by Ivy Nelson
Austin did a mental check of her notes. “The only two people who come to mind are Nicholas Sutton and Grant Sterling. Of course, you might want to look into Troy Wilson too. I don’t know how much his path would have crossed with Tim though.”
Jax was making notes as she spoke.
“Do you want me to call Patrick? I don’t know if he’ll take my call right now, but he needs to hear this doesn’t he?”
Jax shrugged. “That’s up to you. He’s paying me, so I figure he’ll take my call. I’m going to dig further into this before I reach out, though. I don’t want to go to him with a halfcocked theory. This helps,” he said, tucking his notebook into his shirt pocket. “I’m gonna go hunt down Lance and see if he has anything else for me. Let me know if I need to get a cattle prod after Patrick.”
“What is with you Texans and cattle prods?” she asked.
When Jax just stared at her, she giggled. “Dakota wanted to use a cattle prod on him this morning too. There was also mention of castrating him like a bull? I didn’t ask.”
Now the cowboy laughed. “What can I say, great minds think alike.”
When Jax was gone, Austin stood and went back to finishing the tables. The party would start in just under two hours, and she definitely wasn’t in a party mood. She hadn’t withdrawn from the house submissive program, so she was technically under the supervision of Lance, and she had no idea what that meant for her.
The focus of her thoughts walked through the bar entrance and motioned her to him when he spotted her.
“Did Jax find you?” she asked when she stood in front of him.
Lance nodded. “He did. I was just coming to check on you. Does this help your case at all?”
Austin shook her head. “Not yet. Right now, we have no way of knowing if Tim’s lies are tied to the diamond heist or not.”
“What if I told you I traced a deposit to Tim’s bank account?”
Austin gasped. “You could have led with that, Jesus.”
“Master Lance,” he corrected with a wink. “Jesus is good and all, but he can’t dig up digital footprints the way I can.”
Austin rolled her eyes. “Fine, Master Lance, what does this deposit tell us?”
“Nothing yet. I can tell you that it came right before his daughter got into the program in Canada, and I can tell it originated from a bank account that was used to pay Troy Wilson to kidnap Holly.”
“Holy fuck. I didn’t know there was payment involved in her kidnapping. I just thought Troy did it out of anger.”
Lance shrugged. “No one has been able to trace the payment. It’s just something I’ve been working on for Elijah on the side. We were never able to figure out if Troy was working with someone, but the big payday in his bank account made it seem like he was. Since I’m the one who found the money, it was never admissible in court.”
Austin grabbed his shoulder. “You need to stop talking to me then. If this isn’t admissible in court, I need to figure out a way to come by the information via legal means, and you cannot help me get there.”
Lance nodded. “Fair enough. Don’t want to do anything to make things worse. Just let me know when I can help, OK?”
“What have you found out about Grant and the pictures?”
“You sure it’s OK for me to tell you?”
Austin nodded. “It’s fine, Tim already sent me in the direction of the photos when he talked to me as Patrick’s attorney.”
Lance shrugged. “OK. I managed to trace the origin of the photos. They originated from the same phone that sent the one image to Patrick. There is no record of them having been transferred off the phone. Judging from that, if the phone belongs to Tim Reyes, he was lying to you about sending them to Grant. Right now, though, I have no way to trace the phone to Tim.”
That night, Austin couldn’t face being in the dungeon, so Lance put her behind the bar with Mitch for the duration of the party. Getting lost in the work and learning how to make different cocktails helped keep her mind busy.
She was grateful to her friends for convincing her to stay in Colorado instead of running back to New York after Patrick left. Had she done that, she would be crying in the dark in her apartment. There would be plenty of tears when she went to bed that night, but for now she was lost in busywork. That didn’t mean Patrick was far from her thoughts. She thought of him every time she poured the scotch he drank, and she silently prayed they would be able to share a glass together.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Patrick pushed open the courtroom doors and braced himself for the inevitability of speaking to Austin. He loathed the idea of seeing the hurt in her eyes, but he was dying inside without her. They hadn’t spoken since Saturday morning, and it felt like a lifetime had passed since then instead of less than forty-eight hours.
A woman he didn’t recognize was sitting at the defense table. Was he in the right courtroom? The woman turned when she heard him approach and smiled.
“You must be Mr. Sutton. I’m Victoria Marche.”
“Where’s Austin?”
“She was away this weekend and couldn’t get back in time. Since I’m the one who filed the original motion for broader discovery, she asked if I would fill in for her. It’s all perfectly legal since you added me to your council when the search warrant got served on your lab.”
He knew for a fact that Lance had put Austin on a plane back to New York yesterday morning. She just didn’t want to see him.
“OK, but I hope Miss Yates understands that I’m paying for her representation at trial and not yours.”
Victoria gave him a tight smile. “I’m sure she does, Mr. Sutton. This is a pretty run-of-the-mill hearing and shouldn’t take too long. You actually don’t even have to be here if you don’t want.”
