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© 1992
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Chapter 1
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Zachary Adams leaned back, his feet propped on the only clear spot on his desk, his chair tilted as far as it would go, and mentally reviewed the day's schedule. Patricia and Darren Thompson were due at one o'clock to begin work on their divorce settlement. Mattie Ferguson wanted to draw up a new will, probably to reinstate the daughter she'd disinherited four—no, five—times in the last three years. Bill Henry's kid had scheduled an appointment after school for an interview for the careers section of the school paper. And Daniel and Sarah Ryan wanted to legally change their daughter Katie's name from Lawson to Ryan.
All in all, not a bad schedule, he thought with a grin. If the rest of the week stayed like this, he could do all his work, earn a little money and still have plenty of time to putter around the farm up on Laurel Mountain.
He felt a momentary twinge of guilt for agreeing to talk to Henry's kid. Being a lawyer in the real world was something Zachary knew little about. It had nothing in common with being a lawyer in Sweetwater, Tennessee. His practice here was part-time at best, consisting primarily of divorces, wills, probates and contract law. There were occasional criminal cases, but rarely anything more serious than vandalism, breaking and entering, or public drunkenness.
And if his caseload was nothing like his big-city counterparts', neither was his income. He earned enough to get by, but only because he owned this building, and the rent from the other tenants—the bank next door and the dentist upstairs—was steadier than his own income. If he hadn't inherited that twenty acres on the mountain from his grandfather, he never could have afforded it, and if he weren't clearing the land and building the house out there himself, he could never have afforded that, either.
So there were trade-offs. He carried a light caseload, and he earned less money. He also faced less stress, knew all his clients personally, took time off whenever he wanted and went fishing every Tuesday morning with the mayor and the sheriff. He would never get rich, but he would never burn out, either.
He glanced at his watch, then at his desk, which desperately needed cleaning. Since his sister Alicia had quit a few weeks ago for a better-paying job in the insurance office down the street, he'd let his paperwork slide. His filing system consisted of stacking records on his desk until they threatened to topple over; then he simply divided them into two smaller stacks, repeating the process as necessary. He could spend the three hours until Patricia and Darren were due sorting through all those files and notes … or he could drive up the mountain and cut down that dead pine that threatened to block his driveway when it inevitably fell.
It was no contest. He swung his feet to the floor, the rubber soles of his tennis shoes squeaking against the wooden planks when they hit. He picked up the sheepskin-lined coat he'd tossed over one chair, grabbed his keys from their place in the ashtray and started out the door.
He hadn't gone more than ten feet from the building when someone called his name. Zachary paused in the act of buttoning his coat and looked up to see Dutch Morris and his wife Ruth hurrying toward him. They both looked as if the sky had opened up and fallen in on them. So much for chopping wood, he thought philosophically.
"How are you today, Dutch? Miss Ruth?" he asked with a friendly smile.
Dutch, a big, burly, hard-luck sort of person, shifted uncomfortably before asking, "Can we talk to you in your office, Zach?"
With only a twinge of regret at this change in plans, Zachary led the way back inside, unlocking the outer door and showing them through the empty reception area to his office. He removed his coat once again before taking a seat behind the desk. "What can I do for you?"
He watched the couple exchange worried looks and saw the evidence of recently shed tears on Ruth's face, and he wondered what had happened this time. Dutch and Ruth had shared more trouble in their lifetimes than any two people deserved. No matter how hard they worked or how hard they tried, something always went wrong. This time, if it was enough to make Ruth cry, it must be serious.
It was. She pressed a handkerchief to her mouth and lowered her gaze to the floor, leaving the task of answering Zachary's question to her husband. For a moment Dutch searched for the right words; then he simply blurted them out. "Carrie, our oldest girl, killed her husband last night."
* * *
It was a three-hour drive to Nashville, where Carrie Lewis lived. Zachary got an early start Tuesday morning, pulling out of his driveway while the sky was still dark except for a faint rosy hue to the east.
