Buch lesen: «Final Verdict»

ONE

Aurora Daniels inhaled the scent of justice wafting through the courtroom. Winning the motion would come at a grave price, no doubt. Every case she tried did. But her seventeen-year-old client, Austin Bledsoe, could be rehabilitated. It wasn’t in the interest of justice to try the boy as an adult. To toss away the key on a kid who needed a champion, an advocate. A boy who reminded her remarkably of her older brother, Richie.

The courtroom had emptied several minutes ago, and she carefully placed her documents inside her briefcase, taking her time and hoping a mob wouldn’t be waiting for her once she stepped foot into full-on February. Not nearly as frigid as Chicago temperatures, but Hope, Tennessee, could produce incredibly bitter wind and, occasionally, snow.

“Watch your back, Counselor.”

Aurora plopped her phone into her coat pocket and whipped her head in the direction of the low but smooth male voice. Sheriff Beckett Marsh loomed at the doors to the courtroom, onyx eyebrows furrowing over intense eyes that matched his dark mood.

“You threatening me, Sheriff?” Beckett was honest and noble, but he was as fired up over the outcome of today’s motion as the Russell family. Her heart pinched as she thought of them grieving in the right front row. But someone had to do this job. She had to.

“Warning.” He uncrossed his right ankle from his left, pushed off the door frame and stalked her way, heavy work boots clunking on the freshly polished hardwood. He folded his muscular arms across his chest and Aurora worked to keep her wits. Beckett Marsh was ridiculously fit and attractive, but he wasn’t a fan of hers professionally or—apparently—personally. Most law enforcers didn’t care for defense attorneys. Especially those who were good at their profession. “You realize you’ve taken a murderer and allowed him to be slapped on the wrist.”

Aurora raised her chin. “Austin Bledsoe has had no trouble with the law. He makes decent grades. His grandmother passed away two weeks ago. She was his only stability.” Stability was everything she’d always wanted and never had, which was why she’d promised herself that, when she became an adult, she’d do whatever necessary to gain it. Enter accepting the position at Benard, Lowenstein & Meyer. What a nightmare that had turned out to be.

Beckett snorted. “So that makes drinking a bottle of Old Crow and gettin’ drunker than Cooter Brown before plowing into a decent woman—on her way to church, no less—okay?”

“What he did was far from acceptable.” Aurora’s stomach knotted. “He made a fatal mistake in his grief, and he will face consequences—crushing guilt for the rest of his life, for one—but he won’t be thrown away forever. He can be rehabilitated. I know it.” Too bad she couldn’t be rehabbed from her past shortcomings. No matter how many times her mentor promised her that God could free her from the guilt she carried, she couldn’t muster enough faith to believe it.

“Well, Bethany Russell can’t be.”

Aurora dropped her head, torn between championing her client for a second chance and understanding the agonizing pain of the Russell family. She mourned her brother daily. They’d been close. If he could have hung on until she’d graduated law school and got ahold of those case files to exonerate him... But he had slipped away too soon. “I know that, too. Truth is no one won here today. No one.”

“Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.” Beckett ran his tongue along his full bottom lip. “In the meantime, you’ve got a big portion of the town in an uproar, and when you walk outside the courthouse it won’t be the wind bitin’ at your throat. It’ll be grieving friends and family who expected a better outcome.”

Aurora swallowed down a rush of anxiety. “Well...I appreciate the colorful depiction of my near future.” She tried to slide by Beckett, but he grasped her forearm.

“Counselor, I cared about Bethany Russell and her family. And this town—this county. I’ll do whatever I need to in order to protect the people who live here. My warning isn’t to slice you. You’re a citizen of Hope. I want you safe, so be careful.” The edge in his eyes tempered a fraction and he released his civil grip.

“Thank you.”

He jammed his hands into his coat pockets. “You want me to walk you to your car?”

She viewed the doors leading to the steps that would take her to her vehicle and to the throng of people who hated her for doing her job—for believing that everyone was entitled to a fair trial. They didn’t understand that sometimes she disliked her clients more than anyone. Tossing her glance in Beckett’s direction, she shook her head. “I’m used to unkind words and threats, Sheriff. I’ve handled much worse.” She still felt the stab anyway.

