Saving Madeline

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  © 2009 Nunes Entertainment, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Nunes, Rachel Ann, 1966–

  Saving Madeline / Rachel Ann Nunes.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Public defender Caitlin McLoughlin must defend a father who has kidnapped his daughter Madeline in order to keep her from his drug-addicted ex-wife.

  ISBN 978-1-60641-049-3 (paperbound)

  1. Public defenders—Fiction. 2. Parental kidnapping—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3564.U468S28 2009

  813'.6—dc22

  2009026230

  Printed in the United States of America

  Edwards Brothers Incorporated, Ann Arbor, MI

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Madeline Evans and her wonderful parents, David and Sharilyn. You have always been an example to me, and I loved the years we spent as your next-door neighbors!

  And to the many young children in the world who don’t have anyone to fight for them. I hope this book can be your voice.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  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

  Author's Note

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to all the great people at Shadow Mountain for their work on this novel. They always do such a fabulous job.

  Thanks also to JoAnn Jolley for her kind and thorough editing. It was fun working again with the editor who championed my very first book.

  Chapter 1

  Caitlin McLoughlin’s client was guilty. In a vicious and premeditated attack, Chet Belstead had pushed his former girlfriend down in the new grass of April and raped her. There were five deep stab wounds, with jagged lines connecting them across the woman’s back like a contorted dot-to-dot picture. It was a miracle she’d survived.

  He had worn a mask, and unfortunately there was little physical evidence to connect him with the crime. Nothing except the lack of an alibi and the fact that he’d threatened her with violence after she began dating another man. That he’d been seen loitering near the grocery store where she worked on the night of the attack wasn’t exactly solid proof.

  Enough evidence for a trial but never for a conviction. Caitlin had known Belstead would walk away free—until she had made sure he wouldn’t.

  “We’ve tested the knife found in a trash can at an abandoned house two blocks north of the defendant’s apartment,” announced deputy district attorney Mace Keeley, speaking for the prosecuting team. “The knife has traces of the victim’s blood.” Mace paused dramatically as he always did before going in for the kill, a flair Caitlin both hated and admired. That he was drop-dead gorgeous didn’t help matters—at least for her client. “The knife also contains two of the defendant’s fingerprints.”

  Caitlin didn’t meet her client’s gaze as the state prosecutor’s words hung heavily in the courthouse. After the first shock of silence, murmurs burst like a wave from the spectators. The faces of the victim’s family showed terrible triumph. Caitlin kept her own face stoic, not feigning surprise, as some might have done in her position.

  Months ago Caitlin had hoped Belstead was innocent. It happened now and again, in her work as a legal defender, that her client was wrongly accused or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. But those cases were few and far between these days, or at least they were assigned to attorneys who weren’t as experienced or as good as Caitlin. She almost always got the dirty ones.

  In this case she had known her client was guilty from the moment she’d walked into the room at the jail where they’d met for the first time. He’d been far too slow to bring his hazel eyes to meet hers, his lazy, annoyingly confident smile covering his plain face. She understood at once that underneath his apparent normalcy was a monster that existed only for himself.

  She’d started their business immediately, willing her cheeks not to flush with annoyance. Her pale, freckled skin she’d acquired from her Irish father, along with her copper-colored hair, but from her English mother she’d inherited a stiff backbone and the famous English aplomb that served her well as a defense attorney.

  At first Belstead had faked innocence. They all did. But she wasn’t fooled. He was easier than most to figure out. She’d once made the mistake of taking off her jacket in his presence, when the heat of the holding cell had been unbearable. Though her thick blouse was more than modest, his stare made her feel dirty. That was when he’d mentioned the knife, wrapped in his thin jacket and thrown away in an unused trash can. Perhaps he’d thought the danger the knife represented would make him seem more attractive.

  After another few days of subtle prodding, she learned the route he’d taken home from the park that night, and that information allowed her to determine the most obvious place he might have deposited the knife. He’d believed she would never manage to connect the bits of information he’d given her—and even if she did, so what? She was bound by ethics as his legal counsel to keep her mouth shut and let him go free. In his mind there was no possible way he could be convicted.

  That’s where he’d been wrong. A simple anonymous phone call to the police hadn’t been all that hard to instigate.

  Beneath her outward calm, Caitlin allowed herself to feel the slightest bit of satisfaction.

  “In light of this new evidence,” Judge Harper said, inclining his gray head, “I’m going to give the defense time to consider options before we continue on . . .” He paused and consulted briefly with his clerk. “Apparently both the prosecutor and the defense are scheduled for a separate trial tomorrow, so we’ll continue the next day—Friday—as originally scheduled. But I want any new motions, if any, on my desk by close tomorrow. I’m also granting the prosecutor’s request to revoke bail. Defendant is remanded to custody. Court is now adjourned.”

