PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
Golden Greens Country Club, Phoenix, Arizona
11:30 PM
Celeste Feinstein was a little drunk, a little irritated, and crushingly bored. Smiling at a passing waiter to indicate she wanted another glass of champagne (her third, Daddy always reminded her to keep count) she nodded as an elderly attorney droned on about some case while never taking his eyes off the low hemline of her red evening dress.
As the attorney made a grandiose gesture to accompany the culmination of what he thought was a gripping courtroom drama with him as the star, looking up at the ceiling in his enthusiasm, Celeste took the chance to glance around the room for a better conversation partner.
The ballroom of the country club was packed with the stars of central Arizona’s legal profession. Daddy stood in a circle of gray-haired senior partners, all nodding and hanging on his every word. Other circles of attorneys, ninety percent male, were deep in conversation or debate, their volume dictated by their blood alcohol level. Daddy never raised his voice. He said that if you spoke softly, it made people strain to hear you, subconsciously prompting themselves to increase the importance they gave to your words.
She couldn’t practice that with this blowhard. He was so full of himself he wouldn’t let her get in a word edgewise. It didn’t matter that she had been top of her class at Harvard Law School and at thirty-one was the youngest junior partner in the state. It didn’t matter that she refused to take a job in Daddy’s firm, wanting to make her own way in the world. It didn’t matter that she had just won a big case.
No. Many of these guys—far, far too many—didn’t see beyond her blonde hair, attractive body, and youth. They would always talk down or talk about themselves.
Celeste surveyed the sumptuous ballroom with its crystal chandelier, red carpet, and photos of famous golf players, looking for an exit strategy. Join Daddy? No. She’d be in his shadow. Go talk to the folks at Anderson and Cohen? No. A local golf celebrity, invited because he was an instructor at the club, was holding forth on the world’s most boring game. Join the younger crowd of junior partners and rising stars? That would have been a good strategy earlier in the evening, before they got tanked.
She decided she didn’t need an exit strategy. Celeste waited until the attorney in front of her took a breath, shot him a smile dazzling for him to take his eyes off her breasts for a moment, and said, “Really, George, you’ve outdone yourself this time. Bravo!”
The older man flushed with pride, or alcohol. Or both. He opened his mouth to continue and Celeste cut him off.
“I’m sorry, but I really must speak with someone for a moment. Upcoming case.”
“You sure do work hard, Celeste. You need to cut loose a little,” he said in that patronizing way that said she was too driven in her career. As if anyone in this room wasn’t driven in their career. Of course, it was all right for men to be driven in their career, but women? They needed to “cut loose a little.”
What she needed was some air.
She glided through the crowd, smiling at the important people, nodding to coworkers, raising her glass in a toast to a junior partner of a rival firm who had just scored a courtroom victory. Daddy had told her to always be nice to everyone, because you never knew when you’d need them. Daddy was a darling. While he of course didn’t really know what it was like to be a woman in a male-dominated profession, he had always encouraged her and poured his decades of experience into her head. He had done everything he could to set her up for success.
“The rest is up to you,” he told her on her graduation day.
And she had done well. Case after victorious case had proven that to everyone. Even the stuffy old men were beginning to show a glimmer of respect.
Just a glimmer, mind you.
She passed through two large glass doors, open to the night, and took in a deep breath of warm evening air.
The club’s spacious garden was famous. It took up a whole ten acres of lush lawn, marble fountains, and amusing topiary. The club had imported the same team of expert French landscapers who maintained the gardens at Versailles. They had created what one local magazine called, “A jewel in the desert.”
More importantly, at this hour the garden was quiet. Besides a few smokers standing near the door, she saw no one.
Celeste decided to go for a little walk. Not too far. She still had business to do back in that circus, but she needed to clear her head for a minute.
And what a place to clear her head! As she passed between twin rows of bushes sculpted like leaping deer and dancing monkeys, she could almost believe she was in some noble estate in the European countryside, not in the middle of the Southwest’s biggest city. Only the glow of Phoenix all around her obscuring the stars overhead reminded her of the more than a million and a half people around her. That and the bush sculpted to look like a golfer teeing up. You won’t find one of those in Versailles.
Sometimes she wished she could spend more time in the country. For a rising attorney, however, this city was the place to be. And once she had established herself, she still wouldn’t be able to leave. Celeste knew she’d have to remain satisfied with the family retreat in the pine forest near Flagstaff, and occasional trips to rural Italy and France.
Still, it wasn’t a bad life …
“Couldn’t stand that party either, eh?”
Celeste jumped enough that some of her champagne sloshed out of her glass to splash on her wrist.
“Oh, sorry for startling you. I thought you saw me.”
A handsome man holding a champagne glass stepped out from a side path that led to the koi pond.