Beckett’s eyebrows lifted. “You talking about losing Severin Renzetti’s case in Chicago and angering a crime family two years ago?”

Aurora wasn’t surprised the sheriff had done a background check on her. He was meticulous. Thorough. A former navy SEAL. The man who had a hand in taking down a major Mexican cartel back in June when his now good buddy, Holt McKnight, had come to town undercover for the DEA.

She wouldn’t even be in his town of Hope if she hadn’t been asked to resign over a stupid, overconfident slipup in the courtroom. She wouldn’t be lying low here in hopes that Franco Renzetti, head of the largest crime family in Chicago, hadn’t changed his mind and decided to seek further retribution for his son, Severin Renzetti’s conviction. She thought of muttering a few prayers for safety, but passed. She didn’t deserve them.

Aurora ignored Beckett’s observation and opened the ornate wooden doors. The wintry gusts charged down her scarf and gray peacoat, forcing a shiver into her bones.

Squaring her shoulders, she met the crowd head-on and proceeded down the concrete steps, keeping her face masked from emotion. In Chicago, dozens of cameras had been thrust in front of her nose, reporters’ voices toppling over each other as they begged for the scoop. Asking how it felt losing a case she had been confident of winning. Asking if the rumors of her and Severin Renzetti being romantically involved were true. They weren’t. But the media skewed every detail.

Severin had been charming, though. He’d been charged and convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion and she had believed in his innocence, that he’d tried to come out from under his family’s reputation to be a decent and honest man. Aurora had sympathized. She’d clawed her way out from under some heavy stereotypes herself. But, in the end, she’d been manipulated and preyed upon for trying to trust that there was good in everyone—or almost everyone—even the son of a mob boss.

“How could you do that, Miss Daniels? That boy killed Bethany Russell!” an older woman hollered.

A menacing voice carried over the woman’s. “Better be careful on those roads, miss. Wouldn’t want you to end up like Mrs. Russell.”

Aurora darted her sight in the direction of the gritty voice. Didn’t recognize it. Couldn’t find the source. But the tone wasn’t laced with grief like the others. No, this sounded ominous. She tugged her wool scarf tighter around her neck and picked up her pace, ignoring the snide comments on the outside. Inside, she had a more difficult time fielding the stings.

Glancing back one last time, she searched for the man who’d threatened her. She used the fob on her key ring, reached out to open the door to her BMW and cringed, then groaned at the long, keyed mark running the length of the driver’s side. Had the man who’d threatened her keyed her car, too, or had that been the handiwork of someone else unhappy with her?

She spotted Beckett Marsh ambling toward her. Following and protecting her even if she had turned him down. “I can watch my back.” She pointed to the deep gash ruining her shiny black paint. “My car not so much.”

Beckett gave a low whistle as he rounded the car and stood beside her, blocking a frigid gust of winter with his body.

She tossed her handbag and briefcase inside as her cell phone rang.

Katelynn, her barista at Sufficient Grounds, was calling. She pulled the cell from her coat and answered. “Hi, Kate. What’s going on?” Had her café been vandalized, too?

“The espresso machine is janky again. I’ve tried everything.”

“You unplugged it, opened the back and jiggled the wires?”

“Jiggled, kicked...”

“Yes, because kicking a four-thousand-dollar machine is smart.” Aurora would have done the same thing had she not known exactly which wires to tamper with. “Just—”

“Jiggle the wires again, I know. I did. You’ve got the touch.” Katelynn’s voice rose an octave. “Please. We’ve got a major crowd and they’re all talking about the motion today. That you won. They aren’t happy, but it appears they aren’t mad enough to boycott the place.”

“It’s the little things.” She’d leased the building and opened the coffeehouse when she’d moved to Hope to try to fit in. Working as the public defender didn’t bring the best of friends. But coffee... Well, everyone liked coffee and camaraderie, and it had helped her acclimate. Until this.

Aurora eyed Beckett, who was in no hurry to leave or even pretend he wasn’t listening to her conversation. “Be there in five.” She hung up, slid into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on her car, then peered up at Beckett. “I’ve got to—”

“Jiggle wires.” His lips twitched. “I heard. Hey, if you need anything...”

“Can you fix an espresso machine?” She turned on the heat full blast; arctic air shocked her face. She turned it off and huffed. It took entirely too long for vehicles to heat up. She should have moved farther south.

