Now he's twisting in the wind of action and reaction, a force of nature like a tornado, a law. His head drops against the padded leather cushion of his chair, his ears full of arguments, his expression pinched. Across a long lacquered table, a team of defense attorneys squawk and squabble in sophisticated tones. Among them are those that got a man off for butchering his wife, yet they cannot get a woman off for leaving her husband. The woman has become an assailant who attacked from behind but was not attacked, who left fingerprints on the murder weapon but had only the marks of an illicit affair on her body. Three pieces of luggage constitute a flight risk, and the deep pockets of her lover have ensured the denial of bail. A child's eyes have become a commodity, confiscated by the State. Fox acted decently, more than decently considering the nightmarish sensation of compression that still lingers behind his buttoned collar. But decency is no comfort when it allows an accident to become murder.
"Mr. Crane - I understand your reluctance to use the child, but the fact remains that the prosecution will . . ."
"Ridiculous! For the last time, Hayworth, the girl is not a credible witness!" a second voice shouts.
"She's still a witness, an eyewitness to the crime and to the kiss that preceded it."
"She's also a witness to the attack on Mr. Crane. Sir," an ambitious third voice trills, "there is a huge advantage there. It's a question of mitigating circumstances."
"No, it isn't." Despite his demure tone, Ethan Crane's voice cuts the clamor down to silence. He maintains that silence while he inclines his ear to Issac Morton, Fox's personal attorney. They whisper in silky chant-like tones, the two wizards who between them wield a power second only to that of Fox himself. After a quick nod, Ethan declares, "It's not a matter of circumstance or credibility. It's a question of character - Whitney's character." Ethan swivels to his left, he inhales a breath. "The prosecution won't use Misha to prove their case; they can't and they don't need to." Ethan ignores the indrawn breaths behind his shoulder; he locks eyes with his brother. "It's not about her being a credible witness. It's the fact that she is a witness, period. A five year old girl saw her father killed and her mother in the arms of another man. They'll use her to get the sentence that they want."
"Crane, you're a corporate lawyer, for chrissake."
Fox nails the detractor with a stare minted by his late grandfather; he returns his gaze to Ethan.
"I'm a man and a father, just like the judge and half the jury," Ethan retorts dismally. "They're going to make Whitney look like a murderous whore, Fox. Your whore. We have to use Misha." He pauses, clearing his throat to make way for the difficult words he has to say. "Chad was facing her. You were on the ground. Whitney came up from behind. Four quick strikes; no blood. We have to focus on the more violent crime - Chad's attack on you. We have to break Misha down until she's in tears, crying to the jury that she was afraid, that her father looked like a monster."
Fox sucks in a breath, holds it. Finally, he exhales and nods his understanding. "Did you set up the guardianship?"
Ethan withdraws a sheaf of documents from his titanium briefcase; he passes them to Fox. "I know it looks like a lot, but this is the next best thing to putting your name on the birth certificate. Get Whitney to sign; I'll push it through. We should be able to stick it to Social Services by Friday. After that, it's up to you."
"What is?" Fox asks gruffly.
"Winning Misha over."
They share a split second familial moment before Fox draws back, sighing heavily. "Issac, put these gentlemen to work. I'll meet you downstairs in a minute. Ethan," he says over the squeak of rolling chairs, "I want to talk to you privately." Fox broods while he waits for the room to clear, rocking slightly in his chair. When silence descends, he welcomes it, draws it out - it's the calm before the storm.
Ethan clears his throat before breaking the silence. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine, considering." The tiniest grin twitches his grim lips. "I may wear a tie everyday for the rest of my life. It's the only thing that stood between me and a crushed trachea." His fingers touch the knot at his throat before drifting up to his chin, tapping. "The minute the transfer goes through, leak it to the prosecution." He leans forward, locking eyes with Ethan. "The story will be that I walked in with a gigantic teddy bear, cotton candy, a pony, whatever. And a big wreath of flowers with Whitney's picture in the center."
Ethan nods. "Scare tactics."
"Exactly. They'll be in a panic when they realize I've got her. We have to use that before they start thinking clearly. Listen," Fox says, his eyes eagle sharp, "I want you there personally when the shit hits the fan, the minute I have custody. Get that charge changed. There's no fucking way I'm letting her go down for murder."
