Legal Heat (32 page)

James stared pointedly at the crush of napkins in Mark’s fist. “I’m not the one who needs to calm down.”

“I remember another name,” Katy interjected. With slow, gentle strokes, she traced along each of Mark’s tightly clenched fingers, lifting them one at a time until his hand opened, allowing the white blossom of compressed tissue to spring free.

Mark held his breath, eyes riveted on her delicate fingers, as she carefully drew a napkin from his palm. For a moment everything fell away. His world narrowed to the brush of the napkin over his skin, the slide of Katy’s fingers over his wrist, and the heat of her breath on his cheek.

“I see you’ve soothed the savage beast,” James chortled, breaking the spell.

Katy scrawled on the napkin and handed it to James. “He never returned my calls. I tracked him down to an apartment building on the corner of 13
^th
and Hemlock. I was going to pay him a visit before…” She choked off her words.
Before she was shot.

Mark couldn’t sit by any longer and watch her fade. He dragged her chair over to his and pulled her against him. She didn’t protest, but leaned into his chest with a soft sigh. He looked at James and narrowed his eyes. “She’s done here. I’m taking her home.”

James nodded and snapped his notebook closed. “I need to get my team on these leads. I’ll meet you both at the station at four o’clock. Get whatever clearance you need from your firms and the Law Society and be prepared to give me all the facts.”

Mark frowned. “She shouldn’t—“

“I’ll be fine,” Katy murmured.

“You won’t.”

“She’ll have to be,” James said, his face grim. “There’s a killer on loose. Maybe more than one.”

“I’m pulling you off the case.” Ted folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. Katy had rarely seen him so still. Usually he was in motion: foot rocking, pen tapping and body swaying. But today, except for the rise and fall of his chest, his body was frozen with disapproval and his eyes glittered with anger.

Katy sucked in a breath, shock and horror giving way to crushing disappointment in a heartbeat. She should have taken Mark up on his offer to take her home and saved herself from this unwanted surprise.

“Why, Ted? I’m okay. I’m fit to work.” Did he know she was lying? Or that the doctor at the hospital had told her to take at least another week off work? No way could she do it. In the “up or out” culture of a big city firm, another week of sick leave would not only destroy her chances of partnership, it would kill her career.

“Where should I start?” Ted’s voice was uncharacteristically cold and hard. “Someone killed your witness and tried to shoot you. Another one of your witnesses is dead. You are running around when you clearly should be in bed. And you are compromising the reputation of the firm by engaging in a relationship with opposing counsel.”

She closed her eyes for a second and tilted her head up to the ceiling. She had known in her heart they would never get away with it. They had danced on the edge of the abyss and now they would have to pay the price.

Still she couldn’t stop her emotions from flooding her face. “Ted—”

“Don’t look so surprised,” he said abruptly. “The legal community is a small one and you already had a reputation for causing trouble. I bent over backwards to get you into this firm. You let me down.”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Bullshit. Don’t lie to me, Katherine.” He pushed back his chair and rounded the desk. “When I called Steven to find out where you were, he said you’d gone to Richards’s place, and you’ve just finished telling me you went with him to see a witness. How is that going to look to the client, or to the Law Society? You’re lucky no one else has found out.”

“But he had withdrawn as counsel before I went to his place.”

“I should have known something was up when he called,” he muttered to himself.

“When who called?”

If he heard her question, he chose not to answer. “It’s not just that. I like you, Katherine. You’re a nice person and one hell of a lawyer. Steven was a bad choice. But someone like Richards would be far worse. You have no idea what he’s really like. He runs a sex club in his spare time for chrissakes. He’ll corrupt you, use you and throw you away.”

“But he was off the case,” she said again.

“Was he?” Ted arched an eyebrow. “We haven’t received any documents from the court or from his office to that effect. He lied to you and I think it’s obvious why. I never thought you’d be so gullible.”

Katy sucked in a breath. No documents? There had to be a mistake. Why would he deceive her?

For a bit of fun.

She shook her head. She didn’t believe it. Not after everything he had done for her. Even now her gut told her he wasn’t lying—not about the withdrawal and not about the witnesses.

“It’s not just that,” Ted continued. “Jimmy Rider is dead. Someone beat him to a pulp and left him in an East Side alley. I spoke to the detective in charge of the case. Witnesses saw a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black suit fleeing the scene. The police believe it was personal and not drug-related, but they haven’t said why. I don’t suppose you know someone with a questionable past who might fit that description and who might be upset to find out his girl had been roughed up?”

“Oh God.” She wanted Ted to stop talking. Stop filling her with head with doubts. Mark had threatened to make sure Jimmy would never hurt her again. Would he have used the experience he had gained on the streets as a youth to make good that threat? Had she misjudged him as badly as she had misjudged Steven?

No.
She couldn’t reconcile the gentle lover from last night with the portrait Ted was trying to paint of a violent and dishonest man. She wasn’t ready to give up. Not on Mark and not on the case.

“Martin told me lives are at stake,” she said, her voice steady and clear. “Martha is relying on us. It’s not fair to her or to Martin’s memory if we just let this go. No one knows the case as well as I do. I’m on to something and I’ve got the police protecting me now. Let me see it through.”

Ted shook his head. “I don’t want you involved in this case. Someone shot at you. Two men are dead. I’ll take it over myself and settle with Steele. I’ve already drafted the press release.”

“Justice won’t be served that way,” Katy said. “I know Martha. She’s a good person. Steele will offer next to nothing and she’ll take it so no one gets hurt. Just give me some time. A few more days. I have a document review scheduled at Hi-Tech on Friday and I might be able to find the evidence we need to expose them. Think about the publicity for the firm if I do uncover something. It will eclipse the publicity of a settlement.”

