Chapter Eleven
Monday morning, after a weekend of pure bliss with Royce, Lauren stood in the kitchen holding a steaming cup of coffee, dressed in a tan fitted skirt and cream silk blouse, ready to start her work week. As much as she’d loved her escape with Royce, she’d bypassed work for movies, conversation, and a lot of unforgettable moments that required no clothing, and now she was behind.
Royce appeared in the archway, his dark hair tied at his nape, his jeans and t-shirt molded to delicious muscles she now knew intimately. “I’m driving you to work,” he said.
She should have been irritated about the command, but a few of his bedroom orders flashed in her mind – harder, faster, lick me – and her mouth went dry. Lauren set her cup on the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to take me to work.”
“Yes, I do.” He leaned on the archway, his shoulders taking up the entire tiny space.
She studied him, reading what he wasn’t saying, and nerves knotted her stomach. “Stop. Stop acting like a watchdog. You’re making me uptight. You’re making me think about the phone calls and the calendar pages. I can’t do my job if I can’t think straight.”
“You have to think about this, Lauren, and you have to look over your shoulder. And I’ll be looking too.”
“You can’t watch me all day, Royce. And even if you think you can, for how long? We didn’t get another call, or another calendar sheet, this weekend. Maybe it’s over. Maybe this person got their laughs and moved on. Or maybe you being with me scared them off.”
“No. He’s not tired. He’s not scared. He’s trying to get you to let down your guard.”
“You don’t know that. We don’t know anything at all. And you’re going to make me crazy.”
He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms. ”Just humor me for a few days and play things safe until I get some answers. I’ll drop you off at work and pick you up. That way I have an excuse to take you to dinner,” his lips curved, “and have you for dessert.”
“Bribery isn’t going to make this better.”
He laughed. “Bribery, huh?”
She couldn’t laugh. She couldn’t do anything with the invisible vise tightening on her chest. “I’ve been working criminal cases for years. I’ve had threats. I did with those what I told you I do with everything else. Threats, bloody pictures, and random body parts in bags. They are the same to me. I put them in this imaginary place in my mind, a box that I seal and don’t open unless I have to. It’s how I keep going.”
“I know,” he said. “If anyone gets that, it’s me. If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t push you on this. There’s something about the way this has all gone down that I don’t like. I need you to be on alert, and I need you to be cautious, until I figure out why.”
“Damn you, Royce. That just made me more on edge. I know to be careful. I’m always careful.”
“Curse me if you want,” he said. “Yell at me. Just do what I say.”
She let out a sigh. “What is it about me and controlling men? I’m drawn to them.” She stepped out of his reach. “Drive me if you must.” She tried to walk around him and he caught her arm. “Please don’t. Not now. And I know I’m probably being unfair but I just feel like everything is spinning out of control. I need some space to figure out where my head is.”
His eyes, so blue, so piercing, held hers, his expression unreadable, before he let her go. And God, she was so confused and conflicted, because she hated he let her go, when she’d just told him to.
***
Two hours after arriving to work, Lauren sat behind her simple steel public servant’s desk, in her box of an office. She and Royce had barely spoken on the way to her office and that had her just as crazy as everything else. He’d made her put his number and both of his brothers’ numbers in her phone, and told her not to leave the building. No kiss goodbye. Just a quick ‘I’ll call you later and check in.’
The intercom on Lauren’s desk buzzed and she jumped, silently cursing her edginess. She punched the button on her phone. “There is a Jonathan Wilkins here to see you,” came the familiar gravelly voice of her sixty-something year old assistant, Alice Harper. She cleared her throat and lowered her voice, “He’s very determined.”
Of course he was. His sister was about to go on trial for murder. She could only hope this was heading towards a confession. “Send him in.” Lauren leaned back in her chair and waited for her visitor but she didn’t, and wouldn’t, get up. Not with this particular visitor, whom she’d read the file on. She’d learned a long time ago that sitting behind a desk was as good as towering over a man. It proclaimed ownership of the room, it said she wasn’t intimated into standing. It worked with the more dominant types.
Her door was open and it took all of sixty seconds for a strikingly large man, she knew to be thirty-six years old, to appear in the entryway. And true to his military duty, his hair was short, his jaw strong, his expression hard.
“Hello, Ms. Reynolds.”
There was something about the way he said her name, the way it came out almost like a threat, that set a warning bell ringing in her head. “Please, have a seat, Mr. Wilkins.”
