Page 45 of Claimed By my Father's Enemies
I look at him for a moment. Then I pick up my glass and go inside.
The refrigerator is mostly empty, the proof that my life takes me out of the house most nights. Half a wheel of brie, a packet of sliced ham, condiments that have been there longer than I want to admit.
I pull out the ham, fold two slices onto a saucer, and put it on the floor. A bowl of milk beside it. The cat has followed me in, without hesitation and is already at the saucer with the certainty of an animal that has never once questioned whether it would be fed.
I lean against the counter and watch him eat.
I'm thirty-six years old, feeding a stray cat on a Friday night while Miles Davis plays from the living room.
Have I become the proverbial cat lady? What is the equivalent for a man?
My phone buzzes on the counter. I lean over to see the caller ID.
Sienna.
I smile to myself and I pick it up.
"If you're calling to cancel tomorrow’s dinner," I say, "it's too late. The private jet's already—."
"Adrian." Her voice is wrong. "I need your help."
Noise in the background. Voices. Something metal on metal.
Everything I was about to say vanishes. "Tell me."
"I'm at the East Arroyo Police Station." A pause, short and controlled. "I’ve been arrested."
I'm already moving. Keys off the bowl in the hall credenza. Phone against my shoulder, deliberate about what comes next.
"Don't tell them anything. Not one word. You understand? I'm on my way."
"Okay."
Her voice is steady but I can hear that she is scared.
The line drops.
I'm already in the garage, getting on my Porsche and I was never more happy that I gave in to the whim of buying a fast car.
I back out and the city starts going past the windows. The PCH on a Friday night, other headlights, the Pacific dark and flat onthe left, people outside bars. I push past the speed I should be doing and the engine doesn't object.
I tell the system to call Captain Elena Ramirez.
Two rings.
"Kade." End of a long shift, answering anyway. That's who she is.
"Sorry for the late hour. I have a client at your station, Sienna Cross. I'd like the basics before I walk in blind."
Keyboard. Papers moving. The car speakers bring it close.
"Cross." She finds it. "Misdemeanor. Trespassing charge." More clicks. "There's a note. Possible weapons on the scene."
The grip on the steering wheel tightens and I feel my pulse in the palms of my hands.
"Weapons?"
"That's what the note says." Reading it herself, by the sound of it. "From the arresting officer."
