Courting Danger Page 2

  No, we weren’t. He had picked the wrong woman on the wrong day. I faked a stumble, twisted and whacked him over the head with my briefcase.

  Berserko shrieked in pain but he wasn’t down.

  Yet.

  I spun and jammed my Jimmy Choo stiletto heel into the man’s groin. White-faced, the man dropped like a stone to the floor, writhing in agony.

  “Would someone like to arrest this man?” I called out. “I’d like to get on with my hearing.”

  The judge’s door cracked open. The bailiff scrambled up and rushed over to cuff the prisoner. Winewski ventured out, his incredulous gaze darting from the prisoner to me.

  I tugged the corners of my fitted jacket. “Judge, I believe next on your docket is the case of the State versus Simone Jean-Charles. If the Assistant State Attorney can be located…” I lifted a brow.

  “Feinstein, get in here!” the judge bellowed.

  The hall door creaked and moments later Leo stood behind the opposite table, but he kept casting a nervous glance at Berserko being escorted outside.

  “Mr. Feinstein, if you can quit worrying about your hide and focus on the matter of Simone Jean-Charles, we might finish before lunch.”

  “Judge, I have an ore tenus motion to suppress,” I said.

  “The excitement going to your head, Ms. Rochelle?”

  “No, Your Honor. If you would look at State’s Exhibits One and Two, the arresting officer’s affidavit and police report.”

  Leo, his face flushed as he struggled with his file, snapped, “Which exhibits?”

  “One and Two. Get with the program, Counselor.” The judge shuffled a few papers. “I have the exhibits. Proceed, Ms. Rochelle.”

  “The probable cause basis for the traffic stop of my client was information Officer Pitt received when he called in her tag number that her car was connected to a robbery.”

  “So? That’s a textbook stop.”

  “Compare the number the officer called in and the number on his report. He transposed the last numbers.”

  “Eh?” The judge’s brows drew together.

  “The officer stopped the wrong car for the wrong cause, Judge. Anything he found is the result of an illegal search. The charges should be dismissed.”

  “Any response, Mr. Feinstein?”

  Leo’s mouth opened and closed.

  “Thought so. Defendant’s motion is granted. The charges are dismissed. Next case.”

  Oh yeah, I felt like doing a happy dance, but instead I whispered to Simone that everything was going to be okay. I sauntered across the courtroom out into the hall. The moment the door swung closed behind me, I pumped my fist in the air. “Yes!”

  I was back.

  An hour later I squealed my gold-colored Jaguar to a stop behind the shell-pink stucco one-story building that housed the Law Offices of Dent, Rochelle and Sterling. I entered through the back door into the warren of offices and cubicles that was the heart of our operations. I paused, absorbing the dull clatter of keyboard keys and low voices on phones.

  Not for the first time, pride burned in me. This was ours. This law firm represented the hopes, dreams and wills of three women who had formed a bond in the early days of law school. I would do my part to hold up my end. I wouldn’t let my friends down.

  After walking down the abbreviated hall, I entered the second office on the right, dropping both my purse and briefcase on my desk. As I sat with relief, I noticed a telephone message propped against the phone and grimaced. Big, bold letters, words underlined.

  “Great. Perfect morning so far.”

  “Talking to yourself?” Carling Dent, her sharp elfin features split by a wide grin, asked as she entered. Because she was dipping a tea bag in her mug, her normal bounce was more like a flounce.

  I motioned for her to close the door. Halfway across the room she stopped and stared.

  “What happened to you? Since when did morning hearings turn into a demolition derby?”

  “Just my luck.” Shucking off my jacket, I examined the gaping side seam, mentally adding a trip to the cleaners on my to-do list.

  “All right, Kate. Give.” Carling plopped herself into a plush client chair. “Did Winewski and you go a round?”

  I wiggled out of my ruined panty hose, balled them up and tossed them into the wastebasket. “Hardly.”

  Anyone who saw this dark-haired babe and what they imagined to be a vapid gaze with her soft green eyes was in for a rude awakening. Carling was sharp as a tack and had the instincts for nailing a person to the wall.