"I know, Fox, and she won't. They can't prove malice aforethought. But," Ethan sighs, struggling to infuse sense into his brother's passionate, fierce eyes, "we're not going to get involuntary manslaughter, Fox. I'm sorry. We're looking at voluntary, minimum three years, maximum eleven. Accept it," he says firmly, brushing over Fox's harsh indrawn breath. "You have to accept it so we all have the same goal - the shortest possible sentence. That's what it's about now. That's what you have to tell Whitney."
"How? How am I going to tell her that there's nothing I can do? I wasn't thinking!" Fox pushes away from the table and rises, pacing, raking his hand through his hair. "I wasn't thinking. If I had been thinking, I would have . . ."
"You would have what? Destroyed the crime scene? Buried him in the backyard? You did what you had to do, Fox. You did the right thing."
"Fuck the right thing!" Fox bellows, spinning around. "She's going to prison for me, because she tried to save me. Is that right? And now her daughter is fatherless and motherless. Again, because of me. I have single handedly fucked up Whitney's entire life because I wanted her, because . . ." He trails off, yanking himself back from declaring that his love is a crime, a fulfillment of the curse that he thought had died with Alistair Crane.
"Fox," Ethan says sharply. His platinum wedding ring glints against the fine blue fabric of Fox's suit when he grips his brother's shoulder. "Don't do that. It's not going to bring Chad back; it's not going to change anything."
Fox spits a harsh, mocking laugh. "That's the icing on the cake, isn't it?" He turns his tortured brown eyes on Ethan, his stark expression clouding. "Even if I could bring him back, I wouldn't."
Ethan falters, his eyes going blank. He doesn't understand the gravity of this man, his ruthlessness, the moral ambiguity of his brand of love. He has never loved like that; he never will. "If you want to feel responsible for something, how about Misha? The daughter of the woman you love and the man she was married to, a man who wanted you dead. How are you going to deal with that?"
Fox slips away from Ethan's grasp and strides to the long plate glass window looking out on the Bay Bridge. His hands fall to his hips, his arms pushing back the tails of his jacket. "Just what you said, Ethan. I'm going to win her over."
Fox and the legal team storm the county holding facility like a mafia entourage. They pass through the gates in a limousine as black and ominous as a hearse, the tinted windows impervious to paparazzi flashbulbs. Only Fox and Issac Morton enter the visitor's corridor, and only Fox himself goes into the room, brushing past the guard as though she doesn't exist.
Sighing, Issac pulls an impressive binder of documents from his briefcase and tips it into the guard's hand; the overhead light glints on a paperclip and the crisp hundred dollar bills beneath it. "Mr. Crane is acting within his rights as . . ."
"Save it," the guard huffs, cutting off the familiar filibuster as she pockets the bribe. "No one's watching today."
Fox opens the door on an image so blindingly painful that he imagines the scent of sulfur as the memory burns into his brain. Lost is the only word he can summon to describe the aimless prancing of Whitney's eyes, her pupils so dilated that they seem to scatter light rather than reflect it. She doesn't see him, not really, not in the present. He doesn't even exist in her past; she doesn't have a past anymore. She is defined by one moment that hangs outside of time and proportion: the moment when Chad lost his life, she lost hers, and the consequences descended with a hammer stroke that will soon resonate in a gavel stroke.
"Whitney," Fox says over the scrape of the aluminum chair that he draw out.
"Hi Fox."
"How are you?"
Though it is feeble, even ludicrous, the question anchors her to normalcy, at least for the moment. "Fine," Whitney replies, an outright lie tinged with only a crumb of hope.
"Issac is here; he's going to discuss the case with you in a minute. Ahem." His fingers unconsciously drift to his throat, as they will for many months. "I want to talk to you about Misha."
"Where is she?"
"Still with Social Services."
Whitney's eyes heat and narrow. "What happened to my parents?" she demands. "Where the hell are they?"
Fox leaves the transfer documents in his lap; he reaches across the table and grasps Whitney's hands. "Your mother and my father are somewhere in Africa on safari. Simone's still in London, but she's on the way."
"You called her?"
"Yes. She's taking a leave of absence for the trial. She's coming to support you, Whitney."
An act of love that would warm her if she weren't so cold. "What about my father?"
Again, Fox clears his throat. "T.C. seemed happy about the idea of taking Misha, too happy." The coarse and forbidding words that T.C. spoke about Whitney and Chad scurry over Fox's tongue; he swallows them. "Whitney, let me be honest with you - if T.C. gets custody of Misha, I'm not sure when you'll see her again. But certainly not while . . . if . . ."
