He smiled, trying to put her at ease. “It’s been a long time.”
“I wish it could have been longer. No offense.”
“None taken. So… you’ve changed your name.”
“I got married.” Her chin came up, along with the old defenses.
“Relax. I’m not here to turn you in. I never was.”
Turn you in. Abruptly she stood. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“Adele. Sit down.” He waited until she did. “So, you’re married. Tell me about him.”
“His name is Darren. He’s a good man.”
Theopolis smiled warmly. “Then I’m happy for you.”
She drew a breath. “He… doesn’t know.”
“Hmm.” He didn’t look shocked. “Why not?”
“I… don’t know how to tell him.” Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t tell him.”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Not exactly.”
“Okay. You’ve finished school?”
“Yes. I’m an interior designer. I have my own business. Mainly old ladies.”
He chuckled. “Lots of paisley and chintz.”
“Exactly.” She swallowed hard. “I have a child,” she blurted out. “A daughter.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
Tears hit again and this time she had no choice but to let them fall. There were too many to hold back. “She is wonderful. She’s everything.” Adele covered her face with her hands, unable to control her sobs. “I can’t lose her. I just can’t.”
“Why would you lose her, Adele? Are you afraid you’ll harm her in some way?”
“No.” Adele tore her hands from her face, glaring. “I would never harm my child.”
“I didn’t think so. So why are you afraid you’ll lose her?”
Adele lurched to her feet and walked to the window. She’d spent hours standing at this window. There was a garden below. Daffodils. She focused on the bright yellow flowers blowing in the wind. The pain in her chest eased.
“It’s happening again,” she whispered. “The panic. Paranoia. I can’t make it stop.”
“What’s panicking you?”
She felt the panic rise, a gorge in her throat. “They’ll put me away. Take my baby.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get there. Talk to me. Like you used to.”
She fixed her gaze on the brave yellow flowers. “Somebody’s trying to kill me.”
Tuesday, April 5, 3:00 p.m.
“Where have you been?” Daphne demanded when Grayson stopped at her desk. “I’ve been calling your cell for two hours. Why do you have a hospital bag?”
He put the bag on her desk. “Files from today’s trial. Can you refile them?”
“Why aren’t they in your briefcase?”
“Because the cops have my briefcase.” He held up his hand when she would have stormed him with questions. “I followed the woman.”
“Her name is Paige Holden,” Daphne said and tapped a thick folder. “This is all her.”
“I know her name. Tell me what you think of her.”
Daphne lifted her shoulders and let them fall. “She had an amazing life.”
“Had?”
“She was an advocate for victims’ rights, taught self-defense classes, competed internationally for martial arts titles. Until last summer.”
“When she was shot.”
Daphne’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”
“I met her, in the parking garage. She was being attacked at the moment.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. Big guy, really big knife. She fought like a tiger.”
Daphne cringed, bracing for the bad. “But?”
“She’s alive and mostly unhurt. I hit the guy with my briefcase.”
Daphne straightened, a smile dawning. “Grayson Smith, you’re a he-ro. Bona fide.” She drew it out with more of a twang than normal and his lips curved in spite of himself.
“Yeah. Anyway, the guy got away and the cops took my briefcase as evidence, in case I got his blood or hair caught in the corners. I went to the ER with Miss Holden.”
Daphne’s smile dimmed. “Did you find out why she was watching you?”
“Yes and no. And I can’t tell you much more than that, because I don’t know.”
“But it’s all about that woman who got killed this morning. Elena Muñoz.”
“That much seems certain. Can you clear my calendar for the rest of the day? I have some things I need to do.”
Grayson closed his office door and opened his desk drawer. The Muñoz file was on top of the pile. For a long moment he simply stared at the folder and counted the beats of his own heart. What if Paige was right? What if the “alleged” new evidence Elena had possessed wasn’t so alleged? What if it was real?
What if the murder weapon had been planted?
