“Wait a minute.” Earnshaw stepped up, putting his hand between Brooke and Poole. He turned to Dane. “This is legal? You’re sure?”
Poole jumped in. “You was delivered notice earlier, Miss Chadwick. You had plenty of time to prepare yourself. I’m glad to see you’re lugging around the item, just in case we might show up for it.”
Earnshaw turned on her, his eyes narrowing. “Did you know about this before you came down here tonight?”
Brooke’s stomach might as well have been trying out for the Olympics gymnastic team. “I assumed the notice couldn’t be legal.”
Earnshaw snatched the check from Brooke’s grip. “And you also swore up and down you weren’t running any kind of a scam.” The rip of the paper cut through her ears, shooting straight to her heart.
“Please, no. Mr. Earnshaw!” she cried. “I swear. I had no idea this could happen.”
“I swear, neither did I.” He was unamused, and he took Miss Fitch by the arm and marched up the stairs of the B&B. “Don’t come begging to me again. I have no patience for fraud.”
Fraud! A distant rumbling signaled Brooke’s entire world falling apart.
At the top of the stairs, Earnshaw turned around. “Oh, and the money you’ve already been given? I’ll have that back next week. With interest.” He disappeared into the depths of the hotel.
But— all that money had gone into overhead, into the preparation of the museum. She couldn’t pay it back. It was in the plumbing and the tile floor and the roof repair.
“Mr. Earnshaw—” Brooke started for the staircase, desperate for another chance, but she stopped herself and whirled on Dane. “Dane. We can’t let them take this. It’s all we have.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Dane gently pried the lacquer box from her arms and handed it to Mr. Poole. “You let anything happen to this, and I take it out of your hide.”
“Understood.” Poole and his compadre evaporated like steam.
Dane led Brooke out onto the front lawn. She couldn’t help it— tears welled in her eyes and spilled hot down her cheeks.
“Isn’t there any way we can get it back? If we had it back, Earnshaw wouldn’t be so harsh, I’m sure of it.” She couldn’t hold back an unattractive sniffle. But at the moment, she didn’t care. “There has to be a way around it.”
“Oh, there’s a way around it. Same as putting it into hock, you can buy it back out.”
“For how much?”
“Same amount the plaintiff paid to put it into hock— twice the appraised value of the object.”
“But how much is that?” Brooke braced herself for a big number. After all, it was the most important baseball in history. “Do we even know how much was paid? I assume it was LaBarge.”
“Oh, it was Faro LaBarge, all right.” Dane frowned. It was the same dark frown as earlier when they’d talked about LaBarge on the drive back from Naughton. “I called a friend who works at the court and who saw the bond to hold the ball come in. It doesn’t matter how much. You can’t afford it.”
He shouldn’t be doing that— acting as her agent. Not that she didn’t need and want his help. She did, desperately. But he could be in so much trouble. Her heart skipped around in her chest in terror.
“Tell me.” She could sell her old Honda, see if Quirt had any of his life insurance payout left after his education. “I can take it. Is it more than $25,000?”
A dry laugh puffed from Dane’s lips. “Times that by a hundred.”
Brooke’s head spun. “A huh-huh-hundred?” So, she’d just been carrying two-and-a-half million bucks worth of baseball around in her old Honda?
“Wait. Math time. Is that the value, or is it twice the value, the amount for the bond?”
“I’m afraid it’s the base value.”
So that made it five million. She’d have to cough up five million bucks, just to keep hold of what was rightfully hers, according to Harvey Jarman’s will.
“So just because Sarge LaBarge has a disposable five million in cash and I don’t, he can get the law to take my stuff? It seems so wrong. Is that like a hostile takeover in business-speak? Should I have let it go? Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and I had it. Right in my hands.” Brooke was blabbering now.
Dane reached an arm around her. “There was nothing for it. You had to obey the law.”
“And now we have nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing.”
“Oh, yeah? What do we have, counselor? We haven’t got the ball, we haven’t got the will or the handwriting comparison, even if we did have an expert to comment on it.
