She couldn’t go there.
“Dane?” She left a voice mail, since he didn’t pick up. He probably didn’t listen to voice mails, but she had to try. She’d do anything. “Hey, I’m sorry. Seriously. If you feel that strongly, I can totally let go of that person as a witness.” She was rambling. Stupid voice mail! She could never say things right, and there was no way to erase. Panic rose in her. He’d gone, and she hadn’t made things right, and—
“Hey, you all right?” Ames loomed up behind her. Didn’t he understand how unwelcome he was?
“I’m fine. Go back inside.”
“You’re not fine. I know you, Brooke.” He rested a hand on her shoulder.
“You don’t, Ames.” She moved toward her car.
“I want to help.”
She stuck her key in the lock, but a glint from the windshield of a moving vehicle caught her eye.
Dane’s truck.
Brooke’s stomach clenched. She hadn’t seen him there. Had he been parked there all along? As Dane passed, she saw him at the wheel, his frown and eyes as stony as Mt. Rushmore.
Oh, no.
She dialed him again fast. It took him six rings to pick up, and by then his old Dodge had disappeared onto the street.
“Dane.” She knew he’d seen her talking to Ames. He’d seen Ames touching her. Her voice trembled with uncertainty. Apologies of every kind floated through her, not that she’d done anything wrong, but she’d never dream of hurting Dane. Not after all he’d done for her. They were so close to having this mess behind them. “Dane, I’m so sorry. Our argument earlier—”
Dane interrupted. “You’ll have to find another lawyer.”
Brooke went ice cold, despite the summer’s pounding heat. “Another-er-er …” Her stuttering trailed off.
“Yeah, I mean. Yeah.” Dane didn’t elaborate, and Brooke’s brain raced to grasp the implications— and the cause. Was he that upset that she’d involved Ames Crosby? Dane hadn’t ever seemed the vindictive type before.
“What’s this about?” A long pause ensued during which Brooke’s blood alternated between boiling and frozen.
“I just want you to know, I never intended to leave you hanging.” Agony tinged his voice. She expected him to explain, to make a suggestion of what she should do. But instead he gave a pained, “I have to go.”
The line went dead, followed by Brooke’s insides. No lawyer equaled no chance of reclaiming the Called Shot Ball.
And no Dane equaled no shot at the future her heart had begun to dare imagine.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Order to Appear
Monday slinked past. Dane hadn’t explained his predicament to Brooke yesterday morning when he should have, but after their argument, which had sent her running straight back into Ames’s arms, how could he? She’d only think worse of him that they were ready to string him up as fast as possible down at the old Bar Ethics Commission.
It was like he was public enemy number one.
Geez.
He stared at his laptop in the public library in Maddox. If he was smart, he would be prepping for his own hearing, figuring out how to preserve his own skin— live to fight another day. But he couldn’t. Even if he couldn’t be there for her at her hearing, he also couldn’t in good conscience leave her to that ravening wolf Sarge LaBarge. Even if she’d chosen Ames instead of him.
But, hello. Ames wasn’t an attorney. He couldn’t help her in this. Whether Brooke knew it or not, she needed him. Dane. Assuming he didn’t get instantly disbarred the second he set foot in his ethics hearing.
His gut twisted. All these years of trying to leave his Rockwell reputation in the dust, and now this— at the moment it mattered most, wham! He’d slammed into it again.
But the what-ifs would have to wait and see. He put his head down and got back to work.
Dane chewed away half his Monday anticipating every possible lie, every possible tactic LaBarge could use to defame Brooke’s name. Some were pretty unsavory. He had to go to the dark side— because surely the enemy would. LaBarge had the biggest mansion on the dark side. Probably right next door to half of Dane’s Rockwell relatives.
Throughout the day, Dane lined things up— duck by duck: a few printouts here, a trip with a subpoena to the bowling alley and then to the hospital there. Brooke might not like the idea of having her life put up for examination, but it was the only way.
The lack of handwriting expert was the biggest sticking point. Norvin North was compromised. Paid to not testify? Or paid to testify in a lie? It killed him that he hadn’t asked.
