A Judge's Secrets

by Danica Winters

  It was the sands of mistakes that built up to create the speed bumps in life.

  She sighed, soaking in the sunset as it billowed from yellows and pinks to purples and grays. Soon, the stars would come. Turning to her right, she could see Polaris shining in the distance. It was always there to guide her, no matter what was happening in her life. This wasn’t a mistake. She was here for a reason.

  She had once read a line in Philipp Meyer’s The Son, which went something like: “May the stars shine so bright it is impossible to sleep.” Tonight she felt those words’ pull. The stars were bright.

  It was odd how dancing the line between life and death could make a person feel more alive. There must have been something wrong with her that she found a modicum of joy and beauty in this moment.

  There was the screech of the screen door as it opened and closed, but she didn’t turn around. Whomever wanted her dead wouldn’t find her here; only those who wished her alive.

  Evan sat down next to her, touching her as they rocked in silence. He handed her a drink, and she took a sip. Iced tea. Her first of the year. Just another symbolic change in her life. Winter was heavy, but spring was taking root. Until now she had been in the winter of her life—living only to survive, but brought to a point today when survival was literal instead of just figurative. Was this her moment to spring? To revel in the stars and grow?

  She had forgotten how beautiful life could be.

  She couldn’t recall the last time she had taken time to sit and watch the sunset turn into the stars.

  Evan put his arm behind her on the bench. “Are you doing okay? I know something like this can take a toll on a person.”

  She nodded, careful to keep from touching him, as if it would bring them too close too fast; or maybe his touch would bring back the reality of her life and break the spell the natural world had placed upon her.

  “Judy caught me inside. She said she was heading to bed, but she would see us in the morning.” He smiled, his teeth sparkling in the thin light.

  “What?” She had never known her mother to be an early-to-bed kind of woman.

  “Yep,” he said with a chuckle. “And she also said that she would make sure to have plenty of protein to ‘rejuvenate’ us in the morning.”

  “Oh. My. God. She didn’t.” Natalie nearly splashed her tea on her shirt as she moved to cover her face in embarrassment.

  “Oh, she did.” He laughed loud and long. “Your mom is freaking awesome.”

  There were any number of words she could think of to describe Judy right now—obtrusive, meddlesome—but the last that came to mind was awesome.

  “I’m glad you brought us here. If anything it is making me laugh. Right now I appreciate a little lightheartedness. It’s not something you often find hours after a murder attempt.” His hand moved down and his fingers trailed on the top of her shoulder.

  His gentle touch moved in time with the swing and as it did, it was like he was thrumming the strings of her soul.

  “You know,” he continued, “I am here if you need to talk about what happened back there. I know how hard it can be and all the things that can go through a person’s mind when something like that happens.”

  She glanced over at him, staring at his green eyes. They were picking up the gray of the sky, making him look stormy.

  “I appreciate your concern, but I really am doing okay. More than anything, I am just at a loss. I can’t think of a concrete reason anyone would want me dead.”

  He thrummed harder. “Are you sure?”

  She nodded, but all she was really thinking about was his fingers on her. “Wait... Do you have your phone?” she asked, holding out her hand, expectantly.

  He scowled, the look making it clear that he wasn’t the kind of person who would just willingly hand over his private information. And yet, he reached into his back pocket and pulled it out. He didn’t hand it over. “What are you thinking?”

  She wanted to just show him, but she honored his privacy and dropped her hand. There wasn’t a chance in hell she would have handed her phone over to a stranger without any sort of context, either. “Pull up Instagram and type in the judge’s son’s name.”

  “Why do you want to look him up?” Evan asked.

  She shrugged. “It seems like the most obvious place to start looking. I know he and his son are close, but Sven has a history. And, if nothing else, at least we can cross him off our list.” And she could think about something besides the way Evan’s touch felt, even through her coat.

  He moved closer and started clicking on the phone with the hand that was wrapped around her shoulders, and the action drew her closer into him. So close, in fact, that she could smell the cinnamon on his breath and the smoky residue of the car bomb on his skin. It was a strange combination, the spice and the danger, but it was an oddly heady mix. She closed her eyes as he clicked and she drew in a long breath of him.

  The timing of this crush couldn’t have been more off. She yearned to dance with this Devil, and yet a different manner of hell was threatening her world.

  He typed in Sven Hanes Missoula.

  “There,” she said, pointing at his profile.

  Evan opened it up; thankfully, it wasn’t set on private. The last picture that Sven had posted was tagged at a restaurant in Kennewick, Washington. It was a simple photo, nothing more than a long-necked beer and a burger, but it put him hours from the crime scene when the attack had happened.

  But just because a person tagged themselves at a place, didn’t mean they were actually there. For all she knew, he could have been standing behind them now. Social media wasn’t known for its accurate representations of real life.

  Sven could very well have posted something tagged in another state, just to throw anyone who thought he was behind the attacks off his scent.