He ignored her rhetorical question, but the right side of his mouth inched north. In Aurora’s book, that was a smile. Biggest one Beckett Marsh had ever laid on her. He adjusted the fleece collar of his sheriff’s coat. “Still stands. It’s my duty, you know. To protect people.”

Yes, he reminded her every time she won a case. She was protecting people, too. People like her brother, Richie. Most of her clients were folks who needed a second chance to get it right. Most. She had to take the bad with good. Came with the territory.

Aurora hurried to the café and entered through the back. After fixing the espresso machine, she grabbed a caffè mocha and drove home for the night. She had work to do. Seven months ago Blair Sullivan, now McKnight, had asked her if she ever defended men like the ones who had come after Blair. The Mexican cartel. Aurora told her she didn’t defend dead men. After those evil people had been taken down by the DEA, there weren’t any left who needed a defense. It was an easy way to skirt around what Blair had really been asking, but the question had dogged her every day since.

When Richie committed suicide in prison, she didn’t try to clear her older brother’s name. He deserved as much, though. So, last month, she’d gone back to Richfield, Mississippi, where she’d been raised, opened up the old files and poked around. Nothing so far, but Richie was innocent and Aurora wasn’t going to stop until she proved it. She owed him that much.

She parked in the drive and sprinted up to the porch of the antebellum home she’d rented from Mitch Rydell. The only things that belonged solely to her were the furniture inside and her car. She wasn’t sure how long she’d get to stay in Hope, not with the possibility of Franco Renzetti coming after her. But it had been quiet this long and she’d put down a few roots.

She paused at the front door. Wind howled through stick-bare trees. Nights came sooner these days, and by four o’clock the sun had abandoned her. Beckett’s warning and the gravelly-voiced threat sent her scanning her large yard and the tree line fifteen feet to the right. She shook off the jitters and went inside. Ah, delicious warmth and the smell of her cinnamon potpourri helped chase away the blues and the creeps. After drinking her coffee, then making a bite of dinner and poring over files and evidence, she stood and stretched.

The sound of a diesel engine roared in the near distance. Odd. Her road only had three other houses and hardly ever received traffic. She clutched her stomach, as if pressing her hand against it would send the fright and paranoia away, and tiptoed into the living room as the noise grew louder, closer.

She fisted her hands as blinding headlights shone on her house.

One more step forward, a high-pitched clang reverberated through her home and something crashed through her living room window.

Aurora shrieked, threw her hands up in defense and squeezed her eyes closed as the object careened into her shoulder and bounced off, landing on the floor and rolling across the hardwood.

The wind whipped relentlessly through the broken window, adding to the chill in her bones. Aurora stood stunned as she massaged the throbbing area.

Shards of glass covered her couch and a few specks skittered across the floor.

The blinding lights disappeared, leaving her yard draped in darkness.

She inched toward the object rolling on her hardwood floor. An empty bottle.

Old Crow whiskey.

Same brand Austin Bledsoe had been drinking when he sped through a stop sign and hit Bethany Russell.

Her hands trembled as she tucked them inside her sweatshirt sleeves, using them as gloves to pick up the bottle, a question rattling her brain and sending a thump of fear into her chest. She’d been threatened earlier. Was this the end or only the beginning?

* * *

“Counselor!” Beckett Marsh poked his nose through Aurora Daniels’s broken windowpane when she wouldn’t answer the front door. It had taken him ten minutes to get here after she’d called. While her words had come out clear, the speed at which she’d spoken told the tale.

She’d been shaken up.

Now she stood in the middle of her living room with one hand cupping her left shoulder. He did a double take. This wasn’t the confident professional in her typical attire of power suits and heels. Bare feet anchored to the hardwood, baggy gray sweatpants and an equally baggy Ole Miss Rebels sweatshirt masking her slender figure. And still something about the look, even with her signature tight knot at the base of her neck, rattled something loose in his chest. He refocused, uncomfortable with the powerful response to seeing her like this. Not like he hadn’t been attracted the first time he’d laid eyes on her a little over a year ago when he came back home. Anyone would be an idiot not to find her attractive. But her line of work put the kibosh on anything beyond admiring a beautiful woman. Ain’t no way he could follow that trail. “You hurt?”

