A Judge's Secrets

by Danica Winters

  “What in the hell are you doing?” Natalie asked.

  “I’m getting you out of our way, Ms. Goody Two-shoes.”

  There was something hilariously outdated in the woman’s jibe and strangely, Natalie felt the urge to laugh at the craziness of it all. Had she hit the hysteria level of shock?

  “Getting me out of the way of what?” she asked, careful to slide her gun under the edge of her shirt and out of sight of the approaching woman.

  There was the crunch of glass on pavement and she turned to see Sven Hanes standing outside Evan’s door. He reached down and tried to open the door, but it was jammed. Thankfully, the window on that side was still intact, though she couldn’t imagine how.

  “Kill her, Becky.” Sven pointed at his neck.

  “Why? Why do you want me dead?” she asked again, struggling to make sense of everything.

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” Becky snarled at him. “Your screwups have already gotten us into enough trouble.”

  So not all was well in love land.

  “Becky, it’s not too late,” she started, hoping she could have a chance at talking the woman down.

  The woman chuckled as she pulled a syringe out of her pocket.

  “You don’t have to do this. I’m a judge and if you stop right now, I can make sure that you are treated fairly when you are arrested. Just don’t do anything you’re going to regret.” Natalie put the palm of her free hand up, surrendering. The last thing she wanted to do was to draw down on this woman and pull the trigger. “I don’t know how you got yourself into this situation with Sven, but it’s not too late to do the right thing. Make the right choice. I know how hard this kind of thing can be and how hard it can be to get out of it.”

  “I know exactly who you are. And if you would have just gone along with my sister, we wouldn’t have to be in this mess.” The woman glowered down at her. “You are the one who screwed everything up. You put everyone at risk.”

  “Your sister?” she asked, now totally confused.

  “The district attorney. She asked you to play along. All you had to do was say yes. Steve and Sven had a great thing going and they made a lot of money working with the DA to get things done. But you had to eff it all up. This...all of this, is on your head.”

  She had known the district attorney had made a gesture to see how amenable Natalie was to being bought, but she had no idea that it was because she already had a thing going on with Judge Hanes—Natalie’s friend. The judge who had brought her into the fold. The judge who had trained her. Who had basically gotten her a seat on the bench.

  He had set her up. He had used her to grow his crooked dealings.

  But why? Why had his son and Becky tried to hurt him?

  She wanted to tell the woman she sounded crazy and that there were a million other ways around the situation that they were in, but Becky wasn’t going to listen. She was frenzied...backed into the corner like a snarling dog and now it was fight or die.

  “Whatever it is that you think I screwed up, don’t you think we could fix it?” she asked, playing her deadly game.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that?” Becky sneered. “Our plan is going along just fine. All that’s left is for you and your crappy little guard over there to get a dirt bath.”

  A dirt bath?

  “You haven’t done this kind of thing before, have you?” she asked.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sven walking around the front end of the truck. He stopped as a bystander started to come over to help. Sven put up his hands, but she was forced to look back at the most immediate threat—Becky.

  Becky moved toward her, the needle mostly concealed by her hand; only the tip was sticking out.

  Natalie jerked, putting up her left arm in self-defense. The woman laughed, the sound sour and angry as their arms connected. Becky grabbed her hand and pressed her arm down and into the broken glass that was smattered on the windowsill. The glass cut into her arm and she gripped the gun in her hand, hard.

  All she had to do was pull the trigger.

  Becky lunged, the needle moved toward her and she watched it happen in slow motion as something in her lizard brain clicked into place. Kill or be killed.

  She was a fighter. But if she pulled the trigger, she would have to spend every night after this thinking about all the other things she could have done to get out of this situation. There had to be another way.

  There was a loud boom, and the air around her reverberated with the gunshot.

  Had she pulled the trigger? She looked down, confused as she pulled the gun from beneath the edge of her bloodied shirt. Her finger wasn’t even on the trigger.

  Evan said something, but she only heard the muffle of his voice and couldn’t make out the edges of his words in the ringing deafness left by the gunshot.

  His hand moved off her chest and he took hold of her shoulder. In his right hand, the trigger still pinned, was the gun. He shook her as he looked at her. His mouth moved and she could tell he was asking her if she was okay, but she didn’t know how to respond.

  She moved her hand up to her neck, feeling for Becky’s needle. There was nothing. Nothing protruding out of her neck, only the slivers and grit of exploded glass.

  Her gaze moved over toward the window. Becky was no longer standing beside her, but her hand was still on her arm, pressing it into the glass. She lifted up her arm and pulled it out of the woman’s limp grip.

  Dead or alive, she didn’t care.

  Sven turned, he reached down like he was going for a gun, but before he could clear and pull, she already had her gun pointed at him. When had she drawn?

  She moved her finger to the trigger, pressing down the safety and easing it back.

  “No!” Evan yelled.

  Releasing her grip, the trigger slipped forward and back on safe.

