Conflict of Interest

by Mark Stone

  Conflict of Interest

  Coastal Law Book 2

  Mark Stone

  Contents

  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Untitled

  Conflict of Interest

  Coastal Law: Book 2

  Mark Stone

  Chapter 1

  “I’m not ashamed to admit that I don’t really get this,” I said, looking across the bow of the boat at Detective Dillon Storm as he shook his head at me. I wasn’t supposed to be here. It was my friend and boss, Justin Knight, who had a standing weekly fishing date with one of the best detectives in Naples, Florida. Justin wasn’t available this week, though. His sister had flown into town on extremely short notice, and he was on his way to the airport to pick her up right now.

  You would have thought that would have been the end of it, but because, apparently, this was ‘too good of a day to waste’ and because ‘a man shouldn’t have to fish by himself’ (words from Dillon, not me), I got wrangled into coming out onto this small boat, dipping a line into the water, and basically sitting here in near silence as absolutely nothing tugged at our lines.

  It wasn’t my idea of a productive day.

  “What’s not to get?” Dillon asked, looking over at me with a quizzical look on his face. He pulled a Corona from ice, took a swig, and gave me an almost grin as he set the bottle back down. “Good weather, good water. What else is there?”

  I matched his near grin with one of my own. Surely this guy was messing with me. I mean, I had been in Naples for a few months now, certainly long enough to start to appreciate the whole ‘coastal lifestyle’ thing. Admittedly, it was a pretty easy way of life to get behind. You had the beach in spitting distance, an endless string of bikini clad girls on vacation, and the absolute freshest seafood known to man. Even a Yankee like myself had to admit that, if you were going to go south, this was the way to do it.

  This was something else though. It was barely dawn, we were in a boat that was conservatively the size of a shoebox, and I didn’t see even one bikini clad girl. And believe me, it wasn’t for lack of looking.

  “A lot of stuff, Dillon,” I answered, though I did grab a beer of my own and take a huge drink. It might have been early, but day drinking meant something different in Florida. It was a way of life, and besides, this was my day off.

  “Nothing that beats this,” Dillon said. “I get where you’re coming from, Rick. I spent a long time up in Chicago, too. Hell, I honestly didn’t think I would ever come back when I was up there. But, if I hadn’t, what would I have missed out on? I’m spending time with my grandfather, I met my nephew, and I even got married down here.”

  “Yeah, I know the Dillon Storm story,” I answered. “I’ve heard it from Justin, Charlotte, and your grandfather, man. You’re the prodigal son. I get it.” I shook my head. “But it’s different for me. I didn’t grow up here. I’m not used to this pace. I mean, I get that it’s my day off, but does that mean that you can’t do any work at all?”

  Dillon laughed at me. It was a deep and throaty thing, and it was filled with more than a little mocking.

  “Traditionally, yeah,” he answered, throwing his feet up on the side of the boat. “I can see that might be a problem for you, though.”

  Though I didn’t want to admit he was right, he kind of was. Back in Chicago, while I was still burning the midnight oil for one of the biggest firms in the country, days off were more of a theory than anything else. Sure, they legally had to give you a break, but no one really took that seriously. You were always on the clock, whether you had an ongoing case or not. It was exhausting, but there was also comfort in knowing that all of my time was spent in the most efficient way possible. If being in Florida for this long had taught me anything, though, it was that the sort of lifestyle I nurtured up in Chicago wasn’t sustainable. It also wasn’t good for the soul.

  “No wonder Ethan Sands wants you so bad,” Dillon added, turning his attention back to his fishing rod.

  “Excuse me?” I asked, leaning in toward the man. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Ethan Sands was the District Attorney of Collier County. I had just bested his protégé, a spunky and sort of irritatingly pretty woman named Laura Sky, in what turned out to be one of the bigger cases this city had seen in the last twenty years.

  Even before that victory, though, Ethan had made comments about me switching sides of the aisle. He had it in his head that I would make a good prosecutor, a “damn good prosecutor” to quote him exactly. He might have been right. I had only ever been a defense attorney, but people made the change more often than you’d think. What was more, since coming to Naples, I had fallen hard for Justin’s policy of only representing clients we actually believed to be innocent. It didn’t make for full pockets, but I still had my severance package to keep me afloat and besides, what good is a hefty bank account if you can’t sleep at night?

  “You heard me,” Dillon said. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Ethan Sands is itching to get you on his payroll and, after the Hail Mary pass you landed with that last case, I can’t say I blame him.”

  “That might be the closest thing to a compliment I’m going to get from you. So let me take the time to say thanks,” I answered, nodding at the man.

  “I compliment you a lot, actually,” Dillon said flatly. “I just don’t tend to do it when you’re in earshot. I’ve spent enough time around people from Chicago to know how big their heads can get.”