Ted exhaled a long breath. “I know I’m going to regret this, but I’ll give you two days. The file is yours until after the document review…then I’m calling Steele.”

Mark rolled his eyes when he walked into the boardroom. The long, serious faces of his fellow partners told him this “impromptu” partners’ meeting had been planned well in advance. Could his day get any worse? Exhausted and emotionally drained, he didn’t know if he could take what he knew they were about to give.

“An ambush?” He sat down and waited for the circus to begin.

Tony took a deep breath. “I’ll get right to the point. You have to break it off with her. We’ve all agreed you’ve crossed the line into conflict territory. If you’re caught, it could damage the reputation of the firm.”

“And we don’t want to lose the client who is single-handedly keeping the firm afloat.” Curtis didn’t meet his gaze. A contracts solicitor to the core he abhorred confrontation.

Mark tightened his lips. “After all these years, do you not trust me?”

“When it comes to her, no.” Tony didn’t mince his words.

Mark spun his chair around and stared out over the water, bitterly disappointed at his fellow partners. “Over the last few years, Steele has been pushing me close to the ethical line. When he finally he asked me to cross it by scaring Katy off the case, I decided Hi-Tech was not the kind of client we wanted to represent. No client is worth compromising our reputation. I withdrew as counsel before she was shot. What happened after that is of no concern to the firm or to Steele.”

No one moved. No one spoke. The loss of Hi-Tech’s work could ruin the firm, and they all knew it.

“Fuck.” Curtis ran his fingers through his hair. “Why didn’t you do what he wanted, but in a roundabout way?”

Mark shook his head. “You know Steele. If I crossed the line once, he would expect me to do it again and again. Before you know it, I would be destroying documents and forging signatures. I wasn’t prepared to step onto that slippery slope.”

“You should have come to us before you so blithely dumped the firm’s major client.” Tony rested his forehead in his hands and stared down at the table.

Mark gritted his teeth. “I’ll admit I was already looking for a way out of the case. And maybe I didn’t try as hard as I could have to salvage the client relationship, but Steele has gone down a road we can’t follow without giving up our principles. He gave me an opportunity to bow out and I took it.”

“We can probably make up the shortfall with the Translife Electric litigation.” Always the optimist, Tony broke the silence with a way forward.

Mark shook his head. “I’ve withdrawn my bid. I asked Ted to pull her off the case, and he wanted something in return. The tender was his price. We were his only real competition. To be honest, after the publicity surrounding the shooting, I think he had planned to take it from her anyway and steal the limelight. I just gave him a reason to do what he wanted to do.”

“Have you gone fucking crazy?” Curtis growled. “That was the biggest piece of litigation we’ve seen all year. You’re going to destroy the firm over a woman.”

Mark swiveled his chair. “We were never guaranteed to get the tender, so I’m not affecting our bottom line, and it seemed a small price to pay to keep a fellow lawyer safe. Everyone in the legal community knows what Ted’s like. He doesn’t give a damn about the welfare of his associates, so long as they fill his pockets or get him in front of a camera. She was assaulted by her client, Rider, and Ted didn’t want to pull her off the case until he collected his fee. Now she’s been shot at, the killer is still on the loose, and yet he told me he planned to send her back out on the street, chasing down witnesses.“

“I don’t think any of us have an issue with saving a fellow lawyer from Ted,” Tony said. “But there is more to it than that.”

Mark nodded. “You’re right. This isn’t about profits or even looking out for a fellow lawyer. It’s about principle.”

“At this stage, with our books in the red, I’d give up principles for profit,” Curtis muttered. “If you had just kept yourself under control, you wouldn’t be in the position of having to pay any price.”

“But then I wouldn’t be able to protect Katy from Steele,” Mark countered. “I don’t think we could have continued to represent him in any event.” He folded his arms and paused for effect. “I think he arranged the shooting.”

The partners inhaled a collective breath.

“Go on,” Tony said.

“I don’t have anything concrete. Steele made veiled threats during several of our meetings and in the last one he said he would deal with the witness and Katy himself.”

“Why?” Tony scratched his head. “It doesn’t make sense. You said it was a dismissal case.”

Mark shrugged. “Steele hinted she had uncovered something he wants to keep hidden. He has a big product launch coming up. Something revolutionary. Worth billions. If the two cases are connected, she might have found something worth killing for.”

Tony pressed his lips together. “I think we all understand the motivation behind your actions, but the bottom line is you put the firm at risk and you didn’t consult us. We’ll have to discuss everything that happened and then form a view as to whether or not we ask you to step down from the partnership or impose some form of sanction.”

He sighed and looked away, unable to hold Mark’s gaze. “I’m sorry. We all are. But you’re the one who wrote the rules.”

Mark swallowed and forced himself up, despite the overwhelming sense of betrayal crushing his chest. These were the men he had thought would stand behind him no matter what. Men he had trusted.

Unable to speak, he gave them a curt nod and left the room. He didn’t regret his actions. He had always stood by his principles. But more than that, he would do what it took to keep Katy safe. He hadn’t been there for Claire. But he would damn well be there for Katy.

“So where are we with our mountain of cases? Surprise me.”

James looked around the war room at his exhausted investigation team. They were working round the clock and their weariness showed. The cups of coffee were larger, the jokes lamer and the smiles less frequent.

Mike took a deep breath. “Forensics analyzed the residue of the contents of the two baggies. It’s not a known substance, although the components are readily identifiable. Whatever it is, Wood and Garcia both ingested it and both died as a result.”

“I think we can tell the coroner’s office we’ve ruled out the possibility of a communicable disease,” Joanna said.