Defender: A Stepbrother Romance Read online

  I’d have to talk the kid into taking a plea. That was the best he was going to get at that point in the game. And even that was not going to be easy. Not only would I have to call in a favor with the assistant DA to secure a deal in the first place, Stone’s nephew was one of those spoiled rich kids who thought he could get away with murder if he paid the right lawyer. He would never agree to any jail time. But with his previous convictions and the witnesses, even having the best lawyer in the country wouldn’t get him out of a time behind bars.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  My assistant, Kendra, came into the room with a stack of messages in her hand. I watched her, my eyes automatically taking in her slim figure and her caramel colored skin. Last week, I would have imagined her naked in my bed—I actually had imagined her naked in my bed last week—but right now, I just wanted her to disappear. I wanted to concentrate on a case I had a potential of winning. I wanted to do something productive, something that would have a good ending. I wanted to help someone. But I suspected she wasn’t approaching with good news or something that would even remotely help me meet that goal.

  “I’m having some trouble getting the paperwork from the Lubbock police on your sister’s arrest. They’re saying that it hasn’t been processed yet?”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “I did talk to the cop who arrived first on the scene, though.”

  That got my attention. I looked up and gestured for her to continue.

  She shook her head. “He gave me the company line: ‘It was a MVA involving two cars. Your sister’s car struck the back of the other guy’s car, causing extensive damage to her car. She was transported to the hospital while the other guy refused medical care on the scene.”

  “Did he happen to mention the blood alcohol test he told my stepfather they’d performed?”

  “No.”

  “Did he mention the fact that he put the other guy in cuffs upon arrival?”

  “No.”

  “Did he mention if they did a field sobriety test on the other guy?”

  “No.”

  “Then what good is that going to do me? It doesn’t offer anything more than what I already knew.”

  Unfazed by my annoyance, Kendra just shrugged. “I suppose it proves that he’s willing to talk. We just have to figure out how to get him to tell the truth.”

  I started to tell her she was wasting my time when I realized that she was right. The fact that the cop talked to her at all was encouraging. I inclined my head slightly and turned back to my computer.

  “Mr. Stone’s been calling down here several times a day since you left. He says he needs to talk to you about a personal situation.”

  “I know what that’s about. The next time he calls, tell him I’m talking with the DA.”

  “And your mother called. She said that she needs to talk to you about something to do with your sister’s job.”

  Mention of Eden made the words on my computer swim. I just nodded and gestured for Kendra to leave me alone. But I could feel her eyes on me even as I tried to ignore the fact that she was ignoring me.

  “Is there something else?” I asked, my words clipped.

  “I was just wondering if you needed anything else?”

  “If I did, I would have told you.”

  She nodded. “Good to have you back.”

  It might have been sarcasm, but it didn’t sound that way. I watched her walk away, again thinking that I should be thinking about her perfect ass. She looked like a model, like Tyra Banks or Vanessa Williams, her fit body displayed nicely under her tight skirt and silk blouse. But while I sat there watching her, all I could think about was Eden in that cheap, terrycloth robe the night before.

  I needed a drink.

  I gathered my files and dumped them in my expensive, well-used briefcase and headed out, causing some of the secretaries to cast odd looks in my direction. I rarely ever left the office before midnight unless I had a date, and on those occasions I was often back behind my desk if the date didn’t go well—or if it did. Work was my obsession. But that night I just couldn’t concentrate.

  I thought maybe if I had a few drinks, got back into a regular routine, maybe Eden would get out of my head and I could go back to a normal life. But even as I raced to the courthouse the next morning to enter a plea for a client, I thought I saw Eden walking along a busy sidewalk. When I burst through the office door of the assistant DA handling the case for Stone’s nephew, I thought I heard her voice coming from one of the many cubicles laid out behind me. Everywhere I went, Eden was there.

  * * *

  Two days after returning from Texas, I couldn’t avoid Stone any more. I was summoned to his office just as I’d secured a plea deal from the assistant DA. I thought I would present it to him, and he would balk but eventually see my side of things. I was wrong.

  “My nephew will not plead out.”

  He said it calmly, his eyes level with mine. It was almost like we were discussing the weather or something.

  “This is really his best option. I got him five years. If he goes to court, he could face fifteen or more.”

  “I know the law,” Mr. Stone said, his tone like ice. “My nephew isn’t guilty.”

  “They have witnesses.”

  “Witnesses lie.”

  I nodded. I knew that. I’ve come across dozens of witnesses who swore they saw my clients do any number of things. But when I cross examined them in court, those stories always fell apart like a cookie crumbles in a toddler’s hand. It was possible these frat boys were lying. But instinct told me they weren’t. And my instincts never lied the way witnesses do.

  “I don’t think we should take the chance.”

  Stone sat back in his custom made office chair, his arms crossed over his chest. “You don’t think? Is this your nephew we’re talking about?”

