by Annie Jocoby
“So, what are you going to do?”
“Wait and see what happens when he is served. See what kind of an opening volley his lawyer makes. See who is lawyer is even going to be – it might be Steve Singleton, and it might be somebody else who’s more experienced in the field of family law. So many factors are going to come into play here. I’m guessing that what happens with Nottingham’s lawyer is going to dictate how Marissa and I decide to approach this. We’re going to get ready for anything, though.”
“I guess it’s pointless to speculate, though, huh?” I asked her. “Well, let’s not get too into the weeds just yet. If it’s possible, let’s take things one day at a time.”
She took a deep breath. “Hmmm, well, I certainly could use some TLC. Let’s go into the bedroom to see if we can drum some up.”
I smiled. “Let’s go for it,” I said.
We went upstairs, and immediately took off our clothes and went for it.
Chapter
Dalilah
Exactly one week after I filed my divorce petition with Marissa, the shit hit the proverbial fan. Nottingham made his first re-appearance since I the night of my beating, and, to my dismay, he showed up right at Serena’s door.
“I can’t talk to you,” I told him through the door, after I looked in the peephole and saw him standing on Serena’s front porch. “We’re in active litigation here, so you’re lawyer is going to have to talk to my lawyer. That’s how it works.”
“That isn’t how it’s going to work here, Dalilah,” he said calmly from the other side of the door. “You and I need to talk about this, face to face, adult to adult. You have to talk to me, if you want this to at all go the way that you’re envisioning.”
I looked at Serena, who was listening to every word between Nottingham and me. Luke, for his part, was down at his new studio, creating and trying to make friends with the other artists down there. Serena raised an eyebrow. “You better let him in,” she said. “I have a strong feeling that, if you don’t, there’s going to be hell to pay.”
“There’s going to be hell to pay either way,” I said. Then I reluctantly opened the door. I faced Nottingham and said “how did you find me?”
“Dalilah,” Nottingham said. “If you don’t know by now that I have ways of tracking you down, anywhere you think that you’re safe hiding, then you really have very little common sense. I know that you’re extremely intelligent, of course, but you obviously have some blind spots that I have enjoyed manipulating.”
I took a deep breath. “Okay, then, you found me.” I waited to say anything more.”
“Yes,” he said. “And, if you didn’t come back to the States from London, I would have tracked you down there, too.” He shook his head. “Really, Dalilah. Why you ever thought that I wouldn’t be able to find you, I don’t know. How was it staying with Liam Gallagher?”
I put my chin up, determined not to show the panic I was feeling as he spoke. “It was great, thanks for asking. Liam’s place is gorgeous and peaceful. It really gave me a chance to try to think things through.”
“Well,” he said, “are you going to invite me in?”
“No,” I said. “We can talk right here.”
He shook his head. “Dalilah. I would think that, with the information I have about some friends of yours, not to mention your father, you would be a bit more hospitable to me.”
“My father?” I said, feeling my heart drop to my shoes. “What does he have to do with any of this?”
“Do I need to spell it out?” he asked. “In front of your hostess here? If not, I suggest that you and I go somewhere and talk. We need to negotiate the custody issues with my child.”
“It’s not your child,” I said.
“Legally it is. And, once you hear what I have to say, I think that you’re probably going to end up not wanting to fight me. That’s my prediction, anyhow.”
I started breathing faster. What did he know, and how did he know it? “No way. You won’t get your hands on this child. Ever. This child belongs to Luke, not to you. I’ll fight you to the death for this. I will.”
Nottingham shook his head. “Well, then, perhaps the entire world needs to know exactly what type of guy your father is. He seems so charitable and philanthropic. And Nick, well, he’s the senior managing partner of one of the richest architectural firms in the world. He has a reputation, that’s for sure, and it’s a good one. But it might not be for long.”
I heard the cryptic words, and my heart fell further. It was like an elevator that was snapped from its cables, plummeting down 100 stories with breakneck speed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Nottingham just screwed up his face. “Yes, you do. Now, meet me at the restaurant down the street, and you and I will talk about this. I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”
I shut the door, and tried to catch my breath. I felt a little fluttering in my abdomen, and wondered if this was one of the first movements that I felt from my little one. “It’s going to be okay, Olivia, it’s going to be just fine. It’s going to be fine.” I turned to Serena, who was standing right behind me. “I have to meet him down at that restaurant on the end of the block.” I tried hard not to burst into tears.
Serena held me in her arms. “Go down and meet him,” she said. “Sounds serious.”
I looked at her. I wanted her to tell me that it was all going to turn out okay. I knew that sometimes Serena had foresight on such things, and if she said that it would all turn out, then it would. I really and truly believed that to be true.
“Serena, what do you feel about this? It doesn’t sound so good. If Nottingham has the kind of information that I’m afraid that he does…it won’t be good at all. Please, do you have any kind of feeling or hunch about this?”
Serena just shook her head. “Oh, I wish that I could turn it off and on like that, but I can’t. It pretty much comes in flashes, when I’m least expecting it. So, no, I don’t have any kind of foresight on what is going to happen here. I would tell you if I did, though. I promise.”
