Scandalous Shifters Paranormal Box Set

by Mia Taylor

  Ryker turned to face them as Victoria stopped beside them.

  “What the hell going on?” she hissed but her gut instinct told her she already knew what was about to occur. Officer Daniels turned to look at her sympathetically but he only shook his head.

  “Yes?” Ryker asked, his face a mask of confusion. He was the only one who hadn’t seemed to understand the significance of their arrival.

  Officer Bellissi waved the warrant in his face before she snapped the silver bracelets around his wrists. Ryker began to protest loudly, craning his neck to look around the room as if he was expecting it to be a joke.

  “What is going on?” he echoed. Victoria pushed her way forward but a firm hand on her shoulder stopped her from moving any further. Riley stood at her side, shaking his head in warning.

  “You are under arrest, Mr. Duvall,” one of the men intoned. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney—”

  “He is an attorney!” Evangeline screamed. “Daddy! Do something!”

  “What are the charges?” Ryker growled, his eyes scanning the crowd as if they were collectively responsible for the event.

  Daniels cleared his throat nervously, shooting Victoria another apologetic look before speaking.

  As if in slow motion, his mouth opened and the words fell out in a low, slow, mechanical sound, causing Victoria’s stomach to drop to her feet.

  “The charges are two counts of sexual harassment.”

  Chapter Six

  Judgment Day

  “Victoria, it isn’t healthy for you to stay here by yourself,” Lenora urged. “Please come back to Cedar Grove with me, at least until Ryker comes home.”

  Victoria stared out the window, a familiar sense of déjà vu overcoming her. It was another overcast, rainy day which turned the magic of Manhattan into a dismal, soggy hell.

  “I can’t,” she replied with far more calm than she was experiencing. “But there is no need for you to stay here in all this negativity, Lenora. I can arrange a car for you any time you’re ready to head home.”

  Lenora snorted, joining her daughter-in-law at the wide glass.

  “As if I could leave you here like this. What a mess. How could something like this happen? What do you know about this?”

  Victoria had asked herself the same question but it did not take a neurosurgeon to figure out how it had occurred. Her worst nightmares had come true. Ryker’s rhetoric had resulted in a something sinister. He was being framed for one of the most atrocious crimes she could imagine.

  Ryker is not a rapist. He could never hurt a woman… could he?

  “I never understood how people could opt to live in the city,” Lenora commented, watching the drizzle with disdain. “When it rains in Cedar Grove, it’s magical. This is misery.”

  Victoria couldn’t disagree but the weather matched her mood of pathetic melancholy. The fact that it brought out the worst aspects of New York in late autumn seemed almost poetic.

  “What time is the hearing?”

  Victoria glanced at her Piaget and grimaced.

  “We need to get to the courthouse. Why don’t you stay here, Lenora? I’m sure they will be saying things you don’t want to hear about your son.”

  Lenora laughed without mirth and turned away.

  “No more than you’ll want to hear about your husband, my dear, but someone has to be there and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you do it alone. Let’s go.”

  The two reluctantly walked out of the study.

  “Riley, is the car here?” Victoria asked the aide, who immediately nodded.

  “Yes, ma’am. Is… is there anything I can do?” he asked awkwardly as the women walked toward the door. Abruptly, Victoria stopped and turned to him.

  “Yes,” she said slowly. “Go to the market and buy me some eggs.”

  “Eggs?” Riley echoed, seeming confused by the demand.

  “Yes. Two dozen. I’m making blueberry muffins when I get back.”

  “Blueberry…” Riley trailed off. He wisely shut his mouth, sensing that his boss’ wife was very close to her breaking point.

  “You do like blueberry, don’t you?” Victoria demanded. “Or would you prefer carrot? If you prefer carrot, pick me up a bushel of carrots too. I’ll make a dozen of each.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Riley croaked as the door closed in their wake.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was no surprise to Victoria that the courtroom was overflowing, but it filled her with dread.

