Ryan, Debora - Crimes of the Heart (BookStrand Publishing Romance)

by Debora Ryan

  “What happened to her?”

  “A car accident. It was my fault.” Leah looked away to get the tears that threatened her under control. “I got a promotion, so I called my parents and Cece and told them to meet me at a nice restaurant. I bought the drinks. Dad wasn’t sober when they left, but we didn’t think twice about it. I had brought my own car. I didn’t know about the accident until the next morning.”

  “And your parents? Why can’t they help out with the bills?”

  “They died. Dad died in the original crash. Mom died later when the ambulance carrying her to the hospital went off an overpass. Cecelia is all I have left.” Leah shook her head. “She had other plans that night. It’s my fault.”

  “Why did you stop taking the money?”

  Leah’s face colored slightly. “Mr. Dannaker’s son caught me. He told me not to do it again, so I didn’t.”

  Dani nodded. “The trial is in three weeks. The second Thursday in August. I hope you don’t mind. That’s a lot of paperwork to wade through. It’s going to take me some time. Now, why did Will not turn you in?”

  Leah was suddenly uncomfortable. “I’d rather not say.”

  “The two of you had a relationship?”

  “We dated. Sort of.” Pain hammered her from the inside.

  “Sort of? Leah, I need absolutes. Remember, what you tell me is privileged. If it has bearing on this case, I need to hear it. He’s the crux of the prosecution’s case. If I can tear him apart, then we have a good chance of acquittal.”

  Sighing, Leah nodded. “He blackmailed me.”

  Dani’s jaw dropped. “Explain.”

  Ashamed, Leah hung her head. “He made me go out with him.” Leah didn’t have to see Dani’s face to know she was shocked. Leah got up and went to the window. “He asked me out repeatedly for a couple of weeks, but I kept turning him down. This was his way around that.”

  “Did he force you to sleep with him?”

  “He didn’t have to force me. That was part of the deal.”

  Dani was so quiet that Leah looked back at her. Already pale, all traces of color seemed to have left Dani’s face. She looked as if she were about to be sick.

  “Are you all right?” Leah asked. “Should I call someone?”

  “No, I’m fine. I should ask if you’re all right.”

  Leah shrugged. “I find that every positive in my life is ruined by something. I got a promotion and my parents died. My sister knows and understands me, but she can’t walk. I think I’m in love, and I get in an accident that totals my car. I think I can trust somebody, and he turns me in for something he knows I didn’t do. I lost my apartment and my freedom in the same day.” Leah turned back to the window. By her own formula, there had to be a big positive to balance out the last two negatives. “I’m fine.”

  Dani waited a few moments, but Leah didn’t continue.

  “He raped you.”

  “No,” Leah said. Her chest constricted. What they shared had been beautiful. Not once had Will forced the issue. He’d been the one to call a halt to her first seduction attempt. “I told you it was part of the deal. I consented from the beginning.”

  The pen in Dani’s hands snapped in half. “He blackmailed you into having sex with him. The minute he held this over your head, you lost your power to consent. How many times did he rape you?”

  Leah closed her eyes. Every piece of her heart cringed at Dani’s question. “I wish you wouldn’t use that term.”

  “Once? Twice? Ten times? Did he hurt you?”

  Leah shook her head. “We slept together once. He never hurt me. I thought I loved him, and I forgot he didn’t love me. I even initiated it.”

  Dani was quiet for a long time. She studied Leah from between narrowed eyes. “We can report this to the police, or we can use it as leverage.”

  The suggestion took Leah by surprise. “What would you charge him with?”

  “Blackmail, rape, and conspiracy to commit both, for starters.”

  Without considering Dani’s proposal, Leah rejected the idea. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “You’re still in love with him.”

  “That’s beside the point. I hate him, too.” She covered her eyes with her hand. “I just want this all to go away. I know I won’t get my job back, but I’m so tired of being a slave to the whims of the Dannakers. If I never hear that name again, I’ll be happy. I don’t want revenge. I just want to be left alone.”

