Operation Homecoming

by Justine Davis

  And how that reconciled with money laundering, she had no idea. And whose money was being laundered, if it indeed was happening?

  She thought about getting out the phone Quinn had given her and making a call to let him know what she’d found. Or not found, in this case. But she would leave it until lunchtime, when she could go out and make the call unobserved. It had unsettled her a little when he’d given her the phone, not when he said that although it looked ordinary it was unique to Foxworth and heavily encrypted, but when he showed her there was a panic alarm built into it, which would instantly let them know she was in trouble and where she was with the push of a single button.

  “You’ll probably never need it,” Hayley had said reassuringly, “but you need to know so you don’t hit it by accident. And if you do, you just key in the phone ID—this is number FW6—to cancel it.”

  She frowned as she reached for the computer keyboard, remembering her puzzlement this morning when she’d arrived to find it sitting at an odd angle. She never left it there; at the end of the day she always slid it into the cubby below her monitor. She supposed the cleaning crew could have moved it, but they were the main reason she always put it out of the way in the first place, so they wouldn’t have to move it.

  She grimaced inwardly at herself. If she tried, she could work that into an entire scenario of her office having been searched. A sign of how this all was affecting her, she supposed.

  Looking for distraction, she pulled up the firm’s client list. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but something might trip if she went over it. For lack of a better idea she sorted the list chronologically and worked her way back in time. Several of the names she knew, many she did not. Caden and Rockwell was a large firm, and she dealt only with Rockwell clients.

  She bet Foxworth’s Ty could have deep background on every one of these people in a day. But to hand this list over to him would be an ethical violation so big she couldn’t even seriously contemplate it. Besides, what if she was wrong? She was going to feel bad enough about wasting Foxworth’s time, but if it was found out she’d violated one of the most basic tenets of the legal profession, she’d never work in the field again.

  “Hey, girlfriend, did you forget we were going to have lunch today?”

  Amy looked up to see Becca Olson standing there smiling at her. Dressed in a trim, navy blue suit with a pencil skirt that was neither too short nor too long, the tall, attractive woman projected success. A carefully put together image she used to the fullest advantage, thanks to a very quick and clever brain behind the facade that was all some people ever saw. Amy had always admired the way she did it, and figured if people were too shallow to see beyond the surface, that was their problem.

  “Oh! No, sorry, I just got distracted.”

  “Spike’s, my treat,” Becca said. “I’m celebrating.”

  The expensive little café was the newest hot spot, and Amy doubted she would ever go there on her own. Her salary was sufficient—Mr. Rockwell had given her a nice raise at the first of the year—but her practical bent prevented her from lavishing it on overpriced bistros.

  “The Lancaster win?” Amy guessed.

  “Got it in one,” Becca said cheerfully. “Nobody expected it, but I had that jury in the palm of my hand.”

  Amy had seen the woman in court, and couldn’t deny she had a way. She struck the perfect balance between smart, knowledgeable lawyer and “I’m just one of you,” with a dash of “I only think what any reasonable citizen would think” thrown in.

  “How was your trip?” Becca asked as they walked the short distance. Amy knew she loved her sleek, flashy new Mercedes, but even she wouldn’t drive it a mere three blocks just to show it off. She chided herself at her thought. Becca had earned every bit of her success with hard work and determination. That she was an attractive woman had made it harder in some ways, but it was also a tool she never hesitated to use if it would get the result she wanted.

  “Fine,” she said. “It was good to see my friend again.”

  “She just got married, didn’t she? How’s it going?”

  Amy was always a little amazed, and more than a little charmed, that Becca remembered the small details of her life. As a full partner, the woman had to have as much going on as Mr. Caden, her boss and the founding senior partner who headed the criminal side did, and yet she took an interest, offered friendship even, to a lowly paralegal. True, Amy was the closest to Becca in age, but still, it was flattering.

  Amy smiled as she answered. “Wonderfully. Quinn is an amazing man. I think he might just be good enough for her.”

  Becca laughed. “I admire your optimism.”

  Becca, Amy knew, had been married once and it had ended messily, so she supposed she understood her sour view on the institution. “They might brighten even your outlook on it,” she said.

  “Early days yet,” Becca said, the words ominous, but her tone teasing.

  “They’re going to make it,” Amy said confidently. “Absolutely no doubt.”

  “I think I’d like to meet these paragons,” Becca said.

  Amy nearly opened her mouth to say that might be possible, that they were in the area at this moment, then caught herself.

  “Maybe you will someday,” she said as they reached the café down the street from the office. There were at least three law offices on the block, so the place was often full of legal types. But even amid this larger pool Becca was a big fish. She was making a name for herself in criminal defense circles. She wasn’t a senior partner—yet—but Amy knew she was getting big cases because of her win record.

  Amy grimaced inwardly when the waiter brought the menus. The string of too-clever names for ordinary dishes seemed forced, but she supposed they were catering to a clientele that liked to toss around names that sounded exotic. The food, when it came, was edible, but not a lot more, and she wondered as she often did about trends and what caused them.

