Page 7

7

Cam was running late for court and hastily stuffing his notes for the hearing in his briefcase when Elijah Dalton stuck his head around Cam’s office door. “Got a sec?” the private investigator asked.

“Not really. Can we walk and talk?”

“Sure.”

He scooped up his suit coat and briefcase and headed down the hall the P.I. “What’s up, Eli?”

“That Russian kid you asked me to look into. I’m having a hard time finding out anything about his family. I can’t find any mention of a mother anywhere. And the father drops off the map right around the time the kid left home to go to school. Did you know Alex was fourteen when he went to Boston College?”

“I figured he must’ve started young since he’s twenty-two now and has a medical degree.”

“There’s something off about the father. He was granted asylum by the U.S. government and then went to work for Uncle Sam until he disappears. I can’t find any mention of him, alive or dead.”

“Did he go underground?” Cam asked, startled.

Eli shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he went undercover. Either way, he’s not in the picture.”

“Does Alex have any other family?”

“No idea. He and his old man came here from Russia, and I don’t have access to records from over there. Besides, they’d be in Russian. You don’t happen to read Cyrillic, do you, Cam?”

“Sorry, no.” He punched the elevator button. “Any chance you can find a translator to help you read anything in Russian?”

“The police department’s got translators on call for just about every language there is. I might get the D.A.’s office to spring for a few hours of a Russian translator’s time.”

Cam nodded. “Do it. This kid ought to have been able to pay for his own lawyer, and his attorney ought to be fighting these charges against him a whole lot more vigorously than she is.”

“Crappy public defender?” Eli asked sympathetically.

“No. She’s pro bono counsel from Whitney, Marcos, & Pinter.”

Eli whistled quietly. “They’re heavy hitters. They usually come hard at us.”

“Exactly.”

The elevator arrived and Cam stepped inside. “Keep digging. We’re missing something about this kid.”

“Will do, boss,” Eli called as the door slid shut.

Dani was still fuming when a cab deposited her in front of the county jail. No meeting was actually scheduled between her and Alex Koronov today, but his social calendar wasn’t going to be all booked up in the slammer.

She waited in a crappy interview room while Alex was fetched and brought to her. The scarred walls, linoleum floor, and handcuff bar on the table reminded her sharply of her first meeting with Cam Townsend in a nearly identical room.

Which, of course, made her think of that carnal kiss in the ladies room. Which made her face go hot and her pulse go hectic by the time her client was led in wearing an orange jumpsuit.

She studied him carefully as he sat down in front of her. He was paler than the last time she’d seen him. Thinner. But he looked…more peaceful? Question mark?

Nobody got less stressed in jail. Particularly in a temporary lock up where the violent offenders were not always effectively isolated from the non-violent ones.

Why would time in a jail cell calm him down? Did he have some underlying mental illness she wasn’t aware of? Scary thought.

“Hey, Alex. How’re you doing?” she asked brightly.

He shrugged noncommittally.

Handsome guy . Dark hair, light eyes, great bones. Lean to the point of being too thin, though. If he got outside a little more, maybe got enough sleep to knock out those dark circles under his eyes, and put on a few pounds, he would be a very handsome guy.

She checked in with the expression in his eyes and sighed. He was still totally closed off. His hostile stare and defensive body language screamed for people to leave him the hell alone.

She continued with fake cheer, “As we expected, the D.A.’s office made you a plea offer. In fact, it was extremely generous given how obviously you did what you were charged with.”

She paused to see if he would show any interest whatsoever in what the actual offer was. Nope. He merely stared at her in silence, his expression flat and stubborn. He clearly had no intention of accepting the deal regardless of how generous it was.

“They offered you a five-thousand-dollar fine?—”

He cut her off sharply. “Don’t bother. I don’t care what they offered.”

She sighed. “Look. I’m obligated by law to tell you what the D.A. offered. You don’t have to listen, but I have a responsibility to do my job ethically and give you the best representation I can. If I were your patient and you told me you needed to render aid because I appeared to be having a heart attack, you would have an obligation to help me out even if I didn’t want to cooperate, right?”

He huffed. “There are gray areas in medical ethics regarding patients refusing care versus a physician’s legal responsibility to render aid.”

She pounced on that. “Would you be obligated to at least explain to the patient what’s wrong with them and what will happen if they don’t allow you to help them?”

“If they’re rational, of sound mind, and can understand the explanation, yes. I would be obligated to explain their ailment.”

“Are you rational, of sound mind, and able to understand my explanations?” she challenged. Not that she was entirely sure she should trust his answer, of course. He’d been acting wildly irrationally on the subject of pleading guilty versus going to a messy trial that would end up putting him in jail for sure.

His eyes narrowed to irritated slits of black.

