Final Verdict. Jessica R. Patch

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СКАЧАТЬ understand that sometimes she disliked her clients more than anyone. Tossing her glance in Beckett’s direction, she shook her head. “I’m used to unkind words and threats, Sheriff. I’ve handled much worse.” She still felt the stab anyway.

      Beckett’s eyebrows lifted. “You talking about losing Severin Renzetti’s case in Chicago and angering a crime family two years ago?”

      Aurora wasn’t surprised the sheriff had done a background check on her. He was meticulous. Thorough. A former navy SEAL. The man who had a hand in taking down a major Mexican cartel back in June when his now good buddy, Holt McKnight, had come to town undercover for the DEA.

      She wouldn’t even be in his town of Hope if she hadn’t been asked to resign over a stupid, overconfident slipup in the courtroom. She wouldn’t be lying low here in hopes that Franco Renzetti, head of the largest crime family in Chicago, hadn’t changed his mind and decided to seek further retribution for his son, Severin Renzetti’s conviction. She thought of muttering a few prayers for safety, but passed. She didn’t deserve them.

      Aurora ignored Beckett’s observation and opened the ornate wooden doors. The wintry gusts charged down her scarf and gray peacoat, forcing a shiver into her bones.

      Squaring her shoulders, she met the crowd head-on and proceeded down the concrete steps, keeping her face masked from emotion. In Chicago, dozens of cameras had been thrust in front of her nose, reporters’ voices toppling over each other as they begged for the scoop. Asking how it felt losing a case she had been confident of winning. Asking if the rumors of her and Severin Renzetti being romantically involved were true. They weren’t. But the media skewed every detail.

      Severin had been charming, though. He’d been charged and convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion and she had believed in his innocence, that he’d tried to come out from under his family’s reputation to be a decent and honest man. Aurora had sympathized. She’d clawed her way out from under some heavy stereotypes herself. But, in the end, she’d been manipulated and preyed upon for trying to trust that there was good in everyone—or almost everyone—even the son of a mob boss.

      “How could you do that, Miss Daniels? That boy killed Bethany Russell!” an older woman hollered.

      A menacing voice carried over the woman’s. “Better be careful on those roads, miss. Wouldn’t want you to end up like Mrs. Russell.”

      Aurora darted her sight in the direction of the gritty voice. Didn’t recognize it. Couldn’t find the source. But the tone wasn’t laced with grief like the others. No, this sounded ominous. She tugged her wool scarf tighter around her neck and picked up her pace, ignoring the snide comments on the outside. Inside, she had a more difficult time fielding the stings.

      Glancing back one last time, she searched for the man who’d threatened her. She used the fob on her key ring, reached out to open the door to her BMW and cringed, then groaned at the long, keyed mark running the length of the driver’s side. Had the man who’d threatened her keyed her car, too, or had that been the handiwork of someone else unhappy with her?

      She spotted Beckett Marsh ambling toward her. Following and protecting her even if she had turned him down. “I can watch my back.” She pointed to the deep gash ruining her shiny black paint. “My car not so much.”

      Beckett gave a low whistle as he rounded the car and stood beside her, blocking a frigid gust of winter with his body.

      She tossed her handbag and briefcase inside as her cell phone rang.

      Katelynn, her barista at Sufficient Grounds, was calling. She pulled the cell from her coat and answered. “Hi, Kate. What’s going on?” Had her café been vandalized, too?

      “The espresso machine is janky again. I’ve tried everything.”

      “You unplugged it, opened the back and jiggled the wires?”

      “Jiggled, kicked...”

      “Yes, because kicking a four-thousand-dollar machine is smart.” Aurora would have done the same thing had she not known exactly which wires to tamper with. “Just—”

      “Jiggle the wires again, I know. I did. You’ve got the touch.” Katelynn’s voice rose an octave. “Please. We’ve got a major crowd and they’re all talking about the motion today. That you won. They aren’t happy, but it appears they aren’t mad enough to boycott the place.”

      “It’s the little things.” She’d leased the building and opened the coffeehouse when she’d moved to Hope to try to fit in. Working as the public defender didn’t bring the best of friends. But coffee... Well, everyone liked coffee and camaraderie, and it had helped her acclimate. Until this.

      Aurora eyed Beckett, who was in no hurry to leave or even pretend he wasn’t listening to her conversation. “Be there in five.” She hung up, slid into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on her car, then peered up at Beckett. “I’ve got to—”

      “Jiggle wires.” His lips twitched. “I heard. Hey, if you need anything...”

      “Can you fix an espresso machine?” She turned on the heat full blast; arctic air shocked her face. She turned it off and huffed. It took entirely too long for vehicles to heat up. She should have moved farther south.

      He ignored her rhetorical question, but the right side of his mouth inched north. In Aurora’s book, that was a smile. Biggest one Beckett Marsh had ever laid on her. He adjusted the fleece collar of his sheriff’s coat. “Still stands. It’s my duty, you know. To protect people.”

      Yes, he reminded her every time she won a case. She was protecting people, too. People like her brother, Richie. Most of her clients were folks who needed a second chance to get it right. Most. She had to take the bad with good. Came with the territory.

      Aurora hurried to the café and entered through the back. After fixing the espresso machine, she grabbed a caffè mocha and drove home for the night. She had work to do. Seven months ago Blair Sullivan, now McKnight, had asked her if she ever defended men like the ones who had come after Blair. The Mexican cartel. Aurora told her she didn’t defend dead men. After those evil people had been taken down by the DEA, there weren’t any left who needed a defense. It was an easy way to skirt around what Blair had really been asking, but the question had dogged her every day since.

      When Richie committed suicide in prison, she didn’t try to clear her older brother’s name. He deserved as much, though. So, last month, she’d gone back to Richfield, Mississippi, where she’d been raised, opened up the old files and poked around. Nothing so far, but Richie was innocent and Aurora wasn’t going to stop until she proved it. She owed him that much.

      She parked in the drive and sprinted up to the porch of the antebellum home she’d rented from Mitch Rydell. The only things that belonged solely to her were the furniture inside and her car. She wasn’t sure how long she’d get to stay in Hope, not with the possibility of Franco Renzetti coming after her. But it had been quiet this long and she’d put down a few roots.

      She paused at the front door. Wind howled through stick-bare trees. Nights came sooner these days, and by four o’clock the sun had abandoned her. Beckett’s warning and the gravelly-voiced threat sent her scanning her large yard and the tree line fifteen feet to the right. She shook off the jitters and went inside. Ah, delicious warmth and the smell of her cinnamon potpourri helped chase away the blues and the creeps. After drinking her coffee, then making a bite of dinner and poring over files and evidence, she stood and stretched.

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