7th Heaven - James Patterson [40]
“Exactly! So I write a book proposal, get a big advance on a six-figure contract, and I start spending time with Luke Flynn, who’s cooling his jets in jail while he awaits trial. And let me tell you, there’s no food like this near the prison in Nashville.”
“Have the rest,” Yuki said, pushing two-thirds of her cake across the table.
“You sure you’re done? Okay, then,” Twilly said, accepting the cake.
Yuki said, “So what happened?”
The waiter dropped the check on the table and Twilly placed his platinum card on it, saying, “I’ll give you a lift to your car. Tell you on the way.”
“Why don’t you follow me home in your car,” Yuki said. “The least I can do is make you coffee.”
Twilly smiled.
Chapter 53
JASON TWILLY SAT in a loveseat in Yuki’s living room, an Irish coffee resting on the low glass table between him and where Yuki was sitting in an upholstered chair six feet away.
Yuki was thinking that Twilly was too good-looking, and that she hadn’t had sex in so long she wasn’t sure she remembered how to do it. Now here was this big-time superstar who would surely break her heart if she let him, and she didn’t have time for fun, let alone heartbreak. She had a conference call with Parisi and the DA early in the morning, she had to prepare herself for the next round in this week’s trial of the century and go to bed. To sleep.
Twilly was excited, hitting the climax of his story. “So now the DA has the letter Joey Flynn gave to her best friend, and turns out she also told her hairdresser that she was afraid Luke would kill her.”
“I’m dyin’,” Yuki said. “You better tell me what happened, Jason, because I’ve got to be in bed in ten minutes and you have to leave.”
“Come sit with me for those ten minutes,” he said.
Yuki felt her heart banging in her chest. And she felt something else: her deceased mother’s clucking presence all around her — in the furniture, in the portrait on the wall — and she knew that her mom would want her to say good night and show the stranger out.
Yuki got up and sat next to Jason Twilly.
Twilly put his arm around her, leaned forward, and kissed her. Yuki moved into the kiss, put her hands in Jason’s hair, and was jolted by the hot shock of desire that shot through her body. It was incredible! But somewhere into the second kiss, when Jason ran his hand over her breast, she pulled away, gasping and flustered, her confusion burning off into certainty.
She wasn’t ready for this. It was too soon.
Yuki dipped her head, avoided Twilly’s eyes as he reached out and tucked a glossy fall of her hair behind her ear.
Then, as if nothing had happened, he said, “The judge ruled the letter Joey wrote to her best friend inadmissible as hearsay, because a defendant, in this case Luke Flynn, had a right to confront his accuser.”
“Who was, unfortunately, dead,” Yuki said.
“Correct. But he allowed the testimony of Joey’s hairdresser. Luke’s lawyer put up a fight. Said the hairdresser’s testimony was also hearsay. The evidence went in anyway, and Luke was convicted.”
“That’s kind of amazing.”
“Bingo,” Jason said. “Luke’s lawyer appealed to the Tennessee State Supreme Court, and eight months later the conviction was overturned. As we speak, Luke Flynn is living in Louisville with his new wife and kids, making custom kitchen cabinets,” Twilly said. “As if Joey Flynn never happened.”
“So let me guess: the story fizzled out. And you had to either write the book or give back the advance,” Yuki said, starting to breathe normally again.
“Exactly. So I wrote Blue Northern, naming it after Joey’s song, and it bombed. But Malvo was a hit, and so was Rings on Her Fingers. And this book, the shocking story of the life and death of Michael Campion as told through the voice of the bewitching — oh, God, Yuki . . .”
Jason pulled Yuki to him and kissed her again, and when she resisted, when she said, “No, I can’t,” he held her tighter, until Yuki jumped up and pushed him away, putting the coffee table between