  “Wasn’t he a friend of your grandfather’s?” she asked.

  “Former,” I corrected as I pulled out a package of panty hose from my bottom drawer.

  “Gave you a hard time?”

  “Started to.” I slid the nylons over my pedicured feet and stood to pull on the hose. “Then the defendant on the docket before me took exception to Winewski’s suspending his driver’s license. After decking his lawyer, he made the mistake of grabbing me. He figured because I was a ‘girlie’ he could use me as a shield.”

  “Next time he’ll be sure to ask about your sports trophies. Naturally, you were the victor.”

  I smoothed out my skirt but smothered an oath when I spotted the blood on my favorite royal-blue blouse. It would never come out. “You should have seen Leo Feinstein run for the high hills the moment trouble broke out.”

  “Leo had traffic detail?”

  Rummaging in the drawer, I found a patterned silk scarf that wasn’t too bad a match for the remnants of my outfit. “He’s down to six hairs.”

  My friend snickered. “Get this. I heard that he’s planning to do hair implants.”

  I suppressed a shudder. “I don’t even want to think about where the hair will come from. He’s too cheap to spring for anything on the high end.”

  As I wound the scarf around my neck, Carling sprang up and rushed around the desk. “My God, Kate. Your throat!”

  Granted, it hurt to swallow, but her look of horror sent me scrambling for a mirror. Gingerly I peeled away the collar. The vivid bruise ran from red to purple in a solid band across the base of my throat. Carling’s fingers were gentle as she touched the skin, but I still winced at the stab of pain.

  “That bastard had you by the throat, didn’t he!” she demanded.

  “Yes.” I buttoned the top of my blouse. The material was silk and wouldn’t scratch the abused skin too much. I then looped the scarf one more time around my neck for extra coverage.

  “You should see a doctor. What’s your schedule for the rest of the day? I’ll cover. You leave now and seek medical attention.” She snapped out the series of orders like a general going to battle.

  “You’ll even cover the summons from Aunt Hilary?”

  The look of abject horror on her face tickled me. I gave her a quick hug. “I didn’t think so.”

  She swallowed, hard. “I can call and tell her you’re indisposed.”

  I opened the door to the small closet, took out a black blazer and put it on, remembering to transfer the antacid roll into the pocket. Although it covered only part of the damage, this jacket would have to do. No time to go home and change. Aunt Hilary needed to make her club luncheon.

  I pivoted. “Well, how do I look?”

  Carling folded her arms and took her sweet time surveying me from head to toe. “Like someone who has been through the ringer and is trying to cover up.”

  My arms dropped. “Thanks a lot.”

  My friend’s lips curved in a big smile. “You’ll do, Katherine.” Her emphasis on my name didn’t go unnoticed. In the world I had once inhabited, my formal name was always used. Carling had been the first daring enough to shorten it. And it was into that former environment I was now heading.

  Carling gave me a thumbs-up. “Good luck.”

  “I’m going to need it,” I said under my breath as I crossed the room.

  “If you don’t return in an hour, we’ll send out a search party to the cemetery
of dead debutantes.”

  “Ha-ha.” I opened the door and reached into my pocket.

  “Kate.” I looked back. Carling would make a great mother. “You’re stronger than you think.”

  I slid my hand clear and displayed my empty palm. “This advice from a woman who would rather cut a vein than confront my great-aunt.” I winked and left before she could recover. Getting the last dig in was always a challenge with her.

  Outside I blinked against the glare of the sunshine and crossed the postage-stamp parking lot in a few strides. As I drove out of the lot I thumbed another antacid tablet from the roll.

  For once traffic wasn’t snarled along Flagler Drive. While oil tycoon Henry Flagler may have started West Palm Beach as a bedroom community for the servants and workers of Palm Beach, to keep them out of sight from his rich cronies he brought in on his railroad, today West Palm Beach was its own city. Technology, banking, tourism, and even the entertainment industry had prospered here. True, it had a tawdry underbelly, but it had a personality of its own.

  I loved it.

