Legally Red

by A. A. Albright

  ‘Ah.’ The cat nodded her head. ‘And if it does, then you’ll need to look your best. In that case, may I suggest a lick of colour to your cheeks?’

  I sighed. I already had added a lick of colour to my cheeks. Many licks, in fact. But I took my glamour wand out again and added some more.

  Princess looked like she was about to say something else when a soft knock came at the door.

  ‘You decent?’ came Wanda’s voice from the other side.

  ‘No. But I’m dressed.’

  She laughed and came in, sitting on the bed. ‘Ooh. You look very nice. Are you and Mack doing something special?’

  ‘No,’ said Princess. ‘She’s having a boring dinner with boring Miles Master. But she’s hoping to see Mack afterwards.’

  ‘Hoping? You’re afraid the dinner might roll on too long for you to get to see Mack.’

  I pulled a cardigan on over my dress. ‘Yeah. That’s the reason.’ It was the excuse anyway, and I was sticking to it. I’d tell Wanda that it was over with Mack when I’d finally accepted that it was real. And if he called me back sometime soon, then I might never have to accept it at all.

  Her cute little nose wrinkled up, and she looked like she wasn’t buying it (darn her astuteness, anyhow!) so I artfully changed the subject. ‘So have you made any headway with the murder case? Because I’ve spoken to Goldie and Nails, and I really don’t think he did it. I think he thinks Nails did it, so he’s covering for her. But I don’t think she did it either. So … any clues on who else might have had a grudge against Decon Phelan?’

  She began to stroke Princess, who purred in response. ‘It’s a bit difficult to find out anything when it comes to the Lupin Lane pack. Nails won’t talk to the Wayfarers. I’ve been trying to get Goldie to open up, but I’m getting nowhere. But if you managed to speak to Nails – which I’m very impressed about, by the way – then at least it means someone is getting somewhere. I was afraid Miles would just go through the motions. Try and get some character witnesses so Goldie can get the lightest sentence possible. But that’s obviously not the case.’

  I sat down next to her. I could lie about my broken heart, but I couldn’t lie about this. ‘Actually, that’s exactly what Miles is intending to do. But tonight I’m going to try and convince him to ask for Goldie’s plea hearing to be postponed. That should buy us some time to find out more. Hey, you must have met Miles a few times. What do you think of him?’

  Her cute nose wrinkled once again. ‘What I think is that there’s more to him than meets the eye. Nothing bad, necessarily. Just … more. I keep wondering what a guy as rich as him is doing working as a public defender. I guess it could be as simple as him wanting to play the hero or something.’

  ‘It could, I guess. He’s not just a public defender, though. He’s doing pro bono stuff in private as well. Like for Candace Plimpton, for instance.’ I quickly explained Candace’s case, watching Wanda’s eyes grow rounder by the second.

  ‘I knew she had a lawyer, but I just figured it was to do with one of her many charities or businesses. Wow.’ She shook her head in amazement. ‘I mean I can’t say I blame her, but if she does get emancipated, what’s she going to do? Join another coven? My mam has a soft spot for her. I guess if the worst came to the worst we could invite her to be a Wayfair.’

  ‘I don’t really know what she intends to do if she actually gets emancipated. Miles never said, and I only spoke with Candace for a few minutes. Do you think she has a chance?’

  Wanda shrugged. ‘Judge Blasket runs the Child and Family court. She’s fairer than most judges, too. So who knows?’

  ‘Well the other lawyers in the Wyrd Court seem to think they know,’ I told her. ‘I heard some whispers this afternoon. If Candace does get what she wants, then the whole lot of them are going to have to eat their pointy hats.’

  ≈

  Miles had been true to his word and texted me his address. No Hello, no How are you? or I’m looking forward to seeing you. Just the address. I wasn’t surprised at his curtness, but I was surprised to find out he was living in the human world. The address was for a shop on Capel Street called Times of Yore – a shop that was incredibly close to where we’d eaten our lunch earlier in the day. Maybe Miles hadn’t gone on to an important meeting like he’d told me. Maybe he’d just gone straight home to binge watch TV.