“Oh, but you’re right— we do have something. We have four days, two of which are a weekend, and one of which is only a morning, until we have to be in court with proof that ball belongs to me.” Her voice wound up. “And I don’t even have a lawyer. And I’m going up against a notorious politician who always gets his way and knows all kinds of legal acrobatics— enough to wrench that ball away from me when I had it in my hands for my investor. I don’t have a check, and I can’t open my aunt’s museum. And I have to pay Earnshaw back all the funds he loaned me, which is going to wipe out everything, since the building probably will never sell, and I’ll basically lose all the life insurance money I invested to get the place ready to open.” Brooke sucked in a huge breath. “And so you’re saying we have something, Dane? Seriously?”
“We have your brain, and my legal knowledge.”
Knowledge which they couldn’t use outright, not safely for Dane’s career’s sake. He was risking too much for her.
“Oh,” he said, “and the phone pictures we took.”
Brooke gave a dry laugh. “Rock solid case for Tuesday.”
“Bedrock.” The left side of his mouth lifted, and that deep dimple sank.
Dane’s phone buzzed, and he checked the text, the grin fading and a line forming between his brows.
“I have to go.”
“But it’s after nine.” And her lips ached for his dimple, his mouth, his affection. “What’s wrong?”
He blinked at her for a few seconds and didn’t answer. Clearly, he had something he was keeping from her. Worry crawled through her chest.
“It’s Tweed.”
“Your boss? This late?”
“He says I need to come in.”
Brooke brightened. “Maybe the ethics committee is dropping the charges and he can’t wait to tell you in person.”
“Good night, Brooke.” He leaned in, as if to kiss her, but he stopped himself. “Remember, I’ll always be here for you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Threatening and Intimidating
Dane tore into the parking lot of Tweed Law. His truck knew just where to park. Muscle memory. But that was all it was at this point— a memory.
Upstairs, only Mr. Tweed lurked, and possibly a few janitors.
“Don’t you know it’s not safe for a man to be alone in an office at night? Predators and such. In red dresses.” Dane’s joke rang hollow as he took a seat in front of Tweed; the man’s eyes had circles beneath them.
“This time they’re in beige.”
Beige?
Tweed pushed a folder across the table at Dane, and Dane opened it. Inside the front cover was a photo that could’ve been titled “Beige Woman.” Eyes, hair, skin tone, blouse, jacket, even her glasses; all the same color.
“Okay?” Dane looked up, needing explanation.
“Not really. Read on.”
He opened to the next pages. Oh, right. Not okay. “They’ve set a hearing for me.”
“I asked them to expedite.”
But it was for Tuesday. At four-thirty. Brooke’s hearing was at four. Even if they were both set for the Naughton Superior Court building, Dane couldn’t be in two hearings at once.
Great. He could go to hers, cut out early and head downstairs to get disbarred at the same location. One stop shopping.
Dane’s mouth dropped open to protest the scheduling conflict, but
he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be doing legal work for a female client, especially not a former Miss Chesapeake. Instead he replied, “And they complied with your request? Maybe I shouldn’t be shocked.”
Tweed’s eyes got an even more exhausted tilt. “Someone reported you.”
“Reported me? For what?”
“For serving as that bombshell’s lawyer at the Harvey Jarman will reading.”
“But I—”
“No buts, Rockwell. In a sexual harassment case, the facts don’t matter. You should know that. It’s all about the appearance of guilt.” Tweed exhaled heavily. “I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?”
“She’s a friend of the family.” Er, that wasn’t right. He was a friend of her family. It was getting late. “I was only there for moral support.”
“No one else registered to attend as her legal counsel.”
How did Tweed have all this information?
It didn’t matter.
“So, basically this expedited hearing is so the ethics commission can convict sooner rather than later because I’m some sort of menace to women?”
Tweed didn’t answer, and Dane’s stomach wrenched, his words coming faster.
“There’s so much wrong with this.” He shoved the file back. “Did you even see the security tape from my original accusation? Do the facts even matter in my situation?”
