Guilty as Sin (14 page)

An opportune chance for him. The reason he had hung around as the paramedics packed their things and zipped the black bag on old Franken, he told himself. So he could take advantage of her when she was off balance. So he might be able to catch a glimpse of something she never would have shown him otherwise.

What a guy you are, Brooks. Prince of the jerks.

"I'm fine," she announced, though she clearly was not. The hand she raised to comb the loose strands behind her left ear was trembling.

"Looks to me like you could use a drink. I know I could," he admitted. "I never had a judge drop dead on me before—though I admit I wished it a few times."

"That's right. You used to practice before fame and fortune came calling."

He shrugged, ignoring the sting of her words. "I did my time as a lowly associate, chased an ambulance or two, tried a little of this, a little of that. 'Little' being the operative word, according to my ex-wife. She had to be the first lawyer's wife in history who actually wanted her husband to put in eighty-hour weeks."

Even now he could hear Christine's criticism. It had worn a trench into the back of his mind like water running over stone; the years only made it deeper. "Why can't you work harder? Why haven't you made junior partner? Why won't you join the family firm'? You'll never amount to anything the way you bounce around."

"Well, you got her in the end," Ellen said. "Justifiable Homicide— an overworked young attorney is framed for the brutal murder of his scheming ex-wife. The book's dedication: 'To Christine, who, I am pleased to say, will never get a dime of the royalties.' A charming sentiment."

"And well deserved, I assure you." A wry smile twisted across his mouth. "I thought you were unfamiliar with my work, Ms. North."

"I lied," Ellen said without remorse. "I read the article in Newsweek."

"And what did you think?"

"I think I made my opinion clear earlier. I don't like what you do."

"I present actual, terrifying events to my readers in a way that can bring them to a deeper understanding of what happened, why it happened, how the justice system worked—or failed to work in some cases," he said. "I give them insight. I give them closure. What's wrong with that?"

"You're a mercenary profiteer who's no better than a vampire. A hack looking to steal the lives and pain of victims to compensate for a lack of any real imagination. You feed off people's fears and morbid curiosities and contribute to the nation's unhealthy obsession with sensationalism," Ellen countered. "Don't try to put a noble face on it. You're in the entertainment business—those were your own words."

"Everything I say can and will be used against me," he said dryly.

"Do you deny it?"

"No. I'm not a journalist. People get their news from a paper or on TV. They don't fork over twenty bucks in the bookstore for a hardback version of Time. People read true crime to escape—same reason people read anything."

"And you don't find that just the least bit twisted? Escaping into someone else's real-life tragedy?"

"No more so than picking up a Stephen King novel or an Agatha Christie mystery. To that reader my book is just a story, something to get lost in and ponder; all the more interesting because it really happened."

Ellen moved away from him then, shaking her head in disgust. "Fine. You go talk to Hannah Garrison about what she's been through and what she's going through, and be sure to tell her it's just a story. That'll be such a comfort to her."

Jay pursued her across the dusky room to the desk, automatically reacting to her righteous indignation. He was contrary by nature, born to take the opposite side just for the sake of a good argument. It wasn't anger that rushed to the fore—it was excitement, adrenaline.

"Hey, I can't change what's happened to make a story a story. It's there, it's happened, it's history."

"So you might as well make a buck off it?" She pulled her jacket off the back of Franken's chair and slipped it on.

"If I don't, someone else will."

"Oh, well, that makes it all right."

"I didn't invent the game, counselor—"

"No, but you're hell-bent on winning it, aren't you? Going straight to the top, dragging Glendenning into it. Of all the dirty—"

"Not dirty," Jay clarified, wagging a finger in her face. "That's hardball and it's the way I play this game. I go after what I want and I get it."

The declaration hung in the air between them, a challenge that took on deeper nuances as Ellen stared up at him. He was standing too close again. She was leaning toward him. The scant few inches of air between them seemed to thicken, and a dormant sixth sense came to life inside her, rising to the surface like air bubbles in water. Awareness, not of an adversary in a duel of wits, but of something much more fundamental.

"I go after what I want, Ellen North," he whispered again, sliding a hand beneath her chin. His thumb brushed across the bow of her lower lip. "And I get it," he breathed. "Remember that."

"That you're ruthless?" Ellen murmured, telling herself to brand it to her mind.

"Determined."

"Dangerous" was the word she settled on. Dangerous to her in ways she had never anticipated a man could be.

"Damn, I like the way you fight, counselor," he said softly. "How about that drink?"

The invitation in his expression was far more intimate than an offered glass of brandy. That he could slide so easily from contention to seduction, as if it didn't matter what she thought of him, disturbed her.

"Just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be civil," he said. "I like you, Ellen. You're smart, sharp, not afraid to say what you mean." He chuckled. "I thought ol' Rudy was gonna have a stroke in your office. And you just stood there, cool as well water. What do you say we go find a nice quiet bar with a fireplace and argue the evening away?" He served the suggestion with the kind of smile that could have charmed nuns from their habits.

This was why he was a celebrity, Ellen decided, instead of just a name i a dust jacket. The very air around him vibrated with sex appeal.

"I don't think so, Mr. Brooks. It would be too much like fraternizing with the enemy," she said, stepping away from him, slipping her glasses on—shielding herself against his charm.

