Order of Protection

by Lexi Blake

“It’s slender but that’s definitely the shape I see . . . A fireplace tool, perhaps. The injury is consistent with the force hitting her, not the other way around.”

  So she’d been in a fight. His stomach threatened to turn. No matter what he’d said to her before, he was sick at the thought of her being in jail. He was stupid. So fucking stupid. She’d lied and betrayed him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of her spending a single minute in jail. But the evidence was starting to stack up. She’d been found with the body. She’d been in a fight. Maybe it had been self-defense. He could work with that. “You think someone hit her.”

  “That would be my conclusion, but I’m sure you can find some forensic experts to make a case.”

  Unfortunately, there was always an expert somewhere willing to make whatever case a lawyer needed. They could take the thinnest of evidence and weave a tale. Often in court it was the battle to find the expert who was most relatable to the jury.

  Still, it was a place to start, since it didn’t look like Win would be explaining anything in the next few hours. The doctor had been firm about not forcing her memory while her brain was healing. She was supposed to rest. Because of the brain injury, she might never remember how she’d gotten hurt.

  What would happen to her if he couldn’t keep her out of jail? They might keep her in the infirmary for a day or two, but once she was out with the general population, anything could happen.

  “I appreciate you keeping her overnight.”

  The doctor held out his hand. “Anything for that girl. She’s responsible for a lot of good in the New York medical community. Everyone knows if you’ve got a sad story about your promising research or you need some cash to keep your clinic open, you go to Win Hughes. Her mother was active in helping the sick, and Win started following in her footsteps at a young age. I’ll let the detective know she needs to stay here for a while and that any subsequent injury could prove deadly.”

  At least he had one ally. He would haul the doctor into court if it meant keeping Win out of jail. “She raises a lot of money for the hospital, huh?”

  He placed the chart under his arm. “She’s good at that but she donates her time, too. Whenever she’s in the city, she comes up and brings presents for the children. She negotiates with some of the famous people she knows to bring them in and cheer up patients. Hell, when she was a teenager, she was the best candy striper we had.”

  Why had a debutante wanted to change bedpans? “You know her personally?”

  The doctor was likely in his midfifties. Not the type he would expect a young reality TV star to hang around. “I’ve met her before, but we’re not close. I respect the hell out of her though. Going through what she went through and coming out on the other side healthy isn’t easy. I’ll talk to her uncle because she needs someone to make sure she stays on track.”

  “On track?”

  “With her eating. I’m sorry. I thought that was common knowledge.” The doctor flushed as if he were embarrassed.

  “I know she’s been treated for anorexia,” Henry assured him. “Is there something we should watch for?”

  “Sometimes when traumatic things happen to a person with an eating disorder, it can lead to a regressive period,” the doctor explained. “She can feel out of control and need to be in charge of the one thing she can take control of.”

  It was odd to think of the Win he knew as that shadow they’d shown on TV. The morning shows had been playing the story incessantly, and they’d used photos of Win at the height of her reality show success. Pictures of a haunted girl, one a stiff wind would have blown away. One who had nearly lost her life trying to fit in.

  What had she said to him? Alcohol isn’t the only thing a person can get addicted to. Sometimes a person can get addicted to hurting herself.

  Would she go back to that comfortable denial if she found herself in a place like prison?

  “And what happens if they won’t grant her bail? Can you write up orders to ensure she eats?”

  The doctor frowned. “I can ask for a psych evaluation but she’s at a healthy weight right now. They won’t do anything until she’s already in too deep. I would keep her out of jail, Counselor. I think it could kill her and that would be a shame. Call me if you need anything. I think I can convince the police to let her stay another night, but then they’ll want her in their infirmary.”

  Where they would make the decisions.

  He thanked the doctor as David stepped up, Margarita at his side. She was still dressed in her cocktail gown, looking lovely in four-inch heels. How she managed to look like she’d just gotten dressed he had no idea, especially when David looked like hell.

  “Noah is trying to find a judge willing to set bail on the grounds that she’s far too sick to be in prison. I told him we’re willing to give up her passport and have her wear an ankle monitor,” David explained with a yawn.

  “She won’t like it, but it’s our best bet.” Margarita glanced down at her phone. “And I think David should make the argument. He’s the one with the most traumatic brain injuries.”

  “Gee, thanks,” David said with a shake of his head, but he didn’t bother to hide his smile.

  A flare of victory went across Margarita’s face. “Yes. Noah managed to get Judge Davis to agree to an emergency bond hearing tomorrow morning. He’s a huge NFL fan.”

  “But he’s also known to take a hard stance on accused murderers,” David murmured.

  “We’re going to twist this. We don’t know everything that’s gone on, but Taylor Winston-Hughes is a victim. First someone tried to kill her by striking her in the head with a blunt object, and then she was victimized again by a police detective who was far too eager to close a case without even investigating the facts. All we request is that our client be given a chance to recover in her home under the watchful eye of her uncle and her family. I’ll put the monitor on her myself if I have to.” At least then he would know where she was at all times.

