by Jade Allen
“I’m Ella Miner,” the woman said, “Chase’s agent. You must be Ms. Coin.” Her handshake was firm but brief, and her hands were almost colder than the room.
“I am,” Elizabeth answered, turning toward the couch where Chase was lying down, eying her with a passive interest with his emerald eyes. His square jaw was covered in black stubble, and his full lips were smiling impishly. “And you must be Mr. Brighton.”
At the mention of his name, the man got up from the couch and shot Elizabeth the goofy, charming smile she was used to seeing on his show posters and TV ads; it was no less cheesy in person, but Elizabeth was somewhat disarmed, nonetheless. His handshake was also firm, but he lingered, and that made Elizabeth take a step back from him in alarm; he chuckled as she did, apparently finding her surprise funny.
“Sorry,” Chase said good-naturedly. “They told me my lawyer was E. Coin; I suppose I was expecting a man, and you caught me off guard.”
“That’s quite sexist,” Elizabeth pointed out, eyeing him warily. He was oozing charm, so it was hard to take him seriously, and that frustrated her even more.
“Quite,” he agreed. “But I hope you can forgive me. Being charged with something you’re innocent of doesn’t put you in the right frame of mind.” He kept his eyes on her as he spoke, moving from point to point on her face and body, and it made Elizabeth feel as though a spotlight was being turned on her. She was used to clients avoiding her gaze as much as possible. He had a constant energy about him that was clear even in interviews and photos, and he was displaying it now with the restless motion of his eyes. Elizabeth was no stranger to male attention, so she knew his gaze was doing the usual stop around her full breasts, shapely thighs and what was visible of the curve of her bottom, but he also seemed to be looking right through her. It was unnerving; this man was looking at her as though he already knew her intimately, but she’d never spoken to him in her life.
“I suppose you’re right,” Elizabeth finally said. Chase smiled, and this grin was more tired and genuine than the last, and she had the feeling her forgiveness really had been needed. Was he being polite, or did he feel desperate for her approval? A showbiz cowboy with an insecure streak? Not the furthest story ever fetched.
“Anyway, now that there are charges, a lot of that will stop,” Elizabeth continued. “But you may still be called in for various reasons, and some may not seem perfectly valid to you.”
“They’ve been dragging this out for a few weeks now,” Ella said desperately. “They keep bringing him in and then releasing him without charges. Getting the official charge read to us finally was almost a relief, because every time they got him out of bed, we kept wondering if he would be able to come back. And they cops were so rude. It was like they didn’t care about treating us fairly at all.” The fear in the woman’s voice wasn’t lost on Elizabeth. Poor woman, she mused; she actually thinks he’s in trouble. She kept looking anxiously between Chase and Elizabeth, wringing her hands in front of her in an almost comical fashion.
“I know what you mean,” Elizabeth said as she sat down at the table in the center of the room. She really did feel bad for them—at least for agent—so she tried to keep her voice soothing and low. “But that is a common tactic. They want to break you down, wear down your spirit before they charge you so you’ll cave more easily to their demands.”
Chase and Ella exchanged a complicated look, pregnant with layers of meaning, and Elizabeth wondered what they weren’t telling her.
“They will throw everything at you, guys,” Elizabeth warned, looking between the two and trying to mine their unspoken conversation for clues. “They’ll dredge up your past, try to destroy your career, go after old friends and family…anything they can do to beat you and get you in jail faster.”
“They can’t do that,” Chase said stiffly, flopping on to the couch in outrage. “I’m innocent, they don’t even have—“
“Mr. Brighton,” Elizabeth cut in, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you do have a well-documented history of drug possession, occasionally with the intent to distribute. Those are serious charges that are definitely going to be a factor in the decision, whether you like it or not. I’m going to need a little bit more than your solemn oath of innocence.” Like a hair sample, for one, which you’ve refused to provide thus far.
