For The Defense. M.J. Rodgers

was given to understand that you need help immediately. At least that’s what my father said when he persuaded me to take this assignment.”

      Actually, he’d talked his dad into giving him this case, but he saw no reason to reveal that part. He’d been warned that Diana would be expecting Richard. Jack had told his dad not to worry. Charming women into accepting him had never been a problem.

      But considering the continuing displeasure on this woman’s face, he was beginning to wonder if he’d spoken too soon.

      “Your brother, David, found a missing witness for me once. I was also quite pleased with his work. Is he available?”

      Jack almost laughed. Next she’d be asking for his father or mother to take her case. What did this woman have against him?

      “I’m the only one who is both available and right for this job,” he said.

      “How long have you worked at your family’s private investigation firm?”

      He pitied anyone who got drilled by this lawyer while in a courtroom. Thankful he wasn’t sitting in the witness box, he avoided answering her sticky question by asking one in return.

      “Do you think that my father would risk our firm’s forty-year reputation for excellence by sending you someone who couldn’t handle the job?”

      Jack was well aware Diana had hired White Knight Investigations half a dozen times during the past two years. She’d come back because she’d been satisfied. Yes, she trusted Richard and David. But Jack also felt certain that she trusted their firm.

      “You used to be an actor,” she said. Her tone was almost an accusation.

      Ah, so that was the problem. She’d seen him on TV and was mixing up the character he’d played with the man he was. A common failing. Still, he would have thought someone with her obvious smarts would have hesitated before making such an assumption.

      “I used to be a very good actor,” he corrected. “I’m very good at whatever I put my mind to, Diana. I have a strong sense that you are as well.”

      He knew no one was immune to a compliment, as long as it was delivered with sincerity. Knowing when to mix a compliment with a first name had become second nature to him. The timing on these two had been right. Now he waited to see how well the combination had worked.

      And waited.

      She finally extracted a form from her middle desk drawer and slid it toward him. “This is our standard contract and confidentiality statement. Please initial beneath each clause, sign your full name at the bottom and we’ll get started.”

      Jack told himself he hadn’t really doubted the outcome of this conversation. Nonetheless, he was relieved to hear her confirming words.

      Scanning the contents of the two-part form she’d handed him, he noted that the confidentiality statement demanded absolute secrecy from him. It also warned that if he were to repeat anything about this case to an unauthorized party, he would be subjected to all the legal racks and thumbscrews at Diana Mason’s disposal. He had not a doubt that she’d be happy to apply them, too.

      Jack took a pen out of his shirt pocket, initialed where she’d indicated, signed his name and passed the document back to her.

      “I understand your client is charged with murder,” he said.

      “First degree,” she said slipping the confidentiality statement into the fairly thin folder in front of her. “This is a court assigned defense.”

      She pulled a stack of blank forms from her desk. “I’ll need your time and expenses recorded daily and turned in weekly on these.”

      Damn, he hated paperwork. Dutifully taking the stack of forms she handed him, he decided to let Harry, the clerk at the firm, do this part for him.

      “Does court assigned mean that you’re acting like a public defender?” he asked.

      A new frown appeared on her forehead. “Don’t tell me this is your first criminal defense case?”

      “If you don’t want me to tell you that then I definitely won’t,” he said and sent her one of his most engaging smiles.

      She shook her head, clearly not engaged. “When there are more cases than there are public defenders to handle them, a judge drafts the services of lawyers from legal firms in the area to represent a defendant. We’re paid by the state, not by the client.”

      “When were you drafted into service?”

      “I got the case two weeks ago in a workload shuffle. But the court assigned Connie Pearce’s defense to another lawyer at this firm ten months ago.”

      “Connie Pearce?” Jack repeated. “Isn’t she the kindergarten teacher who killed her lover?”

      “That’s what all the banner headlines proclaimed last year.”

      “I remember hearing about that case.”

      “You and nearly everyone else in this county. Getting a panel of jurors that hasn’t heard wasn’t easy.”

      “She was supposed to have hit him with her car,” Jack said as the details began to come back to him. “There were a couple of eyewitnesses.”

      “Are you having second thoughts about accepting this assignment?”

      He smiled into the serious look on her face. “On the contrary. I love being on the side of the underdog.”

      The tenseness in her shoulders seemed to increase with his assurance.

      “Well, then you’re going to be ecstatic working this case,” she said. “The victim’s father suffered a fatal heart attack after witnessing his son’s death. The victim’s mother is one of our most prominent and politically connected superior court judges.”

      “And this prominent, politically connected judge is out for blood,” he guessed.

      “The Honorable Barbara Weaton insists she’s simply out for justice, but you can be sure she’s not going to take kindly to anyone who is trying to help the woman charged with her son’s murder.”

      He pointed to the thin folder in front of her. “Is that what the other lawyer has done?”

      She gave the folder a quick glance. “Over the past ten months.”

      Despite the evenness of her tone, Jack knew she wasn’t only unhappy about the thinness of the folder in front of her. She was angry.

      “Why didn’t this lawyer do anything?” he asked.

      “Earl Payman said Connie wouldn’t speak to him. Or anyone else.”

      “That sounds like a symptom of shock to me. Why didn’t he think of that?”

      “He brought in a psychologist to examine her a week after her arrest. She wouldn’t talk to him, either. The psychologist said he couldn’t testify to whether she was legally sane or not. Earl decided the safest thing for him was to plead her not guilty and let a jury convict or acquit her.”

      “He did nothing else in the intervening nine and a half months?”

      “He played a lot of golf with the two senior partners at this firm.”

      Although Diana’s voice remained calm, there was enough contempt in her expression to have sent the incompetent, golf-playing Earl into lockup for life.

      “Where has Connie Pearce been all this time?” Jack asked.

      “In jail. Earl made no attempt to get her a bail hearing.”

      “Have you talked to her?”

      “Nearly every day since I got her case. But it wasn’t until late last week that she opened up and told me what happened.”

      “And that’s when you called White Knight Investigations.”

      Diana