He’d left six messages for the handwriting expert in D.C. Guy must be out of the country. Was there any point trying to call the one up in New York? Would a New Yorker even think a city the size of Naughton existed? In his experience, New Yorkers didn’t think anything but New York existed. Why would the world need anywhere else?
Oh, except Florida. The world needed Florida for vacation homes.
He dialed the New York number anyway, got no answer, and was shot into the void of voice mail.
“Hi, Dane Rockwell, Naughton, Virginia.” He gave his number, not that he’d get a call back. “Calling because we’ve got a situation here.” In an act of supreme desperation he blabbed the whole situation onto the digital message. For no one to ever hear. No one even listened to voice mail anymore. His Hail Mary pass just went unreceived.
Speaking of vacation homes, Dane would be taking a permanent vacation from his career after tomorrow, joining the illustrious ranks of the Rockwells, in a way. Rockwells definitely liked to go out with style, and Dane’s fiery exit from the law might be worthy of his namesakes— ditching the love of his life while being accused of misconduct with the cougar wife of his boss, and getting disbarred at the same moment as when the sweetest woman of all time got her reputation and dreams skewered by a scoundrel. Total Rockwell move.
And Dane wouldn’t even be there to punch the lights out on that jerk.
Unless…
Dane grabbed his phone and scrolled through his contacts. There. There it was. Sure, he hadn’t used the number in recent memory, possibly ever. This might be harebrained move, but like co-opting Uncle Georgie’s boat in time of dire need, if Dane had to be a Rockwell, he might as well take advantage of what few benefits it offered.
“Ay. Uncle Vincent. This is your nephew, Dane.”
“Ah, Dane. The white sheep of the family. What can I do for yous?”
__________
It was like someone hit a fast-forward button on the clock Tuesday morning as Dane prepped for court. He’d slept at his apartment in Naughton, secure in the idea that so far no one had discovered Brooke or Aunt Ruth’s location on the boat, but he still woke up well before sunrise to scrape together the rest of the paperwork for Brooke’s hearing.
Losing cause, he knew. With no handwriting expert, they had bupkis. At least nothing that mattered to the judge. Without that, they’d just be engaging in a fierce volley of he-said she-saids. He should have been prepping something, anything, for his own hearing— but his gut wouldn’t let him. Even if Brooke had chosen Ames, and even if Dane couldn’t be there for her, he had to give her everything he had. For his own stuff he’d just have to do what Matthew Chadwick would advise: leave it in God’s hands. And hope that God didn’t only favor the prepared.
Finally, at ten minutes to liftoff, he shoved everything into his briefcase and tore down to the courthouse. It was time to call in the replacements, meaning Quirt.
Down at the courthouse, Dane dialed Quirt, but he cut him off before Quirt could even say hello. “First off, quit thinking whatever it is you’re thinking of me right now. Because you’re wrong. Guaranteed.”
Quirt gave a disgusted snort. “I’d better be, because otherwise you are so dead. How can you leave Brooke hanging like this?” His voice rose in pitch. “You jerk. We’re on our way to the courthouse, and she tells me you’re not going to be there.”
Dane ascended t
he steps to the courthouse, wherein awaited his fate.
“I’m already down here. Had to come early for …” Should he tell Quirt? He hadn’t thought this through. Might as well plunge headfirst. “For my ethics hearing. They moved up the date and time.”
“Dude.” A sympathy dude from Quirt was more than he’d have expected, especially under the circumstances. “That’s why. What do you need? I’m here for you.”
__________
“Bro, I knew you wouldn’t leave Brooke alone today,” Dane said, shaking Quirt’s hand as he met him outside the door to where Dane’s hearing would be held in just moments. Most likely Crosby was also with them, but whatever. Dane shoved that thought aside. “So, anyway. I need you to take care of something important for me. I mean for Brooke. It’s her case.” He gripped the briefcase he’d brought from home, stuffed with notes and all the information he’d collected.
“Her case?”
“All the arguments.”
“You wrote them up? I thought you couldn’t be her lawyer.”
