last thing I want to do right now is get law enforcement involved. Later, sure. But right now, I don’t want to risk getting those guys busted. Not before they’ve had a chance to pay everyone back.”

  The hope that Bryan or Tanner could make back all that money struck me as the Hail Mary pass of all time. But I didn’t blame Niko for hanging on to that thread.

  Because he was right: if Dale got into it and found dirt on them, no one would get paid.

  SIX

  With no answers and no clear idea what to do next, neither one of us was exactly a ray of sunshine to be around.

  And Niko was doubly stressed because he was worried about his mother but couldn’t spend much time with her because he had to go meet with producers to start prepping his next video. “I don’t think she’s eating. It seems like she’s shrinking by the second.”

  I hesitated a moment before making the suggestion I had in mind. But this was a real worry. Sophia was already on the skinny side of slender. She really didn’t have any weight to lose. “Maybe you should get someone to stay with her? Make sure she gets some food in her?”

  Niko shook his head. Anxiety tightened his features. “She’d never stand for that. She doesn’t like the idea of strangers in her house. Friends would be okay, but I can’t expect them to be with her all day.” He finished his coffee and took the cup over to the sink. “I guess I’ll just have to tell her friends to try and get her to eat.”

  I put our cups in the dishwasher. “You stopping by there now?” Niko said he was. “Want me to go with you?”

  His eyes said yes, but he hesitated. “Don’t you have a mountain of work to get to?”

  I nodded. Unfortunately, I did. Those damn piles of motions, letters, and briefs wouldn’t write themselves. “But I can come back tonight if you want.”

  He said he did, and the look of relief on his face told me just how heavily this was all weighing on him. It was unusual for us to spend this much time together. We ordinarily hung out on weekends—and not even then if one or the other of us was tied up. Which happened a lot.

  As we exchanged a brief, distracted kiss and headed out to tackle the day, I wondered if we’d be able to deal with this much togetherness.

  When I got into the office, I posed the question to Michy.

  She laughed, then gave me an incredulous look. “Am I supposed to take that question seriously? Like he’s the one who can’t handle a real relationship?”

  That was not unfair. Whenever she points out how little time Niko and I spend together because of our crazy schedules, I always say it’s probably the only thing that keeps us together. “Okay, whatever. But you’ve gotta admit, this is a lot more ‘us’ time than we’ve ever had.”

  Michy held up her hands. “No argument there. But I’m not hearing that it’s a problem for Niko.” She raised an eyebrow. “You getting antsy?”

  I thought about that. “Not so far, but . . .”

  She gave me a steady look. “Then don’t second-guess yourself. It’s good that he wants you there. Believe it or not, that’s what couples do when they’re going through hard times—they’re there for each other. You can always take a break if it makes you crazy.”

  Michy wasn’t being patronizing. Or sarcastic. She knew that the weirdly shredded tapestry of what passed for my love life was the product of a pretty fucked-up childhood.

  Because Celeste, AKA Mommie Dearest, eventually did wind up finding her Daddy Warbucks. Proof that some men don’t really care whether a woman is a narcissistic pathological liar, as long as she’s pretty. And my mother was very pretty. Pretty enough to make most men stutter, and she ate it up. It always nauseated me.

  But desk jobs—or any job that required extended focus—weren’t her thing. So I guess it made sense that she settled on a gig that allowed her to move around a lot and became a real estate agent.
The job suited her well, and by the time I was twelve and in seventh grade, she was one of the top sellers at her agency. But the money wasn’t coming in big enough or fast enough for her. And working for a living had never been a part of Celeste’s life plan. So when the CEO of the company, Sebastian Cromer—a billionaire who owned commercial properties both here and abroad—stopped by the office, she made a point of cozying up to him.

  Et voilà, Celeste scored her billionaire. What was even better? He fell for her so hard and fast, he asked her to move into his mansion in Bel Air after dating for just one month. Celeste—no fool she—didn’t give him a chance to change his mind. We began packing that same night. Within a week, we were ensconced in the luxe life she’d always dreamed of.

  Except there was one little flaw. Celeste wasn’t the one Sebastian “fell for.” That lucky lady was me. Twelve-year-old me. While Celeste enjoyed her vision of heaven, I lived in an unending hell. Sebastian didn’t waste any time on the preliminaries. Within a week of our moving in, he started coming to my room to “tuck me in.”

  Translation: tongue kiss, then fondle, then . . . rape. I’d thought I was so lucky when I saw that I was getting a big bedroom at the back of the manse with my own en suite bathroom. But it didn’t take long for me to figure out that it wasn’t meant to please me. It was just a strategic move so no one could hear me scream.

  When I tried to tell Celeste what was going on, she refused to believe me. Called me a liar who just couldn’t stand the fact that she was finally happy. Even when the housekeeper caught Sebastian with his hand up my shirt, Celeste refused to accept it. And when the housekeeper caught him a second time and called the police, Sebastian charmed the officer. That asshole cop wound up shaking Sebastian’s hand and apologizing for the inconvenience. The housekeeper got fired.

  I ran away a few times, but Sebastian had the means to hire some of the very best to find me and drag me back. And let’s face it, how hard is it to track down a twelve-year-old?