Her Deadly Secrets

by Griffin, Laura

  “Yeah.”

  She turned away, settling her attention on the file cabinet. The folders had been pulled out and emptied, and she crouched down to try to make sense of the mess. They weren’t case files. Ollie was careful not to keep paper copies of stuff like that. Mostly, it looked like business records—contracts, utility bills, his lease agreement. She combed through the heap, sorting it into stacks, although she wasn’t sure what purpose that served at this point. Most of this stuff would probably end up in the trash. Would Ollie’s daughter have to comb through it all? Kira could only imagine how painful it would be for her to see her father’s office this way.

  A commotion sounded in the hall, and Kira whirled around.

  “Hey!” a voice yelled.

  “What the—” Kira rushed through the door to find Jeremy pushing a man against the wall and pinning his arm behind him. Jeremy yanked a big black pistol from the back of the man’s jeans.

  “State your name,” Jeremy ordered, tucking the gun into his waistband.

  “Hey, fuck off. I work here.”

  “Let him go,” Kira said, and the man looked over his shoulder at her.

  “You know this guy?” Jeremy asked.

  “Emilio Sanchez from next door.”

  “Jesus, Kira. What the fuck?”

  Jeremy let the man go, and he turned around, red-faced. Emilio was short and bulky and had a thick black mustache. Jeremy was a foot taller, but that didn’t stop Emilio from glaring up at him.

  “What the fuck?” he repeated, looking at Kira.

  “We hired security,” she said.

  “Who did?”

  “Logan and Locke. You heard about Ollie?”

  “Yeah.” Emilio’s expression softened. “I heard. Any arrests yet?”

  “No. Jeremy, this is Emilio Sanchez, the business owner next door.”

  “Twenty-four-hour bail bonds.” Emilio pulled a business card from his pocket and held it out, all hostility gone. “Hey, can I get my gun back?”

  Jeremy darted Kira a look and then returned the weapon. Emilio stuffed it into the back of his pants as he craned his neck to see around Kira into Ollie’s office.

  “Shit, that’s a mess. Did they totally clean him out?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “The police came by my place yesterday. We didn’t hear the break-in, but they wanted a look at our surveillance tapes.”

  “You turn them over?”

  “Sure. Why not? I try to keep things friendly with those guys.”

  Kira’s phone chimed from Ollie’s office, and she picked her way through the debris to her bag. She dug the phone out, glanced at the number, and muttered a curse before answering.

  “Kira Vance.”

  “Please hold for Mr. Logan.”

  It was Bev’s voice, and Kira felt a jolt of panic as she checked her watch.

  “Hey, Kira, what have you got?”

  She took a deep breath. “Some interesting developments.”

  “Good. We’re having a working session at six. I need you there with an update on Ollie.”

  “I’m working on it. Some things are still unclear at this point, and—”

  “Be there at six, or you’re off the case.” He paused. “That clear enough?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Brock Logan’s mansion was no longer a base of operations. While his house was being cleaned up, he’d moved to the Metropolitan Hotel and rented a suite for himself, plus an adjoining one for his security team.

  Jeremy stepped into the living room, where luxury furniture had been pushed against a wall to make room for a table covered in computers and surveillance equipment. Erik Morgan stood there now, arms crossed as he monitored footage of the hallway, as well as the meeting taking place in the living room next door. Like Jeremy and Liam, Erik was a former Marine. He had done a stint in the secret service before Liam recruited him to Wolfe Sec.

  “How’s the principal?” Jeremy asked him, tossing his jacket over a chair. Jeremy hated the suit-and-tie thing, but with corporate clients, it was part of the deal.

  “A pain in the ass.”

  Erik was in charge of Brock Logan’s detail, so his assessment wasn’t surprising.

  “Is he checked out?” Jeremy asked. Some people were so clueless you had to tell them to look both ways before crossing the street.

  “Checked in.” Erik shook his head. “Wants to micromanage every goddamn thing.”

