by Ann Jacobs
“Look, there are plenty of ways you can help people avoid the trap your sister fell into. Or you could help people who’ve gotten a raw deal when they’ve fallen through cracks in the legal system. If you don’t enjoy prosecuting defendants and you don’t want to defend them, you need to find another specialty.”
Kristine looked at Andi. Suddenly she realized she could make a difference without sending defendants to prison.
She could fight for people like Ezra Ruggles, help them win resources that would aid in their recoveries from injustices that could never be fully compensated. As Tony had suggested, she could redeem herself for Helen by helping crime victims instead of making criminals pay.
“You could become a victim advocate,” Andi said, echoing Kristine’s thoughts. “Whatever you decide, good luck.”
After Andi had left, Kristine finished her letter, printed it, and handed it to Harper Wells’s secretary.
Maybe she’d soon take on another new career too—as Tony’s wife. As she tidied the desk she’d be vacating soon, Kristine recalled his vision of what he wanted from life…from her. It was, she realized, what she wanted, too.
With only one proviso. She needed for Tony to grant her his full trust.
* * * * *
“Big shakeup at the state attorney’s office. Kristine Granger turned in her resignation.”
“Kristine resigned?” The question left his lips before Tony could call it back.
He looked at Hank Ehlers, who’d just come back from a session of plea-bargaining with one of the state attorney’s associates.
“One of the secretaries said she’d just taken Kristine’s letter in to Wells.” Hank separated himself from a gaggle of legal assistants and secretaries who’d gravitated toward the source of the gossip and headed toward Tony’s office.
Tony followed, uncharacteristically anxious to hear more. Had Krissy resigned because of him?
“Do you know why she’s quitting?”
“Word has it over there that she had it out with Wells on account of you.” Hank spread out some files before pulling a chair up close to one corner of Tony’s desk.
“I doubt that.”
But it could be true. Tony hoped it was true. If it was…then Krissy had given up everything she believed in for him. And if she’d done that, he could conclude logically that she loved him.
“I don’t doubt it at all. Brent Cohen said she was pretty adamant about defending you while Wells was doing his best to get at least one of the prosecutors who’ve gone up against you to support him in accusing you of tampering with juries.”
“What in hell are you talking about?”
“Wells is determined to discredit you any way he can, or so Brent said. Word had it he was mad as hell when he couldn’t badger any of his associates who’ve lost to you in court into giving him ammunition to use against you.”
“That’s because there isn’t any ammunition to be had,” Tony snapped. “Sorry, Hank. You know the saying, ‘Kill the messenger…’” He punched some numbers on his phone and apprised the firm’s managing partner of Wells’s latest effort to discredit him.
Hank waited silently until Tony ended the call, then leaned back in his chair and met Tony’s gaze. “No problem. Anyway, Kristine stayed in Wells’s office after everybody else had walked out. She stormed out with tears in her eyes a minute or two later. After she talked a few minutes with Andi Young, she handed a sealed letter to Wells’s secretary. Then she tidied up her desk and left.”
Tony wanted nothing more than to toss Hank out of his office so he could call Kristine, but he forced his mind onto business and reviewed the deals Hank had been able to wring out of the prosecutors on a couple of criminal cases he had no desire to take to trial.
“What do you think?” he asked Hank after going over the state’s offers.
“That you’ll be taking the Gerson case to trial.”
Tony nodded. He’d have had his client, who’d had one too many drinks when he allegedly caused a fatal accident, plead to involuntary vehicular manslaughter if Cohen would have agreed to probation instead of jail time. Since Cohen was insisting on imprisonment for his client, Tony would do his best to win an acquittal.
“Let Cohen know we’ll be trying this one. You can handle the pretrial motions.”
“All right.”
“What about Jernigan?” Tony asked, impatient to be done with business.
Hank explained that the prosecutor had agreed to drop two counts of burglary in return for their client’s guilty plea to a third.
“That sounds fair. What kind of sentence is Cohen willing to accept?”
“Ninety days in county jail, less the thirty-two days he served before his aunt came up with bail, and two years’ probation.”
Tony nodded. “We can’t ask for much better than that. The kid was caught red-handed. There’s no need, bleeding his family for legal fees they can’t afford, to fight what would most likely be a lost cause. Talk Jernigan into accepting it.”
Hank beamed. “I’ll get right on it. Is there anything else you need me to do?”
Tony checked his calendar for the following day, then turned to Hank. “You can take over my appointments tomorrow. I’m going to be out of the office.”
Before Hank had made it through the door, Tony was calling the maximum-security state prison at Starke, arranging an interview for Saturday.
He picked up the phone again and punched in Kristine’s number. Before it could ring, he hung up and stared out the window.
It was time. He’d tell her his shameful secret, now that he felt confident that she loved him. Then his breath caught in his throat. How would she react?
Had he won the woman he loved, only to lose her?
No. He’d persuaded a lot of hostile juries to give his clients the benefit of doubt. He’d win Kristine over, too, because this would be the most important fight of his life.
Bolstered with self-induced confidence, Tony went shopping for a ring and plotted his strategy.