"When I'm in prison. You might as well say it, Fox." Whitney withdraws her hands from his, shaking her head dumbly. "I already know."
Fox draws a long breath, a resigned breath. "Voluntary manslaughter - that's what we're looking at." He pauses over her sharp hiss, the pain that squeezes her eyes shut. "At worst, an eleven year sentence; three years at best." He leans in toward the table, his eyes focused on her. "You won't serve more than three years, if that. I swear to you."
"Three more years," she whispers. "In prison."
"Whitney," Fox croaks, "I would give everything I have and more to change this. You saved my life - I know that, you know that. Goddamnit!" The slender table shudders beneath his fist. "I just can't prove it!"
"Fox . . ."
"I would take your place in a heartbeat if I could," he says fiercely, his earnest eyes boring into hers.
"Fox - please stop," Whitney says softly. For a split second, she returns to herself. For a moment, she remembers a time of promises and burgeoning love whose passion threatened to overwhelm her, from which she fled with a tear in the fabric of her heart that eventually rent her asunder, turned her into a killer. "Please don't take on that burden, that . . . guilt. Don't think that I saved you, okay? Don't." She shakes her head vigorously. "I don't want you to feel guilty."
"What I feel is helpless, and it's crippling me. It's killing me." Fox stops abruptly, banishing the confession before it runs too deep, takes root, undermines his power. He needs power now to take on the one burden that is worth bearing. He pulls the documents from his lap and slides them across the table. "I want you to give me legal guardianship of Misha."
"What?"
"I can protect her, Whitney. From the prosecutors and those spineless whipped custodians at Social Services. They don't give a shit what happens after they're finished with her," he says darkly. "And the media. This isn't going to end, Whitney. The vultures will circle this story for months, perhaps even longer, and it'll start all over when you're released. Your father can't shield her from that. I can." He pauses, surveying her eyes, her doubts. "I can give her everything. I need to do this, Whitney. Please."
"What about love? She's Chad's daughter, mine. There's so much bad blood . . ."
Fox sweeps his hand over her protest. He stares at her, his eyes still, focused. "If you ever believed that I loved you, believe that I will give all that to Misha, just because she's yours. Trust that, Whitney."
She has to. Even though she has lost faith, even in the sanctity of her own heart, there was a time when she stood on the edge of love and this man was waiting to catch her. Whitney Russell was afraid to leap, but fear has no place in the heart of a mother. Whitney grasps the pen clipped to the folder, heaves a breath, and signs each document next to the indicating arrows. She pushes the closed folder into Fox's waiting hand and holds it, locking eyes with him. "I would go to the gas chamber to keep anything from happening to her," she says flatly.
"I know," Fox replies, his tone reverent, respectful. "Whitney . . ." He trails off, his index finger tracing the edge of the table. "I'm still holding that handshake with the devil. It's not too late to take a permanent vacation somewhere . . ."
Whitney raises her hands against the knowing in his eyes. He knows the part of her that is needful, that which is to him instinct and to her temptation, a magnetic pull that sets her compass spinning out of control, outside of the claims of every other love but him. A long breath and then another before her hands drop to the table, smooth out the wrinkles in her will. "No, Fox," she replies, patting the table, "I already told you. I'd still be a prisoner, just somewhere else."
"Please."
"I can't be a fugitive," Whitney replies tightly, shaking her head. "No. I can't do that to Misha." Her voice cracks under the weight of the long years stretching ahead without her daughter; Whitney covers her mouth to press back a sob.
That same weight squeezes a stress line in Fox's brow; guilt sits down between them. "You aren't going to miss her," he murmurs, lifting his eyes to hers. "I'm going to have her here everyday or as often as I can. I'm moving to San Francisco. I always said I would move the world for you, and . . ." A knock at the door interrupts; he turns, turns back. "Whitney. . ."
"Mr. Crane," Issac calls softly, cracking open the door. "We've exhausted our credits."
Fox nods, his head lolling. His lips pinch together painfully until they are white and bloodless; he rises and snatches Whitney's hand. A kiss, and then another, but that is not enough - he presses her hand to his forehead, heaves a breath. "I'm waiting." The promise is but a whisper like the rustle of his coat as he brushes past Issac and out the door.
