Trouble (18 page)

Desiree Campbell, Johnson's alibi witness and probable mistress, arrived for her official interview with Mike a few days later. Unfortunately, he was stuck on a conference call for another case, and the receptionist was on her lunch break, so Dara went down to the reception area to greet Desiree by herself.

“Thanks for coming,” Dara told her, trying not to eyeball the woman's barely there dress and stilettos. “Mike's anxious to meet you.”

Desiree swelled with importance. “Does Mr. Baldwin think he's gonna get Mark off?”

Before Dara could answer, the heavy front door opened behind them. Without warning, Alicia Johnson, Dara's high school friend and Johnson's wife, walked in.

Ah, shit
, Dara thought, frozen with sudden dread, her uneasy gaze flickering between Johnson's suspected mistress and his
wife
, who had no appointment and therefore no business being there, especially
now
. Dara hadn't seen Alicia since the week after the shooting, when Alicia turned up at the office to ask Dara to persuade Mike to take Johnson's case.

What the hell was she doing there
now
?

Calling upon all her minimal acting skills, Dara smiled at Alicia, who wore low-slung leather pants and a tight knit top that clung to her small baby belly.

“Dara!” Beaming, Alicia pulled Dara in for a hug. “I should have called first, but I was downtown, anyway—I had to get shoes and a bag over at Saks—and I wanted to see how the case is coming and so … Desiree! Hey! What're you doing here?”

Turning Dara loose, Alicia hugged Desiree.

Desiree pulled away from Alicia, her wide eyes glued to the woman's stomach. “Are you … are you pregnant?”

“It's been awhile, hasn't it?” Alicia contentedly rubbed her belly. “I'm almost five months.”

Desiree blinked.

Dara held her breath and prayed for the best.

“Mark must be happy,” Desiree said, her tone and expression as wooden as a pre-transformation Pinocchio.

“He is.”

Just then, Mike strode down the stairs. “Ladies. How are you? I'm Mike Baldwin.” He extended his hand to Desiree, who now looked ashen. “Are you okay?” Mike dropped his hand and shot a bewildered glance in Dara's direction. “You look a little … ill.”

Desiree rubbed her temple and backed up toward the door. “I am feeling a little sick. I think I need to reschedule, if you don't mind.”

“Of course not,” Mike said. “Will you be okay?”

“Yeah,” Desiree said quickly, trying to smile.

Alicia eyed her with open concern. “I'll walk you out. Dara, I'll call you, okay?”

“Okay,” Dara said.

Mike watched the women leave and tried to tamp down his rising alarm.

“That went well,” he muttered.

“Desiree was fine until she realized Alicia was pregnant,” Dara said grimly.

“Great.” He jammed his fists into his pockets and thought about Desiree's appearance, which would need some definite toning down for court. “Looks like you and Jamal were right. Johnson wouldn't keep a woman like that around unless he was sleeping with her.”

Dara frowned. “‘A woman like that'?”

“She's pretty. I'm sure Johnson noticed. He's not the kind of guy who'd pass up any hookup possibilities, especially when they're staring him right in the face.” He shrugged. “Everything about her screams, ‘Come screw me.'”

“
Really
?” Dara asked, a funny note in her voice.

“Really.”

“Well, if she's your type, I'm sure she'd be yours for the taking, once the dust settles,” Dara said, her expression twisting into something that looked suspiciously like a jealous snarl. “She'll be needing another sugar daddy.”

Dumbstruck, Mike could only gape at her.

Until she brushed past him on her way back to her office and the contact ignited a spark of rage inside him. Why did she insist on pushing him beyond his limits every single time he was with her? What had he ever done to deserve this daily torture? Without thinking, he grabbed her arm and swung her back around, ignoring her surprised yelp. When she tried to yank free, he jerked her arm again.

Dara stilled, tipping up her face and watching him with glittering eyes.

He cursed the day he'd ever laid eyes on her.

Suddenly he was so sick of Dara he wanted to vomit. He was sick of her mixed messages and her longing glances and her offers of friendship when she had to know he was obsessed with her. He was sick of the way she dangled just outside the reach of his grasping fingertips. He was sick of the way his want had turned into need, until he could hardly suck in a breath without her in the room with him.

Most of all, he was sick of being hamstrung by his familial and professional obligations, because otherwise Dara would be spending hot and sweat-slicked nights in his bed and he wouldn't feel like a fucking hornet trapped inside a jar while someone shook it.

“Is that what you want?” he barked.

Dara didn't move, seemed not to breathe.

He tightened his grip on her arm.
“Is that what you want?”

“No,” she said breathlessly.

Mollified, his hand still high on her arm, he pulled her closer, ignoring her sharp gasp. She turned away, but he leaned down to speak in her ear.

“Do you think I don't know what you want?” he taunted, letting his lips graze her velvety cheek. She whimpered, shifting restlessly and pressing her face a little closer to him. “Do you think I don't see how you look at me, Dara?”

She turned to look him fully in the face, and her gaze slipped to his lips. “Don't—”

Disgusted with her but more with himself, he shoved her away as he released her and headed for the steps, flexing his fingers because they burned with the imprint of her flesh.