* * * * *
“Krissy, why are you leaving the state attorney’s office?” he asked without preamble when he walked into her house later that afternoon.
That he’d heard the news of her resignation didn’t surprise her, but his sudden appearance on her doorstep did. “Why am I leaving, or why did I put in my resignation when I did?”
He loosened his tie, headed for her kitchen. “Both.”
She followed him, setting out a pitcher of iced tea and two tall glasses before sitting across from him. While filling the glasses, she formulated her response.
“I’m leaving because I’m no longer convinced my working as a prosecutor is the most effective way for me to make up for what happened to Helen. Because I don’t believe anymore that every defendant the police round up and arrest is necessarily guilty as charged.”
And that was true. She couldn’t live with the probability that if she kept on prosecuting every case tossed her way, sooner or later she’d prosecute an innocent defendant successfully, unintentionally triggering a similar travesty of justice to the one Tony was now trying to rectify for Ezra Ruggles.
“I guessed that you’ve been moving toward that decision. It doesn’t surprise me to hear you’ve made up your mind to switch gears. It’s the suddenness of your resignation that’s got me puzzled.” He set his glass down, met her gaze.
“I’m quitting now because I…” She almost said because Harper Wells had forced her hand and she’d chosen Tony over everything she’d believed in since Helen had died.
But then she remembered. He hadn’t opened up completely to her. He was still holding onto secrets—huge chunks of his history that made him who and what he was. More, quite possibly, than the sordid pieces of it that Mr. Wells had passed her way. To let him know how completely he’d won her over before he demonstrated his unconditional trust of her would be insane.
“Krissy?”
She settled on a half-truth. “I quit now because Mr
. Wells did something that killed the last shred of respect I had for his integrity. I won’t lie to further his political ambitions, and I can’t work for a man I don’t trust.”
“Did I have anything to do with that decision, Krissy?” He reached over, took her hand.
“You know you did.”
“I hoped so, but I wasn’t sure.”
Not sure? He wasn’t certain how much he meant to her? Kristine found it hard to believe that Tony, whose huge ego everyone said contributed so much to his success, had self-doubt about anything. Especially her feelings.
“You look as though you don’t believe me.”
Kristine smiled. “You’re not exactly known for harboring insecurities.”
“I don’t doubt my ability to defend my clients, but I’m not so sure how I stand with you. What can I say? This is new ground for me, feeling about a woman the way I do about you.”
“For me, too.”
“I’ve got to interview an inmate who testified against Ezra at his first trial tomorrow, and the prison’s not far from Gainesville. Grab a change of clothes and come with me now.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say I think it’s time for us to take a walk down memory lane. Examine what has brought us where we are right now. Besides, a change of scene will do us good.”
His cheek dimpled when he smiled, but the smile failed to reach his eyes. Enigmatic. That’s how she’d describe Tony’s expression.
Would he go all the way, divulge his deepest secrets the way she’d shared hers? Hope budded as she tossed clothes and toiletries into a weekender and blossomed while she watched Tony change clothes at his place and pack a bag.
Kristine’s anticipation grew as the powerful Ferrari ate up highway miles. Tony had put the top down, and a warm breeze whipped her hair as they sped past rolling meadows where horses grazed under towering oak trees draped in Spanish moss.
It was too noisy for conversation, so Kristine mulled over Andi’s suggestion that she become a victim advocate. She’d talk to Tony about that later, get his opinion as to what career step she should take next. Meanwhile, she sat back and enjoyed the view.
In another month, the highway would be teeming with cars, but at the moment the university was between sessions and the Gators weren’t playing ball, so traffic was light except for the constant stream of trucks lumbering along in both directions.
Kristine glanced back at Tony, recalled him saying he’d played baseball as an undergraduate. What did he do now to maintain his magnificent physique?
Dressed casually the way he was now, he looked closer to twenty-five than thirty-five. It wouldn’t be hard to mistake him for a graduate student on the campus where they’d both earned their undergraduate and law degrees.
Faded jeans clung to his thick, hard thighs, and the short sleeves of a blue polo shirt hugged his upper arms. The snug clothes emphasized corded musculature he usually concealed beneath dress shirts and custom-made suit jackets.
He’d seemed tense when they’d left his condo, but the drive must have helped him to unwind. The tightness around his mouth had disappeared, and he’d relaxed in the leather bucket seat about the time they’d put Tampa behind them.
As they drove east off the interstate toward the campus, seeing new stores and apartment complexes reminded Kristine how quickly the area was growing, how the Gainesville scene had changed in the short time since she’d gotten her degree and moved away. In another few weeks, students would be everywhere, but now the shops seemed almost deserted.
“That’s where I lived while I went to law school,” she commented as they passed an apartment complex not too far from campus.
“As I recall, they’d just started building those apartments when I was graduating.” Tony turned the corner and drove past the law school, the sports complex, and the Swamp, as Gator fans affectionately referred to the university’s football stadium.
How did he recall his time here? Kristine imagined girls hanging all over him, pictured him the big man on campus with his finger in every pie.
