“Do I need a story?”

“It could come up.”

“It could if you mention it.”

“It has nothing to do with me, Michaela. It’s in the case file.”

“Case file,” she said. “Like I did some big crime.”

I didn’t answer.

She plucked at lace. “Who cares about any of that? Why do you care?”

“I’d like to understand what happened up in Latigo Canyon.”

“What happened was Dylan getting crazy,” she said.

“Crazy physically?”

“He got all passionate and bruised me.”

“What happened?” I said.

“What usually happened.”

“Meaning...”

“It’s what we did.” She wiggled the fingers of one hand. “Touching each other. The few times.”

“The few times you were intimate.”

“We were never intimate. Once in a while we got horny and touched each other. Of course he wanted more, but I never let him.” She stuck out her tongue. “A few times I let him go down on me but mostly it was finger time because I didn’t want to get close to him.”

“What happened in Latigo Canyon?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with...what happened.”

“Your relationship with Dylan is bound to— ”

“Fine, fine,” she said. “In the canyon it was all fingers and he got too rough. When I complained he said he was doing it on purpose. For realism.”

“For when you were discovered.”

“I guess,” she said.

She looked away.

I waited.

She said, “It was the first night. What else was there to do? It was so boring, just sitting up there, getting talked out.”

“How soon did you get talked out?” I said.

“Real soon. ’Cause he was into this whole Zen silence thing. Preparing for the second night. He said we needed to cook images in our heads. Heat up our emotions by not crowding our heads with words.”

Her laughter was harsh. “Big Zen silence thing. Until he got horny. Then he had no trouble telling me what he wanted. He thought being up there would make things different. Like I’d do him. As if.”

Her eyes got hard. “I pretty much hate him now.”

* * *

I took a day before writing an outline of my report.

Her story boiled down to diminished capacity combined with that time-honored tactic, the TODDI Defense: The Other Dude Did It.

Wondering if Lauritz Montez was her new acting coach, I phoned his office at the Beverly Hills court building. “I’m not going to make you happy.”

“Actually, it doesn’t matter,” he said.

“The case settled?”

“Better. Sixty-day continuance, thanks to my colleague who’s representing Meserve. Marjani Coolidge— know her?”

“Nope.”