  Jeremy loosened his tie as he surveyed the black-and-white footage. Their team had the hotel’s exits on camera as well. The client’s bedroom and bathroom had been omitted for the sake of privacy.

  Brock Logan’s living room was twice as big as this one, and a giant coffee table in the middle was covered in files and legal pads. Kira sat on the arm of a chair, notepad in her lap, as she talked with the man on the sofa beside her.

  Jeremy tapped the screen. “This Neil Gautier?”

  “That’s him. You met him yet?”

  “No.”

  “He’s impressive,” Erik said. “Junior associate. First in his class at UT Law.”

  “Age?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  Jeremy watched the scene, and he didn’t need audio to know that Kira and Neil were arguing about something.

  Brock walked over and offered Kira a short glass of what looked like liquor. She shook her head, and he set it on the table in front of her.

  “How’s it going with Kira?” Erik asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Yeah? I heard she’s a handful.”

  “She is.”

  Jeremy watched as she tipped her head back to look at Logan. He towered over her, but she didn’t appear intimidated. In fact, she looked annoyed. She’d had that same look last night in her kitchen. That was before the conversation turned personal. Jeremy wasn’t sure why he’d asked her about Ollie. It wasn’t like him to get personal with a client.

  “Who’s on her tonight?” Erik asked.

  “Trent.”

  “You good with that?”

  Trent was relatively new to the job. He was sharp, though. And he’d already had a wake-up call last night about their protectee.

  “He’s got it,” Jeremy said.

  Trent had Kira until six A.M., and Jeremy didn’t know why that made him uneasy, but it did.

  Kira was unpredictable. And unpredictable was far worse than being clueless or too hands-on.

  Brock answered a phone call and left the room. Kira picked up the glass from the coffee table, walked to the minibar, and dumped the drink. She took a water bottle from the fridge and twisted off the top.

  Jeremy watched her now that he had the freedom to really look. Her body was lithe and compact, and she had feminine curves. Despite her size, she had a take-no-crap attitude that helped her deal with all the men in her orbit, and there were a lot. He wondered whether Brock was sleeping with her. The man was protective and had insisted that she receive the same level of security as all the lawyers on his team, even though she was an outside contractor.

  “You worried?”

  Jeremy looked at Erik. They’d worked together for years, and his friend picked up on his cues.

  It was a loaded question. Clients often hired them based on a hypothetical threat. They’d had concerning phone calls or messages, or an eviscerated pet on the doorstep. Jeremy had seen it all before. The danger was implied, which was still a problem, but not like the problem they were dealing with now.

  In this case, Wolfe Sec was a postincident hire. The client had already been the victim of a brazen attack before Wolfe came on board. Kira had narrowly escaped a bullet, which put the threat level much higher than usual. Jeremy didn’t like all the unknowns.

  He eased closer and watched the monitor. “We still don’t know whether she was a true target or a target of opportunity because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He shook his head. “And if she wasn’t on someone’s radar before, she
sure as hell is now after taking over Oliver Kovak’s work.”

  Erik turned his attention to the screen. “You want me to trade with Trent tonight? I can pull a double.”

  Jeremy watched Kira on the monitor. She was in a secure hotel room, surrounded by armed guards, and she had an armed escort home, who would be staked out at her house overnight.

  “No, he’s got it,” Jeremy said.

  At least, he hoped so.

  Kira glanced at the bedroom and looked at her watch again. She wanted to wrap up this meeting and get out of here. Brock had been on a call for twenty minutes, and Kira’s stress level had climbed as she waited for her interrogation. Why couldn’t he get off the damn phone? She had way too much to do tonight to be stuck in a hotel suite.

  Kira looked at the television, which was tuned to a local news broadcast. The anchorwoman segued into a piece about the upcoming trial of the prominent River Oaks doctor accused of murdering his wife.