  Leah shared Will’s theory that someone had discovered Leah’s clumsy transactions and had been using them to cover their own activities, with the result that the paper trail led back to Leah. Dani promised to keep Leah informed as to her progress in the case.

  The days before the trial seemed to drag. She went through all of the boxes in Anne’s garage and sorted the trash from the things she wanted to keep. She noticed most of her personal financial records were missing. When she mentioned this to Dani, the savvy lawyer had Leah come in to view the copies of the evidence against her.

  Leah confirmed they were, indeed, her missing records. “How did they get this stuff without telling me about it?”

  “I assume they got a warrant and searched your apartment while you were still in jail. They never served you with the warrant?”

  With a shake of her head, Leah sat heavily on the sofa next to the table in Dani’s office. “They can link my bills to specific transactions, proving that I took the money.”

  “I know,” Dani said. “I’ve been wrestling with that myself. But I realized they can only prove forty thousand that way.”

  “Won’t a jury assume that since they can prove that much, I took the rest?”

  Dani shook her head, grinning. “Not with me as your lawyer. It goes to reasonable doubt by providing evidence for our theory that you were used, set up, screwed by someone far more devious than you. And I might even know who that person is.”

  In the back of her mind, the missing pieces connected. Only Eliza had the opportunity and the access. Anne had told Leah that Eliza disappeared from work and her apartment was abandoned. “Will that work?”

  Dani chewed her lip. “I’m not going to lie to you, Leah. The case against you is pretty convincing. I’ll know after I seat the jury whether or not I’ll want to file a motion to exclude that evidence. After all, if they never served you with a warrant, then we have grounds for a challenge.”

  Leah found that she liked Dani, both personally and professionally. She felt safe in her hands. It was a welcome change from the way she thought things would go when the incompetent Gordon Evans had been in charge of her case.

  One day during the second week, when Leah missed Will so much it hurt, she got up the courage to listen to her voicemail. The first message was so slurred that Leah couldn’t make out what he was saying. She heard the sound of glass breaking. She was able to make out something that sounded like, “Tommy’s gonna be pissed about that.”

  For the most part, he apologized, declared his love for her and begged her to call him back. She didn’t want to think about what that meant. He had still turned over evidence against her to his father. The proof was in Dani’s office. The research notes were in Will’s handwriting. Sketches of Leah adorned the margins, some of them quite sensual. She had asked Dani if there was any way that they could keep the jury from seeing those.

  Dani had laughed. “It’s in our favor. It goes to show his obsession with you. Don’t worry. He’s given me enough evidence to crucify him. My mother can hang him on her wall next to Jesus, Mary, and JFK.”

  Every day, Leah made it to Sunshine Acres to visit Cecelia. Her sister improved by leaps and bounds. The doctors not only provided physical therapy for her body, but they helped her redevelop her thinking and reasoning abilities.

  The day before her trial, Cecelia said, “Your birthday is tomorrow.”

  Leah shook her head. “My trial begins tomorrow on my birthday. How’s that for a present?”

  “We used to go shopping and buy th
e same clothes on our birthdays because Mom felt guilty buying things for just one of us.”

  Leah’s impish side came out. “Do you want to dress the same tomorrow?”

  Cecelia shook her head. “No. You’re going to have to wear some pretty business suit that shows how innocent and demure you are.” She snorted as she laughed. “I’m not even going to attempt getting these gams into panty-hose. Plus, I’m not coordinated enough to shave my legs.”

  “You want a wax? I might be in prison, but Annie could take you.”

  “I do, actually. What I mostly want, you’ve already given me.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Cecelia grinned. “Control over my life.”

  Leah smacked a kiss on her sister’s cheek. “Well, you’re welcome.”

  “I’m coming tomorrow. It’s all arranged.”

  Leah felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “I don’t want you there.”

  “Tough. We’re family, Lee-Lee. We’re all we have. Annie and I will both be there for you.” Cecelia squeezed her sister’s hand.