Tweed looked grim. “I’ve met this beige person. Nieve Ingersoll. She’s…let’s just say she’s the guilty-until-proven-innocent type in matters like this.”
Great. “Now we’ve crossed over into Napoleonic law.” The French legal system gave all the power to the accuser. Which was probably the whole warped reasoning behind the guillotine mania back in the day.
“She did attend law school in New Orleans.”
Perfect. Where Louisianans still kept French law a stronghold. Dane set his jaw. “So due process is out of the question.”
“Bring your A game.” Tweed’s words were a dismissal.
Dane left, the moonless night’s heat and humidity threatening to stifle him.
Now his career hung by a fragile thread, and the one thing he had going for him, the thing that would guarantee he’d always be there for Brooke— and that he wasn’t the Rockwell his name implied— had gone into jeopardy.
His phone rang. Brooke. What was he going to say to her? That he couldn’t be her lawyer? That it didn’t matter because Ames was back, and she’d have him to count on, like she’d always wanted? That in a matter of days he’d be a convicted sex offender and lose his license to practice law?
And let the beige ethics woman prove I’m the Rockwell I always knew I was.
He let the call go to voice mail. Brooke really couldn’t count on him.
__________
Why wouldn’t Dane pick up?
Brooke’s neck pulsated as she stared at the package on the floor of her apartment above Left Field. Her senses tingled— this thing wasn’t right: her name written in spidery letters, no return address, sloppy brown paper wrapping, an acrid smell.
Memories kicked back at her from the safety training she’d gotten when she went to the Miss Virginia pageant. Pageant winners got dogged by stalkers and threats often enough that the pageant system didn’t take any chances. They trained their girls, particularly on the state level.
She stepped back from the parcel, dialing Dane again. Still no answer.
She listened for a timer in the box, but there wasn’t one. She didn’t know enough about bombs to tell any particulars, but she did know enough to get away. Fast.
“Aunt Ruth?” she whispered after tiptoeing downstairs at the bedroom door, just in case the bomb was noise-triggered. If there was such a thing. Her pulse raced. It was nearly midnight now. She tried Dane’s phone again— he might have turned it off to sleep tonight.
Please pick up.
Nothing. She texted him. Maybe he’d get that.
“Aunt Ruth?” Brooke peeked into her aunt’s room, but she wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t anywhere in the downstairs of the museum. Had someone taken her? When they’d left the suspicious package?
Holding her breath, she pulled aside the curtains to look in the back yard, but the car was still there.
Brooke’s heart lurched. Fear would have planted her feet to the ground, but she forced logic to overshadow it.
Aunt Ruth is fine. She’s got to be fine. Brooke willed her breathing to steady, and she tiptoed to the front of the museum. The door was ajar.
“Hello?” Brooke ventured into the muggy air. “Someone out here?”
A man’s voice said, “Brooke?”
“Who’s there?” Panic gripped her. “Do you have Ruth Chadwick?”
“I do.” He stepped into the streetlight’s glow, but Brooke’s eyes snatched at where Aunt Ruth could be, her muscles trembling.
“I’m okay, sweetheart.” Aunt Ruth’s voice brought a cool rush of relief. “I just saw him out here on my way back from mailing a bill at the post box— didn’t want to miss the four a.m. pickup— and here he was, looking a little forlorn.”
Forlorn? Brooke turned to the man and recognized him at once.
“Ames Crosby?” What in the world? Brooke’s stomach clenched twice as tightly as it had when she saw the bomb upstairs. There he stood, rumpled and frazzled, but still nearly as handsome as the last time she’d seen him. Their eyes met and Brooke looked away quickly, before anything else could go seismic in her insides.
“I’ll just leave the two of you …” Aunt Ruth said, sidling away.
“Sorry. Long day.” Ames looked sheepish and ran a hand through his hair. “I probably look like a stalker.”
The word stalker brought her back to reality. She ran after Aunt Ruth. “No! Don’t go in there.” Brooke grabbed her by the arm and jerked her to a stop.
Aunt Ruth turned, a question on her face in the sodium light.