She said more gently, “Do me a favor and just bear with me while I tell you what the plea offer was. You can say no to me the instant I finish, but that way I will have discharged my duty to you as an officer of the court.”

“I’m saying no, now,” he insisted.

“You may be hell bent on destroying your reputation, your career, and your life, but please don’t destroy my career, too,” she threw at him. “I volunteered to defend you pro bono, and I assure you, I’m better counsel than you’d have gotten from a brutally overworked, underpaid public defender. I’m doing you a solid, here, so maybe don’t fuck up my life while you’re busy fucking up yours?”

He leaned back, studying her with the first sign of real interest he’d ever shown. It wasn’t anything romantic or flirty, like the way Cam looked at her. It was as if Alex was seeing her as a human being for the first time.

“All right. Do your job,” he said grimly.

“The plea offer was a five-thousand-dollar fine, two years’ probation, and a thousand hours community service, which they’ll let you serve in community health centers or hospitals.”

“Satisfied?” he asked dryly.

“Yes. You may say no, now. And I will need you to say it aloud.”

“No,” he ground out. “Turn down the deal.”

“I already told the ADA you would turn it down but that I needed to confirm with you before I made it official.” She added soothingly, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I work for you. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.”

That had been one of Koronov’s two iron-clad conditions for her to represent him. He’d made her promise to do what he told her to, even if it sounded crazy. The other condition had been that she wasn’t to push for answers to any questions he refused to discuss.

So far, the second one hadn’t been a huge issue. He hadn’t been the least bit coy about owning up to being drunk as a skunk when he’d tried to go supersonic in a car. He readily admitted the police were right to have charged him with every single crime they’d accused him of.

The weird bit was he didn’t seem to care if that was made clear in court, either. The only way he wasn’t going to jail if his case went before a jury was if he bought off a juror?—

“Are you a mobster?” she blurted in abrupt alarm.

“No, no, and hell no!” Alex exclaimed.

It was her turn to sit back and study him. That was the first sign of agitation she’d ever seen from her taciturn client. Now, why did suggesting he might be a mobster set him off like that? Was he finally lying to her?

She leaned forward and planted her elbows on the table. “Are you familiar with the concept of attorney-client privilege?”

“Yes, of course,” he answered scornfully.

“Do you understand that it’s ironclad? Even if you tell me you’re a mass murderer, I’m not allowed to reveal your confession to me and I’m still obligated to defend you as vigorously as I’m capable of doing.”

“I am not an uneducated man, Ms. Wellford. If I say I understand a concept, then I fucking understand it.”

Their gazes locked and clashed.

“Okay,” she said, conceding the staring contest to him. “I get the feeling there’s more to your answer than you’re telling me.”

“What answer?” he asked blandly. Too blandly.

“Whether or not you’re a mobster. That’s by far the strongest reaction I’ve ever seen from you. What’s the rest of the answer?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you a former mobster? Mob affiliated but not an actual member? Mobster adjacent enough that you can ask for someone to tamper with a juror in your trial?”

He stared at her stubbornly, back to his usual stubborn, uncommunicative, uncooperative self.

“Keeping in mind that anything you say to me has absolute privilege,” she added gently.

He shook his head in the negative. Whether that was a no, I’m not a former mobster or a no, I’m not going to elaborate, she couldn’t tell.

She sighed. “I need to know what I’m up against if I’m going to win, Alex. Withholding information from me like this is hamstringing all my efforts to defend you and get you the best outcome possible.”

“Good,” he bit out.

She stared at him in shock. He didn’t want her to defend him to the best of her ability?

“We’re finished here,” he announced. “No deal. Is that clear?”

“Crystal clear,” she snapped, so frustrated she could scream.

What the hell wasn’t he telling her about this case? There was definitely a reason for his completely unreasonable behavior. He was just refusing to share it with her.

A prison guard opened the door in response to the buzzer Alex pushed beside the door.

“I’ll find out, you know!” she called after him as he stepped into the hall. “I always do!”

Alex paused. Looked back over his shoulder at her. And said a single word. “Don’t.”

The door closed leaving her alone in the smelly little room. Why the hell shouldn’t she dig until she found out what he was hiding? She was legally bound not to use it against him. Her job was to defend him, not to bury him.

A cold, ugly blade of fear lodged in her chest.

It was Cameron Townsend’s job to bury her client, and he was very good at his job. What if Cam found out Alex’s secret and ambushed her and her client with it, and she was totally unprepared for the attack? Cam would not only bury her client in jail for years to come, but he would bury her, too.

WMP was definitely going to be looking for a reason to fire her after her behavior with Mr. Whitney this morning. If she lost badly enough to Cam, that would be just the excuse they needed, not only to dump her but to get away with it, too.