by Kara Lennox
“But you won’t. Because you wouldn’t want this little piece of paper to become a matter of public record, would you?”
He was right about that.
“Don’t worry, Raleigh—may I call you Raleigh?”
She refused to answer.
“I’m not going to publish the specifics of your bank account. But I do intend to find out what’s going on with you. If there is an innocent explanation for the deposit, set me straight.”
“There is, but it’s none of your business. If you want to investigate me, knock yourself out. I have never accepted payment beyond my salary for the work I do at Project Justice, and I never will.”
On that note, she made her exit. She could have sworn she felt Griffin Benedict’s eyes burning into her back as she walked out the door.
GRIFFIN CLICKED off his recorder, watching as the auburn-haired ice queen glided out the door.
That had gone about as expected. Someone with Raleigh Shinn’s experience in high-pressure legal situations wouldn’t cave in and confess with his first salvo.
She wasn’t what he expected, though. Of course he’d seen pictures and video of her. He’d thought she was plain, even somewhat unattractive in her clunky glasses, boxy man suits and hair slicked back into a matronly bun.
But in person, she was something entirely different. For one thing, she had a figure underneath those suits. He’d seen the hint of generous breasts beneath her jacket when she had reached for her tea, the barest shadow of cleavage above the top button of her cream silk shirt.
Her hair wasn’t a boring brown, as he’d believed, but had threads of fiery red and gold mixed in. Her real color, too. If she’d had even a day’s worth of roots, he’d have spotted it.
She apparently wore no makeup, but her skin was a translucent ivory, smooth and soft-looking. And she had a dusting of freckles across her nose.
Nice mouth. Kissable.
But her eyes had intrigued him the most. Those scholarly horn-rim glasses hid eyes of a deep, emerald green with gold flecks. In them he saw flashes of fire, especially when she talked about her work.
She wore a wedding ring, he’d noted, but she wasn’t married. Her husband had died six years ago. Maybe she wore the ring as yet more protection. Practically everything about her screamed that she was unavailable, not an object to be desired or lusted after by men.
Her strategy had the opposite effect on him. He had always been intrigued by the librarian types. Uptight clothes, glasses, frosty demeanor—those were traits that gave his libido a wake-up call. He was curious to learn more about what was beneath the shapeless clothes, and he fantasized about pulling off the glasses, mussing the neat hair….
Hell, what was he doing? Raleigh Shinn wasn’t a potential lover. She was a sanctimonious lawyer who might or might not be guilty of accepting a bribe to use her influence unfairly.
Many convicts pleaded their cases to Project Justice. From what Griffin had heard, the foundation considered all of them, but took on only a very few.
Had Anthony Simonetti—or his wealthy, criminal father—leapfrogged over other, more worthy cases with the help of some green incentive?
The jury was still out. Griffin had received only an anonymous tip about Raleigh, plus the copy of her bank statement left under the windshield wiper of his car. He did not yet have enough solid information to go to print, nor even enough to form his own opinion. The current facts as he knew them would not impress the network that was considering him for an anchor position on a national TV news magazine.
But the potential for an exciting story was there. Project Justice was hot news right now, and Raleigh’s possible criminal actions could explode in the foundation’s face, making for a splashy, TV-worthy, journalistic tour de force.
But first, he had to learn more. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Raleigh Shinn. Mostly, he wanted to know why she hid a hot body and a beautiful face behind that dumpy facade.
CHAPTER TWO
“BUT IT HAS to be a mistake.” Raleigh had been on the phone for twenty-two minutes, first on hold, then working her way up the corporate ladder of Houston Federal Bank. She was now talking to a vice president.
“If it was a mistake,” the condescending man said, “it wasn’t on our end. Now, it’s possible whoever made the deposit mistyped a number.”
“Exactly! So can’t you just contact them and ask?”
“I’m afraid not. Numbered bank accounts are numbered for a reason. We’ve sent a query to the transmitting institution, but we haven’t yet received a reply.”