  “It’s still not a knockout,” David said. “But this is the first time she’s been in trouble, and it’s not like she can walk around in public. I’m worried about her going home, actually. There’s already a huge memorial to Brie Westerhaven outside her building, and there are some crazy fans out there who are vowing to get back at her.”

  They could use that, too. Her celebrity could be used. She was in danger because of it. It would be difficult to control her health issues in prison. Did the police really want to have to deal with all the time and cost it would take to protect her when she could sit quietly and wait for her trial?

  Of course, he might be able to keep her from going to jail now, but if he couldn’t start building a case, she might end up there anyway. The news shows had gone wild, like predators thrown a bunch of red meat. The theories he’d seen this morning had run from mild—an accident had happened while both women were intoxicated—to the truly wild—Taylor was in love with her best friend and jealous that she might have started seeing someone else.

  It would rage like this for weeks. How would she handle the scrutiny? She would be picked apart by a pack of hyenas, every fact of her life pulled apart like puzzle pieces that wouldn’t fit back together after they were done. Someone would have to watch her to make sure she didn’t read her own likely traumatic press.

  Luckily, it wouldn’t be up to him to take care of her. That’s what she had an incredibly wealthy family for.

  A family who’d allowed her to fall in with a crowd of people whose lifestyles had sent her to the hospital. A crowd of people who were turning their backs on her today.

  He’d already seen the interviews given by her so-called friends. Several of them had gone on to explain that Taylor had always been jealous of Brie’s vibrant personality. They talked about how fragile Taylor was and hinted that she couldn’t handle pressure.

  Not one of them talked about how kind and loving
she could be, how when she smiled the world was suddenly a brighter place.

  Henry squashed those thoughts. They would bring him nowhere good. “We have to have a solid plan in place to keep her safe and in the city for the judge to go along with it. Margarita, get the McKay-Taggart boys on the phone and have them send up two bodyguards. They can take shifts watching over her and coordinating with her building’s security. I also want a team up here. We don’t have an investigator on the payroll yet. I need dossiers on every single person who was in that building last night, and I want someone to examine all the security footage.”

  David’s mouth thinned, and Henry knew whatever was coming out next wouldn’t be something he would like. “They turned off the security cameras. Bellamy Hughes told me it was standard for parties with such high-level guests. We’ve got a list of everyone who came to the party, but there’s no way for us to track the guests once they entered the building. We’ll have to go on witness testimony as to where everyone was at what time.”

  That was bad, bad news for them. “And how many guests were there?”

  Margarita winced. “As far as I can track, there were sixty-one guests there at the time of the murder. There were also twenty employees working the party.”

  His head was starting to hurt. “We have to talk to every single one of them. And again, we need dossiers on each one. I need someone to look into anyone else in that room who might have had reason to murder Brie Westerhaven.”

  “Good luck with that.” Bellamy Hughes strode in wearing a designer suit that he obviously hadn’t been in for twelve hours. He looked surprisingly well rested for a man whose family was in turmoil. “She wasn’t the most pleasant of young ladies. I believe you’ll find one of Brie’s hobbies was starting feuds with the people around her for sport. You’ll have no lack of suspects.”

  “Brie could be a bitch, but that doesn’t mean she deserved to die.” Trevor Hughes walked in beside his father. He looked more like Henry felt. The younger Hughes’s eyes were rimmed with red, his shoulders slumped, as though he hadn’t slept at all. “I’ve already given my statement to the police. I saw Brie and Win fight not an hour before Brie wound up dead. Win was angry because Brie and I were getting close. Brie was done with her. Win always was a jealous bitch.”

  “I wish you’d talked to me before giving that statement,” Henry said before turning to Bellamy Hughes. “Do we have a problem?”

  Bellamy shook his head. “We do not. I expect you to get Trevor’s statements thrown out. He was drunk that night. He’s always drunk. He doesn’t know what he was talking about. After all, Alicia Kingman confirmed that she saw nothing out of the ordinary between Brie and Win.”

  Good old Alicia. She really could act. “Even with someone backing up Win’s story, her own cousin testifying that he witnessed a fight between the two of them isn’t going to help.”

  Bellamy turned to his son. “He would like to clarify his statement.”

  Trevor sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well, it wasn’t like they were catfighting. Win was upset because I went on her old show and cleaned up her mess. She left the show without any kind of warning. I was going on to explain that she got sick and wouldn’t be back. That was all.”

  “So she wanted her privacy and you wouldn’t give it to her. Win was upset with you,” David pointed out.

  “Maybe, but Brie was the one who invited me on the show,” Trevor admitted. “She was always looking to get under Win’s skin. They were superclose when they were kids, but Brie always had to be in the spotlight. She had to be in control. When Win left the show, it threw Brie off. She doesn’t like people walking away from her. She prefers to be the one to cut the friendship off.”

  “That sounds more like a reason for Brie to be upset with Win.” Henry didn’t like the fact that Win’s cousin was so quick to throw Win under the bus. “I think we should definitely clarify his statement. The prosecution could come back with his original statement, but we can work around it if we can control what comes out of his mouth.”