Ella looked at Chase again and widened her eyes, and they had a tense battle in complete silence. It went on for so long that Elizabeth almost said something again—then Ella started shaking her head slowly in a clear gesture that Chase seemed to be choosing to ignore. He leaned forward on his knees, and Ella made a noise between anger and defeat, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation as she leaned back in her seat.
Elizabeth finally spoke. “Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Well, how about this, Lizzie?” Chase said, his eyes glimmering with excitement. “I’m being set up to be sent to the slaughter, and your boss is in on it.”
Several things happened at once: Ella stood up in anticipation of Elizabeth’s move to leave; Elizabeth herself anticipated Ella’s move to block her; and Chase thrusted himself in the middle of the action, grabbing Elizabeth’s arm to stop her from leaving. The next thing that Elizabeth was aware of was Chase’s six feet of muscles being sent crashing to the floor after she swept his right leg out from underneath him. He lay on his back, wheezing, while Ella backed away into the corner, watching the abrupt escalation with frightened eyes.
“Rule one,” Elizabeth said as she knelt over Chase’s red face, “You don’t get to call me Lizzie. Rule two: you don’t get to decide when I leave. Rule three: don’t ever touch me. Not if you want to stay out of the hospital. Got it?”
“Got it,” Chase wheezed.
“You’re supposed to help us!” Ella whimpered from her corner. She sounded so pitiful that Elizabeth regretted her action for a moment.
“I am helping you,” Elizabeth said. “I’m probably the only person who will, if you’re telling the truth. Every person here is in the DA’s pocket, except me. Now, either you’re a complete idiot who believes the mayor would frame him but not have crooked employees stashed everywhere, or you’ve already checked me out.” She looked at Ella, whose pale face was slowly returning to its normal shade. “Why do I feel like it’s the latter?”
“Because you’re smart,” Chase whispered as he stood. He used one roughened palm to gingerly rub his backside, which had taken about fifty percent of the sudden impact. “It’s why I picked you. I always knew you were smart…but now I know you’ll fight for me, too.” He walked back over to the sofa and motioned for Ella to join him. “Come on, you chicken. She’s not gonna hurt you.” He shook his head, annoyed. “Glad I didn’t happen to need a bodyguard.”
“You were flat on your back!”
“Quit squabbling!” Elizabeth shouted, and they fell silent immediately. “Now tell me how you got into this mess so I can get you the hell out of it.” Or if I can’t, maybe you can get the hell out of here when I do. Somehow, she wasn’t feeling too great about either possibility.
****
An hour later, Elizabeth was staring at her hands in shock, trying to make sense of what she was being told. She kept hearing Ella’s words echo in her head—she couldn’t stop hearing them rattle around between her ears, no matter how hard she tried. My boss is partnering with the mayor to fill up the prison with drug arrests. My boss is worse than crooked; he’s full on corrupt. I’ve been working for an irredeemably corrupt man.
Perhaps it was this more than anything else that finally fed her rage so that it burned hot enough to eat through her shock. “So, the DA has a deal with the Mayor to plant evidence so they can make drug busts, in order to, what…strengthen his anti-drug campaign?”
“In this town, it’s his last foothold,” Ella said. Her voice was hollow and coarse from talking for so long, and from being so thoroughly drained by the day’s events. Elizabeth could see the dark circles under both of their eyes
, even though the each of them had clearly attempted to use stage make-up to conceal them. “A lot of his voters are leaning more to the left, being swayed by their children or grandchildren. He knows he’s on his way out, so he’s pulling out all the stops, hitting them where they’re still vulnerable to alarmist tactics, or at least impressionable.”
Chase was leaning back in his seat on the couch, bouncing one muscular leg nervously in place as the two women spoke. He hadn’t said much, and Elizabeth knew now that it was because he expected to be turned to when she came to his part.
“How did you get wrapped up in this, Chase?” Elizabeth said. “How did you ever find out about this?”
