call wisely. We’re pretty strict on jail regulations around here and you might not get another one.” He laughed, heading into the break room, leaving Mike uncuffed and unattended. “And don’t escape,” he called back. “Care for some coffee?”
The number Mike meant to call was burned into his brain, even though he’d never used it before. As he waited for the first ring, he wondered why he was even bothering. She’d hang up when she heard his voice. Or tack another couple of days on to his sentence for some kind of trumped-up harassment. But he owed her this one. Make the call, then be done with it, and her.
Yeah, like he could ever be done with Lilly Malloy.
“Hello,” a voice said from the other end.
“Lilly?” Mike asked.
“You’ve reached the voice mail of Judge Lillianne Malloy. Please leave your name, phone number and a brief message, and I’ll return the call as soon as I can. Have a nice day.” Beep.
“Have a nice day like hell.…Look, Lilly. I need to see you. I can’t go into it on the phone…you know where I am, where I’ll be until Monday morning. And it’s important. Hell, this was a stupid idea. I should have called my attorney instead of you. Lilly, I know that the situation between us isn’t the best, but—”
Beep.
“Hell.”
“Arms behind your back, Mike,” Roger said, setting the coffee on the desk, then taking his handcuffs off his belt. “Sorry, but it’s the rules. You like it black, no sugar, right?”
“You’re not going to make me strip again, are you?” Mike growled, turning around and gritting his teeth when the cuffs went on. They didn’t hurt, but he sure didn’t like the thought of what they signified. Tried, convicted, sentenced. Prisoner. As a journalist, going to jail on principle such as not revealing a source or being in the wrong place at the wrong time to get the right story, now, that was honorable. It made a statement about ethics and principles and high moral integrity. But being nabbed for parking in the wrong place? The only statement coming from that was dud, flop, washout, bomb, a big bust. “No sugar, but some whiskey would be good. In fact, skip the coffee. Just bring on the whiskey.”
“Sure wish I could Mike, but…”
“I know. You’ve got rules.” When he’d learned he was going to Lilly’s court, he’d hoped that after all this time she was over the bad history between them. Bad, bad history! Forgive and forget, or just forget. Yeah, and wasn’t that just being pointless and optimistic after what he’d done to her? Thank God parking tickets weren’t a hanging offense.
First time with Lilly he’d been canned over the mix-up, and sure, he’d deserved it. One slight error in judgment and his job was out the door along with his postgrad degree. But she did have that damned bought-and-paid-for paper sitting right out on her desk for anybody to see who cared to look.
Second time…well, he shook his head over that one. What were the odds she’d turn up on the receiving end of another of his investigations? She’d been innocent that time, too. In fact, he’d never even connected her to that story—probably because she wasn’t connected, not directly, anyway. But her law firm epitomized that notoriously fictitious Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. They’d done some book cooking, trust-fund skimming, creative billing, so on and so on. And even though Lilly was only a contract employee, not a real member of the firm—meaning she’d never gotten near the trusts, never did any billing, hardly ever got out of the research library—she’d been swept into the sting along with everybody else. Swept, cuffed and locked up tight.
And he’d never forget the look on her face that day when they shoved her, handcuffed and horrified, through the lobby, in front of friends and co-workers. On her way out of the building she still hadn’t known who was responsible for the bust, but as the police hustled her past him and their eyes met briefly, she’d realized who’d done that to her. That look of betrayal in her eyes had punched him in the gut, and the heart, because he knew she’d trusted him—she’d put everything else behind her and trusted him.
If ever there was a defining moment in a life, that was his.
Lilly had been released hours later, thanks to one of the partners, who’d mustered enough integrity to unimplicate her. Afterward, Mike had sent her flowers, written a dozen contrite e-apologies and printed the damned retraction she’d demanded in place of suing him. Granted, it ran on page seven, when the picture of her being arrested was a first-page classic. But apparently that make-good hadn’t done the trick. Problem was, he wasn’t sure even sending him up the river now, if only for a weekend, would be enough to satisfy her yet. Lilly was clearly holding on to some surplus rage after all this time. And she deserved to. But he’d sure been hoping it wouldn’t trickle into this little matter. “So should I drop my drawers again, Mike?” he asked, his voice on the verge of acceptance, since there was no other choice but to accept his fate for the next three days. If there was one thing he knew for sure about Lilly, she wouldn’t give in. Once she’d made up her mind, nothing changed it.
Smiling, Roger shook his head. “Nope, not another strip search, unless you insist. But if you want, I’ll call Jimmy and let him know where you are. Maybe he can figure out what to do—how to get you out of here or something.” Roger chuckled as he led Mike down the gray hall to his home-away-from-home for the next few days. “Or at least he can bring you a pizza for supper. He’s good for that much, I’ll bet.” Jimmy Farrell, the Journal’s lawyer on retainer, had finally passed his bar exam six months earlier, after four tries. And he was really cheap to hire, which was the cardinal circumstance surrounding Jimmy’s status at the newspaper. No one in Whittier particularly embraced Jimmy for their legal affairs, since he’d grown up there and had a reputation for off-centered intelligence and out-on-a-limb common sense. But he’d muddled through law school somehow, surprised everyone when he finally passed the bar exam, and optimistically hung out his shingle to practice. So far, his clients were only court-appointed, those who couldn’t afford their own attorney, and he represented them adequately. No one complained too much, because no one had great expectations of Jimmy.
The day he’d approached Mike to represent the Journal, the offer had been so ridiculous Mike didn’t have the heart to turn him down. “Fifty dollars a month, Mike, will keep me on retainer for the paper.” Mike knew it would also pay the electric bill in Jimmy’s office slash apartment. “Most reputable papers keep a lawyer on retainer, and this is your chance.”
More out of charity than anything else, Mike had agreed, and from that day on, three months now, the Journal had been duly, if not well, represented. And today’s pizza delivery would mark Jimmy’s first official appearance on the paper’s behalf. “Lilly’s not letting me out of here, Roger. No way in hell. So tell Jimmy I like pepperoni and sausage. Hold the onions.”
“Lilly?” Roger interrupted. “You mean Judge Malloy? That Lilly?”
Mike cringed. Her Honor Judge Lillianne Malloy wasn’t the image of the Lilly Malloy that was in his mind when he’d discovered she’d been hired for traffic court in Whittier. That Lilly was still the one he’d…well, suffice it to say there had been some nice dreams of her from time to time. Gorgeous, responsive, just a little unsure. Always eager. But when he’d sneaked into the back of the courtroom a couple of times to watch her work, the Lilly he observed was so much more than he ever expected from her. Still gorgeous beyond reason, tall, round in all the right places, soft—even though her sexier-than-hell hair was pulled severely back and half of her face was covered by ridiculously large glasses—she now possessed confidence—self-assurance like he’d never before seen in her. And it showed in her movements, in her voice, and especially
