Again thanks to Molly for being a great help ;-) I guess we all knew this chapter would arrive sooner or later, but well... read yourself and consider killing me won't help to finish this ;-)

TCOT Seductive Defendant

Chapter 13

Los Angeles, 1990,

15 minutes earlier.

"Yes?"

"Della?" Relief flooded Perry when he heard Della's warm voice and for a moment he just kept his eyes closed.

"Yes, Perry. What is it?" she cleared her throat.

"Are you all right?" He asked, and the relief instantly turned back into fear. "You sound strange."

"I'm fine... I just choked on my coffee. What is it?"

He narrowed his eyebrows, suddenly knowing she wasn't telling the truth. Her voice carried a nervous tremor that told him something was wrong.

"Listen, we have to talk to Grant... have you seen him?"

"No."

The next lie. He moved on his seat, uneasy and with rising anger, because he suddenly knew Grant was there in her house.

"If you hear from him, ask him about your earring... the one you got from your mother and lost. Ask him if he saw or found it after you separated from him and maybe never returned it."

For several moments she didn't say a thing and then she drew a deep breath.

"Why am I supposed to ask him?"

"I want to know if Eileen or maybe someone else had ever been in his apartment and could have found it there."

"But how..." she started, but he cut her off.

"I'll explain it to you later..." sighing, trying to keep his anger in check, because knew she wouldn't lie without reason, he added: "And Della..."

"Yes?"

"Be careful."

"Can't you drive faster, Ken?" Perry asked angrily and tightened his grip around his walking stick until his fingers hurt. He had replayed his phone conversation with Della over and over again and couldn't believe how things had gotten out of hand. The earring... 40 years ago he had thought Della had simply lost it somewhere and now it was obvious, so pretty damn obvious she must have lost it in Grant's apartment or somewhere else in his close environment.

"No, as you see the street is full of cars that all want to go faster!" Ken replied, annoyed. Perry's behavior drove him nuts. Aside from answers, covered in half-sentences he could hardly interpret, he received grumpy orders he couldn't execute.

"What is wrong?"

"I guess Della has a visitor she shouldn't have, which could have attracted another, much more dangerous person to pay her a visit as well."

"What are you talking about?" Ken asked again and braked hard when the traffic light switched again to red before he could pass the crossroads.

"I'm talking about Thomas Grant and Eileen Turner," Perry answered reluctantly.

"What could they want from Della?"

Perry sighed, aware he couldn't keep Della's secret forever, as much as he wanted to.

"I'm afraid the answer to this question is one that lies in their past."

From the moment Eileen Turner had entered her house, Della had known allowing her inside would turn out to be major mistake. The extent of her mistake, though, was revealed slowly. How could Eileen know Thomas was at her house? Who had told Eileen where she lived?

All those question started running around her head while she watched Eileen and Thomas studying one another in her living room.

"May I ask why you are here?" Della asked, doing her best to ease the awkward tension between Eileen and Thomas.

"Actually, I'm here to return something to you, my dear."

"To me?"

She had turned to Della again and opened her purse. Eileen produced a folded piece of fabric out of the depth of her handbag and gave it to Della who took it after a short hesitation.

"Just open it, dear," Eileen encouraged her when she noticed Della's hesitation. "I'm quite sure it's yours."

Thomas and Della exchanged a look and then she carefully removed the first layer of the fabric and gasped.

"It is yours, isn't it?" Eileen asked with glittering eyes. "It's your earring!"

Los Angeles, May 1950

Della arrived earlier than usual in the office. Since Perry and she were supposed to go to London in the early afternoon, she needed to collect some of the papers he would need and had to give Gertie instructions for several things that had to be done in the following days of their absence. To her surprise, she had seen Perry's car in the parking lot; it was unusual for him to arrive earlier than she normally did, unless he had spent the whole night in the office, working on a case. She peeked into his office, but he wasn't there; the desk looked untouched, his briefcase was nowhere to be seen. She shrugged and closed the door. Maybe he had stopped at Paul Drake's office before he came up here.