  I chuckled, wrapping my hands around my own fishing pole. It was devastatingly still, as it had been all morning. “That’s not untrue,” I answered, running a hand through my hair. “And you’re right. I do know that Ethan Sands is interested in me coming aboard, to use a nautical term.”

  “I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” Dillon groaned, rolling his eyes.

  “But I can’t just jump ship, to use another naut-”

  “That’s enough of that,” Dillon said flatly. “No need in turning you into a sailor too quickly.”

  “I made a promise to Justin,” I said, sitting upright and shaking my head. “He took a chance on me when no one in Chicago would. He’s the whole reason I came down here. He opened up his business to me. I can’t just leave him hanging high and dry.” I shook my head again. “Even if the idea is tempting.”

  Dillon finished off his drink and tossed the bottle behind him. He glared at me. “I get that,” he said. ‘I even appreciate it. It makes you a standup guy, for the most part. The thing is, I don’t think you’re giving Justin enough credit.”

  “I’m not?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “I figured honoring the promise I made to him would be the opposite of not giving him enough credit.”

  Dillon smirked at me. “Like I said, it’s commendable, but you’re acting like Justin needs you.” He threw his hands out in front of him, as if to stop me from r
eacting poorly, which was absolutely coming. “I’m not saying he doesn’t want you or that you’re not a huge asset. I’m sure you are. The thing is, Justin built a successful business before you ever showed up here.”

  ‘I’m not saying that,” I answered, trying to clear things up.

  “No, but you’re implying it,” Dillon said. “And I get that you want to honor your word, but it you’re being pulled in a different direction-”

  “Where I am or am not being pulled is of absolutely no consequence,” I answered. “I signed a contract and, even if I hadn’t, I gave my word.”

  “Justin would rip that contract up in a heartbeat if he thought that leaving was what was best for you,” Dillon said. “The thing I’ve learned since coming back here, other than the fact that I should have done it six years sooner, when my nephew was still a baby, is that life works for you when you work for it.” He shrugged. “I was never unhappy in Chicago. In fact, I was never much of anything there. It wasn’t until I came back here that I realized I had never actually been doing what I was supposed to be doing. I had spent twelve years fighting the good fight, sure. The thing was, it wasn’t my fight. My fight was here, and maybe your fight is there, with Ethan Sands, working to put criminals behind bars. It’s not such a bad thing, you know.”

  I blinked at the man. “Neither is what I’m doing,” I answered, slumping down in my seat and taking another drink.

  “I get that,” Dillon said. “It’s just-”

  Before he could finish his sentence, my phone buzzed, cutting him off. “Thank God,” I muttered. Pulling up my phone, I saw that it was a message from Hope, the investigator at our small firm.

  If you’re still on the water, you need to drag your ass back here, Archer. We’ve got a huge problem.

  Chapter 2

  I did my best to accommodate Hope’s request and, even if Dillon wasn’t thrilled with the idea of cutting our fishing trip off early, he did understand that-even on your day off- work was work and it had to come first.

  It took me twenty minutes to move through a moderately crowded Naples. Though I had only been here for a few months, it was still long enough for me to get the rhythm of the tourists that routinely flooded the coastal community.

  Summers were bad as far as crowds went. With kids out of school, people rushed to the beauty and mirth of this picturesque place. Winters were crowded too, or so I was told. I hadn’t actually seen Christmas in Naples yet, but if Justin was to be believed, ‘snowbirds (people running from the cold weather that had settled wherever they called home) descended on this place not long after Halloween rolled around.

  We were in early autumn now and, with kids having just gone back to school and the weather up north still tolerable, this was about as empty as Naples got in terms of crowds. Still, there were tourists and still they clogged up the roads. I was getting used to it though, and besides, it’s not like there was no traffic in Chicago. I could handle it.

  I pulled into the parking lot of Knight and Associates, filling my designated parking space and stepping back out into the unseasonable heat of Florida. There would be a rainstorm today. How would I know that? Because, as it turns out, there’s a rainstorm in Florida almost every damn day when the weather stays this hot. I either found it frustrating or comforting. I hadn’t decided yet.

  There were three cars in the parking lot. I recognized two of them; one as Hope’s and the other as Opal’s; our firm’s receptionist. The third car wasn’t Justin, which meant he wasn’t back from picking his sister up yet and that whoever owned this white Buick was probably the cause of the ‘big trouble’ Hope texted me about while I was out on the water. I did a quick scan of it, noticing the New York state license plate. With my curiosity piqued, I pushed inside, finding Opal sharpening pencils at her desk and Hope sitting atop her (which was pretty normal for her) filing her nails.