“I mean— I don’t want to alarm you, but—” What choice did she have? “There’s something in my apartment upstairs, and I’m not sure but I think it might be a bomb.”
“A bomb!” Aunt Ruth’s shoulder bag slid off her arm and onto the concrete.
Words spilled forth from Brooke’s overstressed soul. “I called Dane a dozen times, but he wasn’t picking up, and then I started worrying that you’d been kidnapped by whoever planted the bomb, and—”
“Did you call the police?” Aunt Ruth bent to pick up her bag and the lipstick that had rolled from inside it.
Oh. No. She hadn’t. She’d called Dane and not the police.
Ames was already dialing, and as he gave the address and explained the situation to the police dispatcher, up roared Dane’s old Dodge. He flung himself from the driver’s seat and didn’t even shut the door. He made eye contact with Ames but didn’t acknowledge him.
“You can’t just send me a text like that. What are you doing outside?” His eyes were wild. “Nothing exploded? What’s going on?”
Brooke gave him the barest details, and then Dane turned toward Ames. “Crosby, you deal with the cops and the bomb squad. I’m getting Brooke and Ruth somewhere safe. I have a place.”
Ames just nodded, his mouth firm.
Brooke and Aunt Ruth clambered into the Dodge and Dane roared down Water Street, rapidly firing off questions. Brooke did her best to answer them with the scant information she had.
“It’s not safe for you at Left Field. Not until we find out what’s going on.” Dane ran a stop sign.
“Do you think it has anything to do with the Called Shot Ball?”
He shrugged. “I do think it’s highly suspicious that the night you find a bomb in your apartment you also find Ames Crosby lurking out front.”
Brooke shook her head, blinking a thousand times. “You’re kidding, right?”
Dane pulled the car up at the marina, half a mile up the coast from the dunes. The syncopated clunking of twenty or thirty boats bobbing farther down the dock knocked in the night. “You’re kidding th
at you don’t find the coincidence a little much, right?”
There hadn’t been time to think about why Ames Crosby had been standing there, not even a second. She’d have to process that later.
Dane got out and let them out of the car. “I don’t think we were followed. Come on.” He led them down the dock by the light of the flashlight on his phone. It didn’t do much to dispel the darkness of the moonless night. “This is it.”
They stood in front of the nicest boat on the dock. Dane jumped across the gap between the deck and the dock, and he extended a gangplank for her and Aunt Ruth to cross on. “Uncle George won’t be needing it this weekend. Or anytime in the next five years, so I’ve been crashing here when it’s late and I don’t want to make the drive back to Naughton.”
“George Rockwell. Is he the one who— ?” Aunt Ruth started to ask, but Brooke shushed her.
“No, it’s okay. You’re right. He’s the one who’s spending time in federal prison for bilking the elderly out of their retirement money by scamming them into thinking they were investing in his miracle arthritis medication.” He took Aunt Ruth’s arm and steadied her on the deck. “Different from my cousin Eddie who’s in the big house for scratching VINs off flood-damaged cars and reselling them as new.” He held open a door to an area below decks, and led them down a tight staircase. “And not the same as my other cousin, Vito, who is in jail over in Richmond for buying cigarettes for underage smokers. Charming family pedigree, I know.”
A bitterness tainted his voice. Brooke didn’t recognize it in him.
“Well, here it is. Your home sweet home until the police can catch whoever wants to bomb you.” He carefully pulled some curtains closed and then flipped on a dim lamp, illuminating a luxury living room, a nice kitchen to one side, and a hallway to an open door with a bedroom visible. “Or until we find out what’s going on.”
Brooke’s body was made of tired.
“I can go to work tomorrow, right?” For some reason she felt compelled to ask his permission.
Dane frowned. “Can you get it covered?”
“Maybe.” Over the year between her breakup with Ames and the start of all the wackiness with the Jarman will, Brooke had taken on as many hospital shifts as she could. Practically everyone owed her. Big time.
Wills & Trust (Legally in Love Collection Book 3) Page 17