The Burning Point

by Mary Jo Putney

  "Surely if you testified to that..."

  Kendra cut off the words with an angry gesture. "No one believed me. They all thought I was just an ignorant black girl, lyin' to protect her no-good boyfriend."

  Val's eyes narrowed. 'Tell me more."

  "There isn't much to say. Daniel had had a few run-ins with the law, but never anything serious. Never, ever anything violent. He spent some time in jail for car theft and had only been out for a few months. But he had found a job and was going straight. We were living together and planning on getting married. Look, I have his picture." Kendra went to her handbag and dug out her wallet, flipping to the fading photo of her, Daniel, and their son on Jason's first birthday. She had carried this photo since it was taken. Philip, bless him, had never minded. "Does this look like a murderer?"

  Val studied the photo. "It looks like a happy family. Jason takes after his father, I see. What a darling he was at that age. They have the same smile."

  Daniel had been a darling, too. Big and sweet-natured, he'd had a romantic streak that made Kendra feel like a queen. They had been so close to having it all....

  She snapped the wallet shut. "Then the cops came blasting in with guns one night threatening to shoot anything that moved. Jason was screaming--he was eighteen months old." She shook her head. "How Daniel did dote on that boy. He wanted to be there for him, like his father had never been there for him. Instead..." Her eyes squeezed shut as she furiously fought tears. She had tried so hard to put this in a mental box where she wouldn't be crippled by the pain. Usually she succeeded.

  Val leaned forward and touched Kendra's hand with silent sympathy. "They arrested him and charged him with murder?"

  Kendra nodded. "One of the detectives thought the description sounded like Daniel, and we lived only a couple blocks from the murder. Since Daniel had a record, they hauled him in. The witnesses picked him out of the lineup, and that was that. The police never looked for anyone else. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death."

  "Even though you said he was with you?"

  Kendra gave her a level look. "You're wondering if I'm lying. Val, I swear on my mother's grave that Daniel was with me when the murder took place. I tried talking to people. The public defender who handled the case kind of believed me and did some investigation, but he was never able to get around the eyewitness testimony."

  She fell silent as she remembered the horrible time after Daniel's conviction when she struggled as a single mother to keep herself and Jason above water. "I managed to get into a state job training program so I could get a job that paid enough to support me and my son. One reason I chose to become a legal secretary, then a paralegal, was in the hopes of finding a way to help Daniel. But I never have." Instead she had learned that while the legal system usually worked, there were plenty of times when it didn't.

  Val closed her eyes, tension visible in the taut skin over her cheekbones as she absorbed Kendra's story. "If you're right, a terrible injustice has been done." Her eyes opened, glinting steel. "You've got a deal, Kendra. You'll work for me, and I'll do my best for your friend. But you know the odds are slim that I'll be able to do anything after all these years."

  "I know." Kendra's mouth twisted. The eleventh hour had struck, and midnight was approaching fast. "You'll have to start by persuading him to let you take on the case--last winter, he fired his lawyers, saying he was tired of fighting a losing battle. But you can charm a snake out of a hole, you're smart, and you know people all over town. You're Daniel's last chance, Val. You and God. I've been having a lot of conversations with Him lately. Maybe you can stir up enough doubts to get his sentence commuted to life."

  "Why didn't you tell me about Daniel earlier?"

  Kendra tried to imagine dropping that into a conversation. "This is such a white-bread, white-collar place that talking about murders and death row seemed out of place." She hesitated, realizing that in the last few minutes their relationship had changed. They had always been friendly, but they had never spoken so freely. "And to be honest, I didn't think you had the time or the interest to care about a condemned man."

  Val's nose wrinkled. "I've gotten too good at showing a detached lawyer face. Believe me, I have always cared about injustice. I only hope I can help."

  "You're offering a chance, and that's more than Daniel had before." And in return, Kendra would be the best damned legal assistant and office manager in Baltimore.

  Val got to her feet. "It's time to resign my partnership. I found a great potential office today--a remodeled former church out Old Harford Road, not far from where you live. A good omen if I get it, don't you think?"

  Kendra smiled a little as the other woman left the office. A remodeled church? Maybe God was listening after all,

  and this was a sign. With God, Val, and Kendra working together, they might beat death row after all.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Step firm, Val walked down to the corner suite occupied by Donald Crouse, senior partner of Crouse, Resnick. Strange how the decision she had wrestled with was now blindingly obvious. It was time to take her career in a new direction. To do good, not just well.

  She murmured a greeting to Carl Brown, the firm's biggest rainmaker, as he brushed past her with a brusque nod. Dear Carl, charming as always. The only one of the senior partners she disliked, he was hyper-competitive and had made no secret of the fact that he didn't think the firm should have female partners. Val wouldn't miss him.

  As Carl turned into his office, his assistant looked up, phone to her ear. "Mr. Brown, your daughter Jenny is on the line. Can you take the call?"

  "I haven't got time," he said curtly. "If she needs money, tell her to e-mail me."

  Val winced, seeing herself in the absent Jenny, who was a child of Carl's first or second marriage, not the current one. Law firms were full of people too busy to talk to their own children. Her father was like that, though at least he wasn't as bad-tempered as Carl. Yes, leaving was the right decision.