  “No. But I know that when family’s involved—“

  “I realize you’ve had some family issues recently, Mr. Foster. But don’t confuse your problems with mine.”

  I stiffened as anger coursed through me. He had a lot of nerve bringing up Eden’s case, as if what she was wrapped up in could compare in any way to what Mr. Stone’s nephew had done. I sat a little straighter in my chair and literally bit the inside of my cheek to keep from saying what jumped to my tongue.

  “You will find witnesses who can counter the witnesses against my nephew. And you will take this case to court and you will win it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You can kiss any chance of obtaining a senior partnership in this firm or any other in New York goodbye.”

  I nodded, aware that he would make that threat, aware that he was the kind of man who was petty enough to think that that kind of threat would work on me, aware that he had enough clout in the legal arena of New York—not just the city, but the entire state—to follow through on the threat. I was even aware that if I was in his position, I probably would have made the same threat. That was the cut throat business we worked in and the world that we thrived in.

  “I don’t think this case is winnable, Mr. Stone. Your nephew has a record. He’s been caught with substantial amounts of illegal drugs before. The only reason he wasn’t charged with intent to sell before was because you pulled in a few favors. In fact, I suspect the only reason I’m on the case this time is because you called in every favor you could already and don’t have any left. You were counting on the fact that I have some favors left with the DA’s office.”

  Stone just stared at me, not denying what I was saying, but not confirming it, either. But his silence was enough to suggest I was right. The truth was, I’d known all this from the start.

  “But I don’t think I want to use up all my favors to help out your nephew.” Now that was a surprise to me. I hadn’t realized I was going to say it until it was out of my mouth. But the moment it was, I realized that I meant every word of it.

  Mr. Stone’s arms unfolded, and he stared at me with steel in hi
s eyes. “You better watch yourself,” he told me quietly.

  “You need to accept the fact that your nephew is a drug dealer, and no lawyer in this town, no matter how good, will get him a better deal than the one I got him.”

  “Are you slow, Mr. Foster? We will not be taking a plea deal.”

  “Five years is unheard of in a case like this.”

  “My nephew is twenty years old. Five years is a lifetime to a kid that age.”

  “He should have thought of that before he decided to become a drug dealer.”

  Mr. Stone slammed his hand against the top of his desk. “I will not say this again, Mr. Foster. You will get my nephew off. I don’t care if you have to work night and day. I don’t care if you have to give up your personal life. I don’t even care if your little sister goes to jail for ramming her car into that cop kid’s car. My nephew will not go to jail!”

  I suddenly saw red. I was controlling my anger until he brought up Eden. If he hadn’t done that, I liked to think that things might have gone differently. But he brought her up and put an image into my head that I’d been trying to avoid since my mother first informed me of her accident. I’d seen the inside of a Texas prison. I wasn’t going to let Eden see one.

  “Then you’d better find him another lawyer.” I stood up and destroyed my career in one simple act of defiance. “No one can keep that boy out of prison, and the deal I got for him leaves this room with me. So, I wish you luck, Mr. Stone.”

  “You leave this room and you’re fired!”

  “I kind of figured that already.” I smiled mockingly as I turned to leave the room.

  * * *

  * * *

  I was well on the way to being drunk when someone knocked on my door. I stood up, sloshing a couple of drops of whiskey onto my hand as I walked unsteadily across the room. When I wrenched open the door, I was mildly surprised to see Kendra standing there, dressed in her typical office wear—a pencil skirt and pink silk blouse. She had a stack of files in her arms and a soft smile on her lips as she took in my bare feet, jeans, and vintage t-shirt.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, proud that I hadn’t slurred my words too badly.

  “I thought you could use these,” she said, gesturing with the files. “The police report from your sister’s accident and copies of the photos.”

  “You made hard copies?”

  “They sent them. I just got them this morning.”

  I started to reach for them, but I still had my drink in my hand. I gestured for her to come inside, and she hesitated only briefly. I slammed the door once she was clear and went into the kitchen to top off my drink. When I walked back into the living room, she was looking over the files I’d been studying all day, reading through the notes I’d made.

  “You think they did a blood alcohol test on him?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  She nodded, setting her files down next to the files I’d printed from my email—the investigative report on Eden’s accident, part of the hospital records, and her arrest warrant. She had hard copies and more importantly, the photos. I sat on the edge of the couch and watched as she laid them out exactly as I would have done. I found myself staring at Eden’s unconscious form with that horrifying gash across the top of her head. I felt the scar that it left that night…I couldn’t get the memory of it out of my head. It could have been so much worse.

  “She’s pretty,” Kendra said.

  “Yeah,” I said, the word half-drowned in a swallow of whiskey.

  She glanced back at me but didn’t say anything. Instead, she turned back to the photos and continued to lay them out. Once my coffee table was covered in photos and various paperwork, she turned to the couch and laid more there. I was barely able to focus, my eyes drawn repeatedly back to the pictures of the gash in Eden’s head.