  As if everyone needed a reminder of why they were here tonight. Kira checked her watch and looked back at the TV. They were playing stock footage of the victim’s family standing outside the police station, asking for the public’s help in finding Ava’s killer. Ava’s parents and her brother were weepy and grieving, but Gavin seemed remarkably composed as he addressed reporters. A new clip appeared of Gavin in handcuffs as he was taken into custody, and Neil muttered a curse.

  “Great.” He tossed his legal pad onto the table. “Just what we need. More tainting the jury pool.”

  Brock strode into the room and dropped his phone onto a chair. He wore another custom-tailored shirt today and had his sleeves rolled up in a way that made his sling look almost sporty.

  “That was Bev at the office. We heard back from Glenda.”

  “Glenda?” Kira asked.

  “The judge’s clerk,” Neil said. “The judge has our motions, and we’re confirmed for Monday morning.”

  Neil shook his head. “We’re not going to get a continuance.”

  “I agree, which is why we need to get our shit together.” He turned to Kira. “Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

  She squared her shoulders. Time to wing it.

  “Ollie had come into some important information on the day of his death,” she said.

  “How do you know?” Neil asked.

  “He told me.”

  “He told me, too.” Brock sank into the armchair facing her. “Called me on the phone from his car, said he’d explain when he got there.” Brock paused, searching Kira’s face. “Any idea?”

  “I believe he was working on an alternative case theory for the Quinn trial.”

  Brock leaned back, propping his expensive Italian shoes on the coffee table. “Why do you think that?”

  “Because you don’t have one. Am I right?”

  “Don’t need one. Our defendant has an airtight alibi.”

  Kira watched him. He looked confident, but there was an ever-so-slight defensiveness in his tone that told her she was on the right track here. Ollie had spotted a weakness in Brock’s case, and he was trying to fix it.

  “This is one of Ollie’s things. Was.” She shook her head. “He was obsessed about finding an alternative case theory, even if the defendant had a strong alibi.”

  “Why was he so obsessed?” Neil asked. He was relatively new to the firm and had never worked with Ollie on a case before this one.

  “In a criminal trial, jurors want someone to pin it on,” Kira said. “Especially if it’s a murder. Whether they even realize it or not, they feel like it’s part of their civic duty to settle the question of whodunit.” She looked at Brock, who surely knew this, which was why he was touchy about the case he was planning to present.

  “We’ve got loads of reasonable doubt,” Neil said. “We’ve got an alibi showing Quinn was nowhere near the scene when the murder happened. We’ve got his cell-phone records. We’ve got a forensic expert.”

  “It’s not enough,” Kira said. “You need to do more than plant seeds of doubt. You need to do more than tell the jury your guy didn’t do it. You have to let them know who did—or at least suggest it—or you’re not likely to get an acquittal.”

  Brock watched her, his expression guarded.

  “This was Ollie’s core operating principle, and it didn’t change from case to case,” Kira said. “I think he was developing an alternative scenario—”

  “Meaning an alternative suspect besides Quinn?” Neil asked.

  “That’s right. I think he found one, and that’s what he was working on when he got killed.”

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Brock said. “Fact, I suggested the same thing to the detectives who interviewed me. But so far, none of this leads us in a specific direction.” He looked at Kira expectantly. “Unless you know something I don’t?”

  She had better know something he didn’t was what his tone implied.

  “A couple of days before his murder,” she said, “Ollie had been in touch with one of his legal contacts to get hold of a trial transcript.”

  Brock’s gaze sharpened. “Who?”

  “A lawyer with Duffy and Hersch.”

  “What trial?”

  “Defendant was Andre Markov,” Kira said. “It was an aggravated-assault case from two years ago. Ollie wanted the transcript so badly he asked his contact to have a staffer request it in person and put a rush on it.”

  Brock’s and Neil’s matching frowns confirmed that this was news to both of them.

  “Interesting lead. I’m impressed,” Brock said. “Any chance this criminal defendant killed Ollie?”