For a moment, he stood there, so still, she almost thought he’d frozen in place, turned to stone, before he gave a surprisingly polite, “Thank you,” and claimed a visitor’s chair.
“I assume this is about your sister,” Lauren prodded, eager to get on with this. He was a time bomb she could almost hear ticking.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” he replied, bypassing a direct answer. “I know what Beverly did was wrong, but don’t you think you are being a bit harsh in your quest for the death penalty? I mean the woman was terrorized by her husband.”
Lauren leaned back in her chair, carefully schooling her features into an emotionless mask. “Have you talked to your sister’s attorney about this?”
He let out a bitter laugh. “Funny. That’s exactly what your father asked me.”
She cringed at the idea that her father had been dragged into this, but managed to clamp down on an obvious reaction. “My father is a State Senator. He can’t do anything to help your sister.”
His lips thinned. “So he says.” He shrugged. “I guess that means it’s all on you.”
“Unless you have new evidence to present, Mr. Wilkins, this case is in the jury’s hands.”
He leaned forward and pressed his hands onto the desk. “I’m Special Forces. I was away on a mission. I’m all she has since our father died last year. She married that bastard when I was in deep combat territory, and instead of taking care of her, he beat the crap out of her. Had I been here, things might have been different. Had I even known what was going on, things would have been different.”
“I can see how much this is upsetting you,” she said. “And I understand. But a man is dead and buried, Mr. Wilkins, and his family is in pain. They want his side of the story told.”
He pushed to his feet, his voice rising with him. “I let her down. She was desperate to survive. Don’t you understand her need to end the pure hell she was living? Do you have no heart, Ms. Reynolds?”
Her heart was what made her job both difficult and rewarding. The victim of this crime was dead, but his family painfully lived on. “Look, Mr. Wilkins. I want to help but I need new evidence. Something to clear your sister. Have your sister’s attorney call me. I’ll talk to him.”
He stared down at her, his jaw tight, his breathing a little too fast. “This isn’t over,” he said in a low, threatening voice, before turning and storming out of her office.
Stunned, Lauren read the threat he intended. She watched him leave, fingertips pressed to the top of her desk. It wasn’t until she heard the front lobby door slam that she realized she was holding her breath and her hand was shaking. She exhaled, rattled when she normally wouldn’t be. And she knew why. The calls, the calendar sheets. Royce’s paranoia over them. All those things were messing with her head and that meant whoever sent them was getting their way, and she didn’t want to give them that satisfaction. She had to shake this off.
Her intercom buzzed again and Lauren punched the button. “You okay in there?” Alice asked, concern in her voice.
“Yeah,” Lauren said. “I assume he’s gone?”
“Oh, he’s gone,” she said in a disgusted tone. “And he did so quite loudly.”
“I heard but I wanted to be sure.”
“I called the building security and alerted them when I heard him raise his voice in your office. And you have a call. Mark Reeves.”
Beverly’s attorney, and the timing was just too perfect. “Put him through,” she ground out through her teeth.
Alice transferred the call through, and Lauren answered, and she didn’t hold back, nor did she bother with ‘hello’. “Sending your client’s relatives over here to harass me into giving you a plea deal is not only not cool, it doesn’t seem like your style.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I just got your message, and was returning your call.”
“I was returning your call from Friday,” she corrected. “And Jonathan Wilkins just paid me a delightful little visit. One that ended in a threat and a slammed door.”
“Ouch, Lauren. I’m sorry. I had nothing to do with that. I talked to him this morning and told him a deal wasn’t looking good for Beverly. He wasn’t happy.”
“No. No, he wasn’t. How about warning me when you have a loose cannon? We might not be on the same team, but we aren’t enemies.”
“He’s Special Ops. I thought he had more control than this. He’s just another reason to put this behind us. Let’s talk plea bargain and avoid the trial. Save us both a lot of time and headaches.”
“Not unless you’ve changed your last proposal.”
“The jury will be sympathetic to a battered woman,” he argued.
“You mean a cold blooded killer who meticulously planned her husband’s slow death. Poison has precedence in the courts. The death penalty is a strong possibility, and you know it.”
“Wouldn’t you rather get a sure conviction than risk her walking? I’m good, and you know it. I’m willing to listen to any reasonable deal. Make me an offer.”
“First, let me say this, I’m good and you know it.” He chuckled into the phone as she added, “That said, you already know my offer, and that’s no offer.”