  Breezing into Donald Crouse's reception area, she asked, "Is The Man free?"

  "Go on in," his assistant said. "And what did you do to your hair?"

  Ignoring the question, Val entered the inner sanctum. Donald glanced up from die document he was reading. Tall and saturnine with a dry sense of humor, he was Val's personal favorite of the senior members of the firm. He'd been her mentor and her champion even before he became her friend.

  "Donald, I'm leaving Crouse, Resnick," Val said bluntly. "I've finally lost the battle to be respectable, and it's time to go off on my own."

  He leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "I can't say that I'm surprised. You've always been a triangle in a round hole."

  Her mouth quirked up. "Not even a square peg?"

  "They're a dime a dozen. Triangles are rare." He peered over the top of his glasses. "I always wondered what you'd look like if you let your hair down. Remarkable."

  She smiled and settled into a chair. "I'm rather sorry to prove to the other partners that they were right, and I'm just not their kind, but there it is. I'll start organizing my work for others to take over."

  He steepled his fingers thoughtfully. "If you're opening an office here in Baltimore, would you be interested in a continuing relationship with us? We often contract some of the smaller cases out, plus there will be occasions when we'll have larger cases that would benefit from your unique touch."

  The prospect of self-employment gave Val a sudden, keen interest in cash flow. "Call away. It's generous of you to be willing to maintain a relationship."

  "Generous, hell," he said dryly. "You're the best litigator in the city, Val. I'd rather have you on my side than in opposition."

  "I'll miss you, Donald," she said honestly. "But not the daily grind here."

  "It takes courage to walk away. There were times when I was tempted, but..." He gestured toward the family portraits on his shining mahogany desk. 'Too many responsibilities, and too used to living well."

  His admission su
rprised her--she had thought him perfectly suited to the career he had chosen. But how much did one ever know about someone else's inner life?

  After she and Donald discussed timing, finances, and other exit details, she returned to her office, making mental lists of all that must be done. The phone was ringing as she passed Kendra's door. "If that's my father, I'll take it in my office."

  Kendra picked up the phone and greeted the caller, raising her brows in a how-did-you-know-that expression.

  Wryly Val closed the door and sat at her desk to take the call. This prediction had been easy--if her father was available, he would call as soon as his old friend Donald let him know that Val was quitting.

  Not bothering with a greeting, Bradford Westerfield III barked, "For God's sake, Val, what's this nonsense I hear about you leaving Crouse, Resnick?"

  "Not nonsense, Brad," she said calmly. "I've had enough of life in a big law firm, and I'm ready to go."

  "You're insane to throw away all you've achieved so far. And just after you made partner! That's more than insane, that's... that's perverse."

  As he proceeded in that vein, Val half tuned him out. Ironic that he was talking about her professional successes only when she was leaving. She supposed that he loved her in his fashion, but nonetheless, she was an embarrassment--the illegitimate daughter he'd sired during his one youthful dabble in rebellion. She would never be tall, slim, blond, or legitimate.

  He sighed with exasperation. "You're not listening to a word I'm saying."

  "I could quote your last few sentences, but if what you mean is that nothing you say will change my mind, you're right. The decision is made." She smiled wickedly. "What if I say that I can make more money on my own? Would that make a difference?"

  His voice changed. "Are you going to handle class-action suits like the ones over asbestos and tobacco? There's huge amounts of money to be made there, and you would be good at it."

  "No class-action suits, at least not yet. I've just taken on my first new case--to try to get a convicted cop killer off death row. I won't make a penny off this even if I'm successful--which I probably won't be."

  He snorted, recognizing that he was being baited. "You're your mother's daughter, Val."

  The statement was not meant as a compliment. Val's mother, Callie Covington, was an aging hippie who lived her principles and disdained practicality. Occasionally she made Val nuts, but she was real and admirable, and she, at least, would approve that her only daughter was kicking over the traces of the establishment. "Callie will probably buy me a bottle of cheap California champagne to celebrate."

  Her father unexpectedly laughed. "She would. Very well, if you're bound and determined to practice do-gooder law, I'm sure you'll do it well. But when you decide you want to return to a real firm, come to New York and work for me."

  "Brad, that's probably the nicest thing you've ever said to me." She sent greetings to her stepmother and half sisters, then hung up.

  When she was younger, she had wondered what it would be like to have parents she could call Mom and Dad. The commune where she had spent her early years considered anything but first names to be hierarchal and bourgeois.

  The Mount Hope Peace Commune. Among her longtime friends, it was generally agreed that Val had the weirdest upbringing, though Rainey was a close second.

  Callie had been a gorgeous auburn-haired earth mother, while Brad was a tall blond WASP entranced by the world outside his privileged childhood. The couple was a classic example of opposites attracting--then being unable to get along. They had lived together in the North Carolina commune until Brad tired of rebellion and returned to his real life, which meant Harvard Law School and a career in a top New York law firm.

  Callie had stayed at Mount Hope practicing art, gardening, and free love until Val reached school age, then she moved to Baltimore and set up a studio. Though she was a gifted fabric artist, she had no business sense and didn't earn regular money until she began teaching art in a small progressive school. The salary wasn't much, but at least it was regular and she enjoyed die work.

