Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #4: Books 13-16 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [story read aloud .txt] 📗

“Well that’s not exactly true, is it, Chad?” She was studying the backs of her long fingers again. “Because she was on her way to see you when she disappeared.”

He gave his head a quick shake. “Oh, but you don’t know that for a fact, do you?”

I laughed. “What’s that thing you guys are so fond of quoting? ‘The truth is a philosophical concept. Fact is something you can prove in court.’ Well, we know for a fact that she was on her way to see you when she was last seen alive. Now, we have a lot of very precise questions that we would like to ask about that. Like, did she ever get here? What happened when she did? But right now what we would prefer, Chad, is for you to drop the Ivy League attorney act and make like you give a damn that she was killed. Tell us about that weekend.”

He gaped at me for a while, then blinked and readjusted his ass on the chair. “Well, of course I give a damn. But, you know, it was two years ago. You have to move on, right? But I was really cut up about her death. Ask any one of my friends!”

Dehan smiled sweetly at him. “You have any left from back then?”

He swallowed. His face said he was wondering if he had.

I said, “Just tell us about that weekend, Chad. Try to stick to the truth. I mean the philosophical concept. It has a way of coming out and biting you in the ass if you ignore it.”

I moved and sat on the sofa, and he started to talk.

THREE

“You have to understand that one thing I do not have is time. Law at Columbia is a total commitment. And the people who do not commit fail. It is that simple. Commitment is the base line, it’s what you do on top of commitment that makes you a winner. And what you do on top is sacrifice things that other people take for granted as a normal part of life: parties, girlfriends, evenings in front of the TV, chilling, eating pizza… All that will come, and more. But right now—and back then—it is focus, focus, focus. My dad summed it up for me when I was a kid, and I always remember what he said. ‘Focus is commitment, and commitment is focus.’

“So there is only one way you can have a girlfriend in a situation like this. It’s like the Clintons. She wasn’t just helping him and supporting him, she was there doing it with him. But how many women are there with the focus and drive of Hillary? Right?”

The question was directed at me, but then he looked at Dehan and said, “No offense.”

“None taken. Believe me.”

“So I have no time for a romantic attachment. I have needs, like all guys, but I can’t commit to a woman. So along comes Celeste. I can’t even remember where we met. It was at a club. One of the rare occasions when I went out. She was there and hunting for a guy, and a mutual acquaintance introduced us.”

Dehan was shaking her head. “Wait a minute. Hunting for a guy? What does that mean?”

He shrugged and made a face. “You know! Girls like Celeste, they have no money, but they want a good time, so they hang around clubs where guys with money go and they hunt. Sometimes they hunt in packs, sometimes they go solo. They find a guy who looks like he has money and they close in. Maybe it’s a one night stand, maybe it develops into a long term solution for their lives.

“So she was cute, she was kind of wild, we had fun and I told her, in the morning, I don’t do this. I am not a party guy. I am focused on my career and nothing is going to get in the way of that.” He laughed. “Well, it had the opposite effect from what I had intended. It was like music to her ears, man. I kept telling her, look, we are just friends with benefits. I am not going to marry you. When I marry, it will be the daughter of some CEO, and there will be a prenup that ensures if we ever divorce, I will come out of it a rich man. Sorry!” He hunched his shoulders in a way that said he really wasn’t. “You wanted truth. That’s truth. I think at first she didn’t believe it, but after a bit, things were not so good between us…”

Dehan asked, “What does that mean?”

“She was becoming a bit suffocating.” He appealed to me. “You know how chicks can get. She was, like, always around. I was like, ‘Don’t you have a fucking home to go to?’ I mean…” He flopped back in the chair and sighed. “I didn’t want to kick her out because of the sex, right? But it was becoming a case of diminishing returns. You know? She was becoming boring, and the sex just wasn’t so good anymore. So, things were getting a little tense.”

I asked, “Were you having rows?”

He shook his head. “Celeste didn’t row. If you got mad at Celeste, she just screamed at you a couple of times and walked away.”

“Where’d she go?”

He shrugged and made a face of absolute ignorance. “I have no idea, man. She would just leave the house, but before long, she’d be right back again.”

Dehan said: “So what happened that weekend?”

He sat forward, elbows on knees, rubbed his face and sighed. “She came over in the morning on Friday and stayed the night. You have to understand, Saturday to me is just like any other day. I can’t go to the examining board and say, ‘Hey, my examination is not up to scratch because