“And you know that’s not reasonable,” he argued. “Second degree with an established time period for possible parole. I can guarantee my client will accept if the parole period is reasonable.”
“You’re joking, right?” she said sharply. “I would never let her see parole. Forget it.”
“She’s young, a mother of two. Have some heart.”
“Life without parole,” Lauren countered.
“You can’t win a first degree charge and a death penalty sentencing.”
She clenched her teeth. “Then what are you worried about? If I overcharge then I’ll be the one with regrets. Think Casey Anthony. I am and I know I have the backup they didn’t to support my charges. And let me remind you about State vs. Norman. The wife killed her husband in his sleep stating she thought he would kill her when he woke. The Supreme Court said, “If we allowed this behavior, homicidal self-help”
“Would then become a lawful solution and perhaps the easiest and most effective solution to this problem.” He paused. “I am well aware of the ruling.”
“So you know I’ll win,” she stated with confidence.
“Juries are a fifty-fifty bet.” He sighed. “I can tell we are at a standstill.”
“I respect you, Mark. I know you believe in this woman, but you’re wrong on this one. I wish you weren’t, but you are.”
“Let me know if you change your mind,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll take our chances with the jury.”
“I guess we will.”
A few seconds later, they’d said their niceties and ended the call. Her buzzer went off immediately and that was how the next few hours went for her. When Lauren finally managed a breather, she intended to review a file, but instead found herself replaying the moment she’d dropped that sheet and pressed herself against Royce.
“What are you smiling about?”
Lauren’s gaze lifted to the doorway, to find Julie standing there, her simple black suit hugging her voluptuous curves, her long blonde hair resting on her shoulders. “I want details about this weekend.”
Lauren glanced at her watch to see if she had lost track of time. “I thought you were going to call me and make sure I could do lunch?”
She shrugged. “Yeah, well, that gave you a chance to say ‘no.’”
“It’s only eleven o’clock.”
“So?” Julie said, claiming the chair Beverly’s brother had been in earlier that morning. “It’s late enough to qualify as lunchtime.”
“I really need to work through lunch. Don’t you have any work to do?”
“No morning appointments. I delve into another divorce with the rich and famous again this afternoon. You know Gina Garrett?”
Lauren blinked. “The actress?”
“The one and only. My newest client among quite a few celebrities. Seems I’ve been named the attorney of choice when discretion is valued.”
Laughing, Lauren said, “Yeah, well, you’ve earned that. You are responsible for divorcing at least half a professional baseball team.”
“And quite discreetly, I might add.” They shared a laugh before Julie asked, “Can you at least go downstairs and have coffee with me?”
“I better not,” Lauren said reluctantly. A good talk with Julie would be well timed. She hadn’t told her about the calls or the calendar pages, because she knew Julie. Julie would call in the National Guard, but she needed to tell her. She needed her friend, but she was way behind on her trial prep. And then there was her promise to Royce to stay in the building. “Could you grab us some coffee and we can talk here? There’s actually a few things I’d rather talk about in private.”
Julie’s brows dipped. “Everything okay?”
“Not really. No. No, it’s not.”
“What did Royce do to you? Tell me now because I swear”
“He didn’t do anything,” Lauren said, foreseeing the National Guard call already. “It’s not Royce.”
Julie studied her a moment. “Okay. I’ll go get the coffee, and bring it to you so you can work until I get back.”
Giving in, Lauren motioned for Julie to go. “That’s good. And yes, I’ll be here when you get back, working, unlike some people I know.”
“Hey, you choose the type of law you do. I get paid well, and work less.”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “So you remind me all too often.” She shooed her away. “Go, woman. Get the coffee.”
Julie disappeared, and Lauren began taking notes on her case until Alice buzzed her yet again. “Do I really want to know what this is about?” Lauren asked when she punched the button.
“No,” Alice said. “Which is why I should just anticipate your response and tell your caller you’re busy.”
“Who is it?”
“Roger.”
What the heck was her ex calling her for? “Tell him I left for lunch.” Lauren looked up to find Julie entering her office with two cups of coffee. “And just so you don’t have to lie, Alice,” she added, “I really am leaving.” To heck with staying in the building. She couldn’t act like a prisoner and stay sane.
“Consider it handled,” Alice said. “And there’s a package for you up front.”
Probably the psychologist reviews for the upcoming trial. She already knew what it said. “I’ll pick it up on my way back from lunch.”
Julie’s brows dipped. “Now we’re going to lunch?”