  The reporters she had managed to avoid since Ryker’s arrest were flocking to her side like vultures on a corpse, but somehow Lenora managed to keep her daughter-in-law hidden from their obnoxious questions.

  “No comment,” Lenora snapped shortly, shoving past the Times and the Mirror. “No comment.”

  “Maybe I should give a statement,” Victoria muttered as they found a remote corner of the courtroom. It was standing room only but Victoria didn’t mind. She was far too agitated to sit.

  “You will keep your mouth shut,” Lenora replied with her usual bluntness. “You should know better than anyone that anything you say will get spun against you. Leave the talking to my son. It’s what he does best.”

  Victoria idly wondered how Lenora had become so wise. She had spent her life raising Ryker and his siblings while waiting hand and foot on her overbearing husband.

  Victoria was exceedingly glad that her mother-in-law had stayed in New York.

  With her own father still living in Germany, Victoria was very much alone in the city, fighting a nameless, faceless enemy without defenses.

  “All rise!” the bailiff called. The members of the gallery scrambled to their feet.

  “The Honorable Vincent Cranston presiding.”

  The judge shuffled up to the bench, his black robes barely moving as he approached.

  “Be seated,” he told the room crisply and almost in a wave, the courtroom obliged. “First case, George.”

  The bailiff opened the door and allowed Ryker to be escorted in by two uniformed corrections officers. Victoria had been expecting to see her husband in the Department of Corrections garb, but the reality was much more shocking than she had anticipated.

  He looks awful in orange! she thought inappropriately, but she knew her psyche was trying to block out the trauma of what was occurring. It was stunning to her that they wouldn’t permit him to dress properly to address the court.

  “Your Honor, case number 328768-9, the people versus Ryker Duvall. Two counts of sexual harassment in the first degree.”

  “Well, well, well, Ryker. One day in the Senate and you’re letting the power get to you, huh?” the judge joked tastelessly. To Victoria’s shock, her husband grinned disarmingly at him and held up his cuffed hands sheepishly.

  “You know what they say, Vince,” Ryker replied. “You can’t be successful without making enemies.”

  “Don’t I know it, old boy,” Judge Cranston chortled ruefully. A rush of indignation shuffled through the courtroom and the Assistant District Attorney rose to his feet, his face beet red.

  “Your Honor! If you are personal friends of the defendant, you should recuse yourself from this hearing!”

  The judge scowled at ADA Almada.

  “Don’t get your panties in a knot, Jason. Everyone on the New York Bar has some association with Duvall.” He turned his beady eyes back toward the defense. “Ryker, how do you plead?”

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  “Almada?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Mr. Duvall—”

  “Don’t you mean Senator Duvall?” Judge Cranston interjected, peering at the lawyer from over his reading glasses. Jason Almada grit his teeth furiously.

  “No. I mean Mr. Duvall, Your Honor. He hasn’t been sworn in as senator yet.”

  The judge shrugged and then winked at Ryker.

  “He has a point, Ryker.”

  “He always doe
s, Your Honor,” Ryker agreed, nodding at the opposition. “That’s why he’s such a good lawyer.”

  Almada’s face was crimson now and he cleared his throat.

  “As I was saying, Mr. Duvall has been charged with two counts of sexual harassment. We have a pile of circumstantial evidence—”

  “Excuse me, but did he say ‘circumstantial’? My ears are going in my old age,” Ryker jumped in smoothly. Judge Cranston raised his eyebrows, smirking slightly.

  “I believe he did. What do you want, Jason? How much?”

  “We are asking for remand, Your Honor! He has the means to flee and the connections anywhere to disappear,” Almada pleaded. “He’s the definition of flight risk.”

  “I understand his fear, what with all that circumstantial evidence,” Ryker replied, rolling his eyes. “But I will happily surrender my passport. I obviously have strong ties to the community. I am not going anywhere, Your Honor, certainly not with these trumped up charges which will amount to nothing.”