“I saw them,” he said simply, and his green eyes hardened as he recalled the incident. “My cousin has been to jail for misdemeanors twice, and he’s half black, so he was an easy target for Hare’s camp, I guess. I was smoking a cigarette in a field behind his house, and I saw two cops slip into his living room. I crept up on them to watch through the window, and they put something in the cushions and slipped right out.” Chase slammed his fist on his leg, and Ella jumped at his sudden burst of movement. “Before I could get back in, the cops were beating down the door with guns drawn. I’m not proud of what I did.” The man closed his eyes and dropped his chin. “I high-tailed it out of there.” His voice choked on his last words, and as he pressed one hand to his eyes, Elizabeth realized he was tearing up. Is he really doing this? She thought uneasily. Is this a ploy to get me to believe him?
Then his broad set of shoulders began to shake, and she felt a icy tide guilt wash over her all at once. Elizabeth waited for Chase to raise his head again before speaking. “It’s a human reaction,” she allowed, keeping her gaze as gentle as possible. “Fight or flight. You’re not trained to fight, so it’s flight. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
Chase laughed bitterly and wiped his eyes. “Maybe so, but I got what was coming to me for skipping out on their blood. They saw me, and even though they didn’t catch up with me right away, they caught up with me.” He stood then, and lifted his t-shirt to show Elizabeth a six-inch long gash running from his collarbone to just below his heart. Even though it had clearly been sutured and healed over, it was such and angry red color that Elizabeth knew it had been an incredibly deep cut. She gasped involuntarily, but didn’t flinch away from the wound. This is real, she thought frantically. They really tried to kill this man for catching them planting evidence.
“Before that, I had started spreading word around, trying to see if anyone else had experienced anything similar with these guys,” Chase continued, dropping back onto the couch. “I had a little information, but most people were too afraid now to get back to me. Hare’s men sent their message, even if I didn’t die. Even so, they can’t have me living to tell the tale more…so they planted a load of synthetic drugs in my place. They even tested me when they brought me in, three times—but because they were negative, they were discarded as inconclusive, and they tried to get me to consent to another test. I didn’t, because I know the more I cooperate, the faster they can get me in prison to finish me off.”
“They can also throw you in jail for obstruction of justice, or something lesser,” Elizabeth pointed out. “Why haven’t they yet?”
“Because they’re so confident they have him cornered,” Ella said, and her cheeks were high with color as she spoke. “They’ve been sending us taunting emails from untraceable IPs, telling me I’m going to lose my “cash cow” to a sacrifice, things like that. At first it was just words, then they started sending us pictures and videos of…” Ella stopped and gasped, pressing her fingers to her mouth so hard that the skin around her lips turned white as a sheet.
“Really dark stuff,” Chase supplied for her, and he patted Ella’s shoulder comfortingly. “They took pictures of our families and loved ones and burned them, or arranged them so their bodies looked…torn up.” He swallowed his disgust and looked at Ella again. The look on his face was so tender that Elizabeth almost mistook it for romantic love, but she knew the agent was happily married for the last two years. Arrogant and spoiled though he seemed at first, Chase wasn’t a leech; in fact, being around him was completely different from what she’d anticipated, even given the circumstances. She felt relaxed and alert, and most of all, comfortable; it unnerved her, but not nearly as much as it should have. What is this cowboy doing to me?
“Okay,” Elizabeth said finally. “Say I believe you. Do you have proof—any evidence at all—of the mayor and his men targeting you?”
The silence gave her all the answers she needed to know. Great. If I don’t figure this out, a lot of people can and probably will die. How the hell am I going to get out of this?
“We have some ideas, though,” Chase said, seeing the despair on her face. “And some surveillance footage being sent from a remote location.”
“I thought no one wanted to come forward to help out?”
“Well,” Ella said, “No one who could help us…legally. This footage isn’t exactly theirs.”