  For someone who had just insisted I come in on my day off to deal with an emergency, she looked pretty nonchalant about the whole thing. In fact, the entire office had a sleepy atmosphere to it. It was like walking into the sleepy law offices in Mayberry or something.

  Neither of them looked up at me as I entered. So, I cleared my throat and folded my arms over my chest. “Guys?” I asked. “What’s happening here?”

  Though Opal still couldn’t be pulled away from the excitement that must have come with sharpening her pencils. Hope finally did look up at me.

  “You have a lady in your office,” Hope said, her English accent flaring up as she yawned out the words. “She says she has business with you.”

  “What kind of business?” I asked, peering back into the glass box that was my office and seeing a woman’s dark hair waiting at my desk.

  “I’m not sure,” Hope answered. “She said it was confidential. So, of course, I didn’t ask. I assumed she might have been one of your clients. She also said it was of a timely manner.”

  “She’s not one of my clients,” I said, looking at her again. “I don’t have any clients from New York.”

  “I gathered that from your reaction to my text,” Hope answered. “And she’s not from New York. She might be in New York. I know her license plate says as much, but she has a Midwest accent and a green case on her cellphone with the number ‘23’ on it.”

  “Larry Bird?” I asked, pulling out my basketball knowledge.

  “She’s definitely not from Boston. I can tell that from the way she asked me for a ‘pop’ when I sat her down at your office,” Hope answered. “Larry Bird is from French Lick, Indiana, though. So, my guess is that she comes from somewhere in that region.”

  You had to love Hope. She was an investigator through and through.

  “Don’t have any clients from Indiana either,” I answered.

  “Well then, I guess you should talk to her so we can all get out of here, shouldn’t you?” Hope asked, giving me a smile to blunt the curtness of her words. “You’re not the only one who’s supposed to have the afternoon off.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, nodding at the woman. “Nice to see you too, Opal,” I said over the sound of an electric pencil sharpener as I passed the lady. She grunted a response at me, which was honestly more than I expected.

  Pushing my way into my office, I caught sight of the woman’s face as she spun around in her chair. She was a young thing, maybe twenty four. She had a heart shaped face and pair of eyes that popped against the darkness of her hair. She was definitely pretty, though that wasn’t where my mind went when I saw her. At least, that wasn’t the only place it went.

  “Is that a recording device?” I asked before introducing myself, pointing to the obvious tape recorder setting on my desk.

  “It is,” she answered in a throaty voice that spoke of more years than her face would have suggested. “But it’s not turned on.”

  “Good,” I said quickly. “Then you won’t have any qualms with putting it away. My name is Rick Archer, and I’m a defense attorney here at Knight and Associates, though I’m guessing from the fact that you asked for me personally that you already know that. If you’re looking for me to represent you, we can talk about that. But it would be better if you came back during regular business hours, assuming your situation is one that can wait.”

  I didn’t say anything to the woman about Justin’s penchant for only taking on clients he believed to be innocent, but I didn’t see the point in it. Whatever her situation was, I would decide whether I thought she was a good fit for us when I heard her out.

  “That won’t be necessary,” the woman said. “I’m not in trouble, Mr. Archer, and I don’t need your help. Though, if I ever did need the services of a defense attorney, especially one who specializes in homicides and other violent crimes, then I would definitely look you up.”

  My jaw tightened at her words. Moving around my desk, I took a seat across from her. “I used to specialize in homicide and other violent crimes,” I said, thinking back to the way I’d have described myself back in Chicago. “Down her
e, I do what I’m called to do. That being said, I appreciate your kind words, but let’s hope you never need my help in the way you described.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” she answered.

  “How can I help you, ma’am?” I asked. I was already starting to get a little uncomfortable. This woman knew a lot about me and, if her license plate was to be believed, she came all the way from New York just to talk to me. If she didn’t need my help for a case, then what could her reasoning be?

  “Right,” she answered, smiling politely. “Forgive me for not introducing myself. My name is Fallon O’Keefe, Mr. Archer. I’m with the podcast ‘Blunder’.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re with what?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “Sorry,” she apologized again. “A podcast is like a radio show you can download in installments onto your smartphone.”

  “I know what a podcast is,” I answered quickly. “What I don’t know is how it has anything to do with me.”

  “I’m glad you asked that,” Fallon said. “Our podcast, as you can probably guess by the name, focuses on major missteps in American history. Our first season, which was a huge success and nominated for three ‘Talktacular’ awards was about the collapse of Enron.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Still not following the breadcrumbs here. What does that have to do with me?”

  “Well,” Fallon said, leaning forward with a big smile on her face. “While our first season was both critically and commercially successful, feedback has told us that we need to take a more personal approach in season two. The first season was about a faceless corporation. What we need in our new season is a face, a focal point.”