“I’m acting as her friend.”
Quirt was quiet a second and then said, “She’s lucky. Really lucky.”
The words stunned Dane. They triggered a hitch in his breath, a stinging at the side of his eye.
Dane made a joke to cover his emotion. “Wait. What is this? I thought you had a one-note song: Stay away from my sister.”
“Yeah, well. I’m still kind of monotone, but I’m changing up the lyrics.”
Dane stood at the top of the staircase that led down to his doom; to the room where he’d be meeting the very beige Nieve Ingersoll and her team of Politics of Personal Destruction hyenas out for blood.
“All the evidence and paperwork for Brooke’s hearing are in this briefcase. Here. This should help.”
Quirt looked down at the briefcase a moment and then back up at Dane, his expression a mix of gratitude, admiration— and forgiveness. “I still hope you’ll show up. If you can.”
“If I can, believe me, I will.”
It was a big if.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Delay
“Mr. Rockwell. Glad you could grace us with your presence,” said a woman with pale brown hair, pale brown skin, pale brown eyes, and a black blazer. There was a pale brown shirt under the blazer, so there was no question of her identity.
Dane glanced at the wall clock and saw that he arrived at three-thirty on the dot. These must be five-minutes-early-or-you’re-late folks. “Ms. Ingersoll? Dane Rockwell.” He extended a hand, but she looked down at it like she’d get a disease if she touched him.
“All men are the same,” she said through clenched teeth.
Well, that escalated quickly.
“They claim events are consensual. What a word. Mrs. Jackson and I call it sexual assault.”
Uh, definitely not consensual.
Great. She was turning out to be everything he’d assumed, based on Tweed’s description. Ingersoll definitely wouldn’t be giving him a come-on like her client had. Thank the heavens there’d be no riffing on Fifty Shades of Beige.
The small courtroom had a bench with three judges’ seats with microphones, two tables— prosecution and defense— and only two rows of chairs in the gallery. Its walls were painted a pinkish brown, interspersed with acoustic carpet panels, and everything else was a dull red or stained oak.
So, this was how his last moments of a lawyer would look.
Beside Ms. Ingersoll sat a sedate woman with hair pulled back into a severe bun, with no makeup on. She wore a no-nonsense high-necked blouse and long skirt, and a pair of those shoes he’d seen Brooke wear with her scrubs— clogs?
Who was she?
From a side door, three judges filed in. Dane didn’t recognize any of them. They weren’t the regulars he saw in local court in his trials for Tweed, they were from the Virginia Bar Ethics Commission.
An image of the stacks of paperwork he’d prepared for Brooke flashed into his mind. Yeah, he really should have spent more time on his own defense. The things we do for love.
All he had acquired for his own self-preservation was a single manila file folder and a jump drive of security footage, which he’d received from Vonda but which he hadn’t had time to watch.
That, and a desperate will to live.
__________
Even though the rest of the world checked time on their phones these days, Brooke usually made use of the watch she always wore. Nurses needed a visible second hand too many times in every shift to abandon their wristwatches. Now she glanced at the hands in apprehension, wishing they would slow their rotation and give her more time.
“He’s not here.” She said this only loud enough for Olivia to hear. “I really thought he’d come.”
Stupid of her.
Olivia put a hand on Brooke’s forearm. “Quirt will be with you. And I’m here. You’re not alone.”
Yeah, and Aunt Ruth would be in the gallery, of course, since her own entire future dangled over the pit of vipers. Plus she’d said she wanted another look at the Called Shot Ball, especially if it was for the last time.
Please don’t let it be the last time.
Despite the full family turnout, without Dane, alone was how it felt.
“I swear, I thought he was just mad about seeing me talking to Ames, and he would have gotten over it by now.” She peeked into the cavernous courtroom, its ceilings stretching high, a bas relief mural in a band around the whole room above the towering windows. Naughton’s old courthouse should be on the historic register, if it wasn’t already.
Not that Brooke could appreciate its beauty. Not with the churning fear in her stomach.