He'd told Dutch and Ruth that he couldn't handle their daughter's case. Not once in all the years he'd been practicing law had he ever turned down a client based on money—more times than he could count, he'd been paid in favors or services rather than cash—but he'd had no choice this time. A murder trial was expensive, and Carrie's would be held in Nashville. He would have to live there until the trial was over, he had explained to the Morrises, and he simply couldn't afford that.
Added to that very real consideration was the fact that he didn't have the experience to handle such a case. The minor infractions of the law that he'd dealt with in the past had in no way prepared him for a murder trial. It would take a lot of hard work and talent to undo the damage of Carrie's confession. The hard work he could handle. The talent, he was honest enough to admit, he didn't have.
So why was he going to Nashville to see the client who wasn't his client, to work on the case that wasn't his case? he asked himself dryly.
Because he hadn't been able to leave the Morrises out in the cold. Because as little as he knew about capital crimes, it was more than they knew. Because their grandchildren—the oldest fourteen, the youngest three—had been placed in temporary foster care and had to be scared half out of their minds with their father dead and their mother in jail. Because Carrie needed a lawyer—not a country boy like him and not a public defender who was overworked and underpaid, but a bright, dedicated, passionate, tough, intelligent lawyer.
And because he knew a lawyer in Nashville who fit that description perfectly. Along with beautiful, intriguing and sexy.
Beth Gibson was a partner in one of Nashville's largest firms, a firm filled with names that were found in Tennessee history books. Old South. Old money. Incredible power. It was a firm not known for doing anything out of the kindness of its heart, not without a six-figure retainer in return.
Still, Beth had represented Sarah Ryan in her divorce from her first husband and in the custody arrangement with Daniel, and no one could have been poorer than Sarah was then. Maybe she would extend that generosity to another unfortunate woman in trouble.
Reaching the interstate, Zachary turned toward Nashville, then turned his thoughts back to the day he'd met Beth. She had come to his office with Daniel Ryan one pretty September day. He couldn't remember which had surprised him most: his instant attraction to the red-haired lawyer or the reason for her visit. It was a custody case, she had announced in that thoroughly efficient, all-business voice of hers. Daniel had fathered her client's daughter, and the mother wanted him to take temporary custody.
In the first few moments Zachary hadn't believed her claim. Daniel was a good man, but he was practically a hermit. Zachary had never met anyone less comfortable with people, particularly women, than Daniel. He'd never known anyone less likely to indulge in a one-night stand—or, in this case, two nights—than Daniel. And frankly—shamefully—he had wondered what kind of woman would be attracted to Daniel. What kind of woman would be intimate with the big, withdrawn, hard-looking man?
But Daniel had verified Beth's story. Yes, he'd had an affair with Sarah Lawson, and yes, he wanted th
e one year's custody of three-month-old Katie that Sarah was offering.
Zachary and Beth had handled all the paperwork, and a few days later she had brought Daniel's daughter to him, a sweet, adorable baby with her father's eyes and her mother's delicate beauty.
That had been the last he'd seen of Beth for nearly a year. Then Sarah had come for her baby, and Daniel hadn't wanted to give her up. That had brought Beth back into Zachary's life, and his attraction to her had been even stronger. No woman had ever drawn him the way she had. No desire had ever gripped him the way this one had. No prospective relationship had ever seemed so impossibly right the way this one had.
But fairness had dictated that as long as matters remained unsettled between Sarah and Daniel, the only relationship Zachary could consider with Beth was a professional one. And once the case had been settled? Once Daniel and Sarah had gotten married? Why hadn't he made a move—called her, asked her out, done anything to establish contact between them?
Because he was a coward, Zachary readily admitted. He didn't like challenges—if he did, he would be practicing law in the city and earning big bucks like everyone he'd gone to law school with—and Beth was sure to be a challenge. The only thing they had in common was their profession, and law the way he practiced it was only a poor relation to the way she did. In everything else—tastes, backgrounds, ambitions—they were complete opposites.