  I drove across the bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway and on the other side entered the preening world that was Palm Beach. Regal royal palm trees lining the pristine road swayed in the breeze. Chic shops and restaurants thrived with customers. Valets in jaunty white jackets or crisp white shirts ran back and forth, parking a succession of Mercedes, Rolls-Royces and Jaguars.

  I turned onto Ocean Boulevard and drove past one stunning mansion after another. Only light waves ruffled the Atlantic Ocean while the late March sky was crystal blue, not a cloud in sight. A picture-perfect tourist day in paradise. So why couldn’t I relax and enjoy it?

  Because I no longer belonged here.

  Turning onto a driveway of hexagonal pavestones, I punched in a security code and waited for the massive wrought-iron gates to open. I passed immaculately cultivated gardens, lush with fronds of palmetto, areca and foxtail palms and vivid blossoms of verbena, hibiscus and bougainvillea. I parked in the semicircle at the front of the palatial house, took a deep breath, and with the practiced grace of the debutante, swept from my car.

  I needed to be at the top of my game. This morning had been a cakewalk when compared to the judge, jury and executioner waiting inside.

  Chapter 2

  “Good morning, Edwin.”

  “Good morning, Miss Katherine.” Edwin greeted me from the Palladium-styled doorway. Although he had been my great-aunt and uncle’s butler for only a few months, he was cut from the same mode as the long line of Rochelle butlers before him. Always there before you knew you needed him.

  Of course the household staff was so large that there were many unseen eyes and ears to note the arrival of a car. Still, it was decidedly spooky how Edwin would appear at the door before the bell sounded.

  “Madam requests your presence on the rear loggia.” In keeping with his training, Edwin’s only reaction to my less than stellar appearance was a micro-fractional disdainful lift of his brow. Otherwise, his face remained expressionless as he stepped back to let me inside. “She’s finishing her laps.”

  But of course she was. If there was one constant in Hilary Rochelle Wilkes’s life, other than duty, it was her swimming.

  “Thank you, Edwin.”

  I moved across the spacious foyer, skirting the center dominated by the overhead Baccarat chandelier. Suspended from the thirty-two-foot domed ceiling, the dazzling gilt bronze fixture dripped with opulent crystals. Once as a kid, I had watched as a hurricane-force gust of wind caught the chandelier and tossed it up in the air like a tennis ball before letting it drop. A falling shard of glass had speared my upper arm. Even the top plastic surgeon called to the emergency room by my aunt and uncle hadn’t prevented the half-moon scar that was a permanent reminder.

  As I reached the hallway leading to the ocean side, I cast one regretful glance toward the twin stairways that curved and twisted to the upper levels. A cautious person would’ve kept a change of clothes in her former bedroom. Only a rash person would burn all bridges by removing all her possessions in a desperate bid for identity.

  I straightened the edge of my jacket and walked down the sweep of marbled corridor. For a moment I paused in the double French doors framed by amber silk brocade curtains to collect myself.

  The view was primo Palm Beach: bands of green, gold and blue. Every rainy season the beach, like a worn wedding ring, would be tarnished, narrowing to a slip under the onslaught of storm-driven waves. Every year the inhabitants would lobby to have the beach restored. Mustn’t mess with property value. The rich and famous had seasonal homes on the beach, so that the beach must be perfect.

  I used to believe the city council sent workers onto the beach every day before dawn to arrange shells so that the temporary residents would have the thrill of finding one. Once I crept down in a quest to catch the shell scatterers at work, but I only managed to step on a Portuguese man-of-war left by the tide. That ill-advised outing had catapulted me to a finishing school in Switzerland.

  I crossed the patio and then went down the steps to the pool deck. With a smooth flip that barely rippled the water, my aunt made her turn at the deep end of the pool. In her youth Hilary’s prowess as a swimmer had earned her a spot on the Olympic team. Her bronze medallion held a place of honor over the fireplace in her sitting room. Although her years of competition were long behind her, she maintained a rigorous swimming regimen. I would match her stamina against today’s generation of women anytime.

