Whistling, I made my way to the kitchen with a towel wrapped around my hips. The back of my place looked out over forested slopes, despite being about a half hour drive from the small town I lived in. We were a couple of hours from New York, and I went there for work nearly every week. I watched the sun come up as I drank my first cup of coffee for the day and put the news on.
The reporter’s voice filled my head with familiar names, and I tuned in to the latest on the case that had gripped local society.
Laura Lavin, stepdaughter of Brian Lavin, local millionaire investor and philanthropist, had stabbed one of his colleagues nearly to death two weeks ago, at their home. Their house was only about half an hour from here, in a wealthy neighborhood. It was wild to see scenes of my local coffee shop and library on national news. Her mug shot came up. Usually, they were unflattering things, but Laura was a stunner. Every time I saw the picture, I stared. Only twenty-one and facing jail for murder. Attempted murder. The guy she’d stabbed, a local politician, Doug Greyson, hadn’t died, but was in intensive care, fighting for his life. I wondered what the hell could have pushed a girl like that to hurt him. There had to be something. At college, she’d been a top student, violin player, a volunteer tutor for underprivileged kids. An all-around good girl. Some would say that those were exactly the type that snapped, but I didn’t buy it. There was more to the story of Laura Lavin than a simple, albeit grisly, stabbing in wealthy suburbia. It wasn’t, however, my business, and I had more than enough problems of my own to worry about.
My phone buzzed again, and I muttered a curse as I checked the caller ID. I’d been dodging calls for a week, and the caller just wasn’t getting the message. It had started with a dinner date a month ago. I’d met Cindy at the coffee shop I usually went to, and she’d asked me out. I worried that time was ticking on the whole happy family thing, so I’d agreed. We’d gotten to the ordering dinner part of the date when I left. She’d been rude to the server, condescending and snide, smirking at me like I was in on the joke. I’d got up and walked out.
Now, I was pleasantly surprised to see a different name flashing on my caller ID.
“What’s up?” I asked Diesel when the call connected.
“Morning to you too, chief. We just had an interesting client enquiry, and I thought you’d want to know immediately,” Diesel, one of my original brothers-in-arms, said. He sounded wide awake. He was one of the few guys I knew who woke up even earlier than me.
“Go ahead. Thrill me,” I drawled.
Diesel waited a beat, letting the anticipation build. “Brian Lavin.”
“You’re shitting me.” I nearly spit out my coffee.
“No, sir. His daughter has her bail hearing today, and he wants to make a deal.”
“Daddy Warbucks isn’t fronting the cost himself?”
“It’s steep. I don’t know if it’s a case you want to take on,” Diesel said, his knowing tone already betraying his opinion. Diesel was in. He always had a bleeding heart for a damsel in distress. I stared at the tv screen, which had moved back to Laura Lavin, this time in a video with her younger brother. Curiosity tugged at me.
“We’ll take it,” I said decisively. “After all, what kind of trouble can a good girl like her make?”
CHAPTER3
Laura
The hearing was over nearly as soon as it began. I didn’t remember a word of it. All I could see was Brian sitting smugly, watching as the clearly paid for judge granted me bail. An amount too great to fathom was named, and the proceedings moved along quickly. I wasn’t to leave the state; I was to stay home. Home. Ha. I’d rather stay in hell, but this wasn’t about me. A guarantor company was named for securing my bond, and before I knew it, I was moving back out of the stuffy room. Brian stood as I passed by him, and the lawyer asked for a moment. My stomach churned as he leaned in.
“Good girl, Laura. You did well. I’ll remember that when I decide your punishment for bringing this attention to us.” His coffee breath made me feel faintly sick. I stumbled away from him, my skin leeching of color. I could feel the blood draining from my head. As I swallowed and tried to keep the toast I’d forced down my gullet this morning from making a reappearance, my eyes caught the penetrating gaze of a man sitting on the back bench of the room. He was hunched forward, his powerful arms braced on his knees. He wore a leather jacket and white t-shirt, and held an unnatural stillness. It was a stillness born of extreme discipline and bodily control. I’d never been so still in my life. His grey eyes watched me with an intensity I didn’t know what to do with. I met his scrutiny, powerless to hide my emotions, as I was still reeling from Brian’s threat.
The stranger saw it all. My revulsion, my desperation, my whole pathetic plight mapped out on a face that I’d still never managed to control completely. The man’s shoulders stiffened, and his wide, handsome mouth turned down into a deep frown. A pinch appeared between his hawklike gray eyes. His displeasure felt like a brand on my skin.
Of course, everyone thought I was a murderer. Well, attempted murderer. That old fucker, Doug Greyson, hadn’t died. I couldn’t even do that right. But this stranger’s judgment was a good reminder that I was no longer an anonymous nobody in a big world. People knew my face, thought ill of me, feared me, scorned me. Hated me, even. I’m sure Doug Greyson’s family hated me. I felt ill again, and dropped the gaze of the gray eyes still on me, turning away after the guard, who led me by my chained hands.
“See you soon, Laura,” Brian called to me. I kept my eyes on the chains. Fuck, I was going to miss them. I’d miss jail, and the comforting sound of locks being drawn across my cell. They were meant to keep the bad guys inside, but to me, it had been the first time in years that I’d been sure that the monsters were being kept out. I’d never slept as well as I had during my incarceration. How was that for fucked up?
* * *
Brianand the lawyer were waiting for me when I was ready to go. I was wearing standard issue pants and a t-shirt with the same texture as scrubs. My clothes had been too bloody to put on again. As soon as I stepped out into the waiting room, clenching my teeth and willing my fear not to be so bloody visible on my face, my eyes met a well of gray again.
Him. The disapproving stranger from the hearing. He was standing now, leaning against a wall, arms folded over his huge chest. Christ, he was tall and broad. I stared at him, preferring to look at his chiselled face than Brian who was lurking beside me.
“Ready to go?” Brian asked cheerfully, with the air of someone getting exactly what they want. His hand landed on my arm and his fingers squeezed, reminding me to play along.
I nodded dutifully, dropping my head. “This is Bennet. His company is putting up your bail and securing your bond. Bennet, this is Laura.”
Bennet. What a comforting sounding name, somehow. A huge hand, with long, calloused fingers, and a smattering of tattoos, appeared in front of me. I blinked up at Bennet, now looming over me, holding his hand out to shake mine like this was just some regular business meeting. I slowly extended mine, and his immediately dwarfed it. His skin was so hot, it felt like a shock, as he slowly shook my limp hand in his firm grip.
“Nice to meet you, Laura, in the flesh,” he said. His voice was deep with a hint of a growl, but also upstanding, with clipped, precise pronunciation. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before.
“Nice to meet you too,” I mumbled, my cheeks suddenly heating. So, I might have gone to a co-ed school, but that was only because the all-girls school that Brian liked had been too far to travel to everyday. My stepfather had kept the opposite sex away from me in many inventive ways. He was paranoid, perhaps, that I’d meet some young guy, mess around and get knocked up, and lower my value to him. He was ironically puritanical about pre-marital relations in his own family. Too bad his upright, moral nature ended right there. He was moral where it showed and utterly depraved in secret.
Brian’s fingers sank deeper into my arm, pulling me from the reverie of my handshake with Bennet.