And while opposites might attract, he acknowledged with a humorless smile, they didn't often make for lasting relationships.
But that wouldn't stop him from going to Beth's office after he saw Carrie. It wouldn't stop him from asking for her help.
And it wouldn't stop him from wanting her.
Restlessly he turned on the radio, tuning it to a Nashville country station. The music and frequent traffic updates kept him distracted all the way into the city and downtown to the detention center. There he identified himself and was shown into the interview room, where he waited for Carrie.
After the Morrises had left his office yesterday, he'd found their daughter's picture in an old high school yearbook. She was two years younger than he was, and, in spite of the small size of the school, he hadn't known her very well. She'd been painfully shy and withdrawn, a poor student with few interests and fewer friends.
She'd had long, straight brown hair that was parted in the middle and anchored behind her ears, and she'd worn a plain white shirt and no makeup, no smile. He recalled that her eyes were also brown, like her mother's. In the sharp black-and-white picture, they looked vacant, as if there were a body there but no mind. No heart. No soul.
After high school she had stayed on the farm and worked alongside her father, he remembered, until she married a farm boy in the next county by the name of Lewis. But neither the Lewis nor the Morris farm could feed two extra mouths, so Delbert Lewis had gone off to find a job elsewhere. Once Carrie had joined him, Zachary hadn't seen or heard anything about them except the news of each of their children's births. There were four kids, Ruth had told him, and another one on the way. Seven lives, counting the baby's, shattered in one night.
The opening of the door interrupted his thoughts, and he looked up to see Carrie Lewis. Next to the muscular woman escorting her, Carrie looked thin and insubstantial. The uniform she wore was too big and added to her waifish appearance. The sleeves fell past her elbows, the skirt hid the curve of her belly, and the hem ended at her knees, revealing legs that were marked with bruises in varying stages of healing.
She shuffled across the room, her head bowed, her hair falling forward to hide her face. Her hair was still long and straight, still mousy brown, limp and lifeless. Zachary instinctively knew that her brown eyes would still be vacant, that she was still painfully shy and probably more withdrawn than ever.
As he stood up, she stopped beside the empty chair across from him and simply stood there. Zachary extended his hand, but her own hands hung motionless at her sides. He withdrew his and said, "Carrie, I'm Zachary Adams. Do you remember me from Sweetwater? I was two years ahead of you in school. I'm friends with your parents."
No response.
"Sit down, will you?" he invited as he seated himself once again.
She hesitated a long time, then slowly slid into the chair. She didn't settle comfortably or rest her arms on the table-top or look at him. She didn't show any interest in him or their surroundings at all. She simply sat there, her head ducked so low that all he saw was the crooked part in her hair.
"Your folks asked me to come and see you. They're worried about you." Still no response.
"They're worried about your children, too." There, he thought with a small measure of satisfaction. Mention of her kids had caused her to stiffen. Maybe that was the way to get through to her. "You know your kids have been placed in foster care, don't you?"
She raised her head a fraction of an inch. He could feel her narrow, flat, empty gaze on him.
"Your parents would like to gain temporary custody of them, and they need your permission. Do you have any objections?"
The slight shake of her head set her hair swinging.
He opened his briefcase and withdrew the forms he'd prepared the day before. "I'd like you to sign these papers. They say that you want your parents to take care of your children while you're in jail. When you get out—" if you get out, he thought privately "—you'll be able to regain custody of them."
He slid the papers and a pen across the table to her and watched as she painstakingly signed her name on the lines he'd marked. She clutched the pen in her fist and formed each letter carefully, clumsily, reminding him of a child attempting cursive writing for the first time.
