eyes puffy above a nose the color of old wine. He looked at me strangely and I wondered if he’d been drinking. “You didn’t answer my knock, so I waited.”
I said nothing. For some reason, my heart refused to slow down. He walked across the ten feet that separated us, stopping just before he got too close. His eyes moved over me, taking in my wet hair and disheveled clothes. I felt heat in my cheeks but couldn’t stop the flush. Douglas was a hard man to lie to. “Everything okay?” he asked, shoving a piece of gum into his mouth.
“Yes,” I said, finding my voice. “Yes.” I knew I was repeating myself.
“I ask because I just got off the phone with Detective Mills. She says you’d better be dead already. It’s the only excuse that she’ll accept.” His eyes glittered more than twinkled and I realized they were his black eyes, his courtroom eyes. “Are you dead?” he asked.
“Close,” I said, and tried a smile that died on the vine. “Look, I’m sorry about not meeting Mills. I had my reasons.”
“Care to share them?” Douglas asked, crowding me without taking a step.
“I do not.” He was unimpressed by the anger in my voice. He shoved his hands into his pockets and studied me. I tried to give him my poker face, my lawyer face, but there in the shadow of my dead father’s building, it was hard. I had no idea what he saw, but I knew it wasn’t the calm, collected face I’d once practiced in the mirror.
“I’m going to tell you something, Work, and I want you to listen well.” I didn’t even blink. “This is the last thing I can tell you as a friend. It’s good advice, so you should take it.” He paused, as if waiting for me to thank him, and sighed when I didn’t. “Don’t fuck around with Mills,” he told me. “I mean it. She’s pissed-off and frustrated. That makes her the most dangerous person in your world.”
I felt a horrible chill move over me. “What are you saying, Douglas?”
“I’m not saying anything. This conversation isn’t happening.”
“Am I a suspect?” I asked.
“I told you the other day that everybody is a suspect.”
“That’s no answer,” I replied.
Douglas rolled his shoulders and looked around the empty lot, up at the roofline, then put his eyes back on mine. He pursed his lips. “Ezra was a rich man,” he said, as if that explained it all.
“So?” I didn’t get it.
“Jesus, Work.” Exasperation was in his voice, and he sucked in a deep breath as if to cool his temper. “Mills is looking for a motive and going through the usual suspects. I assume Ezra had a will.”
“Oh shit,” I said. “Are you kidding me?”
“Barbara has expensive tastes, and the practice . . .” He paused and shrugged.
“Come on, Douglas.”
“I’m just stating the obvious, okay? You’re a brilliant tactician, Work. You have one of the sharpest legal minds I’ve ever known. Hell, you’re even decent in the courtroom. But you’re no rainmaker. You won’t take personal injury cases anymore and you won’t kiss ass to get big clients. That’s what built the practice and made Ezra rich. But a law practice is a business. Even Mills knows that, and she’s been around enough to know that yours is barely solvent.
“Look. I know you didn’t kill your father. Just don’t give Mills a reason to look your way. Cooperate, for Christ’s sake. Don’t be a goddamn idiot. Give her what she wants and get on with your life. It’s not complicated math.”
“It’s bullshit math!”
“One plus one is two. Add six or seven zeros and the math gets even more compelling.”
I was stunned by his words, and his face had a sharp edge, as if he could cut me open and tell the future in my guts.
“Ezra had a lot of zeros,” he concluded.
My insides twisted as if already between his thick, meaty fingers. “Has Mills discussed this with you?” I asked, needing to know.
“Not in so many words,” the DA admitted. “But it doesn’t take a genius, Work. I know where her mind is going with this. So do yourself a favor. Bend over, take it like a man, and move on with your life.”
“Did Mills tell you that someone tried to kill me last night?” I asked.
He frowned at the interruption. “She may have mentioned something about it.”
“And?”
Douglas shrugged, his eyes far from mine. “She doesn’t believe you.”