“Come on.” She tried to laugh it off. “This isn’t the time.”
“I think you’ll find it’s the only time we’ve got. They’ll be taking me away in a minute.”
“Do you know where?”
“The state prison, for the time being at least. It’s in Warren, wherever the fuck that is.” Billy laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “My lawyer said he’s gonna try to get me moved. It’s a long way for my dad to come visit.”
“Sure.” Toni nodded lamely. If she were in jail rather than Billy, as she should be, would her dad even bother to come visit her? I doubt it. But she hadn’t come here to talk about their respective fathers. She had to tell Billy the truth. To break things off between them. Under the circumstances she didn’t know where to begin.
“Look, Billy,” she started nervously. “I owe you so much I really don’t know what to say.”
“How about yes?”
He was looking at her with those puppy-dog eyes again. As if this were a movie, or a play, and any minute now they were about to walk offstage and go back to reality. And Nicholas would be alive and Billy wouldn’t be going to prison and they would all live happily ever after.
Oh, Jesus. Toni’s heart sank. Is he getting down on one knee?
“Say you’ll marry me, Toni. Say you’ll wait.”
Toni opened her mouth to speak but he interrupted her.
“I know what you’re thinking. But it might not be fifteen years. Leslie’s gonna appeal. We might even get a mistrial.”
“On what grounds?”
“I don’t know.”
For the first time since the day Nicholas died, Toni saw Billy Hamlin’s facade of bravado and manly strength slip away. Looking into his eyes now, she saw a terrified kid. Scared. Alone. Out of his depth, just like she was.
“But Leslie says it’s possible and I could be out in a couple of years. Then we could get married and . . . things.”
He stopped talking suddenly. Could he read in her face how horrified she was? Belatedly, Toni tried to look the part of the devoted girlfriend. If Billy needed a fantasy to hold on to, something to get him through the nightmare of a life in jail, didn’t she owe him that much at least?
“Please, Toni.” The distress in his eyes was unbearable. “Please say yes.”
Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out. “Yes. I mean, of course. Of course yes! I wasn’t expecting a proposal right this minute, that’s all. But of course I’ll marry you, Billy.”
“As soon as I get out?”
“As soon as you get out.”
Billy burst into racking sobs of relief. “I love you so much, Toni.” Pulling her close again, he clutched her to his chest like a child with a teddy bear.
The guards arrived. “Time to go.”
“I know it’s gonna sound crazy,” Billy whispered in Toni’s ear, “but I mean it. This is the happiest day of my life. Thank you.”
“Mine too,” Toni assured him. “Be strong,” she added as he was led away.
Toni Gilletti waited till the cell door closed behind him. Then she sank down onto her chair and wept.
She knew she would never see Billy Hamlin again.
Three days after the verdict, Leslie Lose flew to Washington. He arrived at the secure underground parking garage at nine-fifteen at night, the agreed time.
He’d half expected his client to send a courier, someone anonymous to complete the transaction. Instead, slightly to Leslie’s surprise, the client showed up himself. He was an important man, and his presence made Leslie feel important.
“Two hundred thousand. As agreed.” Rolling down the smoked-glass window of his Lincoln Town Car, he handed Leslie a fat stuffed envelope. “You cut it fine.”
“I knew what I was doing. It’s all about knowing your jurors. Let’s just say I knew mine very well.”
“Clearly. I was sure they were going to acquit. But you pulled it off.”
Leslie smiled, wrapping his sausagelike hands around the package greedily.
“You should have had more faith, Senator.”
Senator Handemeyer smiled. “Perhaps I should have, Mr. Lose. Perhaps I should have.”
Billy Hamlin’s attorney watched in the dark as the Lincoln drove away.
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Oxfordshire, England. Present.
“Oh, Michael! Oh, Michael, I luf you, I luf you so much! Please don’t stop!”