  “Hmm,” she said, pinching her lips together.

  “Have you had any cases that were out of the ordinary lately? Something that involved both you and Judge Hanes? We’re going to have to go over this, but I wanted you to have some space first.”

  “Our caseloads don’t usually overlap. He has his dockets and I have mine.” She mulled over his question for a long moment. “But...on occasion we have lawyers and their clients who are all about playing games, and some who think one judge would be better suited for hearing their case than another. In fact, that happens quite a bit in complicated cases.”

  “Has it happened in the last few weeks?”

  She nodded. “A few of those filings have floated over my desk, but I can think of one that surprised me... I don’t have the details, but it was an odd case. It was marked assault libel and slander—not abnormal, except it was between two women. I thought I would be sitting on the bench. Any sort of cases involving women’s rights are normally run by me. The local attorneys know that I am more of an advocate. However, this one they moved to Hanes.”

  “Did he hear the case, or did it end up being settled?”

  “Strangely enough, he did—two days before the attacks.”

  His eyebrows rose. “What happened?”

  “Like I said, I don’t know the particulars, but I know Judge Hanes had a hard time with that ruling—he drank nearly a half bottle of scotch with me that evening. He mentioned that the defendant had to be taken away by the bailiff after finding herself in contempt of court. Apparently, she thought it was okay to try and climb up over the bench and attempt to punch Hanes.” She let out a half chuckle. “At the time, we both shrugged it off. Most people don’t come at the judge—they will yell at us, call us every name under the sun, but there is generally some sort of internal stop point before people try to physically assault us in the middle of the courtroom.”

  “I think you may well be on to something with this defendant—we need to look into her. You said she was found in contempt of court. Was she out of jail today?�
�

  “She just had to pay a fine and she was released.” Natalie shifted slightly and Evan sat back, releasing her from his hold. The cool night air swirled in and pulled the warmth away from where he had been touching her.

  “Do you know anything about the case? Maybe the woman’s name?”

  “The case was Sanders vs. Rencher. When Hanes and I chatted afterward, he said it had to do with a custody agreement that had gone wrong. The two women had been married, but are getting divorced. They had shared custody of a child, but something happened and somehow the two women ended up in a fight. Sanders ended up threatening to kill the other, and it is my understanding that she nearly finished the job.”

  “Well, at least it wasn’t a murder case.”

  “If the police hadn’t interceded at the right time, I think it would have been.” She understood rage, but had never understood how another person could murder someone they had once loved. “Regardless, if we are going down the list of who would be capable of taking us out, she would be one of the most recent suspects. There is nothing more dangerous than a pissed off mother.”

  Chapter Six

  His boss, Zoey Martin, was not pleased when he called. He wasn’t surprised. Zoey wasn’t known for her softness, even after she’d gotten pregnant. If anything, she’d grown more cantankerous over the past few months. Even though she had grumbled and cussed when he had let her know all that had transpired, she had eventually validated his actions and agreed to send someone in to stand by Judge Hanes’s hospital room and ensure his safety as well as try to get more info when he was responsive.

  By the end of the conversation, she had even commended him for his quick action in treating the judge. Her praise was as rare as her smile, so he graciously accepted what she chose to give.

  She’d also sent him all the records she could find on the case Natalie had mentioned as well as everything she could locate about both judges—including links to all their rulings—and even Hanes’s marriage license. He chuckled as he thought about how little use he would see coming from that particular piece of paper. In his life, the ink used to print the document had been worth more than what it stood for.

  He wasn’t sure he would ever really like to get married again. Screw that. Love had only ever led to heartache and resentment. He preferred sitting in a Humvee in the middle of a war zone and taking rounds than having to navigate the minefield that was a relationship.

  No doubt this Sanders woman likely had felt the same way. According to the court records, she and her wife had been in a tempestuous relationship with verbal and physical disagreements so bad that the police had been called out several times. Once, her partner had been slapped with an assault charge after Rencher had gone after Sanders with a knife. According to the police report of that incident, Rencher had said the incident with the knife had resulted from self-defense.

  Sanders had brought the assault up in Hanes’s courtroom, but in the end, Hanes had ruled against Sanders. That was odd. His ruling didn’t make sense. Sanders was clearly the victim. And according to the documents in his hands, she should have won her case against Rencher for assault. Was there something here that he wasn’t seeing? He had all of the records and the court reporter’s full file, and no matter how many times he read through it, he couldn’t understand Hanes’s ruling.

  He shook his head.

  As he read deeper and deeper into the case, he wondered what Natalie would have made of it.

  He glanced over at her as she slept peacefully in the bed. She wore pajamas she’d found in a dresser in the room. She’d been delighted to see there were things she could wear today. She must not have changed much since she’d lived here.