  Caitlin stood with the others as the judge rose and left the room. She could tell by the rigid lines of the judge’s weathered face that Belstead was as good as on his way to prison. Chalk one up for the good guys.

  Yet as much as Belstead deserved to rot in prison for the full length of time the crime required, her training now demanded that she try to arrange a plea deal for him. Hopefully he’d be too stubborn to accept, or the prosecutors too sure of their evidence to offer anything worthwhile.

  Belstead leapt to his feet, pushing close to her, ignoring the bailiff who stood ready to escort him to a cell. “I thought you said I was getting off!” he growled, his hazel eyes level with hers. “You said they didn’t have enough proof!”

  Caitlin faced him, taking in the desperate, wild look that no longer matched the closely cropped sandy hair and shaved face. He was pleasant-looking in an ordinary way, but there was nothing to set him apart from dozens of other ordinary middle-aged men. Except perhaps his
clothes. These had obviously been chosen with great care, as though he was trying to impress someone. Women, most likely. Girls. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  “It seems,” Caitlin said deliberately, “this new information changes things. Don’t get upset. I’ll look at the evidence and how they got it and see what we can do.” Normally she hated it when the prosecutors managed to sneak in something like this at the end of a trial, but today she felt only triumph.

  “How they got it? How they got it?” Belstead’s voice rose to a scream. “You know how they got it!” Abruptly his voice became a deadly whisper. “You told him! You must have. No one else knew.” He swore viciously, making a move toward her. The bailiff grabbed his arms and pulled him back.

  “You’re not helping your case.” Caitlin made her voice icy hard. “Word of this tantrum will get back to the judge. Now calm down! Obviously, someone was rooting through the trash and found this so-called evidence. Or there was a witness who led them to it. I’ll find out and see what we can do to negate the effects.”

  Her words had the desired calming effect, and his narrow shoulders slumped. “See that you do,” he muttered. “Or else.”

  “Or else what?” She lifted her chin as she met his gaze.

  “Nothin’.” His eyes were full of hatred as the bailiff took him from the room. The threat was probably just talk, but she was glad she would be able to sleep that night, knowing there was no chance he would be anywhere near her house. That was a relief after the past few months of such close contact. She suspected he’d want another attorney, but unfortunately for her he didn’t have the money to hire one on his own. Working full time at a local hamburger joint didn’t exactly add up to high-class attorney wages, and any cash that hadn’t been eaten by his rent had probably gone toward clothing. She could, of course, recuse herself from the case, but that would be giving in to her fear.

  Caitlin swallowed with difficulty and closed her burning eyes.

  “So, your client’s guilty,” said a voice beside her.

  Caitlin opened her eyes to see Mace Keeley approaching, followed by several of his coworkers. “Big surprise,” she muttered, her stomach tightening as it always did in the presence of the deputy district attorney.

  He laughed. “Public defending is the worst, isn’t it?” Though in his late thirties, he was a posterchild for a surfer—blond hair, blue eyes, and a build that made women drool. Most women, anyway, though Caitlin tried not to be one of them. The aloof manner she strove for at work protected her most days, but sometimes a little scene of the two of them alone on a beach somewhere stole into her daydreams.

  “Well, there is a good side to your losing,” said Wyman Russell, the deputy DA originally assigned to prosecute the case.

  “And what’s that?” Caitlin forced herself to respond politely to the shorter man. Though he was reasonably handsome and his voice pleasant, she didn’t like Wyman. Not because of his thinning brown hair and flabby body or even because two years ago he’d been chosen for the job that should have been hers but because of the calculating way he looked at her. The feeling had been bad enough when he and his wife were living together, but now that they were separated he seemed to find altogether too many opportunities to unnerve Caitlin. Either he had the hots for her, was jealous of her success, or was just particularly weird. She was leaning toward the latter.

  Wyman grinned. “Chet Belstead is going to jail for a long time. That’s worth any loss.”

  He won’t be going away for long enough, Caitlin thought as the two men chuckled.

  The truth was that Wyman Russell had simply been lucky. He was a terrible prosecutor, and in the past she’d defended against him successfully in several cases he should have won—cases she’d hoped he’d win, given her clients’ obvious guilt. Perhaps that was why Mace had been called in to help with this case, to be sure Wyman didn’t mess up again. The family of the victim was working the media hard, and a loss by the DA’s office would not be taken lightly. Mace or no Mace, she would have won—if she hadn’t helped things along.

  “It’s not over yet,” she forced herself to say. Mechanically, she began picking up her papers and storing them in her brown leather briefcase, too aware of Mace and the fact that he was still watching her. Her nerves tingled.

  Wyman stepped around Mace, coming uncomfortably close. “You still think you’re going to get him off? How? His fingerprints were found on the weapon, and the victim is ready to swear it was his voice she heard in the park that night. They dated for six months. She should know.”