  “Cece, I don’t want you there. Really, I don’t.”

  Cecelia’s voice was gentle, soothing Leah’s anxiety. “Do you think I haven’t done the math? Do you think I don’t know how expensive this place is? I don’t think you took six million dollars, but I know you well enough to know that not only would you do anything for me under normal circumstances, but you also blame yourself for my condition. That would motivate you if nothing else would.”

  Cecelia moved her wheelchair around to face Leah. “I would have done the same thing if the situation was reversed.”

  “It should have been reversed.” The words were hard to say to Cecelia. She had said them before to Anne, to herself, but never to Cecelia.

  Cecelia patted Leah’s hand. “Have you seen a shrink about this? I think you may need help accepting the fact that you can’t control everything.”

  Exasperated, Leah snapped. “Fine. You can come tomorrow, but I’m not bringing you. If you want control so much, then you figure out how you’re going to get to the courthouse.”

  Cecelia grinned. “Transportation has already been arranged.”

  The trial wasn’t scheduled to begin until the afternoon, but they still had to be there in the morning for jury selection. Dani had a motion to suppress evidence ready in the event she didn’t trust the jury to see that there was no evidence linking Leah to the entire amount.

  Dani took Leah to lunch. Leah didn’t have an appetite, and she noticed Dani didn’t either. “Are you nervous, too?”

  “I’m always restless before I go in front of a courtroom full of people. The local news stations will be there. Reporters from the Detroit Free Press and The Ann Arbor News have already called me several times.”

  Leah hadn’t known that her case was that interesting. Sure, reporters had called the house several times, but that had been weeks ago. “Slow news day? What did you tell the reporters?”

  “Honey, you are the news. Haven’t you watched TV lately? You’ve made it onto CNN. And I told the reporter what I tell them all: I’m sure justice will prevail and that my client will be acquitted. Other than that, I have no comment. You don’t say a word until afterward when you’re acquitted.”

  Dani was correct. The news stations had all sent reporters. They ambushed Dani and Leah on the courthouse steps. Dani repeated her statement verbatim as she ushered Leah inside.

  The first person Leah noticed when she entered the courtroom was Cecelia. Cece sat in her wheelchair, but the chair was secondary to anything else. Annie had taken her to a spa that morning. Cecelia looked incredible. Her hair had been cut and highlighted. Her skin shone radiantly. She wore light makeup, but Cecelia had never needed much. Leah nearly cried at the transformation.

  Cecelia and Anne were seated in the front row directly behind where Dani and Leah would be sitting. She looked around, but Will was nowhere to be found.

  Leah found out quickly that she had no role in the proceedings except as a bystander. Her fate was truly out of her hands. She turned to catch Cecelia’s eye to see if her sister had also caught that irony. Cecelia shot her a reassuring smile. If nothing else, it had all been worth it to see Cecelia like this again.

  Judge Jennifer Drew called the court to order and instructed all of the news channels to turn off their cameras. The simultaneous clicking of cameras being turned off filled the air, followed by a mass rustling of paper. If they could not film her, they would draw her.

  The prosecution’s witness list was not long. The agents who arrested and questioned her went first to establish that everything was legal. Dani took the opportunity to bring up the fact that they had never served Leah with the search warrant. She cleverly managed to convey that the detective was both incompetent and beneath consideration.

  The next witness was Thomas Dannaker. He strode through the doors at the end of the courtroom as if he owned the place. He exuded confidence and strength, and he was handsome as well. Two jurors, ladies in their twilight years, leaned forward for a better look. Leah found herself wondering what Will would look like when he was sixty. Though his coloring was darker, he was not really so much different from his father. She swallowed the thought.

  After proudly swearing to tell the whole truth, Mr. Dannaker took the stand. The prosecution led him through a recounting of how he discovered the money had been taken. Dani interrupted with an objection.

