Courting Danger. Carol Stephenson

wiry hairs combed across the gleaming pale skin of the man’s head, I locked gazes with Leo Feinstein. Age wasn’t being kind to my former law school classmate. In fact, it was gouging his face with a steel brush.

      “How nice that the state attorney let you out of your cubicle, Leo.”

      His flush did nothing for his massive bald spot. “You were a nice woman, Katherine, until you hooked up with those two pals of yours.”

      He meant that I had been an amenable debutante, in danger of fading into nonexistence as a human being, until Carling and Nicole had rescued me. A man like Leo didn’t care for strong women attorneys like Carling or Nicole who ran circles around him every day in court.

      “Hey, someone left today’s paper.” Always the cheap-skate, Leo bent over, his faded navy-blue polyester tie dangling forward.

      The bold headline of an article on the front page caught my attention: Is The Courthouse Restoration Jinxed?

      The answer? Absolutely.

      Unable to stop myself, I gazed through the wide bank of tinted windows that lined the main corridor. Across the street shimmering under the bright Florida sunlight was the old courthouse. Black skeletal fingers of scaffolding encased it much like the frustration that gripped me whenever I looked at the 1916 structure.

      Would it never release its secrets?

      When the 1970s brick wraparound was first stripped away, revealing the building’s facade as it had existed thirty-five years ago, I had haunted the construction perimeter. Had I half expected to see my grandparents walk down those steps as they had when they had disappeared all those years ago? Had I hoped their unknown killer would experience contrition at the déjà vu of seeing the original courthouse and confess?

      How much death had those halls witnessed?

      So lost was I in my contemplation of the past that I jolted when Leo spoke. “Isn’t it something that a woman was killed there the other night?”

      The woman had a name and a life she hadn’t deserved to lose in that tomb of horrors.

      “Her name was Grace Roberts,” I stated.

      “Hey, that’s right. Your family’s a big supporter of the restoration. Did you know her?” Leo’s greed for gossip hadn’t lessened in the years since graduation.

      I shifted my briefcase from one hand to the other. “Love to chat, but I’m due in court.”

      Leo jerked his head, dislodging one precious hair so that it spiraled straight up. “Are you here for Winewski?”

      My stomach did a perfect flip. “Yes.”

      “God, how the mighty have fallen.” His smile reminded me of a vampire all set for the final love bite. “Katherine Rochelle attending a lowly misdemeanor hearing rather than gracing the lofty halls of federal court. Not to worry. I’m the prosecutor today, and I’ll keep in mind that you won’t know your ass from your head in there. I’ll try to go easy on your poor sucker of a client.”

      Terrific. It appeared the rumor mill that was the West Palm Beach legal community had generated a nasty spin on my leaving the U.S. Attorney’s office. Either Harold Lowell, my former lover, or the female U.S. attorney who had replaced him, had been bad-mouthing me.

      “Don’t do me any favors, Leo. I can handle myself.”

      He sneered. “Yeah, I heard plenty about how you handle yourself outside the job.” His attention zeroed in on my chest. That ruled out the U.S. attorney even though she had fired me for “incompetence.”

      To my chagrin, I had learned a hard lesson about being a whistle-blower: your co-workers avoid you like the plague. After all, you’ve brought disruption in their jobs and gotten a popular man into hot water. When they had looked at me, I had seen their speculation—had I turned him in merely because of a lover’s quarrel?

      Yet underneath the speculation I knew their real fear was they would lose their jobs because they had illegally contributed to Harold’s campaign fund for attorney general.

      However, I knew the current chief attorney was smart enough not to risk a lawsuit by maligning my reputation.

      Since Harold was already on the slow road to disbarment and conviction for all sorts of federal crimes and had nothing to lose, my money was on him. The bastard.

      In times of trouble, though, adages are wonderful crutches, especially ones drummed into the very pores of your being. If my great-aunt Hilary had said it once, she had said it a thousand times, “Rochelles never sweat in public.”

      I arched a brow, giving my aristocratic freeze-in-hell look. “Gee, Leo, I’m quaking in my shoes. Don’t tell me that you actually manage to stay awake for a whole hearing nowadays?”

      Law school classmates have long memories and one of mine was that of Leo snoozing through nine a.m. Criminal Law.

      Leo’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for breath. He stormed across the hall into the courtroom, sending the doors swinging so wildly that the bailiff rushed to steady them.

      Was my petty moment of besting Leo worth a guaranteed payback from hell? My lips twitched.

      Definitely.

      I strolled across to the chamber and nodded to the still-huffing bailiff as I entered. I made a beeline to the opposite side, away from where Leo stood, and sat at the end of the bench seat. Letting him cool down wouldn’t be a bad idea.

      Studiously ignoring Leo’s glare, I read the graffiti etched on the back of the wood bench before me. Although cameras and microphones had been installed in the rooms when the current courthouse had been built ten years ago, technology hadn’t defeated the artistic endeavors of the accused and defiant.

      The newest artist had definite opinions on Judge Kurt Winewski’s anatomy. I chuckled, but the laugh died in my throat as I glanced up. A group of attorneys had gathered around Leo, who was talking a mile a minute. A few gawked at me, their expressions ranging from curious to baleful. The latter belonged to those lawyers whose clients I’d prosecuted during my days as an assistant U.S. attorney. I hadn’t won any popularity contests then, either, due to my prosecutorial zeal, and it appeared I wasn’t going to now.

      Let them look and gossip.

      But it wasn’t fair that my own integrity was getting maligned. A crook was a crook, right? So what if the criminal happened to be a fellow attorney? I was the one who had been wronged, not Harold. My only fault was once more having no—that’s nada, zilch, zero—judgment in men.

      Absently I watched people fill the room. Why hadn’t I immediately seen through the charisma of my boss and lover to his rotten inner core? It wasn’t as if sex with him should have blinded me; that had been uninspiring and blessedly infrequent.

      For whatever reason, I hadn’t suspected anything until I had found Harold’s little black book in between my sofa cushions and, after decoding it, realized it didn’t contain women’s phone numbers but illegal contributions for his campaign fund. I had been faced with only one option: I had gone straight to the federal authorities.

      “All rise.” The bailiff adjusted his utility belt around his girth as he struggled to stand.

      Tucking away the past, I stood with everyone else and watched the judge march to his bench. For one moment the seal of Florida hanging on the wall framed Judge Winewski’s head like a gold halo…or a crown of thorns some would mutter, given the judge’s use of his power.

      Beneath white bushy brows his piercing regard swept the courtroom, a maneuver designed to keep the audience standing a moment longer. At once he honed in on me with a look of condescension and distaste, as if a disgusting bug had crawled into his domain. Even though we had never met in person, I knew he recognized me.

      Sometimes bearing the Rochelle trademark looks of honey-blond hair, vivid blue eyes and tall, lithe build was a definite negative. I didn’t need to open the gold filigree