  When I rang the bell, I gritted my teeth. It was one of those darned mind-reading doorbells. They played your favourite tune, and right now the stupid thing was playing Red, a song that Mack had written for me before we started dating. He’d written dozens more songs for me since, but that one always got to me.

  Miles came down through the shop and yanked open the door, causing the tune to finally end. Unfortunately it hadn’t ended soon enough for my liking, and I was having a bit of a sappy moment.

  ‘Are you all right, Melissa? You look close to tears.’

  I sniffed. ‘Fine. I’m fine. I’m … fine.’

  ‘Ah. Well if you’re fine, then that’s good. And here was me thinking that the psychic doorbell had tugged at your heartstrings somehow. They can often be superior to violins, I hear. I imagine this doorbell has yanked at the heart of a great many people.’

  I imagined it had, too. But probably only for people who had hearts, and I was holding off my decision as to whether Miles had one of those. I quickly wiped my eyes and looked at him. He was wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt, and his body was glistening with sweat. He had a towel in his hands, and he was using it to mop himself. ‘You’re wondering why I’m dressed so casually for our dinner, I take it? I was just working out,’ he said. ‘And as you’re early, I haven’t yet changed.’

  Nope, I thought – and you still haven’t invited me in, either. But I bit back that particular reply and said, ‘I’m ten minutes early. Which is the polite time to arrive, according to my mother.’

  He grinned. ‘Ah yes, the good Commissioner Wayfair. You really are connected, aren’t you? Funny, you have all of those connections, and yet I’m still the only lawyer who wanted to hire you. Anyway.’ He pulled the door aside. ‘I suppose you’d better come on up so we can get this over with.’

  I smiled sweetly. ‘What a gracious host you are,’ I said, walking past him and entering a dusty antique shop. The moment I was inside, I felt the hairs on my arms stand to attention. ‘This is a vampire’s shop,’ I said.

  He turned on me a little too quickly, letting the door slam shut behind him. ‘Oh? Seems like the kind of thing only a vampire would be able to sense, seeing as this shop is very well protected.’

  Why did he always have to make such good points? I looked around, struggling for a way to explain how I knew – other than My vampire senses were tingling. I couldn’t see anything that suggested a vampire owned the place, but then it hit me – there was something incredibly telling about the building, it just wasn’t on the inside.

  ‘Or anyone who knows that mind-reading doorbells often hang out at the front of vampire properties,’ I said. Well done me. ‘I was just thinking how nice it is that you’re friends with a vampire,’ I went on. ‘I heard a rumour that your coven was a little … how shall we say … behind the times?’

  He pushed at a door, leading me up a narrow creaky staircase. ‘My coven has been many things over the years,’ he said. ‘But my coven is not me. And yes, this place is owned by Jay Jones – a vampire friend of mine. He’s away at the moment, but he makes a decent enough flatmate when he’s here. As a matter of interest, how much research did you do on me before you applied for the job?’

  ‘About as much as I normally do,’ I admitted. ‘But all of your social media pages are pretty short and to the point. A whole lot about your fabulous career achievements, but nothing about your personal life. Not that it’s any of my business,’ I added. ‘You just need to be a good lawyer. That’s all I’m concerned about. Speaking of, I had a really interesting afternoon.’

  ‘Oh? Well I hope you stuck to the tasks I se
t for you, and no more. Otherwise you were wasting your time.’ He turned to me, his skin glinting in the light that spilled through the landing window. ‘But let’s discuss this inside, shall we?’

  Of course – because it sounded like it was going to be such a fun conversation.

  10. Funding Nemo

  Considering what the shop had been like, the apartment surprised me. It was devoid of any dusty antiques. In fact, it was downright modern. The living area was open plan, and I could see four doors leading off of it – two into some beautifully decorated bedrooms, another into a large bathroom, and the fourth into a gym.

  ‘Before we eat, I’m in need of a shower,’ he said. ‘I shan’t be long. There’s a bottle of red breathing on the table, so you can help yourself while you wait.’

  He went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him without another word. As I heard the water begum to run, I found the bottle of wine. It was Château Toff de Toff, an expensive wine that I preferred to stay away from. The last time I’d had some, myself and my entire coven had wound up imbibing a whole lot of love potion along with our wine.