Lauren pushed to her feet and grabbed her purse with one hand, the coffee with the other. “Yes. Roger just called. Somehow, just hearing his name made me claustrophobic.”
“What did that jerk want?” She shook her head.
“Every dime my father is worth,” she said. “The same thing he always wants.”
***
A few minutes later, Lauren stepped onto the street with Julie by her side, fighting guilt over leaving the building, telling herself this was nuts. She’d had threats before. They wouldn’t go away and she just had to lift her head and carry on. In fact, she had to look unruffled or she’d look like an easy target. Royce didn’t understand that, and she had to make him.
She chatted with Julie, telling her about her morning confrontation, when an uneasy feeling rushed over her. Damn it, she liked Royce, but he really was messing with her head. Feeling a sudden need to free her hands, she paused at a trash can and tossed her untouched coffee, then slid her purse strap across her shoulder and chest.
“That coffee cost me five bucks,” Julie complained. “You didn’t touch it.”
“It had a bitter taste.”
“Oh well, then I’ll complain when we go back to your building. Now, talk, girl. Details on Royce and now. If he’s as good as he looks, oh baby, I know what kind of weekend you had.”
Lauren struggled for a reply, distracted by a sense of being watched. “He’s different than other men I’ve know.”
“Different how?”
“I’ll let you know when I figure it out,” Lauren said, stepping to a curb packed with pedestrians, the proverbial sardine can of New Yorkers this busy area created.
“You know I’m not going to accept that answer.”
The light remained red but people darted across the street anyway, dodging cars. “Yes, I know,” Lauren assured her, as several people shoved her and Julie.
Julie grabbed Lauren to keep from falling. “Damn New Yorkers.”
“We’re New Yorkers,” Lauren reminded her when a sharp burning sensation on her arm had her jerking to her left, to the many bodies surrounding her. “Ouch. Oh God.” Her hand flew to the point of discomfort, pain radiating from hand to shoulder. “Damn, damn.” She grabbed Julie’s arm. “Don’t cross. I need out of this crowd.” She moved away from the curb, with Julie on her heels.
“What happened?” Julie asked urgently. “What’s wrong?
“I don’t know.” Lauren lifted her arm to show Julie, and pulled at her sleeve, trying to see the damage, and finding a large burn hole in the material.
“Holy moly,” Julie said. “Some asshole burned you with a cigarette. I swear it looks like someone shoved it at you and held it there. Your sleeve is too poofy for it to get to your skin easily.”
“Apparently it’s not.”
“We need to get you some ice quickly. Those kinds of burns hurt like a bitch. I know. My mom smokes and I landed at the end of her cigarette more than once as a kid.”
Lauren looked down at her throbbing arm, the pain growing with each passing second. The hole in her sleeve seemed overly large, and she suddenly wasn’t so sure this was an accident or a cigarette at all. “Ice.” Lauren agreed. “Yes. I need ice.”
“Damn cigarette smokers,” Julie muttered. “Why in the hell does a person light up in a crowd like that?” She paused, her brows dipping. “You okay, sweetie? You’re really pale.”
Nodding, Lauren tried a smile but failed. “It’s easing up,” she lied. “It felt like I got stuck with a huge pin or something only the prick never stopped hurting.”
Julie pulled back the silk of her shirt. “Dang Lauren, that burn is deep. I’m not sure it was a cigarette. Let’s grab a cab and go to the ER.”
“No,” Lauren said, knowing she couldn’t miss work before her trial. “I have some Advil in my purse, and I can get some ice at the restaurant. If it still hurts after that I’ll consider it. It’s feeling better already.”
Julie didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Only she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure at all.
***
Dirt Diver was already sitting at a corner table of Lauren’s favorite restaurant, out of her line of sight, when she and her friend walked in. Lauren was nothing, if not predictable.
He watched her slide into her booth, holding her arm where he’d taken his military issue mobile welder and scored her a new tattoo. Burned like hell, he bet. Well, that’s what the little bitch deserved. Tear her down, one piece at a time. That was Dirt Diver’s plan but it was proving so damn easy, even with her new boyfriend, that he was quickly becoming bored. He was going to fix that though. He was going to give himself a challenge and prove to her just how vulnerable she was, how much it sucked to feel like a victim that couldn’t escape her torture. Because he was that good. He could let her nestle down in the Walker Brothers’ castle, let her pull down her guard, and feel safe, and still destroy her.
It was time to turn this into a full-fledged nightmare for her.