  “No, I don’t believe you are going anywhere. You are released ROR.”

  “Your Honor!” Jason Almada was shocked, but the judge was already calling for the next case.

  Ryker looked up into the gallery as he was led back in preparation for his release. He caught Victoria’s eye and offered her a small smile.

  She tried to return his look of comfort but turning her lips upward suddenly seemed like an insurmountable task. She wondered if she would ever smile again.

  “What did I tell you?” Lenora chortled in Victoria’s ear. “Does that boy of mine have a silver tongue or what?”

  “Oh, I had no doubt he would walk out of here,” Victoria assured her mother-in-law, following her through the throng of onlookers. This time as they made their way through the reporters, however, the group was more persistent than it had been on the way in.

  “Mrs. Duvall, did your husband arrange to be brought before a judge he knows personally?”

  “Victoria, has Ryker been unfaithful to you?”

  “Mrs. Duvall, what does Ryker do when you ‘get your panties in a knot’?”

  “Mrs. Duvall, do you have any words for the women who were harassed by your husband?”

  Victoria froze at the last question, turning to look into the sea of reporters.

  Lenora sensed her hesitation and grabbed her hand.

  “Don’t you dare,” she hissed. Reluctantly, Victoria allowed her mother-in-law to drag her out of the district courthouse and into their waiting car. Long after the driver had pulled away, the reporter’s question still rang in her head.

  Do I have anything to say to those women? Yes, I want to know why you would say such an awful, disgusting thing about a wonderful man! I want to know how you sleep at night! I want to know if you’re telling the truth.

  ~ ~ ~

  “…an absolute disgrace what happened in that hearing today! It was like they were two locker room buddies, towel snapping!”

  “Oh, come on! You heard the ADA—the cases are purely circumstantial. Any judge would have released him ROR. He’s a senator, for crying out loud.”

  “You’re only saying that because you’re part of the good ole boys’ club too, Roger. As a woman, I find the entire process offensive. He should have recused himself immediately!”

  Ryker walked into the sitting room and punched the power button on the remote, whirling to glare at his wife.

  “Why are you watching that?” he demanded. “And they say Fox News is bad.”

  “What else should I watch, Ryker? I don’t think ‘The Real Housewives’ is on today.”

  He scowled at her sarcasm and stood, momentarily unsure of what direction to take. He had been home for over a week and had not yet left the sanctuary of the penthouse.

  “They talk so much, it’s giving me a headache,” he complained. “I can’t listen to the commentary anymore.”

  “Well, it’s only about to get worse,” she assured him. “I can promise you that.”

  A knock at their bedroom door distracted them and Riley tentatively poked his head inside.

  “What is it?” they chorused, their eyes still clashing.

  They had been squabbling like children from the moment he had been released. After much soul searching, Victoria knew there was only one way to make the charges disappear—he had to come clean about their plan. He was only being framed because of who people believed he was. If they had known the truth about Ryker, this would have never come about, she reasoned. The two women accusing him of harassment were people he had only apparently met at local conferences, but he did not recognize either one.

  Or so he claimed.

  “I mean, I meet so many people. I could have shaken hands with them but honestly, neither one sticks out in my mind,” Ryker had grumbled when she asked.

  One was a maid at the hotel and the other a banquet server. They had almost identical stories and were both struggling financially. Aside from that, Victoria knew little else about the women but she was sure that they were merely pawns in a twisted chess game. She wanted to hate them for their role in the scandal but she knew something much worse was at play there.

  Ryker, on the other hand, was fully aware that he had been set up but he intended to fight until the women broke down on the stand and confessed. He had far too much faith in his ability as a lawyer.

  “You’re already guilty to everyone!” Victoria had shouted. “It doesn’t matter if you reduce them to tears on the stand. It will only make you look worse. They are calling you a pig. Attacking these seemingly defenseless liars will not bode well for you—even if it makes them recant.”