  “So what else?” Becca said as she sipped at her iced tea; no lunch cocktails for her. Amy couldn’t imagine her willingly surrendering that much control. She wanted her wits about her at all times, she’d once said. Amy understood that, better than Becca could know. “How’s your love life?”

  Amy hated that the first thing that popped into her head was an image of Walker. Up early this morning for the long haul to LA from Orange County, she’d walked sleepily toward the kitchen of the Foxworth living quarters in search of coffee. Walker, sleeping on the couch in a tangle of blanket, was stirring restlessly, and she tiptoed to avoid waking him. Only common courtesy, she’d told herself, not that she didn’t want to face him or talk to him. She’d be seeing enough of him, since he’d insisted on being one of them to, as he’d put it, watch her back.

  And then he’d muttered something and she was afraid she had awakened him, anyway. It took her a moment to realize he was in the throes of a dream, and from his muttered pleas, “Don’t, don’t,” she gathered it wasn’t a pleasant one.

  “Aha!” Becca exclaimed now, pulling her out of the memory. “So there is someone? Have you broken into that box of condoms I gave you yet?”

  “No,” Amy denied quickly, blushing anew over the joke gift Becca had dropped on her desk on her birthday a few months ago.

  “On the horizon, then? Because someone certainly popped into your head.”

  And that, Amy thought, is why Becca was so darned good at what she did. She missed nothing, and interpreted accurately.

  “Just my friend’s awful jerk of an older brother, who showed up unexpectedly while I was there. I used to have a huge crush on him when I was thirteen.”

  “Sorry. About the jerk part, I mean,” Becca said sympathetically.

  “Me, too. He was a good guy, once.”

  Thankfully, Becca let it drop there.

  By the time they finished the me
al there was a line at the front door, so they left via a side exit that opened to the small parking area. A short, rather stocky man Amy recognized as another on the criminal defense side, was opening the door to a flashy red coupe—he obviously had no problem driving three blocks for lunch—parked just outside. He looked at them as they came out, then a smile broke across his wide face.

  “Becca,” he said. “Congratulations. That was a nice job on the Lancaster case.”

  Becca smiled prettily. “Thank you, Alan.”

  “Maybe we could do dinner, you know, celebrate.”

  “Maybe,” Becca said with a wave. But she never stopped walking. And the moment they were out of earshot she muttered, “Clown thinks because we work and live in the same buildings we’re destined to be more than friends.”

  Amy had noticed the distinctive parking sticker on the windshield of the car, a twin to the one on Becca’s car. The stylized swan of the Cygnus Towers was a subtle declaration of success and an exclusive home address.

  “I can’t picture you with him somehow,” Amy said drolly.

  Becca laughed. “Even if he was in the least attractive to me, I’m six inches taller than he is.”

  Amy wondered if Becca Olson had always been beautiful, if that’s what it took to have such easy confidence in her looks. But she wasn’t obnoxious about it at least. Some women were.

  “Do you know he asked me if I wanted to open a partnership of our own?”

  “I’m not surprised,” Amy said. “You’re a hot property, Ms. Olson.”

  Becca smiled at her. “And you are sweet, Amy Clark.”

  “I would miss you if you left.”

  “Not if you came with me,” Becca said.

  Amy blinked. “What?”

  “Not saying I’m going to do it now, and certainly not with Alan, but someday I’m going to be a partner somewhere. And when I do, I’d like you with me.”

  “I’m...flattered.”

  “I’d take you now, if you wanted to leave ol’ stick in the mud Rockwell. We girls need to stick together, you know?”

  Amy felt a rush of warmth inside. And relief. If this all fell apart on her, it appeared she might have somewhere to go.

  Chapter 18

  “That’s your boss?” Hayley asked.

  “Yes.” Amy looked at the video playing on the large monitor on the wall. It was of her boss’s most famous criminal trial, the one she had always thought had made him quit criminal law. “That was a few years ago. Dante Soren.” Her nose wrinkled involuntarily, and the Chinese takeout they’d ordered suddenly wasn’t sitting very well.

  “Is that expression for your boss or Soren?” Hayley asked.

  “Definitely Soren,” Amy said. “His street nickname was ‘the demon,’ and it fit. He was a horrible human being.”

  “From what we could find,” Quinn said, “he still is.”

  “So your boss got him off?” Walker asked.

  She didn’t look at him, but answered, “Yes. Murder, attempted murder and several drug charges. He walked on them all.”

  “Quite a performance,” Quinn said as the screen went dark.

  “Yes. Yes, it was. I’d forgotten how...effective he was in those cases.”

  She felt a cold knot settling in her stomach. Because that video Quinn had found reminded her of the answer to her earlier question. Yes, her boss really was that good an actor. He might be stiff in person, some would say unyielding, but in a courtroom he was a master. At speaking, phrasing, dramatic pauses, at simply holding the room captive.

  And if he could do that for someone she knew he thought was guilty...

  She looked at Quinn, saw by the look in his eyes that she didn’t have to explain, that he knew perfectly well what they had just seen. Proof that Marcus Rockwell was more than capable of putting up a perfect facade.

