Courthouse Steps. Ginger Chambers

instinctively, Amanda ducked her head and hurried away.

      * * *

      THE HALF HOUR it took for Amanda to drive from Sugar Creek to her office in Tyler included a quick stop at Marge’s Diner, where she picked up lunch. Holding out the bag of food to her secretary, she teased, “Amanda to the rescue! Are you starving? That took longer than I thought. I fully expected to find you expired on top of your desk.”

      “Don’t be silly,” Tessie Finklebaum grumbled.

      Tessie had been a legal secretary for longer than Amanda had been in the world. She’d seen everything, done almost everything, and was surprised by nothing. She had to be getting close to seventy, but she kept the date of her birth a deep, dark secret. It was as secret as the true color of her platinum-tinted hair. Each morning Tessie went for a two-mile “hike,” as she termed it, and two evenings a week she attended an aerobics class. It was not in a person’s better interests to call her “old.”

      Amanda pulled up a chair to her secretary’s desk. The set of offices they shared was rather small, comprising her own office in the rear and the secretarial space in front. But she’d tried to decorate the place with a little taste, bringing a chair or two from home and cheerfully accepting Tessie’s array of houseplants.

      Amanda dug into the paper bag and divided its contents. She placed two tuna sandwiches, two bags of chips and two cans of soda on the napkins her secretary had spread on the desk. “I saw Ethan Trask today,” she remarked easily.

      Tessie fixed her with a piercing look. “You did? What did he say?”

      Amanda grinned. “I didn’t say I talked with him, I just saw him. Then I ran away like a craven coward. Tucked my little yellow tail between my legs and took off. What do you think of that?”

      “I’d say you probably did the right thing. What was he like?”

      Amanda leaned back. “Oh...tall, dark, handsome and terrifyingly competent. Nothing special.”

      Her secretary shook her head. “You better get yourself some help, young lady.”

      “That’s what Sharon Martin said.”

      “You should listen to her. Ethan Trask will eat you alive.”

      “Thanks for your vote of confidence. I told a reporter I was perfectly assured of my ability.”

      “Are you?”

      “I’m scared to death.”

      Tessie picked up her sandwich and started to munch. For a time they ate in silence. Finally, Amanda pushed away from the desk, her meal half-eaten.

      “I’m going to make a couple of calls,” she said. “If anyone needs me, ask them to wait.”

      “Sure thing, boss.”

      Amanda shook her head as she entered her sanctuary. For Tessie to call her “boss” was something of a joke. They both knew who was boss in the outer office, and it certainly wasn’t Amanda. Tessie must think her in extreme need of a pick-me-up...which she was. Because joke all she wanted, she was truly terrified.

      She had tried to tell everyone from the start that her grandfather should hire a lawyer more experienced with trial procedure, an expert in criminal defense. But no one had listened. They all told her she would do a great job. No one understood that criminal defense was an art form, just as was criminal prosecution. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill lawyer couldn’t just walk in off the street, prepare a case of this magnitude and expect to win. She certainly couldn’t. And if her grandfather ended up spending the rest of his life in jail because of her inability...

      Amanda reached for her telephone index and punched in a number with the Lake Geneva area code. Ten minutes later, she had gained an appointment with the professor. After that, she punched in the number of the Ingalls mansion. Clara Myers, her grandfather’s longtime housekeeper, answered the phone.

      “Clara, hello, this is Amanda. I’m not going to be home for dinner this evening. Actually, I just had lunch.... Yes, I know how late it is. Would you please tell my mother that I’ll speak to her when I get in, and tell Granddad...tell Granddad I might have some interesting news for him. No—” she quickly changed her mind “—don’t say that last part. Just tell him I love him, and that I’ll talk to him later, too.”

      She stared at the phone once she’d hung up. Then her gaze drifted to her rows of law books, which looked almost as pristine now as they had when she first received them, a gift from her mother and grandfather upon graduation from law school five years before.

      Law, the body of rules that kept the fabric of society from coming apart... She had fallen in love with it when she was fifteen and one of her high school classes had gone on a field trip to the courthouse in Sugar Creek. She had watched the lawyers maneuver back and forth, watched as the defense team tried to use the cold and impersonal rules to the advantage of their client, watched as the state’s representative held fast to the ideal of those rules. And from that day she had forgotten her earlier plan to become a veterinarian. She had haunted the library in Tyler, reading every book she could get her hands on that gave a view of the legal process.

      She liked to think that, since becoming a lawyer herself, she had helped people. She hadn’t won every case these past five years, but she had certainly attempted to. Most of her work involved technical expertise: what paper to file and where. Few cases actually went all the way to a trial. She tried very hard to mediate between people, to help them settle their differences before they resorted to further legal action.

      Amanda sighed, her pretty face, normally so ready with the high-voltage Baron smile, unusually serious. The law was cold and impersonal, which meant that emotion held no place in judicial decisions. Just because a jury didn’t like the way a defendant looked or behaved didn’t mean they could take out their disapproval on that person by finding him guilty. Their decision had to be based solely on the evidence presented.

      But in this instance, it was her grandfather she would soon be defending, and she wanted him to have every advantage that the system could offer—every bit of warmth she could stir in the jurors’ hearts.

      Her gaze moved to the newspaper clipping she had pinned to the wall earlier in the week—a picture of Ethan Trask. On it she had drawn the concentric circles of a target, with the bull’s eye the tip of his nose. At that moment, the tip had a dart sticking out of it. Not that she had made such a superb hit, though she’d tried for a quarter of an hour. She had ended up by marching over to slam the dart in at point-blank range.

      Ethan Trask. The man she had seen so confidently issuing orders in the courthouse such a short time ago. The attorney general’s “Avenging Angel.”

      “Oh, Granddad,” Amanda groaned softly, beneath her breath, “if only it were anyone else!”

CHAPTER TWO

      THE COTTAGE beside the wide lake nestled comfortably in the trees. Its look was ageless. It might have stood there for two years or two hundred. Amanda waited at the front door for Professor Williams to answer her knock. She shifted restlessly from foot to foot.

      When at last the door swung open, a slightly older version of her favorite and most valued instructor greeted her. Like the man who had been with Ethan Trask, he, too, was her par in height. Only instead of being slender, Professor Williams was more than adequately insulated against any sudden disruption in the world’s food supply. His cheeks were round, his midsection rotund, and he had just enough unruly white hair left on top of his head to remind Amanda of an elf. His eyes contradicted the image. Instead of being benign and merry, they were probing and sharp. After his first sweeping glance, Amanda knew the Professor had guessed the reason for her visit.

      “You’re wasting your time,” he said. Still, he motioned her indoors. “The only sport I’m interested in right now is fishing—bass, walleye, bluegill.”

      The