  “What caused that?”

  Kendra turned to the photos and studied them too. “Could it be from the steering wheel?”

  I shook my head. “The steering wheel in her car is fairly low. For her to hit the top of her head like that, she would have had to be sitting at an odd angle.”

  “What about something in the car? An object that flew around on impact? I’ve heard of that happening.”

  I picked up the photo and looked at it a little closer, focusing on the gash rather than Eden’s bruised face. It was a long, wide gash that had jagged edges. That meant that whatever cut was blunt. It couldn’t have been the windshield. And the air bag deployed, so it likely wasn’t anything around the steering wheel. But it could’ve been the edge of a door…

  “Are there pictures of her car?”

  “Here,” Kendra said, grabbing one from the couch and handing it to me.

  I studied it for a long minute, an idea forming that I wasn’t sure I wanted to pursue. It looked like Eden’s car was hit from a different angle than the report suggested. They said that she hit Joel from behind, so the damage to her car would have been primarily to the front. And there was damage there, significant damage. But there was more damage to the passenger side than to the driver’s side.

  I grabbed another photo, this one of Joel’s car. There was very little damage to his car—mostly because those expensive, luxury cars were made of steel, as a car should be, instead of the plastic and fiberglass they made most new, everyday cars—but there was some damage to the quarter panel at the back of the driver’s side. And there were no pictures of the front of Joel’s car at all.

  That made me curious.

  “We need to hire an accident reconstructionist.”

  “I know a good one,” Kendra said. “He testified in a case my former boss worked on.”

  I looked at her, reality crashing down on me. “You don’t work for me anymore.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “No. I don’t work for Stone, Price, and Goldman anymore.”

  I tilted my head. “Just because I got fired doesn’t mean you don’t work there anymore.”

  “When I turned in my resignation an hour after you left, it kind of means that.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  Kendra turned back to her files and continued setting things out into well-organized piles. “You found me. I work for you.”

  “But I only have one case, and it’s my sister, so I’m not getting paid.”

  “So?”

  “And it’s in Texas.”

  “Did I ever tell you I grew up in Texas? That my Mom lives in the Lubbock area?”

  I sat blankly.

  She nodded. “She actually works at the courthouse there. She’s a clerk in Judge Ramsey’s office.”

  I started to laugh. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “Nope. How do you think I got these photos so quickly?”

  I laughed even harder. Just when I thought I’d pissed away every good thing in my life… “Would it be wrong for me to kiss you right now?”

  I think she blushed a little. But instead of responding, she simply made a new pile with the information she’d brought with her.

  I set my glass down and rubbed my hands together, that old excitement that used to come when I began a new case building in my chest.

  “Let’s do this,” I said.

  Kendra just nodded, pulling out a legal pad and settling back, waiting for me to instruct her on what to do next.

  Eighteen

  Eden

  I was stumbling through my front door with an armful of groceries when my cellphone began to ring. I rushed to the table and dropped the bags, hoping my eggs weren’t one of them. I tugged the phone out of my back pocket and my heart jumped into my throat when I saw Crawford’s name on the display.

  What does he want?

  It had been a week since he went back to New York. He hadn’t called or texted or emailed the entire time. I thought about letting it go to voice mail, but then decided that would only cause my mind to wander the rest of the day if he didn’t leave a message. And he was handling my case, after all.

&nb
sp; “What do you want, Crawford?”

  “Nice greeting.”

  “Do you want me to be nice, or do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  He chuckled, which surprised me a little. I thought the way we’d left things would leave him in a less than humorous mood. It had me.

  “I need to talk to you about your case. The DA’s office is pushing to set your trial date sooner rather than later. And I think we should go with it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they plan to indict you this week, and then they want to set the trial date for next month. And I think we should let them.”

  My heart sank. I hadn’t really thought about how long it would take before I went on trial. But I really didn’t think it would be that quick. I hadn’t yet gotten over the whole arrest thing, and he wanted me to go to trial? I wasn’t ready.

  “Crawford—“

  “Let’s meet somewhere, Eden. Let me take you to dinner.”

  “You’re in town?”

  “I just got here.”

  Another surprise. I hadn’t thought he would come back willingly, let alone come back so quickly. “I didn’t think you’d want to see me again.”

  “You’re my sister, my client.”

  I noticed he didn’t say lover.

  “What do you say, Eden?” he asked. “Can I take you to dinner?”

  “What time?”

  “Give me a couple of hours. About eight?”

  I had nothing better to do that night.

  * * *

  * * *

  I chose to wear a black dress Jeannie gave me a year before for my birthday, a tight, slinky affair that was not my taste—it was actually something Jeannie would wear, and I offered to give to her—but it fit my mood. I wanted to torture Crawford. I wanted him to hurt the way I’d been hurting all week. I wanted him to see exactly what he was missing out on by walking away from me.