Patrick scowled at her. “I’m facing possible prison time. Why would I skip important hearings regarding my defense?”
Victoria held up a hand. “I wasn’t suggesting it’s not important, Mr. Sutton. Just that it’s very standard and you don’t really have a role here today. I’m good at my job.”
Victoria turned out to be formidable in the courtroom. That was no surprise since Austin hired her. They left having won the right to see the prosecutions witness list among other things, even though the prosecution argued that they hadn’t had ample time to prepare for discovery. It was going to be delivered by the end of business that day.
“What now?” Patrick asked when he stood on the courthouse steps with Victoria. The press was preoccupied with some other big case and hadn’t spotted him yet.
“Now you let us do our jobs and wait for your next court date. There will be a few more hearings, I’m sure, but there’s really nothing more you can do before trial.”
“And Austin will be handling the trial, right?”
“Shouldn’t you be having that conversation with her? I’m not going to get in the middle of whatever is going on between you two.”
Patrick sighed. “It’s complicated. You’ll call me if you find anything?”
Victoria assured him she would, and he ducked into his waiting car.
On a whim, he ordered his driver to take him to his New York lab. There, he was met by Wayne Dorian.
“Mr. Sutton, we weren’t expecting you today. We’re still trying to pick up the pieces after the police executed their search warrant.”
Patrick extended his hand to the man for a firm handshake. “Don’t worry about it, Wayne. That’s why I’m here. They would have been required to leave a receipt of anything they took. Do you have that for me?”
Wayne went to a desk and pulled out a sheet of paper.
“Here you go. Doesn’t look like they took much. Just made a mess more than anything.”
Patrick scanned the list several times before a slow smile spread across his face. There was no reason for it to make him so happy, but the diamond wasn’t on the list.
He folded the paper and tucked it into his pocket. He spent an hour or two helping Wayne a
nd some of the other staff straighten things up before he had a car take him to Austin’s office. He hadn’t seen the new space yet, and he was impressed with what she’d done with the space in such a short amount of time.
A handsome young man sat at a desk in the lobby space, and Patrick knew instantly it was James Saunders, her new office manager.
“Mr. Sutton, can I help you?” he asked after he finished a phone call.
“I’m here to see Austin, my attorney, Miss Yates,” he stuttered. Why the fuck was he nervous?
James looked at his computer screen. “Miss Yates isn’t in right now, but Miss Marche is if you want to talk to someone about your case.”
Patrick agreed to see Victoria and did his best to mask his disappointment that Austin wasn’t there.
When he was shown into Victoria’s office, he found a very frazzled woman surrounded by boxes.
“What’s all this?” he asked.
“This would be the prosecution’s potential witness list and evidence.”
Patrick’s eyes went wide. “They’re trying to make sure you don’t have time to review it all?”
She nodded.
He pulled the evidence receipt from his pocket and handed it to her. “Maybe this will help. It’s a list of everything the police took from my lab on Friday.”
Victoria took it and set on top of a box and waved her arm around the room. “Thank you, Mr. Sutton. How does that help me with this?”
“I’m assuming you know about the text I got?”
She nodded.
“If the photo was sent from my lab, we have to assume it was someone who had access to the building. First of all, they didn’t find the pumpkin in their search, so someone took it out of there. I can get you a list of people who had access to the lab, it’s very small. If any of those people are in these boxes, that’s who I would focus on.”
Victoria smiled. “That does help. I still have to dig through all of this but thankfully Austin hired a couple of extra paralegals to help.”
His heart twisted at the mention of Austin.
“Is she back yet?” he asked.
Victoria looked away. “She asked me not to talk to you about her.”
Damn it. He deserved it, he knew that. He’d panicked at the prospect of going to prison and possibly fucked everything up between them.
“OK. Let me know if you need more paralegals. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”
Victoria nodded. “I’ll let the boss know you offered.”
He stepped into the hall and looked toward the end where he knew Austin’s office would be. Was she in there hiding from him?
• • •
Austin shoved her way through the mob of press at the courthouse and avoided eye contact. She just wanted to get back to her office. She’d managed to get the case against the alleged madam dismissed, but she’d just made an ass of herself in front of a judge she respected, and now, she wanted to hide.
In the car, she read a text from Victoria.
Sutton is a pain in my ass and won’t stop asking where you are. I wish you two would kiss and make up already.
Tears fell as she read the text. There was little chance of that happening. Now that she was home, away from the safety of Solitaire, she’d realized just how much trust had been broken between them. Not only that, they had rushed into a relationship without considering all the ramifications that would have. Now she was out a friend, a lover, and a Dom. She wasn’t sure she could ever step foot in Solitaire again despite Lance assuring her she was part of the family.
She dashed at her tears as the car pulled up to her office. Damn it. The press was there too. What did they want with her?
“Just take me home, please,” she told the driver. At least there she had a back entrance and doorman to help her navigate the crowd if the press were there too. If they kept stalking her though, she was going to have to change her number again and move. The thought of moving made her angry. She liked her apartment, and apartments she liked in her price range were hard to come by.
