by M. S. Parker
“Why didn’t you call me from the beginning?” Despite how exhausted I was, I managed to keep from sounding annoyed.
“They...” Leayna cleared her throat and sniffled. “They said they’re watching the doors, the exits. Everything. If I called and it wasn’t because I was pleading guilty, they’d come and...and...”
Her breath started to come in hard, shallow pants, and her eyes took on a glazed look that I didn't like.
Shit. She was having a panic attack.
“Leayna!”
She didn’t respond. I said her name again, harder, louder, calling on every ounce of authority I used in other aspects of my life.
She jerked her head around and stared at me, the whites of her eyes showing.
“They won’t come after you.”
She shook her head. “You can’t know that.”
“No,” I agreed. “But we can see what we can do to protect you.” Rising, I went over to the window and stared down over the city. “You didn’t know anything about your husband’s involvement? Nothing about the men he was involved with?”
And, apparently, involvement wasn't only limited to business. Hence the reason Leayna had been doubly upset. I wondered if she'd had her suspicions, about that part of her late husband's life anyway. I couldn't see how she hadn't known.
“Scum,” she muttered. “That’s what they are. All of them. And no, I didn’t. Not until recently.” She made a disgusted sound. “Not soon enough.”
I nodded slowly, my sleep-deprived brain trying to put together a plan. “Okay. I need to make some calls. I want to see if I can get you some protection.”
“Protection?” Her eyes came to mine as she processed the word. “What do you mean?”
“After what you've just told me, I think your husband's ties to organized crime are what got him killed, if they didn't kill him outright,” I said bluntly. “Even if you hadn't been threatened, I'd still believe your life was in danger.” I reached out and put a hand over hers. “Let me protect you.”
Chapter 6
Dena
“What’s this?”
Bethany looked up from the report I handed her.
I'd given her Dunne's original report, or rather, a copy of it since the real one had apparently been mysteriously misplaced. Fortunately, Dunne made copies of everything, and he'd given me one early this morning. His superior was doing some digging of his own, now that several interested parties had expressed questions about how Dunne's filed report had sounded too much like the detectives' reports.
“It’s the original report from the night Leayna Mance was arrested,” I repeated what I'd already told Bethany. “From the first officer on scene. It doesn't match up with the report that was eventually filed. This one says that Mrs. Mance had called her defense attorney before the police arrived, but when Officer Dunne arrived, she willingly told him that she'd touched her husband's body to see if he was breathing. He also wrote that the blood on her clothes supported her statement. He said she was shaken and upset, appearing devastated by what happened.”
Bethany sighed. “What's your point?”
I bit back the sharp retort I wanted to give her. “Every other report from that night states that Mrs. Mance's clothes were bloody and that she refused to give a statement. That she didn't appear to be in any distress and only wanted to know when she could go to sleep. And the clothes she was wearing that night aren't in evidence.”
Bethany's eyes narrowed. “Listen to me, Ms. Monroe, you can’t let this woman get to you. She’s a manipulator of the highest order. A trophy wife who couldn't handle that she was about to be traded in for a newer model. I've dealt with her, and she thinks all she needs to do is spin a sad sob story and we'll all automatically believe her.”
“Actually, I haven't spoken with her,” I replied, careful to keep my tone even. “I’ve only spoken with Officer Dunne about how the official report we received doesn't contain a copy of his actual report. We’re prosecuting a woman based, in part, off evidence and information gathered from the official report, but the information we had isn’t completely accurate. It can’t be because we’ve got two conflicting reports. Not to mention missing evidence.”
Bethany tapped a finger on the file I'd given her. “This isn’t the official report, Dena. And Officer Dunne is something of a loose cannon. Look...” She sighed and leaned in, as if she was confiding in me like we were friends or something. “You’re new. I get that. You don’t know how all of this works. But Dunne, he’s had some problems, and with his uncle not here to clean up after him, they're getting worse. Why do you think he's still in uniform rather than behind a desk or working a shield? You can't rely on what he says without corroboration.”
Bullshit.
I thought it, but knew better than to say it. Bethany could have a foul mouth sometimes, but I was trying very hard to be professional. I didn't want to give her anything she could try to use against me.
“I know Officer Dunne too.” Giving her a tight smile, I put the report back into my briefcase. “I might be new to the DA’s office, but I’m not new to New York, and I’m not new to law. I know plenty of cops, and I’ve had to have some on hand when I went to pick up a client. And sometimes I needed them when I had to bury a client because this office failed to keep an abuser behind bars.”
Bethany’s face went red. “Now you listen–”
“I’m afraid I can’t,” I said sweetly. “I have a job to do, remember? You wanted me to dig up skeletons on Mrs. Mance, anything we can use against her. Don't worry. I’ll continue keeping an eye on things since you and Pierce seem so...” I raked her up and down. “Busy. I'll keep you posted.”
Turning on my heel, I stormed out.
So much for hoping that Bethany wasn't deliberately obtuse.
Pierce was standing in the doorway of his office when I passed.
