“Danny, call the Redmond PD and ask them again what they found in Nixon’s place. Maybe we overlooked something there.”
“What can I do, Sam?” Margo asked.
“Answer Viktor’s email. Stall him. Get us more time. Otherwise, you’re going out to Beaverton with nothing to offer except your charm and those black eyes you’re sporting.”
Back in her office, Margo responded to Viktor’s email. After a few negotiations that made her feel quite proud of herself, Viktor gave her one extra day. She emailed Sam about the extra day, omitting the other negotiations.
Chapter 19
“When do we leave for court?” Tony asked. Kiki had been giving him her schedule every day, much to Margo’s annoyance, and he’d announced first thing that morning he’d be going with her down to the courtroom.
“I leave in a few minutes. You’re staying here. Sam didn’t mean for you to follow me every place. He just said you’re here as security.” She slammed her laptop closed, shoved it into her messenger bag and crammed papers in on top.
“What the hell did you think he meant? I’m going with you.”
She slung the messenger bag over her shoulder. “You’re supposed to protect me, not order me around.”
“Protecting you means you do what I say.”
“Oh yeah?” She was tired of being followed, babied, protected. Particularly by him. “Suppose I don’t want to do what you say?”
He stood directly in front of her, his hands balled into fists, which he kept clenching while he talked. “Jesus, Keyes, you’re so predictable. You’d argue about anything, wouldn’t you, just for the sport of it. Don’t you get it? This isn’t a sport. If you don’t care about your own safety, I do. My ass is on the line here if something happens to you.”
The steam went out of her anger as she tried to control the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
“You find that amusing, do you?”
“I just had a sudden image of your local fan club members with pitchforks and torches coming after me if I was responsible for anything happening to your a … to you.” She turned for the door. “I’m going to the ladies’ room. Want to come in with me? I think your groupies meet there to talk about you. Maybe they’ll help you get me under control.”
He muttered something about driving the Dalai Lama to violence and let her walk in front of him out of her office.
Tony took a seat toward the back of the sparsely populated courtroom. Sitting on the defense side were three people who, from the way they talked to the defendant, knew him. There was a fifty-ish man and woman, the defendant’s parents, she assumed.
Paul Dreier, the third person, was in close conversation with the father, who looked familiar, although she didn’t know why. She wasn’t sure why Paul was there. He was no criminal lawyer. But it did go a long way toward explaining some of his recent comments and suggestions as well as his interest in the case when he was in her office recently.
Gene Orlov, the young man on trial, sat slumped in his chair, pulling at the necktie he was wearing and listening to his lawyer talk to his parents. He’d been very cocky when she’d met with him and his lawyer early on, insisting on going to trial for the armed robbery of a credit union rather than taking a plea bargain. He swore he was innocent. It was a coincidence that the woman who was beaten was a teller who had repeatedly refused to go out with him and had filed a restraining order against him. A coincidence that he had a gun just like the one used in the holdup. And his car, which had been seen leaving the scene, had been stolen from him the morning of the robbery.