  “Are you going to stand there all day dreaming?” Wearing a peach tank swimming suit that showed off both her athletic form and golden tan to their best advantage, she stood in the shallow end. Ignoring the steps, she placed her hands on the side and pushed clear of the pool.

  “No, Aunt Hilary.” I walked to the stack of towels and handed one to her. Although her actual date of birth was a secret as safeguarded as the gold in Fort Knox, Hilary had to be in her late sixties, early seventies, but she radiated the health of a forty-year-old. Her strict swimming regimen kept her thighs firm, her body lithe. Although her wet hair was sleeked back, I knew a superb hairstylist kept the trademark Rochelle hair a gleaming blond and arranged in a style contemporary in fashion but not inappropriately youthful.

  After she dried off, I handed her a terry-cloth robe. Only then did she present her cheek for my air-kiss. She crossed to the wrought-iron-and-glass-top table and sat down. I followed, taking a chair that faced the sun and the inquisition I knew was coming.

  “You look like something that dreadful cat of yours dragged in.”

  “Gee, thanks, Aunt Hilary. You look fabulous as always.”

  “Don’t get cheeky with me, young lady. Not after all I’ve done for you.” Hilary could look down her regal nose and make a person squirm at twenty paces. I resisted the fidget but issued the expected apology.

  “Sorry.”

  Without a word a maid appeared with a tray of frosted Waterford glasses of iced teas, and after serving us, just as silently disappeared. While Hilary sipped the sweetened brew with a twist of key lime, I studied her over the rim of my glass.

  I had to hand it to her. No matter what the situation, my great-aunt always radiated strength, power and composure. Too bad Hilary was as cold as the Hubbard Glacier inside.

  Whoa, watch the poor-little-rich-girl routine. After all, where would you have been without Hilary when Mom so lovingly dumped you on the doorstep?

  Presented with a wailing baby, Hilary with her code of family duty had more than risen to the occasion. She had given me a home, such as it was. She had given all that she could.

  It was not her fault that the burden of being a Rochelle had long ago burned out any softer emotions in her. And not my fault that I could never measure up to her level of perfection.

  I placed the glass on the table without the slightest clink, as I had been taught. I folded my napkin, and along with it a child’s desperate need for love, and tucked it beside the glass.

&nb
sp; “Aunt Hilary, you know I’ll always be grateful for what you did for me.”

  The faint lines of displeasure framing her mouth eased. She nodded and leaned back in her chair.

  “Your new office is doing well?”

  I couldn’t resist a quick grin. “The Law Firm of Debt, Default and Miscarriage is doing great.”

  Her fine brows knitted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “An insider’s joke. When Carling, Nicole and I were in law school, we used to joke about opening a practice with that name.”

  Remembering those days in the local bar frequented by the law students, and my friends’ discussions late into the night, satisfaction once more surged in me. By God, we had done it. After all the pain, setbacks and disappointments the three of us had experienced in our careers, we had joined forces to open our own firm. We would make it on our own, defying the all-old-boys’ network that still prevailed in this neck of the legal world.

  “Oh, I see.” My aunt cleared her throat. “I would imagine you’ll be handling only civil matters given what happened to you at the U.S. Attorney’s office.”

  Ah, here we go. She finally was getting to the reason she had summoned me. She was going to make a last-ditch effort to convince me to take a “title only” position with one of the family’s businesses. Hilary always manipulated a person until she had you trapped in a corner with no escape.

  I kept my voice cool and level; she must not hear any uncertainty or vulnerability in my tone.

  “No, we’re a criminal defense firm, which means I’ll be helping people charged with anything from misdemeanors to felonies.” That is, as soon as I could get my own clients rather than taking files over from Carling and Nicole. Their former positions with the Public Defender and State Attorney offices had given them a decided advantage in referrals. My past wasn’t so kind. It was not every day a CEO caught with his hand in the employee pension cookie jar—the kind I used to prosecute—walked off the street into a small law firm.

  Maybe, just maybe, my victory this morning would help to rebuild my damaged reputation. Using my trust-fund monies for the start-up costs of the firm only made me a financial partner. For my self-respect I had to pull my own weight with client referrals.