Jerking up my chin, I glared at him. “You got something to say?”
His head jerked up, as if I'd startled him. He looked distracted, and, for the first time since I met him, he wasn't wearing that sleazy expression on his face. It almost looked like something was bothering him.
“Uh, no. No, I didn't have...” He glanced down the hall. “I have to go. I'll see you later.”
I frowned as he went, but didn't bother trying to figure it out. He was probably trying to think of a new place for he and Bethany to fool around. You know, since they didn't really have anything else to do.
***
“It’s bullshit!”
Leslie Calvin, one of my best friends, sat across from me and sipped from her water, green eyes dancing. “Come on, honey. Tell me how you really feel.”
I threw my hands in the air. “The reports don’t match, Leslie. At all. And then she acted like I was some...” I let my voice trail off.
What was the point in continuing to complain when it wasn't going to do any good? It was venting some of my anger, but the frustration knotting my stomach wasn't going anywhere.
When Leslie had asked if I wanted to meet for lunch, I’d told her no at first. Mostly because I was in a bitch of a mood and didn't want to take it out on her. When she pushed, I’d told her exactly that.
She’d just laughed and said, “All the more reason to meet me. You need to vent.”
And had I ever. But now I was winding down, and I didn't know where to go from there. I was just glad she'd picked a place with an outdoor patio. I was way too keyed up to be inside.
Leslie's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. “Listen to me, Dena. You're where you've always wanted to be. You aren’t going to let some ignorant piece of work chase you out. If you can’t make her listen, then you find somebody who will.” Her red hair tumbled into her face as she tossed her head. Impatient, she pushed it back and fixed me with a determined look.
“But,” I started to protest.
“No!” She held up a finger, the expression on her face forbidding. “Look, there’s no denying why I went into law. I’m in it fo
r the bucks.” She shrugged, an unrepentant look on her face. Then she reached out and caught my hand. “And we both know why you're in it. You believe in justice, in all of it. So, here’s what you're going to do. You’re going to deal. You will not let her chase you off. You will not ignore this. If the reports aren’t right, then somebody's fucking with things. They are messing with the justice system. You’re too good a lawyer to ignore that, right?”
Huffing out a breath, I stared at her.
But the knot in my gut began to unravel, and I smiled.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“Yeah.” She nodded at me, a firm smile curving her lips. “It's like you told her. You're not some novice. You know how the law works. We both do. If the police reports don’t match, if evidence is missing, what does that tell you?”
Sighing, I reached for my glass of tea. “I know. I know.”
“Good.”
We lapsed into silence as the server brought out our food, and over our meal, we shifted to talking about small, inconsequential stuff while I mulled over the right direction to take with my work dilemma.
“So are you?”
Glancing up, I realized Leslie had asked me a question. “Am I what?”
“Seeing anybody?”
“Ah...” Arik’s face leaped to mind.
Shit. Definitely didn't want to go there.
“Ohhhhh...” She beamed at me. “You are! Spill.”
“There’s...look.” I shook my head. “I’m not dating him. It’s a guy I hooked up with at the club. That’s all.”
I kept my voice as nonchalant as possible, but I couldn't control the hot flush creeping up my neck.
“But you’re blushing over him.” She sounded delighted. “You don’t want that to be all there is, do you?”
“It’s sex,” I repeated. I took a sip of water to cool my burning throat, trying to ignore my racing heart even as everything in me went hot and ready. All from thinking about him. “It’s seriously amazing sex,” I admitted. “Some of the best I’ve ever had, but it’s still just sex.”
Her eyes glittered. “Uh-huh.”
Chapter 7
Arik
Grinding music, the pulse of lights as they danced over bodies moving to the rhythm...all of it wrapped around me.
And all of it blocked me from seeing the one person I’d come here hoping to find.
The first time I’d seen Dena at Club Privé had been on a Friday.
It was Friday.
Ergo, she should be here.
That was my mental reasoning, simple as it was.
Except she wasn’t here.
After nearly thirty minutes of cruising around the dance floor and watching the bar on the lower level, I still hadn't seen her. Wondering if I was wasting my time, I started toward the stairwell, intending to go to the VIP section and see if that offered a different perspective.
On anything.
Why didn’t you get her phone number, genius?
A phone number smacks of commitment, I told the idiot in my head. An expectation that there was something more than the physical involved here.
I was a lawyer. I knew how to make a logical argument, even with myself.
I hardly ever asked a woman for a number. If we bumped into each other, that was all well and good. Even the sub I’d had a semi-regular thing with back in Chicago hadn't been someone with whom I'd had phone conversations. We’d exchanged emails through private accounts, but outside of having to cancel previously-arranged engagements, we hadn't communicated. Certainly not about anything personal.
But as I worked my way through the crush of bodies, any number of men and women made their way off toward the private rooms, reminding me that I was still waiting. If I’d gotten Dena’s number, the two of us could've already been in a room.
I hadn’t done it though.
And I was beginning to feel like my commitment reasoning was more an excuse than a logical argument.
