Courting Danger. Carol Stephenson

if my hand, on its own volition, didn’t stray toward the tube of tablets concealed in my pocket. My aunt’s eagle-sharp gaze tracked my movement. I brought my hand forward, empty.

      “They’ve arrested Lloyd Silber for her murder.”

      “What?” My mouth dropped open. Lloyd, director of the courthouse restoration project, was about as debonair and dedicated as they come.

      “Close your mouth, Katherine. You could catch every mosquito along the beach the way you’re gaping.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” I swallowed. “Why do the police think Lloyd killed Grace?”

      Hilary shrugged. “The usual. A young, pretty volunteer. A straying man who wasn’t about to divorce his wife.”

      “Lloyd and Grace were an item?”

      “That’s the rumor.”

      No way. Grace was engaged to a drop-dead gorgeous executive of a high-tech company. More than once she had rubbed my nose in the fact after my relationship with my former boss had crashed and burned. Grace had had visions of a many-carat diamond ring and a waterfront mansion dancing in her head. She wouldn’t have wasted one flutter of her eyelashes on an older man like Lloyd who had lost everything when the limited-partnership tax laws had changed.

      “I can see your mind is already at work, springing to Lloyd’s defense.”

      “It’s just not possible—”

      Hilary held up her hand. “This is exactly why I wanted to see you. For once in your life, I want you to leave well enough alone and say no.”

      “You’ve lost me.”

      “Meredith Silber, poor fool, believes her husband is innocent. She called me this morning to ask if I thought you would represent him.”

      My breath hitched and excitement skittered along my nerves. The Silbers wanted me?

      “I want you to refuse.”

      My brief spike of adrenaline flattened. “Why? I know you’ve never wanted me to become an attorney but—”

      “But would you listen to reason? Of course not. You talked grand plans about the pursuit of justice. Where has this insane need gotten you? Once more in disgrace. Do you enjoy dragging the Rochelle name in the mud?”

      Indignation frosted my voice. “I had nothing to do with that mess at the U.S. Attorney’s office and you know it. Harold Lowell was accepting campaign contributions under the table from his staff and other influential people. What was I supposed to do? Just sit there and let him get away with it?”

      “No, for once your moral fanaticism exonerated you. But your taste in men remains abominable.”

      She had me there. I attracted every loser in the universe.

      My face must have reflected some of my chagrin, for Hilary nodded with satisfaction. “Exactly. If you had done what I had advised and gone into the family business, you would’ve met some nice executive and be married by now. But no, you never would listen to me.”

      I pinched my nose. “This is getting us nowhere.”

      “So typical of you, Katherine. Changing the topic when I’m trying to talk reason.”

      “I’ve lost track of what you’re trying to get me to do.”

      “Not represent Lloyd, dear.”

      “Why not? He needs a good attorney who’ll believe in his innocence.”

      “What he needs is a great criminal attorney, and quite frankly, that’s not you, Katherine. What did you do at the U.S. Attorney’s? Prosecute a few executives who stole from their companies? Give them a slap on the wrist with a fine and send them to one of those white-collar prisons for a few years?”

      Hilary leaned forward. “The government plans to seek the death penalty against Lloyd. This is his life at stake.”

      She was right. I had dealt with only high-brow criminals in a world where the sole stake was money. First-degree murder was a different matter.

      “Dear, Lloyd is going to need an attorney who can get him a good deal and you’re not up to it. How many of your so-called court victories can be attributed to the fact that you were dating the boss? That he might have given you easy cases? Even your uncle and godfather noticed that Harold sat as second chair on your trials more than was normal.”

      Resentment burned in my stomach. It looked like the rumors had literally hit home. Only Carling and Nicole believed in me and my capabilities. Granted, I might not be experienced enough to try a murder case, but I certainly could plea-bargain with the best of them.

      “Glad to know you think so highly of my abilities. Just for the record, I never rode on Harold’s coattails.”

      “Be reasonable. You can help best by steering Lloyd’s wife toward the names of several good attorneys. A few of us on the restoration board are quietly raising money to help out. Of course, we can’t do so openly because of Grace.”

      “Of course.” Mustn’t take a stand that the press could pounce on. I rose. “I have to be going.”

      Unease clouded her eyes. “Katherine, you won’t do anything foolish?”

      I crossed the terrace to the doors. “Now why would I start being anything but a disappointment to you?”

      “Katherine!”

      I paused.

      “Why do you always fight me? I only want what’s best for you.”

      “If that’s the case—” I turned halfway “—then why don’t you ever listen to what I want?”

      “Oh, I’ve listened.” My aunt’s lips thinned. “But you never seem to know what’s best for you. At times you are utterly unreasonable just like…” Her voice trailed off.

      I stilled. “Like my mother?”

      “No, like my brother. Always so righteous. Always so wrapped up in such an abstract concept of what justice is that you never can recognize the realities of life. Life isn’t black-and-white, Katherine, it’s filled with gray.”

      “That’s a lesson you’ve taught me well.”

      All too well. The defining moment had been when I was fifteen and home for summer-school break. My aunt had accused a servant of breaking a Dresden figurine, even though Uncle Colin had been the culprit because he’d had one too many. All my arguments and pleas had fallen on my aunt’s deaf ears. When it came to her husband, Colin could do no wrong. He denied the incident and that was enough for her. Not only had the servant Carmelina been fired, she had been deported back to Colombia.

      Six months later Carmelina and her family had been at the wrong place when a gunfight had broken out between a drug cartel and the police. Carmelina had died instantly, the earnest eighteen-year-old girl who had only craved and worked for a better life for her family. When I had come across another Colombian servant, distraught and crying in the kitchen over a letter from home with the news, I had gone to Hilary. Her only comment had been, “Death happens,” and that I should get use to it.

      As if I wasn’t already all too familiar with death and the everlasting grip of its consequences. Exhibit One, my grandparents. Exhibit Two, my mother.

      It had been at the moment I stared at her in disbelief over her callousness that my desire to be a lawyer who fought for others had been born.

      Hilary rolled up a cuff of her robe. “I’ve tried my best to steer you from going down the same reckless path Jonathan traveled.”

      To the point of suffocation. “If you had only answered my questions about my grandparents—”

      Hilary’s chair scraped as she rose. “And tell you what? That Jonathan and Marguerite vanished one night? That the ensuing investigation uncovered