of backup.
* * *
Sometimes, Tom Yellow Bird thought, the universe had a sense of humor.
What other explanation could there be when, the very morning he was scheduled to testify in the court of the Honorable Caroline Jennings, he had received an email from his friend James Carlson, informing him that the new judge, one Honorable Caroline Jennings, had received a suspicious bouquet of flowers and was concerned it might be connected to their ongoing investigation into judicial corruption in and around Pierre, South Dakota?
It would be funny if the situation weren’t so serious, he thought as he took a seat near the back of the courtroom. This trial was for bank robbery, and Tom, operating in his capacity as an FBI agent, had tracked down the perpetrator and arrested him. The robber had had the bank bags in his trunk and marked bills in his wallet. A cut-and-dried case.
“All rise,” the bailiff intoned as the door at the back of the courtroom opened. “The court of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, criminal division, is now in session, the Honorable Caroline Jennings presiding.”
Tom had heard it all before, hundreds of times. He rose, keeping his attention focused on the figure clad in black that emerged. Another day, another judge. Hopefully she wasn’t easily bought.
“Be seated,” Judge Jennings said. The courtroom was full so it wasn’t until other people took their seats as she mounted the bench that Tom got his first good look at her.
Whoa.
He blinked and then blinked again. He had expected a woman—the name Caroline was a giveaway—but he hadn’t expected her. He couldn’t stop staring.
She took her seat and made eye contact across the room with him, and time stopped. Everything stopped. His breath, his pulse—everything came to a screeching halt as he stared at the Honorable Caroline Jennings.
He’d never seen her before—he knew that for certain because he’d remember her. He’d remember this pull. Even at this distance, he thought he saw her cheeks color, a delicate blush. Did she feel it, too?
Then she arched an eyebrow in what was a clear challenge. Crap. He was still standing, gawking like an idiot, while the rest of the court waited. Leland cracked a huge smile, and the court reporter looked annoyed. The rest of the courtroom was starting to crane their necks so they could see the delay.
So he took his seat and tried to get his brain to work again. Caroline Jennings was the judge on this case and she was his assignment from Carlson—nothing more. Any attraction he might feel for her was irrelevant. He had testimony to give and a corruption case to solve, and the job always came first.
Carlson’s email had come late this morning, so Tom hadn’t had time to do his research. That was the only reason Judge Jennings had caught him off guard.
Because Judge Jennings was at least twenty years younger than he had anticipated. Everyone else who had sat on that bench had tended to be white, male and well north of fifty years old.
Maybe that was why she seemed so young, although she was no teenager. She was probably in her thirties, Tom guessed. She had light brown hair that was pulled back into a low ponytail—but it wasn’t severely scraped away from her face. Instead, her hair looked like it had a natural wave and she let it frame her features, softening the lines of her sharp cheekbones. She wore a simple pair of stud earrings—diamonds or reasonable fakes, he noticed when she turned her head and they caught the light. Her makeup was understated and professional, and she wore a lace collar on top of her black robe.
She was, he realized, beautiful. Which was an interesting observation on his part.
He had no problems noting the physical beauty of men or women. For Tom, the last ten years had been one long observation of the human condition. Looking at an attractive person was like studying fine art. Even if a woman’s physical attributes didn’t move him, he could still appreciate her beauty.
But his visceral reaction to a woman in shapeless judge’s robes was not some cerebral observation of conventional beauty. It was a punch to the gut. When was the last time he’d felt that unmistakable spark?
Well, he knew the answer to that. But he wouldn’t let thoughts of Stephanie break free of the box in which he kept them locked up tight. He wouldn’t think about it now. Maybe not ever.
He sat back and did what he did best—he watched and waited. Judge Caroline Jennings ran an efficient courtroom. When Lasky, the defense lawyer, started to grandstand, she cut him off. She wasn’t confrontational, but she wasn’t cowed by anyone.
As he waited for his name to be called, Tom mentally ran back through the email Carlson had sent him. Caroline Jennings was an outsider, appointed to fill the seat on the bench left vacant after Tom had arrested the last judge.
She was from Minneapolis—which was a hell of a long way from South Dakota. In theory, she had no connection with local politics—or lobbyists. That didn’t mean she was clean. Whoever was pulling the strings in the state would be interested in making friends with the new judge.
Once, Tom would’ve been encouraged by the fact that she had already contacted Carlson about an unusual flower delivery. Surely, the reasoning went, if she was already willing to identify such gifts as suspicious, she was an honest person.
Tom wasn’t that naive anymore. He didn’t know who was buying off judges, although he had a few guesses. He couldn’t prove his suspicions one way or the other. But he did know that whatever group—or groups—was rigging the courts in his home state, they played deep. He wouldn’t put it past anyone in this scenario to offer up a beautiful, fresh-faced young judge as a mole—or a distraction.
“The prosecution calls FBI Special Agent Thomas Yellow Bird to the stand.”
Tom snapped to attention, standing and straightening his tie. He should’ve been paying more attention to the trial at hand than musing about the new judge. The prosecutor had warned him that this particular defense lawyer liked to put members of law enforcement on the spot.
As he moved to the front of the room, he could feel Judge Jennings’s gaze upon him. He didn’t allow himself to look back. He kept his meanest gaze trained on the accused, enjoying the way the moron shrank back behind his lawyer. It didn’t matter how intriguing—yes, that was the right word. It didn’t matter how intriguing Judge Caroline Jennings was—Tom had to see justice served on the man who’d pulled a gun on a bank teller and made off with seven thousand dollars and change.
All the same, Tom wanted to look at her. Would she still have that challenge on her face? Or would he see suspicion? He was used to that. He’d been called inscrutable on more than one occasion—and that was by people who knew him. Tom had a hell of a poker face, which was an asset in his line of work. People couldn’t figure him out, and they chose to interpret their confusion as distrust.
Or would he see something else in her eyes—the same pull he’d felt when she’d walked into this courtroom? Would she still have that delicate blush?
Smith, the prosecutor, caught Tom’s eye and gave him a look. Right. Tom had a job to do before he dug into the mystery that was Caroline Jennings.
Leland swore Tom in, and he took his seat on the witness stand. Roses, he thought, not allowing himself to look in her direction. She smelled like roses, lush and in full bloom.
Smith,