“So maybe you could just—send the money back.”
“That’s impossible. Where would we send it?”
“Then put it wherever you put unclaimed funds.”
“I’m not sure why you’re so upset, Ms. Shinn. If there was an error, it will be corrected in a day or two.”
She considered telling him that the twenty thousand dollars sitting in her account was causing her all kinds of trouble. Then she decided on a different strategy. If she couldn’t solve the mystery of the strange deposit, maybe she could find out how Griffin got a copy of her statement.
“Mr. Temple,” she said, referring to the name she had jotted down. She kept detailed notes of every phone conversation. If her mother called to tell her she had a cold, Raleigh made a note and filed it.
“Yes, Ms. Shinn? Is there something else I can do for you?”
“How secure is your online banking? I mean, how hard would it be for someone to hack into your system?”
“I assure you, ma’am, our computers are hack-proof. Every transaction uses the latest in encryption technology.”
“So there is absolutely no way someone could get access to my statement without my permission? What about bank personnel?”
“In most cases of illicit access to bank accounts, the security loophole lies with the client. Mail can be intercepted. A password can be stolen or, more often, divulged to someone who shouldn’t have it.”
She started to vehemently deny the problem could be on her end. She memorized her passwords, never wrote them down anywhere. But she did receive paper statements.
“Very well, thank you, Mr. Temple.”
“My pleasure, Ms. Shinn.”
She hung up, knowing little more than she’d known half an hour ago.
Given what Griffin Benedict had told her, she had to view that strange deposit with new eyes. Rather than a mistake, could it be part of a plot to ruin her? If someone really had provided Griffin with that bogus tip along with the stolen bank statement, it meant she had an enemy. A powerful one who had gone to some expense to wreck her reputation.
Plenty of people did not like her. The nature of her job was confrontational. She was constantly challenging unlawful judicial proceedings, inept lawyers, negligent police investigators. When a conviction was overturned, it meant someone, somewhere, had made a mistake or worse, and she had brought it to light.
Some of her own clients didn’t even like her. Few of them were shining examples of virtue.
Then there was the general public. Project Justice received hate mail all the time from people who thought the foundation’s mission was to let killers out on the street.
The press alternated between loving her and hating her. She’d been in the news a lot lately with the Eldon Jasperson thing.
Even her own in-laws despised her. She’d never shared a warm relationship with them: they hadn’t considered her a good match for their only son. Once they’d realized they couldn’t talk Jason out of the wedding, they had tolerated her. But after Jason’s death, the claws had come out again.
Jason’s parents had blamed her for the fatal car accident. As if she hadn’t heaped enough guilt onto herself.
After his funeral, she had quickly learned of her perilous financial situation. Everything Jason had owned was in trust, controlled by his parents, and they weren’t inclined to give her a dime. Without him and his family’s financial suppor
t, she could not continue running the law practice she and her husband had poured all of their passion into.
Their small firm of Shinn Shinn had specialized in providing solid legal representation to those who couldn’t afford to pay exorbitant legal fees—and they’d never made a profit. All of their living expenses had been drawn from Jason’s trust. If Project Justice hadn’t come along at the right time, Raleigh would have had to accept her only other job offer, as a drone at a corporate law firm.
Raleigh’s stomach growled, reminding her she hadn’t had lunch. Daniel kept the office kitchen stocked with all kinds of healthy goodies, but Raleigh needed fresh air. A walk around the corner to her favorite deli was in order.
As she passed through the lobby she walked on tiptoe, hoping to avoid the receptionist’s attention. Celeste Boggs was one of the most terrifying people Raleigh knew. She was a vigilant watchdog, could purportedly shoot the wings off a gnat at fifty yards, and was fiercely loyal to Daniel Logan. Raleigh didn’t doubt the seventy-something woman would lay down her life to protect the foundation.