Elizabeth. “You found a hacker? Great! That’s a step, honestly.” A small one, but a step. Hackers were often called as witnesses, and she could always find a way around telling the whole story about the source of the footage. Truthfully, she would have latched on to anything just about now, but this was a real, viable possibility. She stood up, excited to have a plan of action for this awful situation.
Chase sighed and stood “This is life or death for me, so I’ll try anything.”
Elizabeth shuddered at his phrasing, but she knew in her heart he was telling the truth. She couldn’t agree to represent him without evidence, but she could feel the truth of his words deep in the marrow of her bones. What had Douglass said to her? This case is going to bring our little country town lots of attention.
You’re damn right it is, she thought viciously. Just not for the reason you think.
****
Elizabeth wanted to take her own car to the Chase’s home, but Ella didn’t want to be split up from anyone (“Horror movie rules,” she’d half-joked), so she ended up driving them both. Ella complimented her mint green Honda profusely as they got in, and Elizabeth guessed that this was the way she tended to show her nerves. There are worse ways to be in a panic, she thought. Like spineless, or rash.
She eased her car onto the main street, noting the emptiness of the streets once more during her drive from work. Wait, there’s one car, she thought as she glanced in her rearview mirror. Must be coming home from work.
Two turns later, however, Elizabeth was starting to have second thoughts. The black sedan behind them had tinted windows, and the driver was wearing huge shades, so he looked just like any other non-descript white man under the age of 65. She couldn’t even make out his hair color, or if he kept it short or long. Panic started to crowd in on her, and she struggled to keep her breathing steady as the sedan followed her down three more blocks and made the same turn as they did. Chase was idly giving her directions as they went along, completely oblivious to the possibilities of the death he cheated tailing them in the shiny sedan.
Calm down. They might not be following you; they could just be driving home.
You know they’re not! a voice in her head screamed. Gun it!
Instead, she waited for the next yellow light, slowed, then turned left at the last possible second.
“What the hell are you doing?” Chase yelped as the car shot forward and his barrel chest strained against the seat belt. Elizabeth took a sharp right and then careened around a corner in a final left-hand turn before performing a quick U-turn and parking between two SUVs in front of a donut shop. “Why are we stopping?”
“Ssh!”
“Why?” Ella asked, her voice high with panic. “Why do we have to shush?”
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the street behind them in the rear view mirror. “Chase, watch the street in front of us and tell me if you see a car. Shut up,” she snapped as he started to speak. “Just do it.”<
br />
Chase fell silent, but did as he was told. A bead of sweat rolled down Elizabeth’s neck as she watched her mirror, waiting for the black sedan to slip around the corner and coming crawling down the street in search of them. Why did I think I could handle this? Why did I try to be the bigger, badder person?
A full minute passed. “Elizabeth, what’s going on?”
She sighed and leaned back in her seat, letting the anxiety drain away before she answered him. “I’m sorry, I thought we were being followed, and I wanted to be sure.” She flashed Chase an apologetic smile, and the anger on his face swiftly transitioned to flirtatious humor before settling on a tired cheer.
“You know,” Chase said teasingly, “On another day, I might accuse you of just trying to take me on a ride to wear me out and seal the deal.”
Elizabeth gawked at him, then laughed so hard genuine tears came to her eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Chase asked, frowning in what appeared to be real confusion over her hysterical laughing.
“How can you flirt at a time like this?”
Chase grinned at her, and it turned both of her legs to jelly so fast that she was immediately thankful that she was sitting down. “How can I not?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chase winked and leaned over to her, beckoning her closer with the crook of one finger. She leaned in and caught a whiff of his cologne, something spiced with a hint of cherry. “When you smile, I almost forget someone is trying to kill me.”
Elizabeth giggled shrilly, and was immediately ashamed that the noise came out of her at all. What the hell is wrong with me? She caught sight of Ella in the mirror and saw her rolling her eyes.
“Does he do this a lot?” Elizabeth asked, smiling in spite of herself.
Ella chuckled. “Yeah, but never so earnestly. You can usually tell it’s fake.”