Her heart twisted as she walked into the living room of her apartment. Memories of Patrick were everywhere, despite the fact that they had only spent a few nights together at her place.
Holly had tried to call her several times since Sunday, but she just couldn’t bring herself to answer.
Now, she was alone with her thoughts for the first time since she left Solitaire. Laying across her mattress, she let herself lose it, sobbing out days’ worth of pent up emotion. She wanted to forget the last couple months of her life and just go back to the way things were before she ever agreed to be a house submissive, but that wasn’t possible. When she was spent, her body drained from physical and emotional exhaustion, she finally drifted to sleep.
Her phone pulled her out of her slumber sometime later and she felt around in the darkened room for it.
“This is Austin,” she mumbled, sleep still shrouding most of her senses.
“Patrick is asking for all your notes on his case. Can I give them to him?”
The mention of his name brought her out of her sleep addled state. “Victoria, hi, sorry. I was napping. Did he say what he wants with them?” Was he about to fire her? She was still listed as the lead attorney on his case, but she’d fully intended to let Victoria do most of the heavy lifting, with her just supervising from a distance.
“He didn’t say. Just said he has a theory he wants to chase down.”
“He’s entitled to see his file. Give it to him.”
“You got it boss. Sorry if I woke you up. He’s just being very persistent.”
“It’s fine. I saw the boxes that got dumped on you. I’ll come help you sift through it later. I might bring Jax Fischer in too.”
When she ended the call, she washed her face and changed clothes. Patrick may not be her Dom anymore, but he was still her client, and she had an ethical responsibility to give him the best defense possible.
On the way to her office, she called Jax. He’d flown back to New York the same day she did, so she knew he was in town.
“You want to stay up all night and dig through boxes of legal documents?” she asked.
“Boy howdy, you know how to show a man a good time, don’t you?” he said through laughter. “Are we looking for anything specific?” he asked when his laughter subsided.
“I’m not sure. Someone on the prosecution’s witness list who had access to Patrick’s lab?”
Jax gave a frustrated growl. “I wish you two would talk to each other. He called me earlier and asked me to look into everyone who had access to his lab. Y’all are more on the same page than you think you are.”
Austin grew quiet. “It’s complicated,” she said after a moment.
“All the good stuff is,” Jax said. “We’ll see what we can dig up. I hired Lance temporarily and threatened his balls if he does anything even remotely black hat hacker like. He’s following the money trail for me. We’ll get him on a video call.”
“As long as it’s all legal enough that I can bring it up in a courtroom, I don’t care how he gets it.”
“I’ll bring dinner. The sooner we get him out of this mess the sooner y’all can kiss and make up.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Patrick sat in Holly’s living room listening to her ramble about wedding plans. The big day was just a few weeks away. Thankfully, his trial was far enough away that he would get to attend, no matter how it turned out. He’d flown to L.A. from New York, because there was little he could do there. He also wanted to do a search of his own at his L.A. lab. The police still hadn’t served search warrants for any of his other properties, and he didn’t understand why.
“Are you listening to me?” his sister asked, breaking through the fog.
Patrick gave her a shrug. “Sorry, a lot on my mind.”
“I was asking why you stepped away from the board at Solitaire. You love that place, Patrick.”
“I’m about to fucking go to prison, Holly.” He w
inced as soon as the words were out. “Sorry. I’m just uptight. I can’t be there right now. It hurts too much.”
Holly gave him a sad smile. “I’m disappointed in you, Patrick.”
“What do you want me to do, Holls?”
“Be a responsible fucking adult. You made a promise to her. Just because the going gets tough doesn’t mean you get to break her heart and walk away.”
“Again, prison. I’m not going to keep her tied to a convicted felon.”
Holly threw her hands in the air. “You haven’t been convicted yet. Have a little faith in the system.”
Patrick scoffed. “You mean the same system that’s letting our father out of prison in just a few months despite his horrific crimes?”
“Well, you only have a few weeks to fix this because she’s in my wedding and so are you. You’re the closest in height to each other and you’re walking down the aisle together. I’m not going to have you two fucking up my wedding day because you’re nursing broken hearts and are too damn stubborn to talk things out.”
Patrick gave a mirthless laugh. He was sure he knew about Austin being in the wedding, but it had somehow slipped his mind. They had to see each other at some point, he just wasn’t sure he wanted their awkward reunion to be at his sister’s wedding.
‘I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do, sis.”
Holly came and sat next to him. “You can start by admitting that you fucked up this weekend. Do you know what an asshole move leaving like that was?”
Patrick closed his eyes. “I don’t need the third degree from you, Holls. It’s a fucked-up situation.”
“I promised her you weren’t going to break her heart. You didn’t see her face when she read that damn letter you wrote her. You’re a better man than that, Patrick. I get that you’re hurting. I get that you’re scared. I’m fucking terrified for you. But you crushed that girl. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so much devastation on someone’s face before.”
