Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,105

to listen again.”

Steve started to wonder if she was just setting him up for her trial, manipulating him to her side. She’d mouthed so many cool, stiletto lies.

“Shouldn’t be too hard,” he said. “You just do it.”

A pained smile curved her mouth. “If it was only that simple. I didn’t listen the whole time I was with him. We set you up. We lied to you. To your face. At first I could do it, but then I started to . . .”

“To what?”

She looked at him. “Have feelings.”

“You sound like a Hallmark card,” Steve said.

“I guess I do. But I’m saying it anyway. I was pulled in two directions, and Johnny seemed to know it. His pull was stronger in me. When they took you off that day, the day you saw Johnny and me in the window, I was about ready to die myself.”

“Not much help,” Steve said.

“Then Johnny told me it was all right, that you were just going to be taken away for a while. Until Eldon was . . . removed. By then he had some feelings, too, if you can believe it.”

Steve said nothing.

“You know the rest,” she said.

“It’s not over yet,” Steve said. “The feds think you were a hostage. As soon as they start questioning you, things might get hairy. Even for a good liar like you.”

“I’m through with that.”

“Sure,” Steve said, not at all sure of anything. “I strongly advise you get a lawyer, preferably one who is not me.”

Sienna shook her head. “I’m going to tell the FBI everything it wants to know about Beth-El and the LaSalles.”

“That could lead to a conspiracy rap. You need a lawyer.”

She smiled. “Still holding up the finest traditions of the bar, huh?”

“At this point, Sienna, I’m holding on for dear life. But there’s one thing I’m not able to do, try as I might.”

“What’s that?”

“Hate you.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“I’ll take it.”

Steve thought she meant it, really meant it this time, in spite of the past. Maybe that was the best way to leave it. “I know a guy,” he said. “Good federal defense lawyer. I’ll send him your way.”

She shook here head. “Forget it. I’m talking. If I go away, I go away. I guess I’ll never practice law, though, huh?”

“Most states’ll let you, even after a conviction, when some time passes. Who knows? Maybe going through all this will make you a better lawyer. Maybe I’ll be a better lawyer, too.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind,” she said.

“One more question,” Steve said.

She waited.

“All that time you were lying to me,” he said, “and giving me the line that you were a good girl and all, did you ever think there might be a God looking down and thinking, Hey, I do not like what she’s doing.”

“All the time,” she said. “Call it weird, call it perverse, but there it was. And still I went on. Now I’ll have plenty of time to beg him to forgive me.”

“I hope he does. I guess we all need that in one way or another. So I really hope he does, Sienna.”

“He will,” she said. “That’s the only thing I’m sure of now, the one thing I have to hold on to.”

“Then hold,” Steve said.

80

Three days later, Steve stopped at the Sheridan Arms and found that his old apartment was still for rent.

“You want to come back?” Jong Choi asked.

“Yes indeed,” Steve said.

The manager smiled approvingly, then remembered something. “Oh! You know seven? You call cops.” He produced a card from a drawer and handed it to Steve.

The card was LAPD. A detective named Holmes. Not Sherlock. Lee.

“Seven?” Steve said.

“Arrest,” Jong Choi said.

“The kid in number seven?”

Choi nodded vigorously.

Steve went out to the courtyard and called the number. Holmes was in. Told him that Chris Riley, Number Seven’s real name, had been caught with a lot of hot stuff, including Steve’s computer. So Seven had turned thief, and was now residing in the county jail. And, Holmes wanted to know, would Steve come in and make a statement?

Yeah, he would. And as he clicked off the phone he decided something else. He didn’t know where it came from, but there it was. He would go down to the jail to see the kid. Try to talk some sense into him.

He’d tell him a story, about prisons and cons, about the way they end up by staying stupid. He’d give the kid one shot because there aren’t too many breaks in the world. Steve had been given one. So