a lot. Today, on the rare occasion she talked about him, all she would say was, I don’t know. Mostly she liked to forget that he existed. Who she was at this moment in time—that was her only reality.
“Back then, she just wanted out,” Jake said. “Now she has doubts. For what it’s worth, his son never doubted him.”
“Children generally don’t doubt their parents.” Her voice was soft, her expression distant. Was she wondering if she was safe in blind loyalty to her father? Did she have even the slightest fear that Jake might uncover evidence that Riordan wasn’t the man she believed him to be?
Would she hate Jake if he did find such proof?
“I’d better get back to work.”
He glanced around and realized they were back where they’d started. The courthouse, tall and imposing, was across the street, the senator’s office a few doors down. The cop she’d called Derek was sitting in the shade near his patrol car, authoritatively watching everyone’s comings and goings. He perked up when he saw them.
“Will you have lunch with me?” Jake asked, turning his back on the cop.
“No. I can’t.”
“Come on. I don’t like eating alone, and you’re the only person I’ve met who doesn’t look at me like I have two heads.”
That earned him a hint of a smile. “Your book places us in an adversarial position, Mr. Norris. I think it’s best if we act as such.”
“The senator’s orders?” he asked while imagining a few other positions he’d rather be in with her.
“I prefer to think of it as advice—good advice.”
“You know I’m attracted to you.”
His candor surprised her. Given that she worked in politics, she probably wasn’t used to blunt honesty. On the heels of the surprise came a rosy flush that tinted her cheeks. “I—I—” She backed away a few steps. “I really need to get back to work.”
He chuckled as she closed the few yards to the office door. As she reached for the handle, he called, “See you around.”
This time, instead of a muttered Not if I see you first, her only response was a slight wave before she disappeared inside the building.
He went to his truck, tossed his backpack inside, then called, “Hey, Derek. You ready to go?”
Harold Markham was in his midseventies, round about the middle and white-haired. Through his religious pursuit of such activities as golf and fishing he maintained a year-round tan that made his eyes a more startling blue in comparison. Startling and suspicious as they fixed on Kylie’s face. “What do you mean you’re here for the transcript?”
Odd. She thought the request was self-explanatory. She’d debated how to approach Judge Markham—whether to be up front and tell him she was returning the file to the court clerk’s office so Norris could check it out, or to blur the truth a little. I told Martha I’d pick up the file and save you both a trip. Or even outright lie: The senator asked me to get the file from you for safekeeping. She’d settled on simply asking for it.
“You do have it, don’t you? Martha told me you checked it out last week. She said you should have brought it back last Friday.” She forced a friendly smile. “You know how she is with her records.”
The judge didn’t smile in return. He simply watched her stonily.
She sighed. Though it was only four o’clock, she’d had a long day filled with distractions. Correction: filled with one big distraction. If she wasn’t catching glimpses of Jake Norris as he drove by the square, she was thinking about him. About his book. The threat the senator presumed him to be. The questions he’d raised. That last comment he’d made.
You know I’m attracted to you. She’d heard a few clever lines and a lot that weren’t, but none had had the power of that simple statement. It had sent an icy shiver down her spine at the same time heat had curled through her belly. She’d wanted to admit that she felt the same, had wanted to agree to lunch, dinner, breakfast and anything—everything—in between. She’d wanted to be wild and wicked and wanton…. But in the end she’d simply been herself.
Kylie Riordan, living a very dull life.
It was for the best. He was a very determined man, and so was her father. Between them was no place to be stuck.
“Missy?”
She refocused on Judge Markham. When she was little, he’d called her Miss Kylie and treated her like a princess. Somewhere along the way he’d dropped the Kylie and switched to Missy, and what had begun as affection had come to feel like condescension. She used the annoyance it stirred to shield her from the guilt as she prepared to lie. “I’m sorry, Judge. The senator called this morning and mentioned the transcript. His message was, naturally, a little vague.”
Judge Markham nodded as if the senator being vague in a private phone call with his daughter made perfect sense.
“He mentioned you and the transcript. I thought he wanted me to take it for safekeeping.”
“What time this morning?”
“Shortly after I arrived at the office.”
He nodded as if that meant something. “Well, he called me this afternoon and told me to destroy it, and that’s what I did. Clearly he recognized the wisdom of my method of safekeeping.” Rising from his chair, he patted her shoulder on his way to the door. He didn’t seem to notice that, despite his clear invitation to leave, she was frozen in her seat.
Destroying court records—that was a felony. Her father couldn’t possibly have suggested…Judge Markham surely must have misunderstood…the senator never would have condoned…
Acid bubbled in her stomach, and her limbs were rigidly locked in place. When her brain finally gave the command to rise, she had to push to her feet, forcibly straightening her knees, mechanically lifting one foot, then the other, to walk across the judge’s library and into the marbled foyer.
“You forgot your bag, Missy.”
It took a moment for the words to clear the buzzing in her ears, for her mind to make sense of them. “My…bag?”
The judge disappeared into the library, then returned holding her purse at arm’s length as if carrying it properly might bring his manhood into question. He offered it to her, then, when she made no effort to take it, impatiently slid the strap over her limp arm to her shoulder. “Are you okay?”
She gave herself a mental shake. “Y-yes. Just a…a headache.”
“Nothing a shot of good whiskey wouldn’t cure, I bet.” In his world, there was nothing a shot of good whiskey couldn’t cure.
She smiled, hoping it looked halfway genuine. “I believe I’ll settle for aspirin. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Judge.” She opened the door, gazed out at her car parked in the circular drive out front, then turned back. “I would appreciate it, sir, if you didn’t tell the senator about this. I would hate for him to think that I misunderstood his instructions.”
“Tell
