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Chapter Ten: Let's Go (NICK)
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By noon, he had found only one person who was willing to talk. She was a mousy little thing, with an anxious smile, and frequent apologies, but she had been a close friend of Lizzie's all through college, and she was the best Nick had found. He tried to use all of his people skills to calm her, and cosset her. He charmed. He cajoled. She softened, and by the time he had gotten around to asking the harder questions, Amy Tulles was more than capable of answering them, and well.
Nick crossed his legs and pretended to like his orange-flavored tea. "Did Miss Zimmer ever tell you - - around about the time of her graduation - - that she had been, well, sexually assaulted?" He gave her an apologetic smile. He was one of the good guys. Butter couldn't melt in his mouth. He didn't want Amy to look timid again, so he tried his best to look as if he were embarrassed to even have mentioned sex.
"Well," Amy said slowly, dragging the word out for several seconds, "I'm not sure."
"You don't remember?"
"She was - - she, well - - " Amy frowned. "She was ambiguous."
"How so?"
"It was around exam-time. She lost heart, sort of. She didn't study. She used to have really long hair, real pretty, and she cut it all short."
Nick didn't know how well he could analyze a woman's decision to get a haircut, but he was hazarding a guess - - if Lizzie really had been assaulted, never mind by who, for the moment, than ridding herself of her most valuable asset might be her attempt to avoid more masculine attention. He felt his first stab of pity for the girl, as distant and removed as Amy's Lizzie was from the one accusing Grissom.
Come on, Nicky, let's go.
Let's make it.
"Mr. Stokes?" Amy asked, concerned. "Is it too cold in here for you?" She peered at him through her glasses, looking anxious again. "You were shivering."
"No, I'm fine," Nick said slowly. "I was just thinking - - it would be such a horrible thing to go through, for anyone, if it did happen to her. The pain. The . . . humiliation."
Don't tell anyone, Nicky. Sweet Nicky.
"Horrible," Amy agreed, and in her voice were a thousand comforting platitudes. Meaningless phrases, taken from a book. A stranger's sympathy. The ignorant belief that she, without the actual experience, could somehow console a victim.
Catherine had had that same look, once upon a time, and he had been grateful for her touch and her kindness, but resented it at the same time. Catherine didn't know. Catherine hadn't been the one on the bed with a hand over her mouth, and a soft, placating voice whispering, smooth and silky as honey, that he shouldn't tell anyone, because they'd think he was dirty. Catherine hadn't been the one shuddering on top of the covers, waiting for a mother that was late, so late, too late - -
He cleared his throat and tried to orient his thoughts, searching for the perfect magnet to turn his mind elsewhere, and on the right path.
"Did Lizzie have a boyfriend? Someone I could talk to?"
Amy smiled. "Oh yeah. She was crazy for him."
"Was? I take it that there's no connection now, then. Is he still in town?"
"God, no." Amy laughed. "I don't even know where he lives, but it's weird, you asking about Lincoln. I mean, what with him being the one helping Lizzie out now, and everything. Weird. Kinda ironic, you know?"
Lincoln and Lizzie. It had an offbeat rhythm to it.
"Helping her? How so?"
"Oh, Lincoln went to Harvard, too. Law, though, not medicine. I'm pretty sure he met Lizzie at a party - - they got along really well. They don't date anymore, but I think they're still pretty tight. I mean, he was the only guy Lizzie would talk to near the end of her last year."
She had not answered his question. Nick put his cup of tea down on the table and leaned forward, smiling, trying to radiate earnestness and niceness.
"How is Lincoln helping Lizzie?"
"Oh!" Amy blushed. "Sorry. He's her lawyer. In that thing she's doing now. That rape charge. Yeah. He's taking care of everything for her. Pretty much pulling the strings, from what I heard."
Great. So now, he would have to contend with a lawyer. Impossible to do that and still keep a low profile. He might be going home earlier than he thought. Too bad, too, because an ex-lover, around about the time of Lizzie had pinpointed her sexual assault, would have otherwise become a likely suspect, or, at the very least, a good informant.
Amy was smiling at him, wistfully. "Yeah, those were the days, you know?"
Nick pretended that he knew.