  The bystander who had been coming toward them grabbed Sven from behind, throwing him to the ground.

  As the man moved, she saw a flash of a badge and a set of silver handcuffs come out from behind the stranger’s back. He slapped them on Sven’s wrists.

  “Are you okay?” Evan’s hand tightened on her shoulder.

  She nodded.

  “Give me your gun,” Evan said, extending his hand.

  As she moved to hand it over, the gun shook violently. If she’d been forced to pull the trigger, she had no idea what she would have hit, but she doubted it would have been Becky.

  He took the gun and slipped the mag out and emptied the chamber. The round dropped into his lap and he picked it up and put it back into the mag. “I will give this back to you later. I’m sure that the police will want to hear all about what has happened here.”

  “Thank you...” she said, suddenly aware of everything that was going to come next—the hospital, the police, the lawyers, the courtrooms. They would be cleared, without a doubt, given everything that had happened and the scene Becky and Sven had created in their attempt to kill them.

  Evan smirked, his lip was starting to grow puffy and there was a split on the bottom. “No need to thank me, ma’am.”

  “I’ll take it that you are okay?” she asked, staring at the cut that was starting to bleed on his lip.

  He put his fingers up to the reopened cut on his forehead. “I think I’ll be fine with a fresh dab of skin glue, a couple Tylenol and an ice pack.”

  She pointed down at his legs where the door had been crushed inward. “Your legs?”

  “Good.” He wiggled his feet and lifted his knees. He glanced out at the smoking firetruck and the police cars that were skidding to a halt on the icy intersection around them. “As for the city, I think we’ve done a number on it.”

  She laughed, but then felt ridiculous for doing so.

  He let go of her shoulder and took her shaking hand in his. Lifting the
ir hands, he gave her knuckles a kiss. “We are going to be okay. We’re in this together.”

  They sat there for a long moment, collecting themselves.

  A police officer rushed over to the truck and squatted down beside Becky and she assumed he was taking her pulse. He stood back up and peered in at them, assessing the situation. “You okay?”

  They both nodded.

  “Just don’t move. We will be with you in just a minute.” The officer turned his head toward his handset and started talking to the dispatcher on the other end of the radio.

  Evan squeezed her hand. “Babe?”

  “Yeah?” she asked, looking over at him in all of his bruised glory.

  “I need you to promise me something.” He smiled, but winced as the split in his lip opened and his smile faded from view.

  “Hmm?” She looked out at the melee of action around them.

  “When we get through this... I want us to be together. Like you move into my place. Okay?”

  She slowly turned her head to face him. “What?”

  “I want to take you out, into public, for a real date. Spaghetti, wine, dancing...the whole thing. And if that doesn’t sell you, I must add that I can dance.”

  “Spaghetti and a dance? Is that the best you’ve got?” she teased.

  “Hey, don’t bash spaghetti. What has it ever done to you?”

  “Okay, I’ll move in and you can take me to have spaghetti and go dancing...but only if you promise me something in return.”

  “Whatever you want.” He squeezed.

  She smiled at him. “I want to keep you, forever. I clearly can’t go anywhere without my protector—and the man I love.” She leaned over and their lips met.

  “I love you, too, baby.” He nodded. “And clearly, I can’t go anywhere without mine. We are in this together.”

  Epilogue

  Three months later everything had started to quiet back down in the little city. The cuts, bruises and her sprained ankle had healed and she was finally starting to feel almost back to her normal self once again. It was odd, but the hardest part of going through a gauntlet of death threats was not the initial action, but the echoing silence that came afterward.

  She was always looking over her shoulder, wondering who would be following her and ready to draw a gun. And when having to drive somewhere, she never got in before hitting her key fob at least twice and actively looking under her car.

  Yes, Sven and Becky had been caught, and the direct threats to her life had ended, but the fear they had created within her had failed to subside. Maybe one day she could get into a car without being afraid it would blow up, but here was hoping.

  Evan opened the restaurant door for her and motioned for her to step inside. She glanced over her shoulder one more time.

  “Don’t worry, honey,” he said, but not before she saw him do the exact same thing.

  He would never admit that he was still on high alert; he would only tell her that this was his normal level of awareness, nothing more. She found it draining, but it also brought her a strange sense of comfort.

  The hostess at the Italian restaurant greeted them and led them to a table in the back. “Will this do?” she asked.

  “Yep, thank you very much.” Evan pulled back Natalie’s chair and helped her get settled and then he took his seat with his back to the wall.

  The hostess retreated, leaving them to listen to the little string band that was playing “My Way.” It was strangely sad but it fit the day. Evan reached over and took her hand in his. “I’m glad we finally found time to have a date, honey. I’m just sorry that you and I have to do it after such a ridiculous week.”

  It was just the break she needed after the flurry of cases she had been allotted after Hanes had been dismissed as a judge, pending investigation of any deals he’d made in the past. Even if he hadn’t been fired, he would never have been able to come back. The nerve agent had done significant cognitive and pulmonary damage.