Who could have done it and why? And the million-dollar question: Had an innocent man spent six long years behind bars? And what part did I play in putting him there?
He remembered the case so very clearly. He remembered Ramon Muñoz specifically. Remembered how earnestly the man had maintained his innocence.
But they all did. All the murderers claimed they were innocent. Grayson felt contempt for them all. And here, in the quiet of his office, he knew exactly why he felt that way. At the time it hadn’t really mattered. Now it did. It mattered a lot.
He turned away from the file without touching it. Found himself staring at his reflection in the small mirror some former occupant of the office had left hanging on the wall. Green eyes stared back. His mother’s eyes.
His green eyes narrowed. He’d inherited his father’s shoulders, his dark hair, olive skin. But nothing else. Thank God.
His other features had come from his mother’s side of the family, luckily. It had made it so much easier for her to pass him off as “Grayson Smith” when they’d escaped their old life with little more than the clothes on their backs. They’d even left their names behind, telling no one who they really were. No one, not even the Carter family, who’d taken them in, given them a home. Grayson loved the Carters like they were blood, but he couldn’t tell them the truth. He didn’t want them to know. He didn’t want anyone to know.
It was their deepest secret, his and his mother’s. Their greatest shame. That someone would learn the truth was his worst fear.
He’d been only seven years old the last time he’d seen his father, but he needed no photograph to remember his face. Or the face of his father’s final victim.
He had to make himself breathe. Even now, almost thirty years later, the memory of that young woman still had the power to turn his gut to water.
She’d been a blond coed. Just like Crystal Jones. She’d been pretty. Until my father murdered her. Just like Ramon Muñoz murdered Crystal.
Or so he’d believed. The evidence had been strong, Ramon’s alibi unverifiable.
But had his own father not been a murderer, would he have prosecuted with less zeal? He’d never know. Because his father was a convicted murderer and Grayson had spent the last twenty-eight years of his life proving that he wasn’t his father’s son in any way that mattered.
Are you an honest man? He heard Paige’s voice asking the question. He wanted to be an honest man. He’d spent his life trying to be. And if Ramon is innocent? What will you do?
He’d make it right somehow. No matter what it took. I want to do the right thing.
Paige had said the same thing as he’d fought to keep her blood from spilling. She held on to me. Trusted me when she was at her most vulnerable. She’d done nothing to get sucked into all this. She’d only done her job.
Just like you did. Prosecuting Muñoz had been his job. His duty.
But if the man was not guilty, it was also his duty to set him free.
Resolutely he looked away from the mirror, down at his suit. Paige’s blood had stained his clothes. He reached for the clean suit on the hook behind his door. He
always kept a spare in the office for the times he worked through the night and had to be in court first thing. He changed, then opened the Muñoz file. It didn’t take him long to find the witness profile page he was looking for.
During the trial Grayson had been convinced Muñoz was guilty. Every witness was sure, unshakable. Except for one. That one had been nervous. Ramon’s best friend.
Jorge Delgado had been pale, repeatedly wiping his perspiring brow with a neatly folded handkerchief as he denied Ramon’s alibi. But he’d stuck to his story, even under a rigorous cross by the defense. At the time Grayson had chalked Delgado’s nervousness up to the fact that he fully understood that his testimony would be a nail in his best friend’s coffin.
Both Ramon’s best friend and the bar owner had lied, Paige had claimed. The bar owner was dead. I need to have a chat with Jorge Delgado.
Blocking his own phone number, he dialed the number on file for the Delgado home. Then frowned. The recorded message said the number had been changed. No new number was available.
That wasn’t uncommon. Many times witnesses in high-profile cases changed their phone numbers to avoid the press. His own mother had, before they ran away.
Grayson jotted Delgado’s last known contact information on a piece of paper, then stuffed the folder into his gym bag.
“I rescheduled everything,” Daphne said when he emerged. “You want me to drop your suit off at the dry cleaner’s?”
