Final Verdict. Jessica R. Patch

Aurora had sympathized. She’d clawed her way out from under some heavy stereotypes herself. But, in the end, she’d been manipulated and preyed upon for trying to trust that there was good in everyone—or almost everyone—even the son of a mob boss.

      “How could you do that, Miss Daniels? That boy killed Bethany Russell!” an older woman hollered.

      A menacing voice carried over the woman’s. “Better be careful on those roads, miss. Wouldn’t want you to end up like Mrs. Russell.”

      Aurora darted her sight in the direction of the gritty voice. Didn’t recognize it. Couldn’t find the source. But the tone wasn’t laced with grief like the others. No, this sounded ominous. She tugged her wool scarf tighter around her neck and picked up her pace, ignoring the snide comments on the outside. Inside, she had a more difficult time fielding the stings.

      Glancing back one last time, she searched for the man who’d threatened her. She used the fob on her key ring, reached out to open the door to her BMW and cringed, then groaned at the long, keyed mark running the length of the driver’s side. Had the man who’d threatened her keyed her car, too, or had that been the handiwork of someone else unhappy with her?

      She spotted Beckett Marsh ambling toward her. Following and protecting her even if she had turned him down. “I can watch my back.” She pointed to the deep gash ruining her shiny black paint. “My car not so much.”

      Beckett gave a low whistle as he rounded the car and stood beside her, blocking a frigid gust of winter with his body.

      She tossed her handbag and briefcase inside as her cell phone rang.

      Katelynn, her barista at Sufficient Grounds, was calling. She pulled the cell from her coat and answered. “Hi, Kate. What’s going on?” Had her café been vandalized, too?

      “The espresso machine is janky again. I’ve tried everything.”

      “You unplugged it, opened the back and jiggled the wires?”

      “Jiggled, kicked...”

      “Yes, because kicking a four-thousand-dollar machine is smart.” Aurora would have done the same thing had she not known exactly which wires to tamper with. “Just—”

      “Jiggle the wires again, I know. I did. You’ve got the touch.” Katelynn’s voice rose an octave. “Please. We’ve got a major crowd and they’re all talking about the motion today. That you won. They aren’t happy, but it appears they aren’t mad enough to boycott the place.”

      “It’s the little things.” She’d leased the building and opened the coffeehouse when she’d moved to Hope to try to fit in. Working as the public defender didn’t bring the best of friends. But coffee... Well, everyone liked coffee and camaraderie, and it had helped her acclimate. Until this.

      Aurora eyed Beckett, who was in no hurry to leave or even pretend he wasn’t listening to her conversation. “Be there in five.” She hung up, slid into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on her car, then peered up at Beckett. “I’ve got to—”

      “Jiggle wires.” His lips twitched. “I heard. Hey, if you need anything...”

      “Can you fix an espresso machine?” She turned on the heat full blast; arctic air shocked her face. She turned it off and huffed. It took entirely too long for vehicles to heat up. She should have moved farther south.

      He ignored her rhetorical question, but the right side of his mouth inched north. In Aurora’s book, that was a smile. Biggest one Beckett Marsh had ever laid on her. He adjusted the fleece collar of his sheriff’s coat. “Still stands. It’s my duty, you know. To protect people.”

      Yes, he reminded her every time she won a case. She was protecting people, too. People like her brother, Richie. Most of her clients were folks who needed a second chance to get it right. Most. She had to take the bad with good. Came with the territory.

      Aurora hurried to the café and entered through the back. After fixing the espresso machine, she grabbed a caffè mocha and drove home for the night. She had work to do. Seven months ago Blair Sullivan, now McKnight, had asked her if she ever defended men like the ones who had come after Blair. The Mexican cartel. Aurora told her she didn’t defend dead men. After those evil people had been taken down by the DEA, there weren’t any left who needed a defense. It was an easy way to skirt around what Blair had really been asking, but the question had dogged her every day since.

      When Richie committed suicide in prison, she didn’t try to clear her older brother’s name. He deserved as much, though. So, last month, she’d gone back to Richfield, Mississippi, where she’d been raised, opened up the old files and poked around. Nothing so far, but Richie was innocent and Aurora wasn’t going to stop until she proved it. She owed him that much.

      She parked in the drive and sprinted up to the porch of the antebellum home she’d rented from Mitch Rydell. The only things that belonged solely to her were the furniture inside and her car. She wasn’t sure how long she’d get to stay in Hope, not with the possibility of Franco Renzetti coming after her. But it had been quiet this long and she’d put down a few roots.

      She paused at the front door. Wind howled through stick-bare trees. Nights came sooner these days, and by four o’clock the sun had abandoned her. Beckett’s warning and the gravelly-voiced threat sent her scanning her large yard and the tree line fifteen feet to the right. She shook off the jitters and went inside. Ah, delicious warmth and the smell of her cinnamon potpourri helped chase away the blues and the creeps. After drinking her coffee, then making a bite of dinner and poring over files and evidence, she stood and stretched.

      The sound of a diesel engine roared in the near distance. Odd. Her road only had three other houses and hardly ever received traffic. She clutched her stomach, as if pressing her hand against it would send the fright and paranoia away, and tiptoed into the living room as the noise grew louder, closer.

      She fisted her hands as blinding headlights shone on her house.

      One more step forward, a high-pitched clang reverberated through her home and something crashed through her living room window.

      Aurora shrieked, threw her hands up in defense and squeezed her eyes closed as the object careened into her shoulder and bounced off, landing on the floor and rolling across the hardwood.

      The wind whipped relentlessly through the broken window, adding to the chill in her bones. Aurora stood stunned as she massaged the throbbing area.

      Shards of glass covered her couch and a few specks skittered across the floor.

      The blinding lights disappeared, leaving her yard draped in darkness.

      She inched toward the object rolling on her hardwood floor. An empty bottle.

      Old Crow whiskey.

      Same brand Austin Bledsoe had been drinking when he sped through a stop sign and hit Bethany Russell.

      Her hands trembled as she tucked them inside her sweatshirt sleeves, using them as gloves to pick up the bottle, a question rattling her brain and sending a thump of fear into her chest. She’d been threatened earlier. Was this the end or only the beginning?

      * * *

      “Counselor!” Beckett Marsh poked his nose through Aurora Daniels’s broken windowpane when she wouldn’t answer the front door. It had taken him ten minutes to get here after she’d called. While her words had come out clear, the speed at which she’d spoken told the tale.

      She’d been shaken up.

      Now she stood in the middle of her living room with one hand cupping her left shoulder. He did a double take. This wasn’t the confident professional in her typical attire of power suits and heels. Bare feet anchored to the hardwood, baggy gray sweatpants and an equally baggy Ole Miss Rebels sweatshirt masking her slender figure. And still something about the look, even with her signature tight knot at the base of her neck, rattled something loose in his chest. He refocused, uncomfortable with the powerful response to seeing her like this.