But Celeste was short on manners, and once she started talking she was hard to walk away from. Right now, thankfully, she appeared to be engrossed in a copy of True Romance.
Raleigh had almost reached the revolving door when Celeste’s screech of a voice rooted her to the spot.
“Ms. Shinn? Is that you?”
She turned, forcing a smile. “Yes. I was just—”
“You have to sign out. How many times do I have to tell you young people to sign in and out?”
“But I was just going to—”
Celeste extended the clipboard and pen toward Raleigh with an admonishing frown.
Fearing Celeste would give her detention if she argued further, Raleigh signed the sheet.
“I’ve been meaning to ask, where do you get your hair done?” Celeste asked.
“My hair?” No one ever asked her that. “I cut it myself. That’s about all I do to it, besides wash it.” Raleigh didn’t have time for fancy salons. So long as her hair was out of her face and reasonably neat, she was happy.
“That explains it,” Celeste murmured, pushing her purple glasses back onto the bridge of her nose.
Raleigh put a self-conscious hand up to her hair. Not that Celeste had a lot of room to criticize, with her wildly curly gray locks pointing every which way. But was Raleigh’s do that bad?
She was about to turn back toward the door when Beth McClelland, Project Justice’s physical evidence coordinator, rushed into the lobby, her platform shoes clattering noisily on the wood floor.
“Oh, Raleigh, I’m so glad I caught you.”
Celeste frowned her disapproval at Beth. “Ms. Shinn is officially signed out. You’ll have to wait until she gets back.”
Raleigh wasn’t about to ignore her best friend. “What is it, Beth?”
Beth shook a manila envelope triumphantly in the air. “I got the DNA results back on the Rhiner case,” she said in a singsong voice. “And I think you’re going to like the resu—”
“What part of signed out don’t you understand?” Celeste interrupted.
“Just leave it on my desk,” Raleigh said in a stage whisper to Beth. “My office door is open.”
Celeste tsked.
Beth looked puzzled. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good. I mean, normally you would be prying these DNA results out of my hands.”
Raleigh brought herself back to the here and now. Beth was right—she should be excited. “So Rhiner didn’t do it?”
“Not only that, but the FBI got a hit on their computer. New suspect. Next-door neighbor.”
“Girls!” Celeste objected. “You’re in a public place! You must discuss your sensitive information some where else.”
Beth looked around at the otherwise deserted lobby, then hid a smile. “Sorry.” She quickly signed out, then walked with Raleigh out the door.
“Where you off to?”
“Just the deli.”
“I’ll walk with you. Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
Beth’s concern warmed Raleigh. She was the only real friend Raleigh had at work. Not that she didn’t admire and respect her colleagues, but she kept a deliberate distance from them.
Except for Beth. When Beth had gone through an ugly breakup last year, Raleigh had found her crying in the ladies’ room more than once, and her heart had gone out to the woman. She understood pain, and she had done what she could to make Beth feel better. Once Beth started confiding in Raleigh, Raleigh had naturally revealed more of herself.
Raleigh needed to tell someone of her current dilemma, but not in line at the deli counter.
“I’ll tell you—when we can have a more private conversation.”
“Uh-oh, this sounds bad.”
Raleigh said nothing until she had her turkey-and-low-fat-mozzerella on whole wheat and had found an out-of-the-way table tucked into a corner.
“It’s not a big deal,” she finally said. “It’s just that my bank made a mistake on my account, and it’s causing me some trouble. Plus, there’s a reporter who seems intent on publishing an unflattering story about me. I wouldn’t care so much, except I don’t want to make the foundation look bad.”
“Oh, Raleigh, that’s awful! About the reporter, I mean. Start with the bank, though. What did they do? Have they lost a deposit or something?”
“Just the opposite, actually.” She explained to Beth about the anomalous twenty grand suddenly appearing on her balance sheet.