“It’s going to be fine,” Olivia said, but not with conviction. After all, she knew Brooke hadn’t found a replacement lawyer at the last minute, nor had they seen Twyla Tyler. And the handwriting expert Dane had gone to visit had been bribed— if she’d understood Dane’s meaning. Not that she’d talked to him to find out the details. Remembering why made her a little sick. Her sister-in-law grimaced. “I mean, you’ll just tell the truth.”
Yeah. That would work. But it would work a whole lot better if she had any clue about judicial proceedings.
“Mrs. Tyler is coming, right?” Olivia took Brooke’s elbow to comfort her. A good sister. “She’ll back you up.”
Brooke shrugged. There wasn’t any lawyer around to call Mrs. Tyler to the stand, even if the woman did show. Was this where Brooke could just say, I’ll wing it? Hardly.
Outside the courtroom doors the hallway’s marble floors echoed with every footstep, but none belonged to Dane. Or Twyla Tyler yet. The sound bounced all the way up to the tray ceiling panels and back down inside this cavern of a room. Ominous.
“Do you have any vitamin B in your purse?” That was the anti-nausea vitamin, right? Oh, great. Even her nursing knowledge was fleeing now. Her brain was seizing up under the pressure— of the case and also these awful high heels. Olivia shot her a confused look.
Through the ornate double doors at the grand foyer, in walked red-lipped Sarge LaBarge, flanked by three men in dark suits and glasses, like he owned the place— and needed bodyguards.
“Who’s that?” Olivia elbowed Brooke.
“That? That’s my nemesis.” Three major life attacks counted to create nemesis status— first the scholarship money for college, then sabotaging her marriage, now sabotaging her entire future business plans and her savings. Yeah, it counted. “Charming, isn’t he?”
“He’s shorter than I expected.” Olivia dug a tin of mints out of her purse and offered Brooke one. “I bet he has stale breath.”
The barb popped Brooke’s balloon of fear, and she unglued herself from her spot in the hall. “We’d better go in.”
Brooke scanned this arena where the day’s bloodsport would take place. The judge— Vandalay, was it?— was already seated behind her big desk thingie. She had short, curly hair and when she lifted her hand, her fingernails flashed a bloo
d-red color. Close, personal friend of Faro LaBarge.
Just as Brooke and Olivia found seats in the gallery of the courtroom, in walked Quirt, carrying a briefcase.
“What’s that?”
“It’s just some notes for the hearing.”
“Fifty pounds of notes?”
“More like seventy. My arm’s going to fall off.” Quirt led them into the room, where the judge was already seated on her throne. Or bench. Or whatever. See? Brooke wasn’t even equipped with the names of the furniture in the room. She was so out of her depth she couldn’t see the surface of the ocean above her with binoculars.
“Where did you— ?”
Before she could finish her question, a loud commotion sounded in the hallway and moved quickly into the courtroom where they stood in the aisle. Brooke had to dodge into one of the rows of seats to avoid getting plowed into by the man with a stack of gold chains strung across his hairy chest as he bustled in.
“Your honor?” He spoke to the judge and the room too loudly. “I request a moment of the judge’s time.”
Brooke stared at him openly— his silk shirt open halfway down, his designer jeans pulled up too high, a white belt, pointy toed shoes, gold rings on almost every finger, a pearl drop earring dangling from one ear, and then the hair. It was like somebody pulled it straight from an ’80s rock band video.
Everyone stared. Even Sarge LaBarge.
In bustled a clerk from a side door. “I’m sorry, your honor. He slipped past me.”
The judge raised an eyebrow. “It’s fine, Cecilia. I’m well aware of his skill set.”
Olivia tugged Brooke down to sit beside her. “I thought your court hearing was supposed to start at four.”
It was four now. Brooke shrugged in confusion— and stress— and the bailiff shushed the room, just as Brooke noticed Earnshaw over against the far wall. He’d come?
“Now,” the judge said to the flamboyantly-dressed man who looked about sixty, “we have a courtroom full of people ready for an important hearing, and you’re delaying it.”
Wills & Trust (Legally in Love Collection Book 3) Page 22