“You little coward,” he said.

“We said it was for the best,” she called after him. “You
agreed
.”

“I must have been out of my fucking mind.”

A few minutes later, Dara was putting on her coat to leave for class when Desiree charged back through the front door and almost plowed her down. She was shaking and sobbing, her eye makeup running all over her face.

“Desiree! What's wrong?”

“I'm not lying for that punk no more!”

Dara choked back her rising alarm and took her by the arm, steering her past the wide-eyed receptionist and upstairs. Mike, she noticed as they passed his office, was on the phone. Hearing the commotion and seeing Desiree, he nodded at Dara and held up a finger.
One minute
. Nodding, she marched Desiree into her office, where she pushed her into a chair, shut the door and took her own seat behind her desk.

Desiree sobbed and cursed the entire time. “He can't do this to me! Does he think I'm a fool? He done messed with the wrong woman!”

“What happened, Desiree?”

“That punk-ass bitch's been sleeping with his wife this whole time! She's pregnant, Dara! He ain't never gonna leave her!”

Dara kept her cool even though she wanted to scream with frustration. All of Mike's hard work—and hers, for that matter—was about to swirl right down the toilet along with Desiree's shit.

“You've been having an affair with Mark Johnson,” Dara said. “For how long?”

“For a year!”

Mike slipped into the office, quietly shutting the door behind him. His gaze, dark and alarmed, absorbed the scene, but he didn't say anything, and Desiree seemed not to notice him.

“When I seen him just now, he said he just screwed her one time, and now she's pregnant. That liar still claims he's gonna leave her.” Desiree laughed hysterically. “Well, I may be stupid, but I ain't
that
stupid!”

“What does this have to do with the case?” Dara asked.

Desiree goggled at Dara. “It means I wasn't with him when Dante got shot, like he said.”

Mike's eyes rolled closed and he shook his head with unmistakable disgust.

“What did happen?” Dara asked.

Desiree snorted. “After he argued with Dante that night, I seen he was upset, and I was scared what he might do. So I pulled him back to the office with me and tried to calm him down. Then he wanted me to go down on him, so I did. Then he told me to go back out front, and he was still mad. When I was leaving, he was opening the safe. Next thing I knew, Dante got shot, and Mark was telling me to cover for him. Then the police came.”

“What was in the safe?”

“The gun.”

Dara shook her head. “The police have already tested that gun. It isn't the murder weapon.”

Desiree shot Dara a look of withering contempt “He got another gun that ain't registered. That's the one he shot Dante with.”

Unbelievable.

Of course there was another gun.

Thugs like Johnson probably collected guns the way other people collected Blue Ray discs.

“Where's this gun now?”

Desiree shrugged. “Dunno. I don't know how many shootings he got on that gun. Police would love to get they hands on it.”

“But”—Dara struggled to collect her racing thoughts— “but what about the other man in the pictures? The one Johnson saw arguing with Morgan?”

“Mark made that up to give you something to work with.”

“Oh, God.” Dara propped her elbows on her desk and dropped her face to her hands.

What had she done? She'd convinced Mike to take this case when it was nothing but a can of worms, as he'd known it would be. Everything had depended on Desiree, and now they had nothing.
Nothing
. And it was all Dara's fault.

As if he knew what she was thinking, Mike eased around the desk behind her and squeezed her shoulder. Grateful for this unspoken forgiveness, she covered his hand with hers.

“Will you go to the police?” Mike asked Desiree.

“I dunno.” Desiree shrugged and dried her eyes with a bedraggled tissue. “He pays my bills, you know? I done already lied to the police for him. Now maybe they'll throw me in jail with him.”

“The prosecutor might cut you a deal if you testify against Johnson.”

She got up. “I can't think about this now. I got to go.”

Dara and Mike walked her to the front door and let her out, then stood in a dazed silence for a few minutes. Maybe she'd only gotten what she deserved for being stupid enough to sleep with a married man, but Dara still felt sorry for her.

She turned to Mike. “I'm so sorry I ever talked you into taking this case. You were right all along.”

Mike dismissed the apology with a wry shrug. “Don't worry, sweetheart.”

“But—”

Without warning, the front door banged open and they got their second surprise visitor of the day: Mark Johnson. Wearing a track suit and athletic shoes, he charged in as though he'd planned to break down the door if he needed to, but pulled up short when he saw them.

“Have you seen Desiree?” he asked warily.

Mike gave him a hard stare, one capable of grinding concrete to dust. “My office,” he said, his low voice like an ice cube down Dara's spine. “Now.”

They all trekked upstairs. Mike shut his office door and sat behind his desk while Dara and Johnson sat in the chairs across from him. Mike wordlessly reached into his drawer and pulled out the three-ring binder containing the firm's checks. They watched while Mike cut a check and held it out to Johnson.

Johnson took it, looking bewildered. “What's this?”

“I'm returning your retainer,” Mike said, capping his pen with a decisive click and tossing it on the desk. “I'm done.”

“What?
Why?
”

“Because you lied to me. If a client lies, I'm done.”

“What are you talking about?” Johnson shouted.