Guilt by Degrees

Author:Marcia Clark [Clark, Marcia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 1444707523
Google: ExP_EtEXbqgC
Amazon: B005SCAMDU
Publisher: Mulholland Books
Published: 2012-05-08T07:00:00+00:00

45

The next morning dawned gray and brittle, a perfect accompaniment to the day’s planned festivities: a visit to Lilah’s law firm. Spending the day in a law firm—any law firm—was not my idea of fun. But I hoped someone could give us a line on where Lilah might be now, or at least tell us something more that would help us find this cipher of a woman. So far all I’d managed to do was add to the list of questions about her that’d been running through my mind on an endless loop. I put on my “lawyer clothes” and reluctantly left my firepower at home.

It was a typical white-shoe law firm, occupying the upper floors of a skyscraper in Century City. An elevator dedicated solely to the law office opened onto a glass-encased lobby with thick carpets and window treatments in earth tones. The obligatory modern art hung on the wall behind the predictably coiffed mannequin of a receptionist. She was seated at the epicenter of a semicircular marble counter. “May I help you?” she asked skeptically.

Neither Bailey nor I had the down-at-the-heels look (i.e., scuffed-up shoes and dull, boxy suits) of the stereotypical civil servants. I wore a gray cashmere turtleneck sweater and black blazer, and Bailey wore a black turtleneck and slacks under her camel-hair midcalf coat. Not bad, but not nearly luxe enough to be clients of this place. And the receptionist’s greeting showed she knew it.

“We’ve got an appointment with Lyle Monahan,” Bailey said, handing the woman her card. I handed her mine as well.

“Have a seat, please,” the receptionist said dismissively.

She waved her hand at the plush beige leather sofa that was as far away from her desk as you could get without falling through the floor-to-ceiling window.

“I feel banished,” I told Bailey after we’d crossed the ten feet to our destination. “Did you see that look she gave us?”

“I think Botox has something to do with her expression,” Bailey said. “Don’t take it personally.”

We cooled our heels for a good fifteen minutes before a baby-faced young man in an expensive navy-blue suit and wing-tip shoes ushered us into the sanctum sanctorum: a huge corner office with windows that spanned two walls, providing a commanding view of the city that stretched all the way to downtown. It was sparsely furnished with a high-tech glass table mounted on a steel sculpture at one end of the room; at the other was an ivory-colored leather sofa and matching barrel chairs. A putting green would’ve fit nicely between the two groupings. The young man planted us in the ergonomic ecru leather chairs that faced the desk, said that Mr. Monahan would be right with us, and left.

“Notice how he didn’t even ask us if we wanted anything to drink?” I remarked.

“You thirsty?” Bailey asked.

“No,” I admitted. “But it’s the principle. I think we should threaten to take him downtown for questioning.”

“We just got here. I don’t feel like going back downtown,” Bailey pointed out. “Besides, I don’t think that kid knows anything.

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