Wordlessly she returned the papers to him, and he slid them back into his briefcase, closed it and set it on the floor. "I'm not representing you in court, Carrie," he explained. "I'm here for your parents. But while I'm in Nashville, I'm going to try to find an attorney who will take your case. Is there someone you prefer?"
She shook her head.
"For the record, do you have any money? If the court will set bail, can you pay it?"
"No." Her whisper was so soft that he could barely make it out. But at least it was a start.
"Your father said you confessed to the police. Is that true?"
Another tiny, formless whisper. "Yes."
"You told them you killed your husband."
"Yes."
"Why? Why did you do it?"
Finally she looked up, and he saw her face. He saw her swollen lip, her black eye, her crooked nose. He saw the bruising and the scarring and the missing tooth, and the muscles in his stomach tightened.
That—that single long look—was her only response. It was the only response Zachary needed. "There shouldn't be any problem getting your children released," he said, hiding his revulsion at what she had suffered. "They should be spending tonight with your family. And as soon as I can get you a lawyer, we'll be back. You'll have to tell her—or him—everything about your husband and your marriage and what he did to you. Do you understand?"
Bowing her head once again, she nodded.
Zachary stood up and picked up his briefcase, then waited for Carrie to rise. She did so slowly, wearily, and crossed to the door with that same uncaring, beaten-down shuffle. He followed her, pausing in the hall to watch the guard lead her back to the cell where she'd spent the last thirty-six hours. The cell where she would spend the next weeks or even months until her trial. Instinctively he pitied her, but realistically he knew she was probably better off in that cell than she'd been in her own home. She was definitely safer.
Outside he paused on the sidewalk to breathe deeply, replacing the stale, recycled atmosphere of the jail with the cold, clean November air. The only other jail he'd ever been inside was Sweetwater's, and that was a world away. The cells there were empty more often than not, sunshine reached into every corner, and they smelled of Sheriff Tomlinson's wife's apple pie and homemade bread. Not despair. Not hopelessness.
He
glanced at his watch. It was only nine-thirty, and he was starting to feel hungry. He'd skipped breakfast this morning, intending to stop someplace on the road. Now he might as well wait until lunch. If matters moved quickly enough at Social Services, maybe he could persuade Beth Gibson to join him for lunch. That would certainly brighten his day.
But first things first. If the state would release the Lewis children today, he needed to know in time for Dutch and Ruth to drive into the city and pick them up. Gaining their release was his primary goal. Then he could see Beth.
* * *
Although her schedule was full, as usual, and she would be lucky to get out of the office before eight, Beth Gibson was indulging in the purely wasteful endeavor of loafing. She had kicked off her shoes and drawn her feet onto the seat of her leather chair and was rocking slowly back and forth while staring out the window at the city twenty stories below. She was ignoring the pile of letters that had to be answered, as well as the stack of current cases that filled one corner of her teak desk. She was doing absolutely nothing but brooding.
She was dissatisfied, she admitted as she wound a strand of sleek red hair around her index finger. Dissatisfied with her twelve-or-more-hours-a-day job. Dissatisfied with handling fifteen to twenty high-profile, high-income cases for every one case that she enjoyed. Dissatisfied with devoting herself one hundred percent to her career and dissatisfied with what was left over—exactly nothing—for her personal life.
When she'd graduated from law school ten years ago—at the top of her class, naturally—she had set some pretty lofty goals for herself. Full partnership in the state's oldest and most prestigious firm. A ninety percent or better success rate. Financial independence. The respect of her fellow attorneys. An outstanding reputation as one of the best and the brightest.
With the partnership that had been offered last year, she had achieved all her goals before the age of thirty-six. Even in this male-dominated profession, she had earned the respect, though sometimes grudgingly given, of every lawyer she'd ever beaten and every judge she'd ever appeared before. In the process, she'd earned enough money that, if combined with Great-Grandmother Townsend's trust fund, she could quit working today and never lack for anything as long as she lived.
Somebody's Lady Page 1
