Incriminating Passion. Ann Peterson Voss

of justice and making the world a better place. But after fifteen years of prosecuting the scum of the earth, only to have viler scum replace them while they did their too-short stints in prison, it was getting harder to drag himself to work each day. He felt more and more as if he was fighting a losing battle. As if his soul was being weighed down with the evil of life.

      He needed a vacation. A vacation that would last the rest of his years.

      The elevator door slid open. It was almost full. Just his luck. He crowded inside and hit the button for the fifth floor, trying not to breathe the air, sour with tension and stale sweat.

      “Hold the door, please.”

      Reflexively he reached out his arm to stop the door from sliding shut.

      A slip of a woman with stringy blond hair and bruises marring her forehead and chin darted into the elevator. Her eyes met John’s for an instant, their depths pale blue and glassy, as if she’d gotten too little sleep or done too many drugs or just plain seen too much of the sordid underbelly of life. She turned her back to him and focused on the lighted numbers over the door.

      John resisted the hypnotic tradition of staring at the numbers. Instead, he stared at the top of the newcomer’s head and tried to guess whether she was a battered woman coming to plead for her husband’s release so he could go home and punish her for calling the cops in the first place, or a prostitute struggling to look reformed for a court date. Her petite body and slender curves evident even under the jacket pulled tight around her shoulders made him think she had the goods to be a prostitute. And a successful one at that. But the bruises, her lack of makeup, and the silent desperation in her eyes settled it. She was here to plead for her husband.

      He shook his head. Not that it made much of a difference. She was stuck in a hell of a life either way. A hell of a life that he sure couldn’t rescue her from. God knew he’d tried before with other women. And he’d failed miserably each and every time.

      He directed his gaze to the numbers over the door, determined not to think about the woman in front of him too hard. Just the idea of a man laying a hand on that slender neck made his blood boil. Or at least simmer. His blood was too thick to reach boiling anymore. These days it only hardened and burned.

      When the door opened he followed her down the hall and into the district attorney’s office. There he left her waiting to speak with a receptionist while he walked to his glorified cubicle and dropped his briefcase on a chair. He had nothing left to do but hop a bus and return to his empty two-flat dump. To his recliner, a dinner of cold pizza and a good stiff drink. In fact, since his big, empty house was within stumbling distance of the office, a good stiff drink was in order right now. He was just reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniels in the bottom drawer of his desk when his phone rang.

      He held the receiver to his ear. “Yeah.”

      “Mr. Cohen?” The new receptionist’s voice melted over the line like warm honey.

      Chantel was her name, if he remembered correctly. A welcome change from Maggie. He pushed the thought of the former receptionist from his mind. He didn’t like to think about her. How she’d tried to set him up to take the fall for fixing a case that set serial rapist Andrew Clarke Smythe free. How she’d almost succeeded. And, worst of all, how she’d utterly ruined his taste for ketchup. “Do you know what time it is, Chantel?”

      “I know. And I’m sorry. I know you just returned from court.”

      He heaved a breath and released it into the phone. “It’s all right. What do you have for me?”

      “I have a woman here who needs to talk to someone.”

      There’d been only one woman in the reception area when he’d entered the office. The one he’d seen in the elevator. He exhaled a stream of air through tight lips. He was tired. Exhausted. He’d had it with sad, dead-end stories. The last thing he wanted was to get involved in another. He should tell the receptionist to find another assistant district attorney to talk to the woman or tell her to come back tomorrow. But something wouldn’t let him push the words past his lips.

      Maybe it was the desperation he’d seen in her pale-blue eyes. Maybe it was the fear plain on her face. Hell, maybe it was simply the urge to be near that saucy little body again. He grimaced. He was even more cynical than he’d given himself credit for. “Send her in.”

      He had replaced the receiver and relocked the booze drawer when a timid knock sounded on his door. “Come in.”

      She pushed the door open and stepped inside before recognition registered on her face. “I saw you on the elevator.”

      “You sure did.” He half rose from his chair and held out a hand. “The name’s John Cohen.”

      She reached out and shook his hand. Her skin was soft, her nails perfectly manicured. Quite a contrast to her stringy hair and desperate look.

      “And what brings you here today?”

      “I need your help. I don’t know where else to turn.” She met his gaze with an urgency that made his gut tighten.

      He pushed the unease aside. He couldn’t afford to feel for this woman, no matter how desperate she seemed. Once he let himself feel, expectations were right around the corner. And once he started to expect too much, disappointment was inevitable. It was a mistake he’d made many times before. And it was one he damn well wasn’t going to repeat.

      “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me about it?” The words automatically tripped off his tongue. Maybe he should be a shrink. He could psychoanalyze himself during off hours. Save a bundle of money.

      She lowered herself into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

      He sank into his own chair. Gluing his gaze to hers, he waited for her to begin.

      “It’s about my husband.”

      Damn. Could he call them or what? A leaden weight settled in his gut. He’d been doing this job far too long. He braced himself for the rest of her sad story—a story he likely couldn’t do a damn thing to make end happily. “What about your husband? Is he a ward of the county?”

      “What?”

      “Is he in jail?”

      “Not hardly.” She frowned and drew a slow breath as if to steel herself. “I’m Andrea Kirkland. Wingate Kirkland’s wife.”

      John sat forward in his chair. He’d thought he’d run out of surprises during the past few years, but this certainly qualified as a change of pace. “Wingate Kirkland?”

      She pursed her lips together and nodded.

      Even though John didn’t exactly rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in Dane County, he’d sure as hell heard of Wingate Kirkland. Everyone had heard of Wingate Kirkland. The millionaire and his money were single-handedly responsible for reclaiming countless landmarks in Madison’s historic downtown. Of course, once reclaimed, he turned them into condos and rented them to anyone who could pay. Capitalism in action.

      He narrowed his eyes on the woman in front of him. The manicured nails and doe-soft skin fit the image he had of Kirkland’s wife. But the stringy hair, the bruises and the desperate glint in her eyes were another story. “And what is it you want to tell me about your husband?”

      “He’s dead. Murdered. And whoever killed him is after me.”

      Second shocker in a row. John blew a breath through pursed lips, creating a soft whistle. Wingate Kirkland. Murdered. So even living in a gated rural estate and having more money than God couldn’t isolate a person from violence and villainy. What else was new? “Why haven’t I heard about this? I would think the news media would be all over Wingate Kirkland’s death.”

      She gripped the arms of her chair. “No one knows yet.”

      He raised his brows. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

      “I don’t know what the beginning is exactly.”