  “Steve was moved back into the ICU today. Apparently, he fell and hit his head on his hospital bed.” She ran her thumb over the back of Evan’s hand.

  “I know you’re struggling with this, honey, but you couldn’t have changed a damned thing. Steve made some bad choices. His son made bad choices.”

  “I know you and I talked about the fates, but can you imagine how different everything would have turned out if Steve’s wife hadn’t been killed by a drunk driver?” She paused. “Sven wouldn’t have had half the problems he had. He wouldn’t have forced his father into unethical positions to save him. One choice, a seemingly independent decision made by a stranger...one who I will never know, ended up almost costing you and me our lives, as well.”

  “You know these things... It’s life. It is chaos. Plain and simple.” He squeezed her hand.

  “I’m just glad I was able to help set things right for all the people whose cases and lives were screwed up because of Judge Hanes, his son, the crooked district attorney and her sister.” She couldn’t stand the thought of how one simple conversation with the district attorney could have sent her on a completely different trajectory.

  “Do you think Sven and Becky knew what they were doing when they used the Rockwood plates in their bombs?”

  Evan shook his head. “According to his lawyers, Sven didn’t know about any ties my family has to the group. But I still have a feeling that there is something more there. Regardless, I think Sven is going to play the insanity card as his defense in court.”

  “I have a feeling a judge will see right through that. Sven is going to have a nice long stay in a federal prison.” She couldn’t help the smile that flit across her lips. “And so far, the court of appeals has overturned several of Judge Hanes’s rulings and many innocent people have been released from prison.”

  “I can only imagine how many guilty people are walking free because of them,” Evan said, shaking his head in disgust.

  The waiter came over and took their orders—two heaping plates of spaghetti and a bottle of Chianti.

  Evan smiled as the man walked away. “Regardless of what has brought us together, I want you to know that I’m grateful. You are all I can think of, morning, noon and night. You are always on my mind. I don’t think that will ever change. It’s like, in meeting you, I found my soul’s other half.”

  She put her hand on her heart like it could control her swoon. “Honey, I love you, too.”

  The band started their next Sinatra song, “I’ve Got the World on a String.”

  She smiled as he stood up and extended his hand. She slipped her fingers in his.

  “Can I have this dance?” he asked, straightening his suit jacket as she stood.

  Her dress pulled around her legs, forcing her to take small steps to the center of the room. It felt like all eyes were on them. He led her in a graceful dance, and his subtle control made her feel more beautiful than she had in her entire life. She felt like a swan, gliding around the room like her feet didn’t even touch the floor.

  “I had no idea you were such a good dancer,” she said, whispering into his ear and then returning to gaze into his beautiful green eyes.

  They were alight with joy as he looked at her. “My mother made sure I took dance lessons as a kid. I hate to admit it, but I was an All-State Ballroom dancer when I was a senior in high school.”

  “Your mother was a smart woman. This is one timeless and elegant way to make a woman fall madly in love.”

  His smile widened. “I thought you were already madly in love with me.”

  “I love you more every day.” She gave him a light kiss to the cheek as he pulled her into his arms before he spun her out of his grip.

  She giggled as he moved her. It felt oddly invigorating to be at the mercy of such an incredible dancer. She was dancing out of her league, but she didn’t care.

 
He pulled her back against him, hard. Apparently, he was having a good time, as well.

  “I can think of nothing better than being in your arms like this,” she said, nearly breathless. “I know we’ve waited a long time to have a night completely for us, but this is beyond any expectations.”

  “Most of the time, I would agree with you,” he said, leading her around the dance floor. “Yet, there is something I can think of that would make our long-awaited date just that much better.”

  She giggled. “What is that?”

  “If you would wear this,” he said, dropping to his knee and opening up a box she hadn’t seen him take out of his pocket.

  At the heart of the box was a princess-cut diamond and set beside it was a set of sapphires. It was beautiful.

  “Baby, yes...” she said, putting her hands over her mouth and then extending her left one.

  He slipped the ring on her finger and stood up. Taking her lips with his, they needed no words. In that moment she had everything she would ever need or want and she could share it all with a man who was her equal.

  No matter what the future held, or the chaos they would face, they would face it standing beside one another. They would be one another’s shields from the ravages of the world—and they would do it all empowered by the strength and ferocity of their love.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from An Absence of Motive by Maggie Wells.

  WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS BOOK FROM

  Seek thrills. Solve crimes. Justice served.

  Dive into action-packed stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Solve the crime and deliver justice at all costs.

  6 NEW BOOKS AVAILABLE EVERY MONTH!

  An Absence of Motive

  by Maggie Wells

  Chapter One

  The only thing Ben Kinsella ever wanted to be when he grew up was nothing like his father. It was the truth, plain and simple. Some boys wanted to be firefighters or doctors or astronauts, but he honestly couldn’t remember ever giving those professions a second thought. Or any occupation in particular. He only wanted to be something more than “no damn good.”