“Fond memories, Counselor?” she asked when he pulled up at the curb between the baseball field and some dorms she’d always assumed had been situated near the practice fields to make college life convenient for the jocks.
“I guess so.” He stared at the field, then turned to her. “I spent a lot of hours out there. Almost as many as I put in later at the law library.”
She made a teasing remark about him enjoying the fruits of his athletic success. When he told her she was wrong, she couldn’t resist laughing.
“Come on, Tony, no one can say the Gator fans don’t love their athletes.”
“For me, playing baseball was a means to an end. Not an end in itself.” Tony flexed the muscles in his left arm, grimaced. “I think my elbow and shoulder still remember what I put them through. Every once in a while they stiffen up, just to remind me.”
“You pitched?”
“I threw heat. Close to a hundred miles an hour, or so my coaches said. They liked that I did it accurately enough that I didn’t often walk or hit batters, but wildly enough to make those batters very nervous.”
“Did you ever think of going professional?”
He took her hand and led her to a bench near the entrance to the baseball field. “I considered paying for law school that way until I blew out my arm. Probably was a good thing I did it here my senior year, because as it was I worked summers in construction and went straight through school. If I’d played pro ball, it would have taken me twice as long to get my law degree because I’d have had to skip spring semesters. How did you spend your free time on campus?”
Guilt tweaked at Kristine. She’d had no money worries, no obligations other than to get her education so she could pursue her personal goals. “Studying. And feeling sorry for myself because I was all alone.”
“You missed your family. That’s understandable.”
He was too quick to excuse her. “I should have looked ahead, not back,” she told him. “You obviously did.”
She thought he was going to tell her more, but he stayed quiet as they strolled across the campus, other than commenting on familiar and not so familiar sights. As the sun began to set, they headed for the car.
After they had dinner at an off-campus pizza joint they’d both frequented while in school, Tony maneuvered down a narrow side street not far from the law school and pulled into a circular drive. When she looked at the beautiful Victorian house tucked under towering oak trees, her breath caught in her throat.
“I thought you’d like it,” Tony said as he opened her door and grabbed their bags. “This was the boarding house where I lived when I was in law school. The lady who ran it died, and her daughter turned it into a bed-and-breakfast a few years back.”
* * * * *
When they got to the room he’d reserved, Tony pulled back a lacy off-white coverlet, then stripped to his boxers and stretched out across the big oak bed to watch Kristine. “I used to do a lot of my studying outside, under that tree,” he commented when he noticed her looking out the window.
He glanced through an open door into a decadently appointed bathroom and grinned. It had been a long trek down the hall to the communal bath he’d shared with six other starving students.
He doubted Mrs. Hayes would recognize the place now. Her daughter had made former residents’ trips down memory lane a whole lot more pleasant when she’d transformed Hayes House from a sagging ruin where only the poorest students would rent rooms, into a haven for rich alumni accustomed to the finest of everything.
He qualified now, at least in part. He was an alumnus, and he imagined he was rich enough by most people’s standards. Tony wasn’t too sure, however, that he’d accustomed himself to all the finest things, although he indulged himself with whatever status symbols struck his fancy.
But he hadn’t found a magic potion that would imbue him with instant class. The instinctive knowledge of what to do in every situatio
n that came so naturally to Kristine. All he could hope was that she’d fallen hard enough in love with the man he was that she could overlook the half-orphaned kid he’d been—a kid whose old man had been convicted of murder one.
“Tony?”
He glanced her way, thought he recognized love in the look she gave him. “Sorry. It’s amazing, how they’ve transformed this place. Eight years ago, no self-respecting rat would have stayed here—but now it’s practically a palace.”
“It is beautiful. When did the owners turn it into a bed-and-breakfast?”
He patted a spot next to him on the bed and waited until she sat down. “A couple of years ago. This is the first time I’ve been back since I graduated.”
Her sleep shirt was made out of some silky material that felt slippery when she leaned against his bare chest. For a moment, Tony considered telling her his secret now, but he discarded that thought.
“I need to shave again,” he said, getting up and taking his shaving kit into a bathroom that smelled sweet yet pungent. The smell, which he traced to a crystal jar full of fragrant crushed petals, reminded him of some kind of flowers Mrs. Hayes used to grow in her garden.
He’d steal one more night with Krissy, in case his revelation proved too much for her to take. Besides, it made sense to break the news after exposing her to the stark reality of Raiford Penitentiary. If she didn’t shrink in horror when he made his confession, he’d bring her back here and give her the ring he’d bought.
He removed a tiny box from his shaving kit and flipped open its padded lid. As if it were mocking him, the huge round center diamond winked up at him.
Had the jeweler he’d visited this morning steered him right when he’d suggested an engagement ring should cost him six months’ pay? Maybe he’d meant the ring ought to cost six months’ pay for somebody who made minimum wage.
This one hadn’t set him back six months’ salary—not quite, anyhow. When he looked at it now, though, it seemed immense, much bigger than it had looked when he’d selected it from a velvet tray full of similarly priced baubles. Tawdry, like his beginnings.