From his uncomfortable position in the backseat of his vintage MG convertible, Michael De Vere wondered, Why do women say that? “Don’t stop.” Surely no one would stop at this particular juncture? Although presumably some men must; otherwise girls wouldn’t bother to say it, would they? As Michael’s mind wandered, so his erection began to wilt. But once started, he couldn’t seem to stop. What did Lenka, his latest conquest, think he was about to do? Whip out the Racing Post and start looking through the runners and riders for the four-fifteen at Wincanton? And if he was going to do that, what made her think that shouting “Don’t stop” was likely to change his mind?
“You stopped.” Lenka’s voice trembled with reproach.
“Paused, darling. I paused.”
It was four-fifteen on a glorious May afternoon and Michael De Vere was late. He was supposed to have dropped Lenka at Didcot railway station an hour ago. But what with the sunshine and the blossoms bursting out of the hedgerows, and Lenka’s impossibly short Marc Jacobs miniskirt riding up her smooth, brown thighs, one thing had led to another. Or rather, one thing had almost led to another.
Lenka pouted. “You don’t find me attractive?”
“Darling, of course I do.”
“You don’t luf me.”
Michael De Vere sighed. Clearly he was not going to be able to resume play. Pulling up his jeans, he started the engine.
“Lenka, you’re an angel, you know you are. But if I’m late for mother’s dinner tonight, she’ll be serving my balls deep-fried for pudding. I’m afraid that’s what’s putting me off.”
The girl glared at him. “You lie! You are ashamed of me, this is the problem. You are embarrassed to introduce me to your mother.”
“Nonsense, darling,” lied Michael, glancing appreciatively at Lenka’s underwear-exposing skirt and enormous silicone breasts bouncing happily beneath the skimpiest of PETA shirts. “Mother would adore you.” You’d be right up there with anthrax and Che Guevara. “I simply don’t think tonight’s the right moment to introduce you, that’s all.”
Ten minutes later, waving Lenka off from the platform, Michael De Vere breathed a sigh of relief and cheerfully deleted her contacts from his cell phone.
Sexy, but way too high maintenance.
Michael had enough stress to contend with, what with his mother being appointed home secretary the very same week that he had decided to quit Oxford. Not just decided. Actually done it. This morning Michael had gone to his tutor, signed the relevant forms, and packed up his gorgeous rooms in Chapel Quad, never to return. He planned to break the happy news to his parents over dinner tonight.
Naturally they would both have a fit, not least because his mother’s new job meant that this was now a story. HOME SECRETARY’S SON FLEES BALLIOL TO BECOME PROFESSIONAL PARTY ANIMAL. The Daily Mail always used words like “flee.” They were such arses. Michael felt bad about the inevitable negative coverage, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d set up an events company last year with his best friend, Tommy Lyon, and the pair of them were printing money. The future was bright, and Michael De Vere could smell success from here. This was no time to be messing around analyzing T. S. Eliot.
Ironically, his mother’s wrath would probably be as nothing compared to his father’s. Teddy De Vere was a Balliol man himself, just as his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had been before him. Short of desecrating his grandmother’s grave, or announcing he was gay, or (unimaginable) that he’d joined the Labour Party, in his father’s eyes there was no worse crime that Michael De Vere could have committed than dropping out of Oxford.
Yes, tonight’s dinner would be tricky enough, even without Lenka’s histrionics. The only silver lining in the whole ghastly business was that Michael’s sister, Roxie, would be there to support him.
“Last card.”
Teddy De Vere slammed the nine of clubs down onto the green baize card table with a theatrical flourish. It was a family joke that Teddy never won at cards, or indeed at anything: Monopoly, Pictionary, charades. You name it, Teddy lost at it, repeatedly and often quite spectacularly. As chief financial officer for a successful City hedge fund, not to mention a respected Oxford-educated historian, Teddy De Vere was no fool. But he played the fool to perfection at home, delighting in his role as the butt of family jokes, a sort of willingly tamed circus bear.
As usual, his daughter, Roxie, had gone out of her way this evening to give him an advantage in their predinner game of Oh Hell. For once, Teddy seemed genuinely to be winning.