  Since Brad was the responsible sort who paid child support regularly even though he hadn't known Callie was pregnant when he left, they got by. Val attended the local Quaker private school on her father's dime, then made it through college and law school on scholarships and student loans. Though Val was proud of having managed on her own, unlike her mother she had never wanted to rebel against the middle class. She had wanted to join it, and she had.

  Speaking of Callie... Val reached for the phone. Time to invite her mother to dinner and tell her the news.

  After Callie accepted the invitation, Val had one last call to make before settling down to her brief. The phone rang three times before it was answered. "Rob here."

  Hearing traffic in the background, Val guessed it was a cell phone. "Hi, Rob? This is Val Covington. I've changed my mind about the suitability of putting a law office in a church. Do you have time now to discuss the details?"

  "For sure." There was a smile in his voice. "I'm glad you changed your mind."

  "So am I." She could hardly wait to begin her new life. And apparently it would include Rob Smith, which would be... interesting.

  Excerpt

  from

  A Holiday Fling

  Novella in the Circle of Friends Word

  (A spin-off of The Spiral Path.)

  My full-length contemporary romance The Spiral Path had a couple of appealing secondary characters who were single and a little lonely, so they immediately popped into my mind when I decided to do a contemporary Christmas story for this collection. Greg Marino and Jenny Lyme are both in show business, and they're both genuinely nice people who love their work. But he's American and she's English, he's behind the camera while she's in front, and when their paths had crossed a dozen years before, their careers swiftly took them away from each other. Can this time be different?

  Chapter 1

  The Tithe Barn Community Center

  Upper Bassett

  Gloucestershire, England

  "The Carthage Corporation wants how much?" Jenny Lyme blinked, thinking she must have misheard.

  The head of the community center council, who happened to be her mother, Alice Lyme, repeated the figure. There were far too many zeros.

  "Property costs the earth here in the Cotswolds, even in an out-of-the-way comer like Upper Bassett. Throw in the barn's age, and the price goes even higher." Patricia Holmes, third member of the council present--and Jenny's big sister--scribbled figures on a tablet. "Even if we sell every seat to every performance of the Revels, there is no possible way we can raise enough." She pushed the tablet away with a frown. "Resign yourself to the fact that some rich London stockbroker will buy the place and tart it up for use three or four weekends a year."

  "No!" Jenny said vehemently. "The tithe barn is the heart and soul of Upper Bassett. Without it, our village identity will wither away."

  "You're right. Many of my fondest memories occurred here." Her mother sighed. "But the lease is expiring, Carthage is determined to sell, and we simply don't have the money to meet their price."

  "Do you think a bank would give us a loan using the property as collateral?" Jenny suggested without much hope.

  "That might buy us some time, but even in a good year, the center only breaks even." Patricia pushed her glasses higher on her nose. She was a schoolteacher, and the gesture was very effective at convincing her classes that she meant business. "We will never be able to make enough money to pay off a loan, even assuming some bank officer is demented enough to give us one."

  Jenny rose from the battered chair and crossed to the door of the small office. The ancient music ensemble was practicing on the stage at the far end of the bam. She had discovered her passion for acting on that stage, and she couldn't bear thinking that soon no more local children would have such an opportunity to perform, play, and build lifelong friendships. "If my career were in better shape, I'd donate the money
myself."

  "Your career is fine," Patricia said loyally. "You can't expect to go from one smashing series right to another, but you're still working."

  "Even if you could afford it, that might not be the best thing for the village," Alice added. "This is a community center--it needs to be saved through collective action, not by one successful woman raiding her retirement savings."

  Jenny supposed they were both right. Her career was having a slow spell but it wasn't dead yet, and her mother made a good point that the center belonged to all of them and should be saved by joint efforts. That was why Jenny had stepped in to produce and direct the upcoming Revels, combining the considerable local talent with her own skills and connections to create a professional-quality show. She was even performing as Lady Molly, the female lead.

  But it wasn't enough. "The Revels are going to be marvelous. If only there was a way to use the production to generate more money--" She stopped as an idea struck.

  "You've got that dangerous look in your eyes, Jennifer," Alice said warily. "Care to enlighten us?"

  Jenny turned back to the office and leaned against the door frame as two identical pairs of blue eyes regarded her. The women of the Lyme family looked ridiculously alike, with dark hair, pale, flawless Welsh complexions, and deep blue eyes. She hoped that she and Patricia would age as gracefully as their mother was doing. "This isn't dangerous. It just occurred to me that we could film the Revels and sell videotapes of the performance. Get it reviewed or mentioned in some of the London papers. If we do a really good job, maybe we could sell broadcast rights to the BBC for next Christmas."

  There was a thoughtful silence while her mother and sister considered the suggestion. "We could set up a website and link with folklore and performing groups, but we'd have to sell a huge number of tapes to raise the kind of money we need, and we only have a few months," Patricia observed. "Selling broadcast rights would give us a larger chunk of money, but the production would have to be high quality, not just someone's husband with his video camera."