  They’d talked briefly about her cases, and he planned on asking her more about other rulings, jogging her memory with the links Zoey had sent. Somewhere in her past was someone who’d been angry enough to lash out at her and Judge Hanes.

  He had been more than happy to take the floor and keep the peace between the two women of the house. It made him laugh every time he thought about Natalie’s matron. Judy was a hoot. Though he could tell that she embarrassed the hell out of Natalie.

  That made him miss his own mom. She had died several years ago in a car accident, along with his father. He had never really gotten over their loss. There were so many things that they would never get to be a part of, so many things they wouldn’t be able to enjoy—if only his mom could be teasing him the same way Judy teased them.

  Judy would have made a great mother-in-law. Not that he was ever going to get back into a relationship.

  He was tough, incredibly so, but when it came to being with a woman, he was too tenderhearted. Whenever he had fallen in love in the past it was like he had always chosen the one being who he knew he shouldn’t have. His ex-wife had been completely different from Natalie. Maybe as strong but that was where the similarities ended. His ex had told him that all she ever really wanted was to be alone; he had run up against it and fought to earn a place in her life. For a while, it had worked.

  They had loved each other. Or he had assumed they had loved one another, and then she didn’t want him anymore.

  He couldn’t begrudge her for putting herself first, for fighting to be at peace with herself, but he couldn’t stop himself from being hurt. He had offered her a part of himself, which he rarely gave to anyone, and it hadn’t been enough.

  She wasn’t the one for him; logically, he realized that. But when the heart said something was right and the mind said “you’re being stupid,” it was crazy how often the heart won. From here on out, he was listening to his brain. It knew better, and perhaps it could save him from himself—if he was lucky and if he actually listened.

  Then again, he had never been known for his emotional intelligence. Far from it.

  Natalie sighed in her sleep and his heart flipped in his chest, like her subtle little noise had somehow jump-started the poor, wretched beast.

  Down, boy.

  This fight with the mind wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped. And really, how was this time with Natalie any different than before? Here he was, forced to be close to a woman he was protecting, a woman who was entirely off-limits. All he had to do was keep his distance.

  It will get easier as soon as I’m out of this house.

  Yep, that was it. It was just that they were too close. He leaned up against the bed, turning his back to her so he wouldn’t be tempted to look up at the beautiful woman once again.

  Maybe it was just harder than normal because they were pretending to be in a relationship that they couldn’t really be in. In the past, when he’d been forced to go undercover, he’d adopted mannerisms and qualities of the characters he was playing, going so deep that he became them. Maybe that was exactly what was happening here. He was loving her because he was pretending to love her. Nothing more.

  Yep, that had to be it.

  Finally, a bit of relief drifted through him. If nothing else, he had a reason and an answer for the confusing feelings that were working through him.

  Maybe he needed to take a page from his ex’s playbook and just be alone.

  He nodded to himself and as he did, Natalie’s fingers touched him. He glanced back at her sleeping face. As he moved, she reached into his hair, stroking his head. She sighed as she ran her fingers through his locks. He moved into her touch like a soft, well-broken horse. Even if she was only pretending to be asleep, his longing to be touched like that outweighed the need to protect his heart and pull away.

  When he woke up the next morning, his phone was on the floor next to his head, and at some point someone must have covered him with a pink rose-covered blanket. Though he was getting older with each passing day, when he sat up his body didn’t hurt too badly even though he had been smooshed into the carpet fibers all night long. He rolled onto his back. Natalie’s hand was hanging limply over the bed above hi
m. Her nails were long and perfectly manicured. Did she pay to get them done, or did she sit at home once a week and do them herself?

  He looked at his own nails. They were worn short and there was dirt and what he betted was spent gunpowder under their edges. The base of his thumb had a nice callus from his days spent on the gun range.

  There were no calluses on her hands. No dirt. No blisters from manual labor or backbreaking tasks. Her tasks only broke the soul.

  He definitely didn’t envy her work. But then, she probably would say the same thing about his.

  They were never to be. They were too different.

  He scratched at his nose, pulling off a piece of fuzz that had stuck to his face in the night.

  There was a knock on the door. “Wake up, kids. Breakfast is ready,” Judy said, calling in.

  Natalie’s hand disappeared. “All right. We will be out in a minute,” she said, sounding sleepy.

  Damn, only this woman could make mornings sexy. His body had its own mind and as he thought of her and of waking up alongside her, it rose to greet the day.

  Or maybe he had just been lonely too long. Or maybe it was just morning. Get it together, dumbass.

  He moved to his feet, careful to keep his back turned to her. The last thing he needed to have was for her to see where his mind was and for him to see her tussled hair and makeup-less face. She was probably even more beautiful in her natural state. Women never believed that, but he loved it when a woman was comfortable enough to show her true self to him.

  And yet, she was probably sitting there all worried about what she looked like and feeling insecure. They had been pushed into this; there was nothing about it that had come naturally—except the pull he felt to be closer to her.