missing witness, Simone. What aren’t you telling me?”
“A lot.” Her lips were pinched. “But nothing I can prove. Yet. I only have ten days before I’m back in court. If we can find her by then—”
“What do you mean we? You hire me, I do the job and report to you. I don’t play well with others. And you definitely don’t play well with me.”
“Right. It said that on the divorce decree.”
“Simone—”
“If you take the job, you work for me,” she said. “My terms. Not the DA’s office. And not officially. I’m paying you. Off the books. In cash. Up front if you want. But I need to be involved, Vince. Especially when you find her. I need her to verify on the stand where those books of Denton’s came from. Without her, my case falls apart and Denton—and whoever he might be connected to—will get off.”
When he found Mara, not if. Did she honestly expect to find...no! He couldn’t go down this road again. Except that deep chasm opening moments before hadn’t been despair, he realized; it had been Simone’s rabbit hole of a conscience. Mara was one of Simone’s crusades; one of those “I’m going to save her and fix her” situations his ex kept getting involved in.
When was she going to accept that no matter what, she couldn’t go back and save Chloe Evans?
Vince tapped his fingers against the file. It didn’t matter how long Simone spent in the criminal justice system, she clung to that optimism of hers like a life preserver. In Vince’s experience, cases like this rarely ended well. But he also knew Simone well enough to admit that telling her would only make her dig her heels in.
He honestly didn’t know what she’d do if he didn’t take the case.
“Well?” Simone asked. “Are you going to help me?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
Vince’s eyebrows shot up. Did she just whine? “Depends if you’re honest with me about when was the last time you ate.”
“What’s that got to do with—?” There it was again, that tightness in her voice, as if it was a rubber band about to snap. When she pushed her hair behind her ear—her telltale sign of nerves—her hand trembled. “All right. I ate part of a croissant after court this morning.”
Vince chuckled. She might excel at taking care of other people, but when it came to taking care of herself, she was last in line. “That’s what I thought. Stay here. Decompress for a few minutes. I’ll fix you something in the kitchen. And no,” he added when she opened her mouth. “It won’t be anything you’d usually have. You need some protein. I’ll have Travis bring you coffee since we know what happens when you’ve had too much wine on an empty stomach. We’ll eat, we’ll catch up a bit and then maybe discuss Mara’s situation.”
She grabbed his wrist as he stood and squeezed hard enough to make his heart skip a beat. “Thank you, Vince.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I haven’t said yes.”
But even before he left the table, he knew he would.
He’d help her.
Simone saw it in his eyes, beyond the reluctance, the suspicion. The grief. The distrust and betrayal that had come between them years ago wouldn’t matter. When all was said and done, Vince Sutton was too honorable a man to say no when he could do something to help someone. Even her.
With Vince in play, with her feet on more solid ground, she called her boss.
“Would you like to guess how many times I’ve thought about firing you today, Simone?” Ward’s tense voice made her cringe. “It’s not like you to run and hide, not to mention dodge my calls.”
“Damage control takes concentration.” She dug her fingernail into a groove on the table. After her Deep Throat conversation with Russo, the last thing she felt comfortable doing was confiding in people she wasn’t sure of. And if whoever was behind this was going after Russo and his partner, she had to be on someone’s hit list, too. “I needed to regroup and I couldn’t do that surrounded by a dozen voices yelling at me.”
“No one was going to yell at you,” Ward said. “I run a civilized office.”
“Tell me you didn’t have at least half the office offering to replace me on the Denton case?”
“A little less than that, actually,” Ward replied. “Look, Simone, we can both agree that your hinging the Denton case on one witness seriously backfired. I’m sure the pressure got to Mara, but without her and now this postponement—”
“The postponement is so I can find her,” Simone interrupted in the hopes of derailing any deal-making he might be considering with the defendant. “Please issue a material witness warrant for her, Ward.” The more people they had looking for Mara, the better. “At least give me until Monday before you concede. You know me. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it.”
Vince was an exceptional investigator. Sure, he’d had some bad luck and she could understand his reticence about opening closed doors, but this could end up being good for him. He needed to come to terms with what had happened with the Walker case.
Her boss’s silence pressed in on her. She counted off the seconds, half expecting to be updating her résumé before the end of the day. “Are you still there?” she asked the DA.
“You really think you can find her?”
“I do.” Simone bit her tongue to avoid admitting out loud to having a secret weapon. “If you genuinely believe the case is already lost, Ward, there’s no more damage I can do, right?”
“There’s always more damage that can be done.” He sighed. “But, okay. However, I’m only giving you until Monday to make some progress. Cal’ll be unhappy about this. He’s already pushing me to settle this Denton business now on your behalf.”
Simone’s stomach clenched. Cal Hobard again. “I don’t get this obsession he has with my case.” She couldn’t repress the concern any longer. In fact, she should press for more information about Ward’s newest employee. “He has no vested interest in Denton, right? Besides, I thought he worked for you.”
“I have to let him have a say in some things, especially where public perception is concerned.”
So Ward had definitely decided to run for AG, which put Hobard in charge of damage control if this case spiraled out of control. Was that what he’d been doing at the police station with Russo and his partner when they were being questioned? Protecting his candidate? Or was there more to it? “I appreciate the extra time. I’ll see you on Monday.”
“First thing, Simone. Don’t make me hunt you down. I’ll get that warrant issued before I turn in for the night. Should be processed by the time you get up. As if you’re going to sleep.”
Truer words were never spoken. “Thank you.” She turned off her phone and dumped it into