  She shook her head. “I looked up his mug shot. He doesn’t resemble the guy I saw at your house at all. He’s much too short.”

  “Why would Ollie go through Duffy and Hersch?” Neil asked. “He could have made the request himself. Or used an admin at Logan and Locke.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want the request tying back to him,” Kira said.

  “How would it?”

  Kira stared at him. Of course, Neil didn’t know. He’d essentially been the Heisman Trophy winner of his law-school class, wined and dined and inundated with job offers. He’d clearly never worked as a clerk or a lowly court runner, filling out forms and racing documents around town.

  Kira summoned her patience. “When you fill out an in-person request, they ask for a bar number or law firm number,” she explained to a man who probably made four times as much as she did. “If Ollie handled it himself, it would trace back to Logan and Locke.”

  “But what’s that case got to do with the Quinn case?” Brock asked.

  “I’m not sure, but I’ve got some ideas,” Kira said, stretching the truth like a rubber band. “I’ve requested the transcript, and I read through a summary of the case online and made a list of names to run down.”

  “Who was the attorney?” Brock asked.

  Kira flipped through her notepad and rattled off the names of the attorneys on both sides.

  “You know them?” she asked.

  “Not personally.” Brock looked at Neil. “You?”

  He shook his head. “Who was the judge?”

  “Erica Farland.”

  “She’s tough. I’ve been in her courtroom.” Brock shook his head. “Still, none of this rings any bells. What’s a two-year-old assault case got to do with Ava Quinn’s murder?”

  “Whatever this is, Ollie believed it was important. Important enough that it overshadowed everything else we were working on.”

  Neil looked skeptical. Along with Brock and the rest of the team, he had been working on that “everything else” for months.

  “Look, all due respect to Ollie, but this may not even matter,” Neil said to Brock. “We’ve got one of the nation’s top gunshot-residue experts ready to testify that the GSR on Quinn’s hands was transferred when he tried to render medical aid before the paramedics came. This expert is an amazing witness.” He looked at Kira. “She’s prepped and ready to go. And besides our forensics
people who are going to cast doubt on the physical evidence, we’ve also got a rock-solid alibi in the form of a respected doctor who was having drinks with Quinn at the time of his wife’s murder.”

  “Yeah, I’m not sure about that,” Kira said.

  Neil’s eyebrows arched. “About what?”

  “The respected part.”

  “What do you mean? The guy’s a prominent surgeon and a big philanthropist. The jury’s going to love him.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Kira told Neil. “I’ve been checking him out. He’s got issues, including alleged spousal abuse.” She turned to Brock. “I told Ollie about it at your house, and normally he’d be freaking out over something like that, but he told me it didn’t matter. Whatever he’d discovered trumped the alibi witness being a wife beater.”

  “Alleged wife beater,” Neil said.

  Brock leaned forward, resting his uninjured arm on his knee. “You really believe Ollie had discovered a suspect besides Quinn?”

  “Yes.”

  Both men looked skeptical, and Kira felt annoyed.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said to Brock. “Do you really believe Gavin Quinn is innocent? No spin. Do you truly believe that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Lot of reasons,” Brock said. “Circumstances, physical evidence, conversations I’ve had with the guy. Sometimes it comes down to a gut feeling about people, and when he tells me he didn’t kill his wife, I believe him.” Brock smiled at Neil. “They say an innocent client is as rare as a unicorn. Or maybe a leprechaun, in Quinn’s case.” His face grew serious as he looked at Kira. “But I’m telling you, the man didn’t do it.”

  Kira studied Brock’s eyes. Either he had an excellent poker face, or he really believed what he was saying. Probably both.

  “I think it’s possible you’re right,” she said. “And I think Ollie figured out who did kill her, and that may have cost him his life.”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  JEREMY WAS at Kira’s back door at nine A.M. sharp, but she didn’t answer. He knocked again and waited. He knew she was awake, because he’d seen her bedroom light go on at 0600, followed by the bathroom light.