"I'm not the enemy. I'm just an observer."

"You may not be the enemy, but you're an enemy just the same. I can't differentiate between who you are and what you are, Mr. Brooks." She stared him straight in the face. "Maybe your conscience will let you exploit what's happened in this town—or maybe you don't have a conscience. Either way, I won't condone it and I don't want to be a part of it."

With that she walked out on him for the second time that day.

Jay sat back against the judge's desk and gave a low whistle. He had had doors slammed in his face before. That was nothing new. It went with the territory. Sometimes people were willing to work on a story with him and sometimes they weren't. If he wanted the story badly enough and the front door closed, he went to the back. If the back door closed, he went in a window. If he couldn't get in through a window, he went in through the basement. If he wanted the story bad enough, he would get it. He didn't need Ellen North's cooperation. He could write this story from a dozen different angles.

But he wanted Ellen North's cooperation. Hell, he wanted Ellen North.

He knew better than to get involved with a source. Crossing that line was like walking into a nest of vipers—an invitation for disaster. He would compromise his credibility, color his perception of the story.

As tough as he played this game, he played it by rules. He had already broken one—getting involved with a live case. That was just asking for trouble. Of course, as Uncle Hooter always said, he may not have looked for trouble, but when it came calling, he was never out of earshot.

This case had grabbed him and hung on. He wanted inside of it, wanted to know why it had happened and what it had done to the people whose lives it had touched. He wanted to watch it all unfold—the trial, the strategy behind prosecution and defense, the reactions of the public as sides were taken. Something important was happening here. This wasn't just another crime; it was a crossroads, a crisis point for small-town America. He felt a need to capture that.

And to distance himself from another crisis, he admitted in a shadowed corner of his mind—one he had turned away from before it could suck him in. This case was his focus. The trick was to get inside and yet maintain emotional distance. A tough call when a part of him wanted no distance at all between himself and the prosecuting attorney.

But then, it appeared Ellen North would maintain that distance for him. She was as unimpressed with his bag of tricks as a skeptic who had caught sight of the mirrors in a magic show. She didn't give a damn about the bankability of his name, would not have cared a lick that his latest work had been at the top of every best-seller list in the country for three solid months or that Tom Cruise had signed on for the lead in the movie version of Justice for None. She didn't care who he was, she cared what he was, and she had made up her mind on that score right out of the box.

The hell of it was, she was probably right.

The hell of it was, he wanted her anyway.

CHAPTER 8

Mitch slid in behind the wheel of his Explorer, bone-weary. The better part of the day had been spent overseeing the search for the missing gloves Garrett Wright had cast off during the chase the night of his arrest. Mitch's men and the evidence techs from the BCA had spent two days combing the ground the chase had covered through the woods of Quarry Hills Park, along the cross-country ski trail that ran the rim of the park behind the Lakeside neighborhood, and into the yards of the homes that backed onto the park.

Seven inches of fresh snow had fallen to cover the tracks from the chase, and every step taken by an officer or agent had the potential to further bury evidence that would not be seen again until April. They had gone over the ground with shovels and rakes, dug with garden tools in the areas too small for anything else. And still, in the end, it was dumb luck that did the trick. Lonnie Dietz had plunked down on a fallen log, tired and frustrated, and while he'd stared down at a crevice in the dead tree, something had caught his eye. A small slip of white—the size tag sewn inside the cuff of a black leather glove.

The gloves had been sent to the BCA lab in St. Paul. Then there had been the ever-present press to deal with, the mob of reporters already in a frenzy from the bond hearing. And constantly in the back of Mitch's mind were thoughts of Megan.

She had been transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis that morning and had gone into surgery for her hand at three. He wanted to be there with her, but the case took precedence. Megan knew that. She had been the first to say it. She was a cop, she understood the priorities. She was a victim as well, which gave her an added motivation to want to see the investigation completed.

She was also alone and afraid. The prognosis for her regaining full use of her hand was not good. If she couldn't use her right hand, she couldn't handle a gun, she couldn't defend herself, she couldn't return to the kind of duty that had been her whole life. All she had ever wanted was to be a good cop.

And all Mitch wanted at the moment was to be able to hold her. He didn't relish the thought of an hour's drive to the Cities, and guilt nipped him at the thought of leaving his daughter with her grandparents for yet another evening, but he started the engine and focused on Megan. The last thing he had expected to find in this nightmare of Josh Kirkwood's abduction was love, and he would never have expected love to come packaged in a tough Irish cop with a chip on her shoulder the size of Gibraltar, but there it was.

He eased the truck out of his parking spot, fighting the urge to gun the engine and send the reporters who had followed him out scrambling for their lives. He waved them off when he would rather have given them the finger, and pulled out onto Oslo Street. He was half a block from the interstate when his cellular phone trilled in his coat pocket.

"Jesus, now what?" he muttered, pulling up to the curb.

Leaving the engine running, he dug the phone out and unfolded it, telling himself it might be Megan or it might be Jessie calling to see where her daddy was.

"Mitch Holt."

The silence made him think the caller had given up while he had fumbled with his gloves and the pocket flap trying to get to the damn phone, but he hung on, an eerie sensation scratching through him.