She hurried to the front door, unlocking it and letting him inside. “Just my shoulder. Probably going to bruise, is all.” She gave it a haphazard rub. Nice attempt at the brave front.

That bottle could have hit her head, knocked her out, cut her up or worse. He fisted his hand to keep from touching her. “I got here as fast as I could.”

“I appreciate it. Guess you were correct about the threats.” She tossed out a weak laugh.

This was nothing to make light of, and he hated that he’d been right. He ignored the hint of chocolate and the faint scent of something flowery drifting from her skin or clothing. A bottle on the kitchen table snagged his attention. “Old Crow.”

“Like I said when I called, they threw a whiskey bottle. Drove a big truck, big engine. Could be a Hemi V8. Maybe even a Detroit Diesel 550 horsepower. Heard it when it turned on my street.”

Beckett inclined his head and studied her, unsure of what impressed him more. The fact Aurora Daniels had a handle on big engines or that she’d called him first—or at all. They butted heads often and he wouldn’t deny he was pretty tough on her. But for every five people he tossed behind bars, she’d cut three loose with her slick litigation skills. How was he supposed to keep his county safe when the shrewd counselor put criminals right back out on the street?

He’d seen what monsters free to prey the streets could do. Seen evil get away with murder when one had claimed his fiancée’s life the night before their wedding. Meghan’s lifeless body had been seared into Beckett’s mind forever. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t forgive himself for not coming to her rescue in time.

“Sheriff?” Aurora drew him from the nightmare that plagued him. “I asked how many people on your end know that Austin Bledsoe was drinking Old Crow whiskey.”

Good question. Same one that had popped into his mind. That brain of hers was incredible. Sharp. Too bad it wasn’t being used for a better cause. “Officers on the scene the night Bethany Russell was killed. Whoever was working evidence. I can’t think of anyone else. The judge.”

Aurora quirked her lips to the side. “The Russell family and anyone they told.”

Beckett’s gut clenched. He couldn’t rule out Trevor Russell or his teenage boy. But he hated to have to question them. They’d been through enough already with Bethany’s death and funeral only four short months ago. They’d been clinging to the hope of justice today, but it had miscarried. However, he knew firsthand what time soaked in grief could do, and it wasn’t pretty. He’d been on that end of the stick. “I’ll talk to Trevor.”

Aurora sighed and tapped her nail against the tip of her nose. He’d noticed that before. In the courtroom. Her thinking habit. “I guess I need to get some plastic over that. I can call Mitch in the morning. Have the glass replaced.” She bounded for the door leading to the garage. Beckett followed.

“Plastic isn’t safe. Anyone could cut through it.”

Aurora paused. “I think that guy’s threat at the courthouse today was meant to scare me. Mission accomplished. If he’d wanted to hurt me, he’d have already gotten into the house. If this was him.”

Fire pulsed in his chest. “What threat?” Aurora had said she was used to unkind words, and he could easily imagine. She’d worked in a high-profile law firm that repped some shady clients. But a bottle had made direct impact on her body. This wasn’t idle threats and unkind verbiage.

“A guy in the crowd today. I didn’t recognize the voice and couldn’t match a face to the words, but he told me to be careful or I could end up in a car accident like Bethany Russell. Just words.” She shrugged, but Beckett wasn’t born yesterday. Aurora was trying to talk herself out of being afraid. Fear wasn’t always a bad thing. Fear had kept him alive and alert on all his tours and missions as a SEAL.

“Well, I’d feel better if we didn’t use plastic. Besides, it’s gonna get down in the twenties tonight. Plastic won’t keep the nip out.”

She pointed to the far side of the sparse garage. “I have some plywood. That work?”

“Yup. And you need to put some shoes on. Protect your feet while we get the glass cleaned up.”

She pursed her lips but said nothing.

Beckett grabbed several boards in the corner and Aurora retrieved a hammer and nails and followed him inside. “Got a broom?”

“The one I use for sweeping or the one I ride on?” Aurora tilted her head and pierced him with a maybe sort of accusing glare.

So that’s what she assumed he thought of her. Hardly. He wasn’t sure what to think. This was the longest he’d spent in a room with her other than a courtroom, and they didn’t converse much inside. Besides, he never allowed himself to see her as anything but the enemy. Now, she was a target who trusted him to protect her. And that’s exactly what he planned to do.