  “Your honor, the defense doesn’t contest that the money was stolen, only that Ms. Keenan didn’t take six million dollars. We already know we’re wasting time here persecuting an innocent woman when the real thief is out there. We’re willing to stipulate that the money was taken. We also stipulate that William Dannaker was hired to audit the firm and investigate to find out where the money disappeared.”

  “Very well,” Judge Drew said. “It is so stipulated. Counsel, move on.”

  The prosecuting attorney, Mr. Antonio, smiled at the jury before turning his attention back to Thomas. “Mr. Dannaker, what kind of employee was Leah Keenan?”

  “She was talented. I promoted her to Teams Manager after only two years. That’s why it was so disappointing when I found out she had been stealing from me.”

  “You treated her well?”

  “Exceedingly well. I trusted her with sensitive accounts. I invited her to call me ‘Tom’ on a number of occasions, but she refused. I think she wanted to keep a distance between us. It was disappointing, really, because she was like a daughter to me.”

  Leah raised her brow. Mr. Dannaker was laying it on a bit thick. She scribbled a quick note on Dani’s legal pad.

  When Mr. Antonio finished with Mr. Dannaker, Dani stood up. “Mr. Dannaker, did William give you the results of his investigation?”

  Thomas Dannaker lifted his chin haughtily. “He did not.”

  “How did you come by them?”

  “I found them in his desk.”

  “Was this desk at his home or at the Dannaker building?”

  “Objection,” Mr. Antonio said, lumbering to his feet. “The documents belonged to Thomas Dannaker. It doesn’t matter where they were located.”

  “Sustained.”

  Dani changed the subject. “Mr. Dannaker, you were aware that Ms. Keenan’s parents were killed in an automobile accident six years ago, were you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were aware also the Ms. Keenan’s sister was severely incapacitated by the same accident?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were aware that Ms. Keenan was awarded custody of her sister?” Dani swept her hand in a wide arc, coming to rest in such a way that she was pointing at Cecelia.

  Thomas adjusted his tie. “I was.”

  “You were also aware that Ms. Keenan’s health care provider denied coverage to Cecelia Keenan on the basis of having a preexisting condition?”

  Thomas looked anywhere but at Leah. “I was.”

  “In fact, you had the power
to override that decision and you chose not to, right?”

  His face reddened in anger. “Adding that kind of claim to the pool would have made insurance costs rise faster than they already are. As a corporation, we cannot afford to willingly assume that kind of liability. It’s irresponsible to our shareholders.”

  Leah wondered why the prosecutor didn’t object. This didn’t seem to have anything to do with the trial.

  “So, to sum up what you’ve said, Leah was like a daughter to you, but you refused to provide necessary medical insurance for her sister?”

  “She took six million dollars from me!”

  Dani regarded him as a mischievous child. “Mr. Dannaker, you know that isn’t true. Didn’t you threaten Ms. Keenan’s job the Friday before you had her arrested?”

  Mr. Dannaker shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Let me help you. It was the day you found out your son was dating her. Let me remind you that you’re under oath.”

  Tom’s face turned purple, passing red completely. “I reminded her that company guidelines strictly prohibit inter-office dating.”

  Dani shot him a doubtful look. “You didn’t approve of the relationship, did you?

  “I did not.”

  Dani looked down at the ground, giving the jury time to absorb Thomas Dannaker’s words. “I have nothing more, Your Honor.”

  Leah’s heart skipped a beat as Mr. Antonio called Will to the stand. Leah had not seen him since that day in the police station when she told him she never wanted to see him again. She turned to face the door. He entered with less bluster than his father. He seemed confident but not cocky. Although he wasn’t smiling, he was still magnetically handsome. The color of his suit brought out the bronze in his skin, which accented his eyes and his bow-shaped lips. A lock of hair fell over his forehead. His eyes met Leah’s briefly, and in that second, she forgot how to breathe.

  She looked away from him as he was sworn in. Her heart was breaking all over again. Why did he have to use her the way he did? Why couldn’t she convince her heart that it was irrational to have feelings for him? In the back of her mind, his drunken declarations played themselves over and over.