  This seemed like as good a time as any to get over my issues (and let’s face it – there was no amount of love potion in the world that could make me lust after Miles), so I poured myself a glass and nosed around. There was an incredibly large television with the latest gaming consoles set up. Judging by the covers of the games, someone had a penchant for killing zombies. It was probably Jay, I guessed. Miles just didn’t seem like the gaming type.

  ‘Hello, gorgeous.’

  I jumped, looking around for who had spoken. And then I spotted him – Miles’s familiar, the basilisk lizard. He was over on the sideboard, lying out beneath a heat lamp.

  ‘Hi,’ I told him. ‘I didn’t get your name when we met yesterday. I’m Melissa.’

  He sat up, grinning at me. ‘I’m Baz. And I know all about you, beautiful. Now listen, Miles is going to be a bit of a brute this evening, but what I need you to do is–’

  ‘Baz!’ bellowed Miles, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, using another to pat at his hair. ‘I thought you were staying in the bedroom for the evening.’

  ‘Well, I was,’ said the lizard. ‘But you forgot to move my heat lamp, so I’m here. Good thing, too. At least this ravishing redhead had someone to entertain her.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Miles gritted his teeth and waved a finger, moving the heat lamp from the living room and into one of the bedrooms beyond. ‘Well, now your lamp’s been moved. So I suggest you move along with it. You and I need to have a little chat in the bedroom, in any case.’

  The lizard sprang up onto my shoulder, said, ‘Well, see you around gorgeous,’ then pecked me on the cheek and hopped back down before heading into one of the bedrooms.

  Miles turned back to me. ‘I’ll just be a minute more getting changed,’ he said. His eyes went to my near-empty glass. ‘There’s plenty more bottles in the wine rack if you need any more Dutch courage, Melissa – but you don’t need to be nervous around me. I’m just the latest in what’s been a very long line of bosses, after all.’

  As he followed Baz into the bedroom, I thought very seriously about chucking my glass at the back of his head – for Baz’s sake as well as my own. What had that lizard been about to tell me? Instead of inflicting violence on Miles, though, I poured myself another glass and opened the oven door. There was a lasagne in there that smelled divine. There was a big bowl of salad by the side, some hunks of crusty bread, and an enormous slab of steak that had been left out to defrost. At the sight of the steak my stomach rumbled, and I felt a painful lurch.

  Hmm, that was strange. I was salivating, too. Usually, the sight of steak made me wonder where the apples were. But if I was craving meat, then maybe I had a vitamin deficiency. It would explain a lot.

  ‘Hungry, Melissa?’

  I spun on my heels, finding him inches away, dressed in a dark suit. He was even wearing a tie and cuff links, and he had a perfectly folded handkerchief in his breast pocket. ‘You move way too quietly,’ I said.

  ‘I move in a perfectly normal manner. Now, it’s vegetable lasagne, because I heard that you Wayfairs are a bit weird about meat. But I’m happy to cook you some nice rare, bloody steak if you’d prefer. You do seem unusually interested in it.’

  My stomach rumbled again. ‘Nope. I don’t want steak. Not even remotely. And my coven is not weird about meat. We just don’t eat much of it.’

  ‘If you say so.’ He bent to the oven and lifted the lasagne out. ‘Grab some plates, if you would. Before my stomach starts making noises even louder than yours. I shall read your report while we eat, and then we’ll go over Candace’s case before she gets here.’

  I paused midway through laying the plates on the table. ‘Gets here?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? Candace is coming for dessert. I did invite her for dinner, but she had a meeting with her accountant.’

  I gritted my teeth and sat down. ‘Of course she did.’ What little girl didn’t have an accountant of her own?

  We worked while we ate, and I tried my best not to notice how he frowned as he looked through my report. It shouldn’t bother me that I didn’t seem to be able to do anything right in his eyes. At least I was finally getting the chance to do some actual legal work wrong. It was better than dropping suits in for cleaning and typing up expenses.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, pushing my papers away and looking at me. ‘I get the impression you don’t think Goldie is guilty.’