“Sweeping will be fine.” He smirked. “I don’t want to put you out a vehicle.”

“Hmm...” Aurora snagged a broom and dustpan from the pantry, slipped on a pair of house shoes that had been lying under the kitchen table, and they went to work cleaning up the glass and boarding up the window.

When it was finished he noticed her fire was dying. “You got any wood? I can get a fresh fire going before I head out.” No way was he letting her do it. Instinct told him this wasn’t over. But he didn’t want to scare her further, and it didn’t technically warrant putting a detail on her.

Meghan had begged and pleaded with the sheriff in her small Georgia town to patrol her house. But they couldn’t prove she was in danger. Her stalker had been cunning, averting the law yet tormenting her. When it first started, Beckett had been on an extended tour in Afghanistan with Meghan’s brother, Wilder. He’d had no idea, not until he came home. He’d been powerless.

He had the power to do something about this.

“I’ll do a few drive-bys through the night. Make sure everything’s safe.” He might not be able to use taxpayers’ dollars for a deputy to sit outside, but Beckett could on his own time.

Aurora met him with a delicate smile. “I appreciate that. But I don’t think it’s necessary, and I have some self-defense training, as well as gun-range time. I’m a pretty good shot.”

Brave. Resilient. But Beckett had seen fear on thousands of faces. “I believe you, Counselor. Now, about that firewood?”

“Oh.” She scratched at the base of her neck. A dainty neck. Smooth. “It’s under the tarp on the side of the house, but I can do it. Really. I mean, I started that one.”

“I don’t feel comfortable letting you haul wood in out of the dark. Just in case. Precaution, is all.” He flipped the collar on his coat up and stalked to the woodpile. Doing a slow scan with his flashlight, he checked out the woods that surrounded the house. No footprints. The branches rustled. Critters slunk around, crunching dead leaves. Something was off. Puffs of night air plumed in front of him as he patrolled the yard. He couldn’t spot anyone, but red flags waved.

Someone was out there.

Watching.

Or maybe he was paranoid after what had happened to Meghan.

Beckett hauled in the firewood and a few extra logs. Inside, freshly brewed coffee uncoiled one of the many knots tightening his neck and shoulders.

Aurora handed him a steaming cup. “It’s brutal out there. Warm you up. Least I can do.”

He dusted his hands on his pants and accepted the cup, her fingers brushing his. He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”

“It’s black, like you like it.”

He sipped, the French roast warming all the way down his throat. “You know how I like my coffee?”

“I’m in the coffee business.” She shrugged, but her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of rose and she broke eye contact. First time for everything. She held his glares quite well in the courtroom or at the jail.

“Why are you in the coffee business? You seem to be living in high cotton.” Driving that BMW, wearing fancy clothes, and the air about her simply smelled like money. He took another sip and squatted by the fire.

Aurora folded her arms across her chest and gazed into the flames. “To be honest, the coffee in Hope stinks. I drink enough that it dictated opening up a business.”

He snorted. “Uh-huh, now really, be honest.”

“How do you know I’m not?”

Her upturned and perky nose might give off an appearance of snootiness, but the averting gaze and body language said she had a more private reason and didn’t care to divulge. “I just know. But you don’t have to get personal with me, Counselor.” He stood and studied the few photos on her mantel. “That’s you. Can’t miss the hair.” Blondish red. Probably still long like the toothless little girl in the photo; he’d never seen it down before. She’d grown from adorable to beautiful. “That a brother or something next to you?”

“Yes. Richie. He died.”

The words punched his chest. “I’m sorry.”

She clutched the photo and seemed to slip down memory lane. “He’s why I do what I do. He committed suicide in prison when I was in my second year of law school.”

Beckett grimaced. “Went to school to get him out somehow?”

“He was innocent. What choice did I have? Someone had to give him decent counsel. Who better to advocate for him than someone who believed in him?”

“Ninety-nine percent of criminals say they’re innocent.”

Aurora’s eyes hardened and she set the photo back on the mantel. “Some are telling the truth. Like Richie.”

Beckett had worn out his welcome, but that suited him. He wasn’t diggin’ seeing Aurora as a victim. A really soft, beautiful woman who grieved her brother even if he was a criminal. “Thanks for the coffee.”