  The arrogance in his voice stung her into replying. “I’m sorry, but I cannot discuss my client with anyone, especially with you. You’d better get back to examining the knife and the jacket and hope you have enough evidence to convince him to cut a deal.”

  Mace laughed. “She has a point, Wyman. I for one am interested to see what she comes up with.” He smiled at Caitlin and she grinned, swaying toward him slightly before she pulled herself back. Apparently it had been far too long since she’d been in a relationship with a man as attractive as Mace. Or any man for that matter. “See you later, Caitlin,” he said with another smile.

  She watched him walk away for several long seconds before she realized Wyman hadn’t followed him. “How did you know there was a jacket with the knife?” he asked.

  Caitlin froze. Hadn’t Mace mentioned it during the trial? She went over the scene in her mind. No, he hadn’t. They must have been withholding the information, hoping to find the source of the anonymous phone call. Anonymous was nowhere near as good as a live witness.

  “He told you, didn’t he? That idiot told you what he did!” A sort of mad glee lit Wyman’s eyes.

  “What my client tells me is privileged information. I shouldn’t have to remind you.” Though she spoke calmly, a tremor of fear shuddered up Caitlin’s spine. What if they found the boy who had made the anonymous call and traced him back to her? If anyone accused her of a breach of ethics and they found evidence, she could be disbarred.

  The courtroom was clear now except for the two of them and Jodi Rivers, a paralegal from the Legal Defenders Association who was standing near the door waiting for Caitlin. Wyman reached out and briefly touched Caitlin’s arm. “We have more in common than you think, Caitlin.” The arrogance was gone from his voice.

  “What are you saying?”

  “We both want the bad guys to go to prison.”

  She studied his face. “Maybe so, but my job is to get as many clients through the system as quickly as possible—period. Even if they get off. You’re the one who’s supposed to send them to prison.” She didn’t add that he wasn’t very good at it, but she didn’t have to. His record spoke for itself.

  “We could be on the same team,” he said lightly. “Think about it.”

  “I tried to join the DA, but you took my spot. Remember?”

  “You holding a grudge? Besides, sometimes you can accomplish more working outside the DA’s office.”

  Wyman left her then, but she knew it wasn’t over. Two days ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated to slam his slightly veiled suggestion of cooperation back in his face as a blatant breach of ethics. But doing so now might make him more eager to open an investigation into the anonymous caller, and the caller would eventually lead to Kenny Pratt, a local private detective she sometimes used. Kenny would never volunteer the information that he’d been making inquiries on her behalf, but she employed him often enough for the DA’s office to make a connection. At least she hadn’t told Kenny her true reason for sending him to the street where the knife had been found.

  “I found a teenager,” he had said, calling her from his cell phone. “Says he saw a guy run by, looking real nervous. There’s a streetlight right outside, and he claims the man was covered in blood. A bit later the kid heard a bang at the abandoned house next door. Maybe a garbage can lid. I checked out the house, and it still looks abandoned. The garbage can is about half full. I didn’t go through it. Anyway, it wa
sn’t on the night you were asking about. It was two days before.”

  Two days before the date she’d given Kenny, but two days landed the event squarely on the night of Belstead’s attack. She’d known Kenny Pratt would report anything he discovered—anything near the date in question. She forced her voice to be calm. “Not something I can use, but you might encourage the boy to call the police. Whatever the man dumped might still be there. Maybe it connects to something else they’re working on. That’s a scary neighborhood down there.”

  “I’ll do that. You want me to keep poking around? I covered the whole block, but I might have missed someone.”

  “No. I think it’s a dead end.”

  “It’s your call.”

  “Send me a bill.”

  He laughed. “I always do.”

  The police had taken a day to find the knife and another two to connect it to the rape. That was fast, considering the months that had passed since the crime.

  Simple. Not really any connection to her at all.

  I shouldn’t have done it. Despite all her rationalization, she’d been wrong to go that far. She had put herself at risk—and that meant putting Amy at risk.

  The thought of Amy made her sit down hard on the first row of benches. Amy would be waiting for her even now, playing with dolls or coloring a picture. Sweet Amy, who knew only the world of a child and would never have to make the decisions Caitlin did.

  “Caitlin? Are you okay?”

  She looked around at Jodi, surprised to see the younger woman still waiting for her. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Too bad about the knife.”

  She sighed. Jodi Rivers was a good paralegal, so good that in some cases Caitlin met with her clients only once before a hearing or trial. That left her free to spend her time on the most difficult or disturbing cases. Like Chet Belstead’s. In fact, if she had still been working misdemeanor cases as she had at the beginning of her career, she’d only see her clients at the trial itself, never actually talking to them alone, relying instead on Jodi to take care of the legwork.