I wasn’t commitment-phobic or anything like that. I didn’t have some ugly past relationship that made me shy away from another woman. Actually, if it'd been that, it might've been better. Maybe then, at least, I could explain why I was so reluctant.
I just didn’t want the commitment.
Except now, I wasn't so sure.
I wanted more with Dena, but I didn't know what that meant. Or how to handle it.
I sighed. Maybe the problem was that I didn't actually know what I wanted.
But I did know, I forced myself to admit, at least to an extent.
I wanted her.
I could see myself wanting to know more about her, and I already wanted more from her than I'd ever wanted from a Sub. Like a phone number. And...
Shit. I closed my eyes for a moment as the realization hit me. I didn’t even know her last name.
I knew she smelled like sweetness and sin, and that she felt and tasted even better. I knew that her hair was silk under my hands, her skin satin. I knew that she liked to submit, but not all the time, and that she had a wicked, dry sense of humor.
I knew she could make me burn.
I knew she was both strong and soft.
But I didn’t know her phone number or her last name.
All the things I did know were intimate details, the sort of things a lover should know, but none of it would help me find her.
I swore under my breath. I’d been convinced she’d be here, but it looked like I was wrong.
“You sound like some idiot kid with his first crush,” I muttered to myself as I reached the VIP area.
I spied a relatively isolated spot and moved toward it, once more eying the crowd for Dena, looking for the one part of her petite body I thought would most likely stand out in a crowd. Her white-blonde hair.
The upper level gave me a better view, but it also made one thing clear.
Dena wasn’t here.
“Back again, are you?”
At the voice, I looked up to see Gavin coming my way. He moved to join me at the railing, resting his elbows on it, his stance similar to mine.
“It would seem that way,” I answered easily.
When one of the servers came by, I asked for some scotch. She named the brand I ordered last week and I nodded confirmation. As she walked away, I looked over at Gavin, curious.
“What do you do, provide them with ID cards for the VIP members along with our purchase history so they know what it is we like to drink? Flash cards, maybe?”
“I think it'd be a bad idea to give away trade secrets.” He grinned.
Trade secrets. Dena had used the same phrase. I went back to studying the dance floor for her, as if she might've materialized in the last few seconds.
“Are you looking for somebody?” Gavin asked.
I almost shrugged the question off, but the man standing next to me was the owner. Who better to ask than him?
“Actually, yeah. I met up with a woman last week. First saw her down on the dance floor.” I nodded toward it, my eyes still studying the throng of bodies. She wasn’t there, but I couldn’t seem to keep from searching for her. “Petite, blonde hair.”
“That could be any number of women. I assume she was a sub?”
From the corner of my eye, I could see him watching me, but I didn’t turn toward him. Whether he could help me or not, I was going to find her. It was just a matter of when. A matter of time. A matter of patience. Normally patience wasn’t much of an issue with me, but I had little when it came to Dena.
Why hadn’t I gotten her phone number?
“A sub,” I mused over how to answer his question.
With just about anybody else, the answer would have been simple. But simple described nothing about Dena. Nothing at all.
“The first time I saw her, she’d been dancing with a couple of...well, they weren’t much more than boys. I imagine they thought she was a sub.” I looked over at Gavin finally. “She’s more complicated than that. Her name was Dena. She’s about...”
I had
been getting ready to give a physical description beyond petite and blonde when I saw something flicker across his eyes. It was brief, but enough. “You know her.”
At that moment, the server arrived with our drinks and Gavin lapsed into silence as she delivered mine.
“Mr. Porter's is on the house tonight, Angel,” he said.
“Of course.” Her eyes slid to mine and she gave me a nod that was only polite. Employees were off-limits at Club Privé. Once we were alone again, Gavin tipped his glass in my direction.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I know Dena.” He took a sip of his drink, seeming to mull over his words.
As the silence stretched out, a fiery, tight sensation settled in my belly. I wasn’t sure I liked it.
It was jealousy. Didn’t take an idiot to figure that out. Something about the way Gavin had said he knew Dena made me think he really did know her. And not just in passing like he knew me. He knew her for real.
And I didn’t even have her damn phone number.
Gavin was stupid in love with his wife, but that wasn’t particularly reassuring. In our world, it wasn’t odd to be in love and still have an open relationship. For all I knew, Gavin and Carrie liked to share. The problem was, I couldn’t wrap my head around it because the idea of sharing my woman with anybody else...
Shit.
My woman.
I actually thought those words. I thought them and they'd been accompanied by jealousy and possessiveness rather than panic and frustration.
Gavin's eyes narrowed and he took a step toward me.
“Dena's a close friend of mine, one of Carrie’s best friends.”
The knot in my stomach eased some. He hadn't said that she was part of something with him and Carrie. He'd said friend.
He continued, “I’m going to offer you some advice. Be careful with her.” He paused, and then added, “I’m not going to say something stupid like keep your hands off of her. That'd be pointless considering where we are. However, if you hurt her...”
He let the sentence trail off so I could imagine how he'd finish it. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it no matter what.