"I mean, me, Steve - - Steve was my old boyfriend - - Lizzie, and good old Abraham Lincoln." Amy giggled. "We teased him so much for that."
The first real smile of the day broke over Nick's face. "The guy was really named Abraham Lincoln? That's awesome." He didn't think he could have kept a straight face on the plane, as tense as his nerves had been, if Claberson had introduced himself as Abraham Lincoln. He would have laughed like a maniac."Oh, no," Amy said. "We just called him Lincoln, because of his first name."
Nick felt a little disappointed. It was a little bit of a let-down, but probably no one with the last name Lincoln would name a kid Abe anymore. It was just an invitation for teasing.
"His real name's Abraham Claberson," Amy said. "God, a kid named Abraham Lincoln - - that would be really embarrassing, don't you think?"
He couldn't move. Couldn't think. He had fucked up very, very badly, and just a second ago, things had been going so well. If Claberson investigated Grissom's team - - as Claberson most certainly would - - he would know. He would run across Nick's name and remember it, and know that there was no wedding, no excuse, no answers - - All the low-profile stuff he'd been enjoying so much and trying to maintain; gone. Grissom's trust; gone. He had fucked them all over, and now Claberson would know, and Zimmer would know. They would have fresh new accusations to throw at Grissom.
He could almost hear them in his head:
Gil Grissom sent Nick Stokes to Boston, he could hear Ole Honest Abe saying in that pedantic British voice of his, to erase any latent evidence of the crime, to sully my client's reputation, and to interfere with the judicial process. See, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Grissom's real mistake was counting on a perpetual screw-up like Nick Stokes. If he had sent someone else, I might never have been able to reveal this crucial information to you. So thank God and holy angels that Grissom sent the only one that was replaceable. Because we all know that Nicky Stokes has always been prone to the horrible anti-self-esteem syndrome: the best he can do is simply not good enough.
And then, softer, made buttery and translucent by memory and fear, Come on, Nicky, let's go.
He smiled. He drank his orange tea. He saw his reflection in Amy's eyes, and he saw, with dull satisfaction, that he looked perfectly normal and perfectly fine. Which was a cop-out, and a damned shameful one, because why couldn't he just open his mouth and say, "I'm not fine"? Why did he have to be a fiction every time he seemed close to losing his grip?
Because sometimes the lie was easier than the truth.
"Thank you for your time," Nick said politely, rising. "You've been very helpful. I can't say how much. Really."
Amy flushed. She was cute. She liked him. And normally, it would have been enough of a jumping point - - he would have turned the moment into some kind of a date, and he would have enjoyed it, too. He would have.
But he was sick with guilt, and the first image that came into his head was his hand on Amy's neck, and his own voice whispering, Let's go. Let's make it, in her ear. He wouldn't, he had never done it, and never wanted to do it, but right now, the idea was too strong to encourage him to even risk a date. He felt queasy.
Amy said something. He replied.
He had no idea what she'd asked or what he'd answered, but he knew by her smile that he must have said the right thing, the polite thing, the nice thing, and he nodded at her and thanked her again.
On the lawn, the cool green grass beneath his shoes, he called Vegas - - Grissom's cell. The phone rang and went unanswered. Irritated, and still sickened at his own screw-up, he tried Grissom's house phone, but there was, again, no answer. He couldn't bring himself to leave his information in a message. He tried Catherine; Warrick; Sara. Brass. Incommunicado.
He blamed his cell phone. Crappy reception.
He closed his eyes and dialed Greg's number blind. Greg wasn't who he needed, because it wouldn't do any good to tell Greg about Claberson when Greg had no connection to the case, but it would be soothing to hear a familiar voice. And besides, Greg always answered his cell phone. Greg could talk for ten minutes with wrong numbers.
No answer. His phone turned to pure static, and he was almost relieved to find out that it was the reception after all, because if no one were answering their phone, circumstances back home were bad. Very bad indeed. As is, things had probably cleared up already.
They were probably doing better than he was, anyway.
He didn't want to use the phone in his hotel room - - no more screw-ups. If Claberson had been playacting on the plane about not knowing him, then the phone could already be bugged. Never put anything past a lawyer, particularly one working for the bad guys. So he couldn't call until his connection cleared up.
He was cut off.