I nodded my head. “I understand. Well, I guess I better go down there.”
At that, I went out the door to meet my certain doom.
I got to the restaurant, and Nottingham was waiting for me. I sat down across from him, and folded my hands in front of me. He raised his eyebrow, and ordered a martini for himself. He turned to me. “I assume that you want something non-alcoholic. At least you better. I certainly don’t want my child to have any kind of problems due to your bad habits. That goes for your marijuana use, too. I would hope that would go without saying, but, with you, I just never know.” Then he shook his head.
“Yes,” I said, as calmly as possible. “Please order me a Club Soda with a twist of lime.”
He did so, and ordered lunch for both of us. Just like old times – he never bothered to ask me what I wanted. He just ordered.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m here. You need to talk to me.”
“Yes,” he said. “I want you to drop your contesting of my rights to my child. I understand that I probably won’t have full custody, nor do I want that. I do have a business to run, although I’m currently involved in a new, stable relationship with a very nurturing woman. She told me that she would be more than happy to help me raise this child.”
“This isn’t your child,” I said. “The DNA test proves that.” At that, I took the results of the DNA test out of my purse. It was a copy of what I got from the laboratory in England.
Nottingham took the paper from my hands, and then lit it on fire with the candle on the table. “That’s what I think about these test results. They’re not worth a dime in court, you know. Not when the child was conceived while you were married to me.”
“I realize that,” I said. “But I might get a judge who will accept these test results and declare Luke the father. Which would mean that your rights would be terminated.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” he said. “I’
m very friendly with most of the bench, and, besides, I have an ace in the hole.”
I held my breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Oh?” I asked, as calmly as I could. “And what ace would that be?”
“I think you know.”
“Know what?”
“Dalilah,” he said. “I did something to you awhile ago that I’m quite sure that you’re not aware of. It wasn’t legal, but, that doesn’t matter at this point. When you were going to marry me, I put a recording device on your phone. I basically wanted to make sure that you weren’t seeing Luke on the sly. I was impressed, by the way, by your stellar performance in dumping him. I probably couldn’t have done a better job myself.”
A recording device. How did I not suspect? “Okay,” I said. “So, you found out that I had dumped Luke, just like you asked, and I never saw him behind your back.”
Nottingham smiled. “You’re not a stupid person, by any stretch of the imagination. And your mind is a devious one, but not as much as mine. I can always stay one step ahead of you, Dalilah. Because I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that you pay for fucking me over the way that you have.”
I tried to control my temper. “Fucking you over? You beat me. I probably would have stayed with you if you wouldn’t have done that. Even though I despised you, and I still do. I would have stayed with you, because I wanted Luke to have his shot that much. So, my leaving you had everything to do with your actions. Don’t tell me that I fucked you over, you bastard.”
I braced myself for what was coming next. “You fucked me over by going to him the night of his premiere, instead of coming right home to me. But, that’s neither here nor there, is it?” He smiled, evidently delighted at my no-doubt stricken expression. “Now, Dalilah, I’m quite sure that you know what all of this is leading up to, don’t you?”
I tried to shake my head, but I knew that I did it weakly.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “Again, you aren’t stupid. Now, I know about what your father’s best friend Nick did all those years ago. I know it because you ran your mouth to Nick just before you and I were married. That has always been my ace in the hole.”
Crash! The elevator just ran aground, killing everyone on board. Not that this was a surprise. I knew it was coming, from his first cryptic words to me on Serena’s porch.
Don’t cry Dalilah, don’t cry. And don’t commit to anything right now. Buy some time. Buy some time.
I took an enormous breath, and tried to think of something. But what came out of my mouth was probably something that was going to get me into deeper trouble. As if I could possibly get into deeper trouble than I already was at this point.
“Oh, yeah? Well, let’s just say that I have some dirt on you, too. We’ll see who blinks first.” I was bluffing. I didn’t have any dirt on him, at all, but I was pretty certain that he was dirty in some way. I hoped that my words activated some kind of panic in him, and that he really thought that I did have something on him.
He looked unruffled. “Oh, really, Dalilah? You do.” Then he chuckled and took another sip of his drink. “You’re bluffing. I know it. What dirt do you have on me, pray tell?”
I was encouraged by his reaction. He tried to hide it, but I saw just a flicker of fear in his eyes. He does have something to hide. I just need to find out what it is.
“I’ll never tell. Let’s just say that, if you try to get my father and Nick in trouble, you’re gonna see exactly what kind of dirt I have on you. And you’ll be in prison. Now, what you know about Nick – the statute of limitations has run on those crimes.”
“The statute never runs on murder,” he said. “But go on.”
“It wasn’t a murder. That man committed suicide. All the other crimes that were committed – the statute has long since passed.”
“Really Dalilah? If you get some eager beaver prosecutor on the case, you really think that he or she won’t be able to make the case that what happened was a murder? I agree, it’s a grey area, but I think that you know it could go either way. I can’t believe that you want to take that chance. Take the chance that your beloved friend will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. And your father too – after all, the crime was recorded on his computer, so chances are good that he had something to do with it.”
