With a nod, Cora left the room, and as I stepped behind my desk, the door creaked and heels clicked on the marble floor. Mrs. Hugo walked into the room and looked right at me with her cold, green eyes. Yes, cold. The woman had no warmth to her whatsoever. I’d met her once, and never wanted to meet or see her again, yet here she was.
Her white hair was pulled up into a formal updo, pearls in her ears and draped around her neck. She wore a black dress, her lips stained red. There were deep lines around her mouth, and small wrinkles around her eyes, despite the visits for Botox that I’m sure she’d made a habit of. Nonetheless, she was a very good-looking woman. She had to be well in her sixties, but could have easily passed to be in her fifties.
“Mr. Cane,” she chimed, giving me a fake smile.
“Mrs. Hugo. What gives me the pleasure?”
She continued her smile, coming closer. The door closed behind her, per my instructions to Cora. She glanced back before focusing on me again. “Oh, don’t mind me. I won’t be here for very long. Don’t want to hold a busy man up.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Interesting that you say that, because I’m curious to know why you bothered coming to me at all.”
Her mouth twitched, her smile slowly fading. “I think you know why I’m here.”
“If it pertains to your daughter, I truly don’t give a damn.”
She breathed hard through her nostrils. “Listen, I am just here to tell you that if you are waiting for some great, big trial to happen where you get to testify about how scared you were, it won’t be.”
That caught my attention. Brows narrowing, I said, “It’s a bench trial, but I’m sure the judge will want the witnesses to give some kind of testimony.”
“No they won’t,” she uttered with too much confidence.
“Why the hell not?”
She simply shrugged and smirked, like she had it all figured out. “The family lawyer is very good at what he does. He made some agreements with the judge, and we were just informed yesterday that Kelly won’t do any time in prison.”
“What?” I growled, dropping my arms. “How?”
“How else do you think?” she laughed. “I’m sure you know very well that money is power, Mr. Cane, and we have a lot of it. The judge they assigned the case to is lousy. Easy to pay off if someone wants to brush something under the rug. But of course, to make him look good and keep a steady record, we had to bargain. Kelly will do four years in intensive psych, but if she shows improvement early on, she will most likely get an early release.”
“That is a fucking joke!” I barked.
“Not only that,” she went on, “but the girl’s parents agreed that they wanted to keep this out of the news, so their lawyer is speaking for them. Since they knew it would be hard to push for Kelly to get a prison sentence, and that it was very simple to prove Kelly’s mental instabilities, their lawyer came to us with a deal. They requested an immediate restraining order to go into effect for the next twenty years and $50,000. We’ve paid them, the restraining order has been filed, and Kelly will start psych tomorrow. The case has been closed as far as I know.”
“Are you kidding me? That’s bullshit!” I spat. “Why would they let her get off that easily? She deserves to fucking rot for what she did to her!”
“Like I would let my daughter rot for you,” she snarled. “You and all the other men before think you can just use her up and toss her aside like some dirty towel. Well, you’re wrong.” She took a step forward. “I’m not saying what she did was okay, but you are the reason she cracked.”
“Oh, I’m the reason she cracked?” I laughed dryly. “I told Kelly to stay away from me repeatedly, but she didn’t listen. She even resorted to trying to blackmail me over something she had no business snooping around for in the first place. Matter of fact, she blackmailed me twice!”
“The girl you were with, wasn’t she almost half your age?”
“How the fuck does that matter right now?”
“I’m just asking a question.” She rolled her eyes. “You know, there are things about Kelly that I’ve had to pay people to keep quiet about. She hasn’t always been like this, but she meets men like you and she just…loses it.” She paused, doing a small shake of her head. “I’m sure you know she was checked into rehab before?”
“Yes, the one I met her at. The one she lied about.”
“Yes, well, anyway…she was there because of the man she was with before. Kelly left the nest early. Went to college, did well. Worked for a while. She was living a wonderful, normal life. She decided to move to New York around her thirtieth birthday, and that’s when she met Carter. Carter was wealthy and handsome, but he was a heartbreaker indeed.” She sighed. “Anyway, during her stay in New York, she spent more and more time with Carter. He owned a nightclub there, made great money, but he was also into the party life. You know, drugs, drinking, all of that. He made Kelly do all sorts of drugs with him, which made matters worse for their situation. They were never officially dating, but he slept over her place often. She never slept at his. There was never a title on their relationship, but Kelly called him her boyfriend. He didn’t address her as his girlfriend. To him, she was just Kelly. I want to say their little thing lasted for a year or so. Kelly was falling for him more and more, but he began to pull away.” Mrs. Hugo walked toward the window, looking out of it, studying the skyline. “There was one night when she called me crying about how he hadn’t answered her calls in a whole week. She even told me she’d visited his club, but he was never there. I told her to let it go and move on—that he wasn’t worth the trouble—but of course she didn’t listen. She’s just as stubborn as her father. It didn’t help that she was still doing the drugs during her free time.” She paused. “I didn’t hear from Kelly for two weeks straight, and then when I did hear from her, it was because I had received a call from her. She had been arrested and was in jail.”