Guilty of Child Rape.
Ashley let out a satisfied breath, even as the man’s wife crumpled. Ashley ignored the wave of sympathy she felt for the woman. His family wasn’t responsible for his actions, but they’d carry the stigma of his shame for the rest of their lives. It was a phenomenon she was more than familiar with, and sometimes she still struggled to get past her own secret shame.
The accused was looking at his wife, aghast. The woman turned away from him with a look of disgust on her face. Halfway through the trial, the degenerate had admitted to having sex with Becca, but tried to suggest he hadn’t realized she was underage, and that she’d seduced him, in a brothel—where she was locked up as a sex slave.
Ashley and Alex had unearthed enough evidence to prove the guy regularly trawled the internet for underage girls. She hoped that worked against him when the judge sentenced him tomorrow. Theoretically, someone convicted of child rape could get life, but she doubted the judge would be that harsh. But they might get lucky. Especially in a city still mourning its dead.
She waited for the room to clear before she stood and headed down the hallway in the opposite direction of everyone else. She knocked on a heavy wooden door and let herself in. Lucas and Becca were playing cribbage.
Lucas’s gaze was piercing. Becca’s was worried.
“Guilty,” said Ashley.
Lucas grinned. Becca’s face lit up.
This was the first trial of many, but Ashley hoped this verdict would persuade the other accused to accept plea bargains.
Theo Giovanni, the lawyer who’d cut a plea in exchange for the password that had gotten Lucas into the brothel had been pulled over for erratic driving with a thousand dollars’ worth of crack cocaine in his glove box. He’d lost his high-rolling career and his wife. Ashley wasn’t sorry even a little bit.
Lucas looked especially handsome in a dark gray suit with a red tie. Every day, she didn’t think she could love him or want him more than she had the day before, but she did. He’d been promoted to SSA and was running his own team down in Charlotte. Ashley had left the BAU.
“Ready?” she asked.
They both nodded, but she knew Lucas was lying. After these last few months together she’d learned to read him well.
“Let’s go,” he said.
It was a short walk to a different judge’s private chambers. Ashley braced herself before they went inside.
The lawyer Lucas had hired stood in front of the judge’s desk. But when the men turned to face them, they wore matching expressions of unhappiness.
“Where is she?” Lucas looked around.
Neither man spoke.
“She’s not coming, is she?” Becca said quietly.
Lucas muttered what was probably an obscenity under his breath.
It had taken a month to track down Becca’s mother. It turned out the woman was already serving time for armed robbery, trying to steal enough money to pay off her latest gambling debt. She had more charges pending.
But they’d discovered a grandmother who’d taken Becca’s brother, Jackson, into her care.
She and Becca had met up on several occasions, and Ashley had thought Lucas had persuaded the woman to take Becca, too. Apparently, she’d changed her mind at the last minute.
Ashley looked at Lucas’s devastated expression. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for everything Becca had been through. And, after spending a lot of time working with the kid, he loved her like a daughter. They both did.
“We’ll take her,” Ashley said firmly.
Becca gasped.
Lucas’s eyes widened. His stare was intense, as if he were trying to gauge whether or not she was serious. She was. Deadly.
“You both work full-time.” The judge looked at them from under his considerable brows.
“As do hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of other American parents.”
“But we’ve already established that Becca’s situation is not ordinary.”
She needed counseling and special tutoring to catch up with schoolwork. Lucas stood flexing his fists. “Foster care is not an option for a child in her situation,” he said.
“Please let me live with them.” The words rushed out of Becca in a heartfelt plea.
Lucas squeezed her shoulder.
At Lucas’s request, Becca had been placed in a safe house in North Carolina, and they’d spent as much of their free time together as possible. But time was up. The Department of Justice had suggested WITSEC, but Becca was only thirteen. The program wasn’t designed for children.
“I’m in a financial position to provide everything Becca needs. We live in a house with enough bedrooms and space to give Becca a good upbringing.”
“You and Agent Chen aren’t married,” the judge argued.
“I’m wearing her down, Judge. It’s just a matter of time.”
Ashley burst out laughing. She really didn’t know how her love continued to grow and grow, but it did.
“Did we just get engaged?” he asked with a manly smirk that made her want to hit him and kiss him all at the same time.
She inclined her head. Just enough to tell him yes.
“We both have training in the psychology of abuse, and we know what happened to Becca. We can help her deal with it, and we have access to child psychologists should problems arise,” Ashley told the judge.
“You’d adopt her?”
“Yes,” Lucas said.
Ashley nodded, but she was a little unsure about how her fake identity might affect that if the truth ever came to light. Frazer had blistered her ears and given her hell when she’d gotten back to Quantico. Then he’d made her teach him how to beat the polygraph. The guy was beyond scary, but he’d let her finish her training, after which she’d transferred to Charlotte to be with Lucas, working on cybercrimes just like she’d always wanted.
Becca was practically vibrating on her toes.
“How do you feel about being part of a mixed-race family, Becca?” the judge asked.