“You don’t have to do that. You know that.”
“I know, but I’m going anyway.” She held up the thick file she’d compiled on Paige. “You’ll find her fascinating.”
I do already. He shoved the file into his bag. “Thanks, Daphne. There’s something else you can do for me, if you don’t mind.” He gave her Delgado’s contact information. “I need to talk to this man. This was his address five years ago. Can you verify that he still lives there and get a current phone number, then text it to me?”
Daphne skimmed the page, then looked up, puzzled. “Okay. Sure. Be careful.”
“Always.”
Tuesday, April 5, 4:15 p.m.
Grayson let himself into the building in which he’d told Paige and Clay to meet him, glad he’d arrived before they did. The place belonged to his sister Lisa and he needed to prepare her for visitors. The reception area was deserted, but someone was back in the kitchen.
He drew an appreciative breath. Something smelled absolutely delicious. His stomach growled, forcefully reminding him he’d had nothing to eat since Daphne’s muffin that morning. There would be plenty to eat here.
Lisa Carter Winston owned the Party Palace, a catering business and party venue. Lisa was the party planner, her husband, Brian, the chef. They did a brisk business, hosting everything from weddings to bar mitzvahs to birthdays. The oldest of the Carter siblings, Lisa had a knack for setting a table and making people feel welcome. She’d had excellent role models in her parents, Jack and Katherine.
He’d met Lisa, her parents, and the three other Carter kids when he was seven, scared and scarred by the arrest and conviction of his father and all that had come after. He’d retreated into his shell, terrified he’d say the wrong thing or forget his new name, putting him and his mother in danger yet again.
Mrs. Carter had hired Grayson’s mother to be the children’s nanny, a position that came with a small apartment over the garage, a boon since they’d been living in a shabby hotel, his mother’s money mostly gone. The first person he’d met on the estate was Lisa. She’d been fourteen and self-assured. And bossy as hell. But her heart was compassionate and she’d seen how frightened he’d been. She’d taken him under her wing, just another sibling to herd.
The four Carter children became five and Mrs. Carter treated Grayson’s mother more like a sister than an employee. The Carters had absorbed them into their family.
And slowly, after months had passed, he’d begun to feel safe again. The Carters had saved their lives and Grayson never stopped being grateful.
“Lisa,” he called. “Are you here?”
A door from the back opened, and Lisa appeared, wiping her hands on an apron that had started out blue, but was now mostly white. Flour smudged her nose and one cheek. But when she saw him, she smiled. “Grayson. What are you doing here?”
“I tried to call. Nobody answered.”
“We had the music up. We’re catering a big corporate party downtown. Busy, busy.”
Grayson leaned down to kiss her cheek. “You always are. Where are the kids? I thought they were on spring break this week.”
Lisa and Brian had produced the only Carter grandchildren so far—four of them, all under ten. Katherine and Jack Carter and Grayson’s own mother never let the rest of them forget that they needed to catch up.
“Our mothers took them to the museum because they were driving me crazy.”
“I’m sorry,” he said ruefully. “I picked a bad day to drop by.”
“There’s never a bad day for you to drop by. But why did you?” Lisa lifted a hand to his face, smoothing his forehead with her thumb. “You get this crease in your forehead when you’re worried. It’s starting to be permanent. Why are you here, honey?”
He let out a breath. “I need some space,” he said and Lisa pulled back, instantly.
“I’m sorry,” she said, looking more worried. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“No,” he said, “not personal space. Meeting space.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why? What’s wrong with your office downtown?”
“I need a place where I know nobody will eavesdrop. No reporters.”
“Are you in trouble, Grayson?” she asked quietly.
Maybe. “I’ve got a situation I have to fix. I’m expecting two people to join me. They should be here soon. Can we use one of the party rooms?”
“Of course. Do you need me to call Joseph?”