“It’s all right,” Celeste said, trying to slow down her heart.
Another look at him set it racing again.
He was an athletic man with a square jaw and blonde buzzcut. He looked about her age, his muscular body nicely filling out his suit.
The suit, she noticed with an expert eye even in this dim light, wasn’t as expensive as it should be for this party. But he walked with an erect, confident gait that would make him fit right in.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” he said, extending a hand. “Brent Richter.”
“Celeste Feinstein.” His grip was firm, but didn’t linger like some of the letches in there.
“Who do you work for?” Brent asked.
“I’m junior partner at Taylor and Hatchfield,” Celeste said, slightly annoyed that he hadn’t heard of her. “And you?”
“I just moved here. I’m setting up a private practice. Contract law.”
“Good for you. Contract law is booming these days. With the economic downturn, lots of people are trying to weasel their way out of contracts.”
“That’s what I’m banking on,” Brent said. He grinned, showing white, even teeth. He nodded toward the building, where the faint buzz of conversation could be heard. “I got a bit tired of the chatter, though.”
“Ugh. I hate these things.”
“Necessary for the job. I wish it wasn’t. Why can’t society let people be who they are?”
Good point, Celeste thought, warming up to him. “I don’t think it’s much different in any other profession. Come on, let’s go look at the koi pond. They leave it lit at night.”
They strolled down the path to a large, artificial pond with irregular sides of stone and ferns. A dim light illuminated the water from below as countless large koi swam around, their red and white patterned scales making a hypnotic tapestry.
“Wow!” Brent said. “This is amazing. Thanks for showing me this.”
“Didn’t you just come this way?”
“Oh, yes. I didn’t look in, though. Had my head in the clouds. But about what you were saying before, you’re right. It isn’t any different in other professions. It’s a societal problem. You see, for a society to function, you need to establish certain rules to constrict behavior. Some amount of individual freedom must be sacrificed in the quest for the greater good.”
Celeste laughed. “Brent, I’m an attorney. I know this.”
Brent nodded. “Of course. But what people don’t see is that move actually hurts society. The best members of humanity live on its fringes. It’s only there that you find true genius.”
Celeste chuckled. “I do criminal law, and I have to say most of my clients don’t quite fall in the genius category.”
“That’s a sampling error. You’re only dealing with people who have been caught.”
Celeste took a sip, still staring at the lovely fish. “I suppose you have a point there.”
“Not only a point, but the point,” Brent said, obviously warming to his subject. “Society is led from its fringes. Looks at the tech billionaires. All geeks no one paid any attention to in high school. Bullied and no girlfriends. Now they’re running the world. And the fringe painters and sculptors who started new artistic movements, laughed at in their time and now known the world over. Then there are those who made a mark through violence. Genghis Khan and Tamerlane. Lizzie Borden and Jack the Ripper.”
“You have some interesting choices there,” Celeste said. Talking about geeks …
Celeste, already thinking of exit strategies, glanced at her odd companion. The light from the koi pond lit him from beneath, casting dark shadows around his jaw and eyes. It shone brightest on his shoes and trousers, and Celeste noted with surprise his leather dress shoes were dirty and scuffed, and there was a small tear on his left trouser leg.
“You get in a fight with a cactus?” Celeste said, pointing.
“Oh, that? No, that came from climbing the fence. It was taller than I thought, and when I got over I landed in a flower bed.”
“What?”
Brent turned to her. “You see, for a man to really be free, he has to ignore society’s rules, strike out on his own. Only then can he move society forward through his shining example.”
“You climbed the fence?”
“And society needs such shining examples, today more than ever.”
Celeste stepped away back to the path leading back to the resort building. “That’s very interesting, but they’ll be expecting me back. Work. You know how it is.”
“Oh, but Celeste, at least let me give you my calling card.”
“Sure.” Straight into the recycle bin with that one, weirdo.
Brent reached into the inside pocket of his suit and pulled out a strange object. It was a wooden and metal handle a little longer than his hand. Celeste blinked, and stared.
Only when he pressed a button on the side and a small blade flicked out did she realize it was a switchblade.
“I like to go old school,” Brent said, rushing for her.
Celeste had just enough time to scream, although her scream got drowned out by a burst of laughter coming from the resort building. Daddy had probably told another of his famous jokes.
Brent’s hand clamped on her mouth and Celeste felt the hot pain of the blade piercing her abdomen.
She dropped her champagne glass, which fell soundlessly on the grass, and struggled as the blade pierced her body again and again.
So quick, he was stabbing her so quickly, his reddened face twisted with glee as her knees buckled and he knelt by her as she lay prone. The world began to fade, the pain became distant, but still he stabbed that little blade into her.
Again and again and again.
