Of all the interviews she’d done to try to figure out if Sol was dead or alive, not one of his family or friends had seemed like a killer, even if some of them were temperamental and deeply distressed. But losing hope of a fortune, with Sol going to prison and others up for perjury, their lives ruined, who knows that desperate people couldn’t turn deadly? But that was all she’d been able to give the detective when he’d questioned her.
A knock on her door interrupted her agonizing. A middle-aged, bald and bulky officer stood there with a huge bouquet of red roses in his hands. “For you, with a visitor, if you’re up to it, Ms. Britten,” he said. “It’s been cleared.”
Her first thought was that Darcy and Steve should not have bought expensive roses, even if they were supposed to be from Lexi. Maybe they’d even brought Lexi! Surely, Jace hadn’t sent the flowers, though Darcy said she’d call him.
“Yes,” Claire told him. “Yes, of course, they can come in.”
But it wasn’t her family. It was a senior partner of Markwood, Benton and Chase, Attorney Nick Markwood, not decked out in his lawyer suit but in gray casual slacks and a bright blue golf shirt. He took the roses from the cop and came in to sit in the chair beside her bed, laying the bouquet beside her sheet-covered leg. Like an idiot, she hoped her hair looked okay. At least she had a robe over this stupid-looking hospital gown.
“I know that officer,” he said. “I asked him not to say it was me, or I figured you might not see me. We were adversaries, and I know you probably hate me for grilling you the way I did. But I have a proposal—a job offer—if you’ll just hear me out.”
“I don’t hate you, and I want to thank you for helping me yesterday. They gave me a transfusion, but it could have been worse if you hadn’t stopped my bleeding.” Still, she thought, that didn’t mean she trusted him. But if he was going to offer her a job at that prestigious law firm...
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, crossing one ankle over his other knee. “I intended to talk to you about this just before you were shot. I could use your help immediately on an important issue in St. Augustine.”
“St. Augustine? Do you have an office there? With this situation—I have a young daughter, too—I can’t really work outside this area.”
“I need your expertise and talents and so does an innocent woman who’s a friend of mine. If we don’t move fast, she may soon be indicted for murder. Her mother is dead, and the daughter’s innocence hinges on whether the death was an accident, suicide or murder. It will not only impact her, but the state of Florida. Needless to say, I’ll make it worth your while. I’d like to retain you as a consultant, have you conduct some interviews on-site there. We need to prove that her daughter did not commit murder.”
“If it were a local case, maybe, but St. Augustine’s about as far as you can get within the same state. As I said, I have commitments here.”
“I hear you’re being released later today. I’m sure you’ll want to get home to your daughter, but can we meet to talk this over again soon, and I’ll give you more details? I saw your physician in the hall, and he said not to stay long right now.”
Her eyes widened and her lower lip dropped before she got hold of herself. The reach of this man amazed her. He knew the cop on her door; he’d consulted with her doctor. Wasn’t anything about her condition or release privileged? Was this master manipulator the kind of client she could trust? She really should not have trusted poor, dead Fred Myron, either. But, she sure needed that job, and this one could be an entrée to others. It sounded high-profile.
“Claire, could I pick you up tomorrow and take you over to Lake Avalon midday? I’ll bring lunch. We’ll talk, so I can explain everything. The case, the people—your fee, of course. Unless you’d rather not go out into open spaces right now.”
“I’m not going to cower under my desk. Besides, those bullets surely weren’t meant for me. Really, I don’t have any enemies...not someone who would do that.”
Just yesterday, she would have said this man was her enemy from his trying to tear her testimony to shreds. She shouldn’t trust him now. No way she was going to leave Southwest Florida to work for who knew how long in the northeastern part of the state. She might as well be going to Alaska for all she knew of that area. And this was something that would affect the entire state? This guy was good with words, with convincing people, but not her.
“I don’t really want to do profiling of possible murderers,” she told him. “That can be tricky and dangerous. That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it, I mean if it’s an alleged murder? In Lifeboat versus Sorento, I was only trying to establish that Sol Sorento was alive. I turned up nothing to prove his friends and family wanted him dead or would have committed murder.”
He put both feet on the floor and his elbows on his knees as he leaned closer and fixed her with his riveting, silver stare. “Think of it this way then. I’m not asking you to profile a murderer, but a victim. Surely, this woman’s daughter would never have hurt her. The deceased had panic attacks and was on powerful meds, so maybe she accidentally or intentionally overdosed. It would be what you called on the stand a forensic autopsy. I want you for this. And then we’ll go from there.”
I want you... And then we’ll go from there... And the woman had panic attacks...powerful meds... Claire closed her eyes for a moment. She felt for this poor dead woman and her daughter. And, she hated to admit it, but she was moved by Nick’s passion for this case.
She amazed and scared herself by saying, “Call me first. But why don’t we meet at your office?”
“This is ex officio, not under the aegis of the firm. It’s a kind of charity I sponsor, a low-profile company I call South Shores that only takes on certain suicide-versus-murder cases.”
Now she was sure she was crazy to even talk to him about this. But she was curious, too, totally tempted—not by his charisma, of course—but by the mystery of what he’d shared so far.
“I’ll call tomorrow morning,” he said, standing. “I have your number from your website.” He lifted his hand and walked out, probably trying to leave before she had time to change her mind again.
At least, she’d only agreed to hear him out. Too late she realized she’d been gripping the florist paper wrapped around the rose stems. She crinkled it so tight she’d stuck her thumb with a thorn. All she needed was to lose more blood, even a drop. And was it an omen?
She had to admit she wasn’t doing well lately choosing clients. Nick Markwood fit the description of something Claire’s mother, who always had her nose in a book, had said about romantic poet Lord Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know.
* * *
“Darcy, thanks so much for bringing Lexi and me home, but you don’t have to stay,” Claire told her younger sister that afternoon when they got back from the hospital. “You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty.”
“Not duty, big sister. Love. Love is the key, like in that song our munchkins keep playing over and over. I swear, I’m going to scream if I hear it one more time.”
They hugged—that is, Claire hugged her one-armed and Darcy encircled her very gently, before they sat at Claire’s kitchen table. Darcy had driven her home with Lexi and her own four-year-old Jilly in the car. Lexi had cuddled up to Claire the whole way in the backseat, and she’d managed lots of hugs despite her sore arm.
It