  “He’ll do as I say or he’ll find himself on the street without a dime to his name,” Bellamy threatened.

  Trevor shook his head. “Of course I will, Father. You know me. Can’t possibly survive on my own. I’ll go tell my sweet cousin that she wins again.”

  He turned and strode toward Win’s room. He was stopped by the officer there and forced to show ID before being allowed in.

  So her family was wealthy and nasty. It shouldn’t surprise him.

  “Mr. Hughes, I’m going to need to assign bodyguards to Win once I get her out on bail,” Henry said.

  “Bodyguards?” Hughes looked a bit confused at the idea.

  “There is a small but fervent group of Brie Westerhaven’s fans that we’re worried might try to hurt your niece,” Margarita explained. “The show Brie was on was popular, and there are some fans who are far too invested in her life. There have already been a few death threats.”

  Henry had been monitoring Brie’s social media. It appeared that Win had taken all of her personal social media down, but there was already a new page for her calling her Taylor Murderer Winston-Hughes. “We’re looking into the situation, and we’ll try to have anything incendiary investigated thoroughly. Having bodyguards will also help the judge see that we’re serious about keeping her safe and in the city. She’ll need someone with her.”

  Bellamy looked a little shocked by the death threats, but he seemed to shake it off. “Trevor will have to do. Her old nanny would come up but she broke her hip two days ago. She’s staying in an assisted living facility while she rehabs. Hire whomever you need. I want my niece well taken care of. She’s important to me.”

  “If she’s important to you, then you should take care of her,” Margarita pointed out.

  “I can’t and honestly, I’m not good at taking care of anyone. I’m better at taking care of the company that pays for everything. I’m leaving for Los Angeles in two hours. I have to get in front of the board of the company and assure them that Win’s current status shouldn’t affect the daily operations of the business. I’ll likely need to stay a few weeks,” he explained in a purely logical tone. “Of course, I’ve assured the detectives that I can be back here in New York at any time they need me. The same goes for you.”

  “Your niece is in serious trouble,” David said, shock obvious in his tone. “How can you leave the city? If she doesn’t have family support, we might not be able to get her out on bail.”

  Bellamy waved off that worry. “You’ll get her out because that’s what I pay you to do. I have a business to run and I won’t be able to continue to pay for Win’s incredibly expensive lawyers if that business loses profitability because of my niece’s scandal. I have to deal with the real world, and her shenanigans could hurt our stock.”

  “Shenanigans? You call murder ‘shenanigans’?” He shouldn’t be shocked, but it was there. Maybe he’d been out of the game for too long. Or maybe the softness of the island and his childhood home and being with the Win he’d thought she’d been had changed him in some way.

  Hughes simply straightened his suit coat. “I will call that ridiculous press coverage and the crowd that’s forming outside whatever I like. I don’t know what happened last night, but I know Brie has been pissing people off since she was a child. She was a desperate little girl who couldn’t hold on to her fame and fortune, and she started looking for other ways to make a buck. Her own father cut her off six months ago because he found out she was the one leaking gossip about his new wife to the press. So this is all ridiculous and inevitable. That girl was going to wind up overdosing or being killed by one of her many victims.”

  “If you know of anyone else she was working with the press on stories about, I would love some names,” Margarita requested.

  “Like I said, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut for her own father’s sake. I would certainly loo
k into those idiot boys she ran around with. Hoover and Kipton,” Bellamy replied. “And everyone on that damn show of hers.”

  “What about you, Mr. Hughes?” Henry had to ask the question. There was a bitterness to Bellamy’s tone that made Henry think this was personal.

  Bellamy Hughes gave him a look that likely would have sent all his employees scrambling for cover. Luckily, Henry didn’t intimidate easily.

  “It’s a fair question.” He wasn’t going to back down. “Where were you at the time of the murder? Were you one of those people Brie tried to use?”

  Bellamy’s lips curled in a smirk. “I was with your colleague.”

  Margarita nodded. “He was. He had just found me and asked me to come into his office for a chat when we heard the scream.”

  As alibis went it was a pretty good one. “And Trevor?”

  “You’ll have to ask my son, but know I can’t conceive of a world where Trevor is smart enough to pull off a murder and pin it on someone else. He uses far too much cocaine to remember what his plans are at any point in time,” Bellamy replied. “My son is an idiot who can’t get his head out of his ass long enough to come up with a single original idea. Win is truly the only one in the family with any redeeming qualities, and now she’s fucked up her future. I told her those friends of hers would bring her down and now they have. But she made that bed and she’ll have to lie in it. I have a duty to our company.”

  “You have a duty to your niece.”

  “Yes, I do, and preserving the company her parents built from the ground up is my duty. What do you want me to do, Garrison? Hold her hand?”

  “How about getting out there and telling people you stand behind her.”

  Bellamy shook his head. “That could hurt our stock. I’m staying in the background. Hopefully the company can stay out of the headlines that way. I know they’ll mention she’s an heiress, but in this case her stint on that dumb television show will be more interesting to the reporters. And I’m supporting her by paying your salary.”