  I sipped at my wine – more slowly, this time. ‘If it’s just an impression then you haven’t really been listening to me, have you? There’s a lot more to this, Miles. We need to postpone his plea hearing so we can get to the bottom of things.’

  ‘Melissa, I made it quite clear to you that I was taping your interview with Goldie. An interview during which he made it very clear that he murdered Decon Phelan. If he seems certain that he’s guilty, then I fail to see why you’re trying to rock the boat.’

  ‘Rock the boat? Miles, if you watched that interview then you’ll know that he couldn’t have killed Decon. He had no idea that the poison was given to Decon along with some beer. He had no idea that Decon was killed at another location and moved to Luna Park. He didn’t know those things because he didn’t do it. And did you read about my conversation with Nails?’

  He shuddered. ‘Nails. What a name. And when it comes down to it, she didn’t say much different to what everyone else has been saying – that the weredog is nice as pie, and he couldn’t have done it. But we rarely know our friends and lovers nearly as well as we think we do. So if Goldie says he’s guilty, then we’re going to take him at his word and work towards getting him the lightest sentence possible.’

  ‘But that’s crazy! Forget about getting him a light sentence, Miles. We need to work towards getting him no sentence. Because people who didn’t actually murder anyone shouldn’t be in jail. He thinks he’s covering for Nails. If I can just talk to him again then–’

  He silenced me with a look. Usually even a Gorgon couldn’t silence me with a look, so I wasn’t quite sure how Miles managed it. ‘Melissa, are your ears in need of a cleaning? Despite what you seem to think, you and I are not some intrepid little detective duo. You’ve got the character statements from his boss and co-workers, which is all that I wanted.’

  ‘But when we were having lunch at Let’s Go Round the Bend you said I could write a report. You said I could give you my views about how we should handle Goldie’s defence.’

  ‘Yes. And now that I’ve read your report I can tell you without a doubt that your views are wrong. This is a straightforward case, Melissa. I don’t want you wasting any more time on it. Tomorrow afternoon we’ll be at court with Candace. I know what your capabilities are now, so I’ll be preparing for that alone. While I’m doing that, I’ll want you to fetch the suit I’m wearing for the hearing. And I’ll want you to test out some new coffee machines for my office. Oh, and bo
ok a late dinner for myself and a female companion in Swanks. Say about … ten thirty tomorrow night. Those will be your only duties. Step outside of them, and I’ll have to fire you.’

  I glared at him. ‘Seriously? And what about Candace’s hearing, then? Don’t I even get to go to that?’

  ‘Of course you do.’ He gave me a smile that was all teeth. ‘I’ll need someone to pour my water.’

  ≈

  The rest of our meal went by in near silence. Despite my hunger, I barely ate a bite. Miles chomped down his remaining food with gusto, and even cooked the steak after he’d finished his lasagne, eating it in front of me and giving me strange looks all the while.

  I thought about leaving the flat – in fact, I thought about quitting. But even though I was feeling surer than ever that the law wasn’t for me – especially not the way Miles did things – there was no way I was going to go off in a huff. If Miles wanted rid, then he’d have to fire me.

  Our uncomfortable silence didn’t break until Candace arrived for dessert. Kitty was with her, just as gorgeous as ever. The white cat wrapped her way around my legs and then jumped into my arms. ‘You look beautiful, Melissa. Doesn’t she look beautiful, Candace?’

  Candace looked up from her enormous plate of chocolate fudge cake and ice cream. ‘She’s a leggy redhead in a slinky black dress. Obviously she looks gorgeous.’ Candace rolled her eyes. ‘Although why you need to look gorgeous for a meeting with a client is beyond me.’

  I concentrated on Kitty, ignoring the little witch. ‘I have a date after this, that’s why.’

  ‘Oh yeah, you’re that rock star’s girlfriend.’ Candace looked as though she thoroughly disapproved. ‘I do wish he’d wear something other than jeans and T-shirts. He should wear some nice suits instead, like Miles here.’

  She finished off her food and brought her plate to the dishwasher. Miles and I weren’t eating dessert (although I really wanted to) so with Candace’s plate gone, the table was now clear. She opened up a small pink briefcase and started to lay out some files.