A Score to Settle. Kara Lennox

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ heavens, no. Most of my ancestors were Scottish peasants, not the kind who were immortalized by great artists. My grandfather bought most of these paintings as investments.”

      “Your grandfather was a self-made man?”

      “If you call discovering oil on your little piece of hardscrabble farm made and not lucky.”

      “I imagine it takes a bit more than luck to build an empire the size of this one.”

      “Some hard work,” Daniel agreed. “My father was never home for dinner. Worked himself to an early grave.”

      “I take it that’s not your philosophy.”

      “Make no mistake, Jamie, I work hard. But I also take care of myself, and I insist my employees do, too. What’s the point of working yourself to a frazzle—even for something you care deeply about—if you’re not around to appreciate the fruits of your labor?”

      “I guess people do it so their children will have the kind of life they didn’t,” Jamie said, rather philosophically.

      “Is that what your father did?”

      “Oh, no. My father wanted me to live exactly the same life he did.” An edge in her voice suggested disapproval.

      “He was a lawyer, too, I take it. A prosecutor?” His research had told him Jamie was born out of wedlock and the father was out of the picture.

      She didn’t answer, and Daniel thought better of pursuing the subject. They’d arrived in the foyer, and Jillian was there, clipboard in hand as well as a small, white cardboard box, which she handed to Jamie with a brittle smile.

      “What’s this?”

      “Tiramisu. Something to nosh on if you get stuck in traffic again. Daniel didn’t want you to miss it. Although our chef, Claude, is French, not Italian, he does an incredible job.”

      “Thank you,” Jamie said uncertainly.

      “No, thank you,” Daniel said, meaning it. “I know it was an imposition, driving out to River Oaks, but I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I believe in the end you’ll be glad you did.”

      She turned to face him, and that mulish expression had returned to her face. “Mr. Logan. Best-case scenario for me is that you’ve wasted some of my time. Worst case, you make me look like an incompetent fool and possibly cost me my job.”

      “I hope it won’t come to that.”

      “If you’re right, that is exactly what would happen. Believe it or not, I would be willing to accept unemployment if you could prove I’d made such a heinous mistake. But I’m not willing to be made a fool simply because you have the money, and the clout, and the patience to get your way. I will not give in simply to be done with this. I will fight you every step of the way, no matter how good your freaking tiramisu is.”

      On that note, Jillian opened the front door for her, and Jamie stepped out into the blustery fall day toward her car.

      Jillian closed the front door with a bit more force than necessary. “She’s a real piece of work.”

      “I thought she was fantastic! Intelligent, outspoken, passionate about her work…”

      “And drop-dead gorgeous,” Jillian observed drily. “I don’t suppose you’re crushing on her, are you?”

      “Jillian, please. I’m well out of adolescence. I don’t get crushes.”

      “Whatever you call it, I hope you won’t let it get in the way of what you have to do. Because to free Christopher Gables, you might very well have to crush one passionate, overzealous prosecutor.”

      WHAT JUST HAPPENED BACK THERE?

      Jamie’s hands actually trembled as she put the car in gear and headed toward the gates that were, even now, opening for her. She’d walked into Daniel Logan’s home practically breathing fire, ready to dazzle him with her facts and her smart-ass wit. Instead, she’d found herself ogling a half-naked man, sharing one of the best meals she could remember while the same man wore nothing but a bathrobe, and saying yes to something she never should have agreed to.

      Now she was committed to giving Theresa Chavez an audience. And if the woman convincingly claimed to have witnessed someone other than Christopher Gables killing Frank Sissom, Jamie could not, in good conscience, dismiss the woman’s statement.

      She would have to investigate. She would have to find out if it really was the same woman who discovered the body, then fled, and then determine if the woman was credible.

      None of which would change the fact that Christopher Gables’s fingerprints, and only his prints, were found on the murder weapon. But if she didn’t perform due diligence, Daniel Logan would never leave her alone.

      She knew how Project Justice operated, because quite a few cases prosecuted by her office had been overturned due to the persistence of the foundation’s people. Daniel—who believed in this case so strongly that he had taken it on personally—would not give up until he was convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that his client really was guilty.

      God, what a nightmare. Winston Chubb, the district attorney, wasn’t going to be happy with this turn of events. And he would find a way to blame Jamie for it, she was sure. Winston always managed to grab the credit for anything good that happened, and passed the buck regarding anything bad.

      On top of everything else, she could smell the tiramisu, faint threads of chocolate, vanilla and coffee. She ought to just throw the little white box—tied with a satin ribbon, for God’s sake—into the first trash can she saw. The dessert was a symbol of everything that had gone wrong with that meeting, including her completely inappropriate physical reaction to the billionaire.

      Imagine her, Jamie McNair, attracted to a convicted killer! But she was.

      It was hard to visualize Daniel Logan killing anyone. Even knowing the facts, she hadn’t felt the least bit uncomfortable alone in his presence, other than having to hammer down her libido.

      But then, people had said that about Ted Bundy.

      THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Jamie was back into her office and the little white box was empty, damn it.

      Her day was shot. A pile of cases sat on her desk—mostly routine plea-bargain requests from defense attorneys. She went through as many as she could, signing off on the reasonable ones, rejecting the more outrageous requests for repeat felons and violent offenders.

      She spent an hour returning phone calls, talked to three different detectives regarding a felony assault case, then checked her schedule for the following day.

      Jury selection for a drunk hit-and-run case in the morning; three appointments in the afternoon.

      With fifteen minutes left of her official workday, Jamie did what she’d known she would do all along. She opened the Gables/Sissom murder file and dug through a mountain of reports until she found the one from the crime lab regarding the evidence they’d processed—bloodstains, fingerprints, the knife and, finally, the victim’s clothing.

      Most of the details СКАЧАТЬ