When We Were Bright and Beautiful(27)

“I’ll tell you what happens,” I say to Nate now, lying next to him. “Billy will go to med school. I’ll fly supersonic jets. You’ll surf the Banzai Pipeline. We’ll live happily ever after.” I pause. “Nate? You up?” Beside me, my brother’s breathing is slow and even. “Just wait, Nathaniel,” I whisper. “It will be so beautiful.”





15


THURSDAY AFTERNOON WE’RE IN DOWNTOWN PRINCETON. The leafy trees, storefronts, and wide sidewalks remind me of New Haven, which feels like a place I visited once, years ago. It makes no sense—I haven’t even been gone a week. But I’m so caught up in Billy, my other life has receded; soon, I will barely remember it.

The offices of DeFiore & Associates, LLC are in a renovated Victorian. As we climb the front steps, the door swings open. “You made it!” DeFiore stands on the landing, wearing his same rumpled suit. “Welcome, welcome.”

He ushers us into the foyer, a sleek reception space with hardwood floors and Tiffany lamps. Behind that, there’s a plush library with built-in shelves, oversized couches, colorful pillows, and leafy plants. Floor-to-ceiling windows wash the room in natural light.

“I call this room my lounge-brary,” DeFiore says. “Nice, right?”

“Wow.” Lawrence can’t hide his shock. “This looks like a luxury hotel.”

“You got the eye, Lar. The building used to be a bed and breakfast. But we gutted it from the basement to the roof. We stripped this baby down to the studs.”

“Really cool offices,” Nate says, following DeFiore into the biggest glass-enclosed conference room on the main floor.

“You’ve surprised me, Mr. DeFiore.” Smiling, Eleanor sinks into a leather chair. “I’m not easily surprised.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, Mrs. Quinn. The build-out cost me a fucking fortune. One-point-five mil for the architect alone. But who cares? It’s just money.”

DeFiore’s associate, Mitchell Manzano, shakes our hands. Up close, he looks less like DeFiore’s son than he did in court. He’s in his late thirties, older than I thought. Today he has on sexy black labor-union glasses, which add an air of maturity. “You should wear those all the time,” I tell him. “Women love men in glasses.”

He smiles. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Beside me, Nate is heads down with Abby Friedman, the trial consultant, who’s around Eleanor’s age. He says something I can’t hear, and when she cracks up, I catch the sparkle in his eyes. Not that I blame him. Abby is a knockout, a voluptuous brunette with great legs. She’s wearing an Armani coatdress that emphasizes her curves, but in a tasteful way, and her sky-high Louboutin heels are expertly polished. Striking yet formidable, she projects trust and authority.

DeFiore turns to Billy, who’s in pressed khakis and a sport coat. His hair’s been trimmed, but his bangs still brush his eyes. “You clean up nice, kiddo. Those jumpsuits make everyone look guilty, unfortunately.”

Billy lifts his pant leg to show off his bracelet. “This makes me look guilty too.”

“We’ll get that off before you know it. Speaking of, let’s start. Mitch, the door?”

For the next hour, DeFiore walks us through where we are and what’s ahead. He’s been working the phones since Monday, trying to sort out the facts. Myriad issues come into play during a trial, but from his perspective, there are three primary questions at stake in this case: when, specifically, Diana went from being conscious to being unconscious; if Diana was unconscious, did Billy know; and if Billy did know, when exactly did this realization occur?

DeFiore’s immediate concerns are the EMT and hospital reports, neither of which he’s seen yet. However, he read the sheriff’s report, which describes Diana as “breathing but unresponsive.” This could pose a problem if the emergency techs and intake nurses offer corroborating impressions: an unresponsive woman cannot give consent.

“Still,” he says, “the State has to prove that Billy knew she was unconscious but had sex with her anyway. Which isn’t easy to do, not by a long shot. And from what I hear, the EMT report is a mess, and their eyewitnesses are recanting. Plus, the responding officers didn’t secure the scene, so their physical evidence is probably useless. But I’ll know more in another day or two.”

“Knock, knock,” Felicia Drake, DeFiore’s co-counsel, says as she slides open the glass door. “Sorry to be late. I couldn’t get off a call.”

DeFiore waves her in. “I was telling the Quinns about the sheriff’s report.”

“A shit show, right?” Felicia is a Jersey girl with thick ankles and a nasal voice. Her pouffed hair is dyed jet-black, and her eyeliner is applied with a heavy hand. “That report does us no favors. Hopefully, the others will say different. But don’t worry too much about it; we’re still sorting everything out.”

Eleanor looks at DeFiore, expecting him to contradict Felicia, or at least apologize for her bluntness. Instead, he nods in agreement.

“I wasn’t worried about it until you walked in, Felicia,” Eleanor says.

“I’d like to read the report,” Lawrence says. “Assuming it’s handy.”

“Trust me, Lar. You don’t. These reports are excruciating for family—on both sides,” he adds, as if we’ve forgotten that Diana has parents too. “The DA is presenting preliminaries to the grand jury next Wednesday. They’ll review the evidence to date and determine if it’s enough to indict. But our assumption is the case will be greenlit.”