I inwardly cursed myself. Cursed myself for bringing the subject up to Nick. Cursed myself for being so goddamned nosy that I was a hacker, just for shits and grins, which made me come across that video. Cursed myself for not realizing that Nottingham was underhanded enough to do something like bug me.
How could I have been so naïve?
Gut check time. But I was gambling with my father’s future, not to mention Nick’s. I was blindsided by this revelation, but I had to think on my feet.
I raised my chin. “Oh, well, what you did was just as illegal,” I said. “You take me down, and I’ll take you down. You take my father down, and you’re going down with him. Maybe you guys can wave hello to one another in the penitentiary yard.”
Again, the flicker of fear ran through his eyes for just a millisecond. If it wasn’t for that tiny little involuntary flicker, I probably would have backed down and agreed to anything that he wanted. But I saw that flicker, and I knew that I was onto something.
It was going to be a matter of finding out exactly what it was that I was onto. But there was something there.
Then he smiled. “You don’t have anything on me, Dalilah. But, I’ll bite. Lay your cards out on the table.”
“No way,” I said. “I got you good, but there’s no way that I’m going to give you a chance to cover up your tracks.” I raised my eyebrow, wondering if there was more than one illegal thing he was up to behind the scenes. If there was, then he was probably wondering, in his mind, exactly what goody I was going to spring.
He screwed up his face. “You don’t have anything. Now, let’s see. How about I see the prosecutor today to start looking into the death of Paul Lucas? Maybe it’s time to reopen a cold case, huh?”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t think so. No prosecutor is going to reopen that case. You have no proof of anything. Unless, of course, you want to use the recording that you made of me. But you and I both know that would never give anybody probable cause of anything, because what you did in recording me was clearly illegal. On the other hand, I got some pretty good proof of all the dirty business that you’re up to.”
The look in his eyes said you little bitch. “Hm. Well, you think that you’re the only one who knows how to hack? Let’s just say that I have somebody who has that same capability, and I got video proof of what he did.”
I put on my poker face and examined him. I didn’t believe him about that. Something told me that he was now the one who was bluffing. If he did have that video, then all of us would be in this shit hole. If he didn’t, then he probably would have a very tough time trying to get the case re-opened. Using an illegal recording of me spouting off my mouth wouldn’t be enough to re-open that case, that was for sure.
My mind whirled. I had a tough time finding the video, and I had gotten pretty good at hacking. At the point when I found it, I probably could have hacked the Department of Defense. Not that there weren’t people in the world who were even better than that, and god knew that Nottingham had the resources to hire someone who could do that.
Nottingham smiled. “You know, it’s all pretty ironic. You’re so brilliant that you were able to hack Nick’s computer and find something that he had erased off his hard drive a long time before that. Yet you had no idea that I bugged your phone. Like I said, you clearly have a blind spot in your intelligence. But maybe it was just a case of clear naiveté.”
At that point, I wanted to lunge at him. Put my hands around his neck and strangle him.
Who was going to blink first?
“Okay,” I finally said. “You go to the prosecutor, and you see what will happen. As I said, if you take us down, you’re going down right along with us. One thing is
for sure, though. You will never, and I mean never, get custody of this child. In any way, shape or form.”
At that, I got up from the table and walked out the door.
Chapter
As I walked away from Nottingham in the restaurant, I pulled my coat around me and tried to fight off the biting wind. March was certainly coming in like a lion, just as it was supposed to.
I alighted at Serena’s, and sat down in her chair.
“Dalilah,” she said. “Let me fix you a cup of tea. You look like you need it.”
“Actually, I need a drink,” I said. “A real drink. And, if I weren’t pregnant, that would be exactly what I would have right now.”
“That bad, huh?”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I fought the feeling that I was going to absolutely break down. “I need to make a phone call really quick. I don’t know if I can do it, though. I’m too out of sorts right now.”
“Let me call Luke,” Serena said. “And he’ll make any phone calls you need. I would make the calls, if you like, but I probably don’t know these people, so maybe it wouldn’t be such a great idea.”
“Yes, please, call him,” I said. “I need him. And I need him to call some people for me.” I also needed to talk to him. He might as well know what I caused in this regard by trying to bring this up to Nick after all these years. If it weren’t for me and my big mouth, Nottingham wouldn’t have any kind of ammunition to use against me. I hated myself for giving him that.
At that, Serena called Luke. “He’ll be here in ten minutes,” she said. Then she went to join me on the couch. “So, tell me what’s going on?”
I shook my head. “I can’t right now. I just can’t talk about it. I’m so sorry. I’m just kind of stunned, really. And ashamed of myself. Luke is probably going to hate me when he hears the latest on what’s going on.
“It can’t be as bad as all that,” she said. “Could it?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, it can. But I need to have a meeting with my parents and my Uncle Nick, because they’re going to be directly implicated on what is happening.” I nervously thought about my meeting with Nottingham. Was he going to bring us all under?