After taking care of her jacket and her purse, she checked on her desk and started sorting the mail. Three piles... important, less important, unimportant. Blindly, her hand stretched out to open the drawer where the letter opener used to lie. When her hand got hold of a small box, instead of the instrument she was searching for, she raised her head and looked curiously into her drawer. Her eyes widened when she saw a small box with the engraved name of a well-known jewelry shop. A jewelry box in her drawer... just like that...

Her heartbeat increased when the realization of what could be in there slowly dawned.

Her hands were shaking as she tried to open the box, and she failed, because she was too nervous. Putting the box down on her desk, she ordered herself to calm down and after a few moments she gave it another try. This time the box opened and her face brightened when she found a pair, her pair, of earrings resting on white satin.

She searched the drawer for a note or card, but couldn't find any. Then she searched her desk, but it was too tidy to discover anything that didn't belong there.

She had told Perry about the earring about two weeks ago, they had searched the office for it and had left for dinner afterwards, but he had only returned the earring in the following week to her, telling her he had put it in his drawer, because he didn't want them to lose it as well. Had he kept it to search for the other one on his own?

Della checked the box and let her thumb run over the golden letters on top of the box.

No, he had kept it and had ordered a duplicate. She bit her lips, hoping to repress her sudden wish to cry. She couldn't remember having received such a wonderful present in a very long time and now she felt ashamed. Ashamed because she still hadn't told Perry she was seeing a man who had been a client. Ashamed because it felt to her as if she were abusing his trust and his kind nature... she couldn't go on like this. She was trapped in her own web and she had lost control over herself and her life. Her thumb caressed the earrings in the box.

Her relationship with Thomas Grant had gone downhill from the day she had refused

to accept his proposal of marriage and two days ago their common evening had ended in an epic disaster when she told him they couldn't go on a short trip to Acapulco, because Perry wanted her to accompany him to London.

Her job was an obstacle between them, her boss was an obstacle between them.

As much as she liked Thomas and felt attracted to him, it couldn't match what she felt when Perry Mason looked at her. At first she had thought it would pass, like the adoration a teenager felt for her poetry teacher, but it didn't and it possibly never would.

And now the earring... why had Perry gone through this trouble? Was it just kindness?

And how was his lady friend taking all this? Did Laura Kilgallen know about the earring?

Della doubted it...

And wasn't she just his secretary rather than a close friend? How was she supposed to react when he entered the office and asked her how she was? Happy because she had her favorite piece of jewelry back or deeply ashamed, because she didn't deserve his trust?

"So, is it yours?" Eileen asked again, when Della didn't answer. Thomas had approached her and had taken the fabric with the earring.

"Yes, it is mine. Where did you get it?"

"What does that matter? But you should know I took good care of it." Eileen smiled a smile that made Della frown.

"That doesn't answer the question, Eileen," Thomas said. "Where did you find it?"

"That's my secret. You have no idea how much I wanted to meet you..." she told Della. "If I had known earlier you're the one I was looking for we could have had this conversation a long time ago."

"I don't see any reason to have this conversation at all, Eileen."

Thomas took the earring and returned the piece of fabric to Eileen.

"Did you know I couldn't even remember you when I heard Thomas was here in your house? I was really thinking... Della Street... Della Street... my God who is she? And then I realized you were Perry Mason's secretary and I started asking myself whether Mr. Mason knows you're the woman Mrs. Carpenter described in her diary... a secretary fooling around with a client... not quite so proper."

"That's nonsense, Eileen. Della never was in my house. Mrs. Carpenter was dreaming." Thomas said quickly, before Della could even open her mouth. "You should go now! It's about time."

Eileen shook her head. Her smile was still plastered on her face and her hand was blindly searching for something in her purse. "Not before you get what you deserve."

When she looked at the barrel of the gun Eileen pointed at her, Della realized there wasn't much left to say or explain. This woman didn't want an explanation, she wanted to get rid of something evil that had been buried deep down inside her and there was nothing to stop her.

She heard a scream, then gunfire. Thomas grabbed her, forced her around as his arm lay protectively around her waist, but the pain arrived before she could prepare for it. She felt sick and the world started turning around her while she heard voices she couldn't identify anymore. The last thing on her mind, before everything went black, was Perry's face and that she probably wouldn't see him again.

~~tbc~~