“Wow, that is so weird. I wish someone would make that kind of mistake in my account.” Beth took a few sips of her banana smoothie. “Do you think it could be your in-laws? Maybe they’re feeling guilty over the way they’ve treated you. To deliberately cut you off like that, when they knew good and well Jason would have wanted you taken care of—it just burns me up every time I think about it.”
Raleigh had actually considered the possibility that her in-laws were involved somehow. Since they had most of Jason’s papers—they had hired someone to clean out his office while she was at the funeral—they could be privy to Raleigh’s financial information. But she hadn’t spoken to them in over a year.
“It’s unlikely they’re involved.” Raleigh took a deep breath and told her the rest—about Griffin Benedict, and the fact he had a copy of her bank statement.
Beth was predictably incensed. “That’s not just slimy, it’s illegal. You’re a lawyer, can’t you…get him arrested? Sue him?”
“I can’t. I don’t want to bring negative publicity to the foundation, and I don’t have time for a personal legal battle. I have too much work to do. Anyway, I don’t want any more attention focused on me until I figure out what that deposit is all about.”
“Why don’t you talk to Mitch?” Beth suggested brightly. “He knows everything about computer hacking and identity theft. Maybe he can tell you how it was done.”
Raleigh felt a ray of hope. “Beth, that’s an excellent suggestion.” Mitch Delacroix was Project Justice’s tech expert. He had a background in cyber crime, a field he had entered after getting arrested as a teenager for hacking into a city government computer system in an attempt to fix a speeding ticket.
After dodging a felony conviction, he had decided to use his skills on the right side of the law. But he could still hack into anything, anywhere. And though no one on the staff was allowed to ask him to do anything illegal, Raleigh knew he often tiptoed around places in secure cyberspace where he didn’t belong.
“We’ll go talk to him as soon as you’re done with lunch.”
“I’m done now.” She’d taken a few bites of the sandwich. That would be enough to keep her going. Beth led the way out of the deli, her brown corkscrew curls bouncing with every step of her wildly impractical pink platforms.
“I hate to use the foundation’s resources for my own personal problems,” Raleigh said.
“If you ask me, this is a Project Justice problem. If you get slammed with a nega
tive story—and by Griffin Benedict, who has a kazillion readers—it’ll hurt the foundation.”
Maybe Beth was right.
Mitch could almost always be found in the bull pen. He had a private office on the second floor, two doors down from Raleigh’s. The large, open bull pen downstairs was for junior investigators, interns and temporary workers. But since Mitch spent most of his time alone in cyberspace, he preferred to have the noise and activity of people around him in the physical world.
“You actually met Griffin Benedict face-to-face?” Beth asked as they quickly signed in while Celeste watched them over the top of her purple glasses with eagle eyes.
“I did.”
“Is he as gorgeous as he looked in that magazine?” Beth led the way down the hallway toward the bull pen.
“What magazine?”
“You know. Houston Scene. They published the story about the ten most eligible bachelors in town.”
This was news to Raleigh. She read the paper—and she often read Benedict’s stories, which she had to admit were always riveting. “I had no idea he’d received such a prestigious distinction.”
“Oh, yes. He made number three on the list, right behind Carl Black.”
“Carl Black? Who is that?”
“Only the next major Hollywood heartthrob, from right here in our own backyard. Raleigh, where have you been?”
“Working, I guess.” She didn’t go to movies or watch much TV, and she definitely didn’t keep up with celebrity gossip.
“You didn’t answer my question. Drool-worthy?”
“It’s hard to think of him in those terms, given that he’s trying to ruin me,” Raleigh lied through her teeth. He was the best-looking man she’d ever met. Or at least the sexiest.
Sorry, Jason.
She was certain she would never fall in love again. She’d met Jason at Princeton, in law school, and she’d fallen instantly—hard. But physical attraction hadn’t brought them together. He’d been handsome enough, but he had bowled her over with his quiet intelligence and his commitment to ideals so similar to her own. She would never find that again.