  “And your solution is to piss away everything we’ve worked toward? I’m not sworn in yet. If this had happened after the inauguration, I would say yes, but we aren’t even there yet, Victoria.”

  “At this rate, you’ll never be sworn in! You’ll be doing a prison sentence for crimes that never happened!”

  In the end, there was no compromise. How could there be? For once, everything was a deep mournful black or stark, blinding white.

  “Senator, Judge Cranston is on line one,” Riley said nervously. The Duvalls exchanged a worried look.

  “Well that’s not very smart,” Ryker muttered, reaching for the cordless on the end table. “With all the scrutiny he’s facing, you’d think he’d wait to ‘run into’ me at the club or something. Ex-parte communications are a no-no.”

  Victoria inhaled sharply as her husband clicked the line.

  “Hi, Vince. How are you enjoying your free publicity?” Ryker asked, smirking. Slowly, the cocky expression slipped from his face.

  “I see. Thank you for letting me know. No, I understand. Thanks.”

  He hung up and looked at Victoria, his face pale.

  “What?” she demanded. “What is it now?”

  “Vince is facing sanctions because of my hearing.”

  Victoria exhaled slowly.

  “How bad does it look?”

  “I don’t know, but I have to go back to court for another bail hearing. My ROR has been rescinded.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mate Suspicion

  Ryker was subsequently remanded and his passport confiscated for good measure.

  “Why the hell do you need to take my passport if I’m stuck rotting away in jail? Do you think my clone is going on vacation?” Ryker had snapped at the officer as he turned himself in. The court cop smirked, seemingly amused at having such a high-powered inmate.

  They are making an example of him, Victoria thought, staring at the ceiling. His too flip attitude and Judge Cranston’s decision had inflamed a rage in the Liberals, and Judge Bryers, who had sat in on the second hearing, knew a good political move when he saw one.

  “Edgar Bryers has been eyeing office since he was in diapers,” Ryker told Victoria after the grim ruling. “Of course he was going to lock me up and throw away the key. It’s what the public wants. This doesn’t change anything. The truth is still going to c
ome out in the end.”

  Victoria had pressed her pale hand against the thick plastic separating them, her lovely eyes filled with anguish.

  “You can end this,” she whispered urgently. “You just have to speak up and these charges will go away. I will back you up and confirm everything you say. You have motions already written for Senate. Even if everyone doesn’t believe it, some will second-guess your guilt.”

  Ryker pressed his own hand up to hers and Victoria curled her hand slightly, desperately wishing she could touch him.

  “What guarantee do you have that will happen?” her husband asked, cradling the black receiver between his ear and his shoulder. “Why would anyone believe what I have to say now?”

  “You have to do something!” Victoria cried. “I can’t bear to see you like this! You don’t belong in here. You belong at home with me!”

  For a fleeting moment, she considered telling him to shift and break out, but she quickly swallowed the inane response. That wouldn’t help matters in the least.

  Ryker put his fingers up to his mouth, glancing about furtively as if he sensed what she was thinking, but suddenly Victoria did not care. She had no desire to continue with the charade. It was all supposed to be over by now and instead, it was getting worse. It didn’t matter that they had put aside their personal viewpoints to appease the ignorant for years, grooming their colleagues for votes.

  Nothing seemed important except seeing her husband out from behind the glass wall and out of that hideously ugly orange jumpsuit.

  Victoria turned and glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table.

  Ryker had been in jail awaiting trial for almost three weeks but Victoria still slept exactly on her side of the bed as if she expected her husband to crawl back into bed at any moment. It was almost four a.m. but sleep was not coming. Her mind would not stop whirling and she could not recall the last time she had experienced the sanctuary of slumber.

  I should have gone to Cedar Grove with Lenora. At least there I could shift and roam on sleepless nights.

  She sat up, her smoky irises well acquainted with the dim light in the bedroom.