Their brother—Lisa’s brother—was FBI. “Not yet. If I need him, I’ll call him. I promise.” He hoped he wouldn’t need to. He’d made a stop by his own house on the way and now felt a good bit more confident with the pistol holstered in his right boot. “For now, I’m so hungry I could eat the whole kitchen.”
“I’ll bring you some…” Her voice trailed away as the front door opened and two people entered, along with a very large dog.
“You made it,” Grayson said, relieved. He hadn’t been entirely sure Paige would show. That she’d brought the dog was a surprise, but probably shouldn’t have been, based on what he’d gleaned from the ER doctor. He hadn’t read any of the file Daphne had compiled. He would, later, but he rather hoped Paige would tell him herself.
“I’m sorry we’re a little late,” Paige said. “I had to change my clothes.”
And had she ever. Once again she wore black, but that’s where any similarity to her earlier outfit ended. No longer did she wear tailored slacks and a sweater that somehow simultaneously draped and hugged every curve. He had to draw a steadying breath and try very hard not to stare, because now her pants clung to every curve, too.
She had amazing legs. The loose sweater had been replaced by a tight turtleneck that almost hid the wound on her throat. Only about a quarter inch of white bandage showed. But nobody would be looking at the bandage, he thought darkly. Their eyes would never make it up that high. The jacket she wore over the sweater closely molded breasts that would be more than a handful for any man.
Or a mouthful, if that man was really, really lucky.
Her boots changed her look from bombshell to lethal. They were combat boots, made for running. And for kicking the shit out of anyone who came too close. His eyes traveled up, pausing at her jacket. There was a slight bulge under her left arm.
Hell. She was packing. He wasn’t sure if he was appalled, relieved, or intrigued. Maybe all three. Plus a healthy dose of totally turned on.
Grayson cleared his throat, conscious of Clay watching him with a mixture of suspicion and wry understanding. “I hope this place wasn’
t hard for you two to find.”
“Not at all,” Paige said. “But I wasn’t expecting… well, all this. Can Peabody stay?”
Lisa was staring. “Grayson? Perhaps introductions are in order?”
“Sorry. Lisa Carter Winston, Paige Holden and her associate, Clay Maynard.”
Clay inclined his head. “Ma’am.”
“And that’s Peabody,” Grayson said, pointing at the dog.
“I’m so sorry.” Paige’s cheeks flushed. “I shouldn’t have brought my dog.”
Lisa regained her composure and offered Paige her hand. “I’m Grayson’s sister. You’re the woman from TV, aren’t you? The one they’re calling the Good Sam.”
Paige’s flush deepened. “Yeah, that’d be me.”
Lisa studied the bandage on her throat. “They didn’t say you were hurt.”
Paige touched her throat self-consciously. “This happened… later.”
Lisa’s eyes flew to Grayson’s. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call Joseph?”
Grayson looked at Maynard. “Were you followed?”
“Not that I could see.”
“I think we’re okay,” Grayson told Lisa. “Can we lock this main door?”
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Go on into the Gingerbread House. I’ll bring you some food.”
“What about my dog?” Paige asked and Lisa smiled at her kindly.
“The Gingerbread House is used for kids’ parties and sometimes we have service animals in there. For today’s purposes, he can be a service dog, okay?”
Relief flashed in Paige’s eyes. “Thank you. I’ll make sure he behaves.”
“Not a problem,” Lisa said. “He can’t be any worse than a party of spoiled four-year-olds. Go, get comfortable. No one will bother you here.”
Paige followed Grayson and Clay into the room and then stood in the middle of the “Gingerbread House,” turning in a slow circle.
“Wow.” It was like being in a real gingerbread house. The walls looked like cookies and had giant lollipops sticking out at random angles. “Kids have parties here?”
“In this room,” Grayson said. “There are eight party rooms, plus a banquet hall for wedding receptions. Lisa’s husband started the catering business and Lisa turned it into a one-stop party shop.” He pointed to an adult-sized table. “We can talk here.”