  “He could know I found those files,” she said, “and I’d never be able to tell.”

  Quinn nodded. “He’s good. Very good.”

  “I’d like to know why he put them there in the first place,” Walker said.

  Three heads turned toward him. Four, counting Cutter. He’d said little tonight, but she had never forgotten he was there. He was like a pesky gnat, always flitting around the edges of her consciousness, and no matter how many times she tried to swat him away he kept coming back.

  And she was sure Walker Cole wouldn’t appreciate being likened to a tiny bug. Even if he deserved the comparison.

  “I’m just saying,” he said with a shrug, “why would he put them there when he knows Amy has the password and pretty much free access to those files? In fact, if they’re that damning, why put them on that computer at the office at all?”

  She had fleetingly wondered that. Judging by Quinn’s expression so had he, although he seemed a little surprised that Walker had. But then, he probably didn’t realize just how smart he was. Amy did. What he’d done tended to overshadow the fact that that baseball scholarship hadn’t been his only one; he’d won two academic ones, as well.

  And he’d dumped those, too, when he ran away.

  She made herself focus. “I never snoop. I only saw those by accident.”

  Hayley nodded. “And I’m sure he knows that.”

  “Still risky for him,” Quinn said.

  “He trusts me,” Amy said, aware of the irony even as she said it. Being trusted by a man involved in something like this wasn’t a thing to be proud of.

  “So he isn’t worried you’d look at them,” Hayley said.

  “Or,” Quinn said rather ominously, “he wanted you to access them, so there would be a record of it.”

  “Setting me up, so he could blame it on me somehow?” Amy asked with a shiver as the possibility hit. “He has access to everything. He could have even done it from my computer after-hours or something.”

  “Or,” Walker said with a bit of a bite, “you could all go against your apparent grain and wonder if maybe he simply isn’t worried because he doesn’t know those files exist. You know, the old innocent until proven guilty thing.”

  Amy stared at him. Was he defending her boss...or himself? And yet, he had a point, she supposed. It seemed flimsy, but it was there.

  They were all staring at him. He let out a disgusted breath and turned away, again gathering up the debris from the meal, including the leftovers in the traditional white cartons, and headed for the kitchen. And Amy wondered if that’s how he really felt, that he was innocent.

  “There are many reasons for many things that I never would have thought of before.”

  Hayley’s words came back to her. Was it loyalty to her brother that tempered her anger, or was it that she truly thought there was a reason, any reason, that justified his desertion? Should she laugh at the idea that he thought himself wronged, or contemplate the possibility that there was even an iota of truth in it?

  Most of all, she wondered how, when they were supposed to be focused on her boss and the probability of him being unethical or worse, she had once again ended up pondering the painful mystery that was Walker Cole.

  * * *

  “Don’t. Don’t...”

  “She is my daughter. Mine to dispose of.”

  “For looking at a children’s book?”

  “Females have no need to read. It gives them dangerous ideas.”

  Amaya reached out to him, tears welling up in her frightened eyes.

  “Don’t interfere,” her father ordered.

  The same order he’d been given last night, by the man in the suit. “Don’t interfere. It could blow everything.”

  “They’ll kill her,” he’d protested. “She’s just a child.”

  “One life against thousands. This is war, Cole. Sometimes you have to let bad things happen so you can stop ev
en worse things.”

  “Walker. Walker, wake up.”

  Odd. Amaya never called him that. She didn’t even know that name.

  He felt the touch on his shoulder. Real. He shot to the surface. Jolted upright, nearly colliding with...

  “Amy.”

  She was there, crouched beside the sofa. It was dark; he sensed it was very late—or very early.

  “Amy,” he said again, still feeling groggy. He shook his head sharply, as if that could clear away the miasma that dream always left behind.

  “Nightmare?”

  “I wish it was only a nightmare.”

  She tilted her head slightly, looking at him consideringly. What faint light there was glinted off glasses, black businesslike frames this time. He noticed then she was wearing only a loose T-shirt with the University of Washington logo and a pair of matching leggings. Sleepwear. Realization struck at last.

  “Was I... Did I wake you?”

  “I was awake. I wouldn’t have heard you otherwise.”

  He tried to suppress a shudder, only half succeeded. “I didn’t yell this time, then.”

  “No.” She seemed to hesitate, then went on. “It must have been a really bad dream.”

  “It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.”

  “Must be an awful one.”

  He couldn’t tell her, of course. It would give too much away. But she had had the grace to awaken him from the torture, so he couldn’t help feeling he owed her at least some explanation.

  “A little girl. Who died.” Because I didn’t stop it.

  “You knew her?”

  He nodded, slowly. “She was...special.” And she adored me, just like you once did. And now she’s dead. Because I chose to follow that order.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He believed she meant it. She was kind, along with loyal. Staunchly loyal Amy. Except to him. He’d destroyed her loyalty to him. And he was beginning to realize what a major, if horrible, accomplishment that was.

  “Thank you for waking me,” he said. “I wouldn’t have expected you to bother.”