Lucas bristled, and Ashley shook her head. He never seemed to realize she wasn’t pearly white, but it was something she had to deal with every single day. And it was a potential difficulty for a kid who’d already suffered at the hands of other Asians. Ashley’s relatives, no less.
Damn. Maybe this was a bad idea. Except—who better to try to help Becca through this? She owed it to both Becca and Lucas to try to atone for her family’s sins, even if they didn’t see it that way.
“I love Ashley.” Becca bit her lip. “I just don’t want to get in the way.”
Lucas looked as stricken as Ashley felt.
She wasn’t a crier by nature, but holy crap, the tears were flowing now. She wiped her eyes, knowing her makeup was toast. “You won’t ever be in the way, honey. You’d be part of our family.” A family she’d never thought she’d have. She pulled the girl into her embrace and felt Lucas’s arms wrap around them both, sheltering them and giving them strength.
The judge huffed out a gruff laugh. “Fine. I’m going to assign you temporary custody, SSA Randall. We’ll reconvene in six months and start the formal adoption process if that’s what you all still want.”
They thanked him, said goodbye to their lawyer, and stood looking at one another in the wide hallway of the courthouse.
One side of Lucas’s mouth curved. “Did you just say you’d marry me?”
Ashley pointedly wiggled her naked left hand. “I said I might.”
Lucas and Becca shared a grin. He leaned closer to the teen and said in a stage whisper, “Looks like we better go find a jeweler’s quick before she changes her mind.”
“It’s gonna cost you,” Becca stage-whispered back. “She has expensive tastes.”
Ashley leaned over and pressed a kiss to Lucas’s lips. He picked her up and twirled her around. Then he picked Becca up at the same time and spun them until they were laughing and dizzy.
“This might be the happiest day of my life,” Lucas told them as he put
them down.
Ashley’s head was spinning, and she gripped him by the arm. “It keeps getting better and better.”
He kissed her quickly, then grabbed both their hands. “Then I can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“Can I have a dog?” Becca asked and then caught her bottom lip with her teeth.
“You’ll have to look after it,” Lucas said firmly.
Becca nodded like crazy.
And Ashley knew he was going to make a great dad.
“We’ll go visit the pound and see who else needs a new home.”
Becca looked like she might physically burst with happiness.
Ashley felt a huge well of emotion swelling up inside her. Lucas squeezed her fingers, reading her mind.
“Let’s go pick up your things, Becs, and go home. I, for one, am eager to get started.”
Ashley walked beside them both and knew without a doubt she was the luckiest woman on the planet.
Dear Reader
Thank you for reading Cold Secrets. I hope you enjoyed it.
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Cold Justice Series Overview
A Cold Dark Place (Book #1)
Cold Pursuit (Book #2)
Cold Light of Day (Book #3)
Cold Fear (Book #4)
Cold In The Shadows (Book #5)
Cold Hearted (Book #6)
Cold Secrets (Book #7)
Book #8 coming in 2017!
The Cold Justice Series books are also available as audiobooks narrated by Eric Dove.
Check out all Toni’s books on her website (www.toniandersonauthor.com/books)
For readers who love Romantic Suspense check out award-winning author, Cate Beauman’s, The Bodyguards of L.A. County series.
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Acknowledgments
Some books are harder than others to write. This one was made particularly difficult due to many upheavals in my personal life throughout 2016, including major renovations, and my husband’s work taking us to Japan for three months. There were some constants though—my wonderful critique partner Kathy Altman, my editors, Alicia Dean, and Joan Turner at JRT Editing. My cover artist, Syd Gill, who did a great job capturing the essence of this book. And Paul Salvette (BB eBooks) who formats my ebooks with such care.
Thanks for informative conversations with Sunny Lee-Goodman, Rachel Grant, and Carolyn Crane, regarding issues of diversity in America today. A special thanks goes to Angela Bell of the FBI for answering my questions about what agents can and can’t do, and for arranging a tour of FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Any mistakes in this book are down to me, and the ever-forgiving concept of artistic license.
Mostly, I want to thank my husband and kids just for being them. We do manage to have some grand adventures as we navigate this thing called life!
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today international bestselling author, Toni Anderson, writes dark, gritty Romantic Suspense novels that have hit #1 in Barnes & Noble’s Nook store, Top 10 in the Amazon, iBooks, and Kobo stores. Her novels have won many awards, and she’s been nominated for the prestigious Romance Writers of America® RITA® Award.
A former Marine Biologist from Britain, she inexplicably ended up in the geographical center of North America, about as far from the ocean as it is possible to get. She now lives in the Canadian prairies with her Irish husband and two children and spends most of her time complaining about the weather.
Toni has no explanation for her oft-times dark imagination, and only hopes the romance makes up for it. She’s addicted to reading, dogs, tea, and chocolate.
If you want to know when Toni’s next book will be out, visit her website (www.toniandersonauthor.com) and sign up for her newsletter. If you want to read other fascinating stories about life in a city that during winter is sometimes colder than Mars, friend her on Facebook: (facebook.com/toniannanderson).
Toni donates 15% of her royalties from EDGE OF SURVIVAL to diabetes research—to find out why, read the book!
Cold Secrets (Cold Justice Book 7) Page 33