CHAPTER TWELVE
Rachel Willis was sick to death of the liars she dealt with every day.
She slammed the door to her office, frustrated that justice didn’t always prevail.
News of Judge Wadsworth’s death had hit the media first thing that morning. The creep had used his authority to browbeat women into doing what he wanted and talked down to females on the job. He tended to be lenient in cases of violence against women—one of those archaic men who held the belief that the woman had incited the man’s rage by the way she dressed or talked or by her makeup.
She wouldn’t be surprised if his wife had killed him. Maybe if she did, a good lawyer could get her off.
The picture of her own family, her mother and father, mocked her from the credenza.
At twenty-one, she’d been idealistic and certain that she could make a difference in the world. She knew firsthand that the system didn’t always work. Her father had spent ten years in jail for a crime he hadn’t committed. Ten years of his life lost because a witness had mistaken him for another man.
Ten years that he’d never been able to recover from. He’d gotten hooked on drugs in the dark corners of Hays State Prison, a maximum-security hellhole where he’d been abused and raped and beaten until he had no fight left.
Her mother had passed away during that time, her heart broken and defeated from trying to convince someone to push through an appeal.
No one had been there to help him when her father was finally freed. By then, the damage was done. He had no work experience, no recommendations from coworkers or employers. No money or savings. No education.
Even though he had been cleared of the charges, people still looked at him as if he were a murderer.
Depressed and defeated, he’d died with a needle in his arm in a dirty alley in some backwoods town where drug dealers were a dime a dozen.
She’d thought by working as a parole officer, she could save others like her father who’d been crapped on by the system. She could help them turn their lives around. Help them find jobs. Places to live. Keep them on the right path.
She was a fool.
She shoved the mountain of paperwork on her desk to the side, then retrieved the list of people she needed to phone. A knock sounded at the door, and she checked her schedule. Her next appointment wasn’t due for three hours—Rodney Hornsby, a dog beater who’d tortured his pit bull under the guise of training him to fight.
The man made her want to puke. Anyone who abused or mistreated animals, women, or children should be punished.
The knock sounded again.
She checked to make sure her weapon was in place beneath her desk. The panic button she’d installed went straight to the police to alert them if she was in trouble.
Before she reached the door, it opened, and a tall, broad-shouldered man with a ratty beard and shaggy hair drawn up in a man bun stepped inside. Tattoos snaked up and down his arms and neck, and a jagged scar rippled down his right cheek. She returned behind her desk.
Rachel searched her memory to place him. He looked familiar, but she hadn’t met him before. Had she received his file?
It could be in the pile she hadn’t yet had time to review. There were dozens to be handled. The work never ended.
Were there any good people left in the world?
“Can I help you?” she asked, careful to remain behind her desk. Keeping distance between herself and the ex-cons was imperative for her own safety, a lesson she’d learned her first day on the job when a supposedly innocent man had jumped her with a knife and nearly slit her throat.
A lecherous grin slid onto her visitor’s face, making her skin crawl.
“You’re scared of me, aren’t you?” he asked in a cocky voice.
The exhilaration in his tone fueled her rage. She’d been taught not to show fear. Predators fed on it.
Slowly and calmly she removed her pistol from beneath the desk, raised it, and aimed it at his chest. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
His eyes landed on the gun, and he held up a scarred hand. “Hey, sweetie, don’t shoot.”
If he called her “sweetie” again, she might not be able to stop herself. “Answer the question. Who are you?” she asked.
“My lawyer said I was supposed to check in with you.”
So he was on her case list. God, she wished the county would hire some help. Her caseload was insane. “Your name?” she asked again, her voice cold.
He shifted and inched toward her, eyes gleaming with amusement. “Sutton Frasier, but you can call me Sly. That’s the name my buddies gave me in prison.”
She didn’t intend to ask how he got the name. “You have paperwork for me?”
He shook his head. “That shithead they assigned me as a lawyer was supposed to contact you.”
He’d been assigned a court-appointed attorney. He probably had no money, no friends, no family. If he did, they’d given up on him.
The first year on the job she would have sympathized.
Now she was hardened. Maybe she was burned-out and needed to rethink her career.
She glanced at the files piled on her desk and wanted to review this man’s before they went any further. “What is your attorney’s name? I’ll give him a call, then we’ll set up a schedule.”
“The lawyer is a her. Gina Weatherby,” the man said with another lecherous grin. “Pretty as a peach, but a big-assed dyke.”
His comment stirred her anger, but she didn’t react. Her parolees were seldom politically correct. Arguing with them, especially correcting them, was futile.
She scribbled the lawyer’s name on her notepad. Her cell phone buzzed, and she contemplated answering and asking for help. But she didn’t have time.
He moved so quickly and quietly that she didn’t see him coming. Then he was beside her, his hand over her gun hand as he pushed down the nose, aiming the .22 at the floor.
The scent of cigarette smoke and sweat wafted around her. No, it was weed. The idiot had probably just smoked a joint before he’d come in.
She mentally reviewed her self-defense training. Go for his eyes. A knee in the groin . . .
“Don’t point a gun at a man unless you plan to use it.” His gruff voice held laughter. “And, honey, we both know you wouldn’t do that.”
Her blood turned cold.
“You’re wrong,” she said with a defiant lift to her chin. “I’m just smart enough to choose when to shoot.” As far as she could tell, he was unarmed. Timing was important.
He leaned closer, so close his breath bathed her ear. With a low groan, he licked her cheek. “I’ll let Gina know we met.”
A chuckle rumbled from him, and he released her hand and sauntered toward the exit, his boots clicking on the hard floor. When he reached the door, he paused, one hand on the knob. He lifted the other and blew her a kiss.
“See you soon, baby. And next time, wear something sexy for me.”
She gripped the gun with a trembling hand, her lungs squeezing for air as the door closed behind him. She hurried and locked the door, then raced into the bathroom and scrubbed her hands.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. She’d wanted to shoot the asshole. And he was wrong—she could do it. She had, once.
An image of the blood on her hands flashed behind her eyes. That cocksucker had deserved what she’d done to him.
But if she shot Sly today and he wasn’t armed, she’d end up in a cell herself.
What justice would there be in that?
None.
She raised her head and stared into the mirror with a smile.
Karma would get him. Just like it had the judge.
She envisioned jabbing a knife in Sly’s gut or watching him collapse from the bullet she’d put in his chest, and she instantly felt better.
Just like she did knowing the judge was dead. He would soon be nothing but bones in the ground.