He was right. He was now the head prosecutor for the county, and he’d end up prosecuting whoever had done this. I was a witness, so at least I’d probably disqualified myself as an attorney on this one. So I ran through the events again, this time closing my eyes to make sure I got it all. I couldn’t think of anything I’d missed, but something felt just out of my reach. Something I’d noticed or heard. What was it?
Nick asked questions similar to the ones asked by Pierce, his voice calm, his mind obviously quick. He spent a little more time asking me about Scot Peterson in general. My impressions, what I’d noticed while working for the office, any guesses I might have. His questions had a logical connection to the case and each other, and the way his brain drew those parallels was impressive.
I finished answering and opened my eyes to see we were closer to town. “Why did you really take this job?” I surprised myself by asking. There were tons of ways for him to reach the point of running for office; returning to northern Idaho and taking over a shitstorm of a disaster seemed too risky.
“Family,” he said simply, not expanding.
Ah. That I could understand. Family meant everything. I turned to study his strong profile. His grandparents and his mom still lived in Silverville, that much I knew. His mom was an accountant for pretty much everybody besides the larger companies and knew most of the miners in town by name. “How is your mom doing?”
“She’s doing well but facing a knee replacement probably in a month or so. Busted it snowmobiling last season, and it hasn’t healed well enough. Both of my brothers have moved home. Ricky is working with mom in accounting, and Dominick left the SEALs and is now a cop in Silverville. Gets a lot of cats out of a lot of trees.” Amusement tilted his lips.
I warmed again. Just enough to be uncomfortable. “Um, did you ever hear anything from your dad?” Darn my curiosity, but we were talking, and it was the type of gossip that had lasted through the years, still brought up by old men fishing by the side of the river. His dad had been a foreman at the Independence Mine, and he’d taken off without a word with his secretary when Nick had to be, what? Maybe fifteen?
“Nope.” Nick’s hands remained relaxed on the steering wheel, but even so, a tension seemed to spiral from him.
“I’m sorry to pry,” I said, meaning it. I’d had no right to ask. He’d been so nice to me, and now I’d overstepped. This was all so odd, but I wanted him to like me—especially professionally. Maybe on a friend level. Man.
He glanced at me; his bourbon colored eyes soft. “We were talking about family, and it’s a logical question. Don’t worry about offending me. If you ever do, which I doubt, I’ll let you know.” His smile released the worry I’d been holding.
I nodded, oddly grateful. He probably could level somebody with a reprimand. Even so, Nick Basanelli was hard to pin down. He was definitely ambitious, but his kindness at the moment helped. Juries probably really did love him. I suddenly wanted to know everything about him, including where he’d been and what he’d been doing besides practicing law. Did he have a girlfriend? My face heated again, and I turned to watch the lake out the window. He was my boss, and I had to keep him in that category.
Being a female attorney in a small town was one thing, and it came with certain advantages, but it could all be tanked by sleeping with the boss. With anyone in the legal community, actually. I had to be careful, and I knew it. Not that Nick was sending those vibes, anyway.
My mind flashed to Aiden and his sizzling blue eyes. Talk about vibes. All sorts of heated and wild ones. Just the thought of him finally banished the chill with a heated flush. What a disaster. I had to get over the childhood crush I’d held for him and do my job. Hopefully I could clear him or help him in the process, but I had to stop thinking about him as my hero. Same with Nick. They were both strong men, intriguing men, but I had enough on my plate.
It was time to be my own hero.
Maybe I should get a cat or something that would be warm and furry and love me. With that thought, I sighed and rested my head against the window. It was so hard being a grownup.
Chapter 9
The sun set across the lake in hues of bright pink and yellow when Nick and I returned to the office and walked from the parking lot and along the rose bushes to turn the corner. My mother was waiting on the front steps of the Justice Building.
Nick’s cheek creased. “Looks like word has spread,” he whispered.
I sighed and moved in for a hug, trying to keep my composure as my mom’s rose scent surrounded me. “I’m fine.” I stepped back, studying her.
My mom bore a striking resemblance to Maureen O’Hara from her The Parent Trap Days. Red hair cut in a bob, soft green eyes, and a jaw of pure Irish rock. She wore pressed white pants with a light blue sweater nipped at the waist, and her shiny gold cross matched her gold stud earrings. Her pink lips were pursed, and those eyes held familiar worry. Raising three girls, three very-different-from-each-other girls, had given my mother lines at her eyes that were a perfect combination of laughter and worry. Today they were all worry. “You must stop getting shot at.”
I couldn’t stop my chuckle that unfortunately held a hint of hysteria. I couldn’t lose it in front of both my mother and Nick. My nerves felt like they’d been scraped raw by an old handsaw, and holding myself together caused my arms to tremble just enough that my mom tightened her hold, making me want to cry like a toddler who’d scraped her knee. I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood, instead.
Nick stepped in. “Mrs. Albertini. It’s very nice to see you.” He held out his hand like his mama no doubt had taught him to do.
My mom’s eyebrow arched, and she released me to extend her hand for what appeared to be a gentle shake. “I’ve heard you were back in town, Nick. Please tell me you’re going to put a stop to all of this drug nonsense and shootouts.” Her soft lilt was iron strong with the demand.
Although I was a little miffed that she expected the big, strong man to handle the problems, I did understand. He was, after all, now the head prosecutor and my boss. Even so, I spoke up. “We’re working on it, Mom. It’s a couple of cases, and don’t worry. The shooting is over.” Scot was dead, so the killers unfortunately had been successful. But were they the same shooters from the other day? Those had been aiming at Aiden or at Randy Taylor, so my churning gut told me there was still danger out there, and somehow, I kept ending up in the middle of it.
“All the shooters are done?” My mother kept her attention on Nick, apparently following the same train of thought.
His smile was charming with a boatload of respect. “I don’t know, Mrs. Albertini.”
My mom’s nod was all approval. She did like the truth. “Thank you for the honesty.” She removed her hand and then patted his arm right above the monogrammed cuffs. “However, you’re in charge now, Nicolo.”
I tried not to wince.
She leaned in, the Irish in her voice now out in full force. “That means that the shooting must stop, and it’s your job to make it happen. Your duty requires protecting the people working for you. I’m speaking to you as a mother. Do we understand each other?”
There was only one answer, and Nick gave it, his eyes sparkling. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good boy.” She patted him again and then linked her arm through mine, gently turning us both. “Now Anna, I’ll give you a ride to Wanda’s. You didn’t forget your appointment, did you?”
My stomach dropped. I had forgotten. Completely. “Mom, I don’t think—”
“I figured.” For a woman two inches shorter and probably twenty pounds lighter than me, she moved like a good wind, within seconds having me at her Ford Taurus, circa two thousand and five. People from Silverville bought and kept American, trading vehicles only when they fell apart. Fords rarely did.
I slipped inside, and the smell of the lavender air freshener somehow eased through me, relaxing my shoulders from down around my ears. It had been a tough couple of days. Maybe speaking with a shrink
wasn’t a bad idea, although dredging up all the emotions from the past didn’t seem necessary. I had enough of a disaster going on in real time that maybe we could just concentrate on that.
“That Basanelli boy grew into his ears,” my mom mused, handing over a plain T-shirt for me to change into. Then she started the engine and drove out of the lot at a too rapid speed.
I gratefully changed my shirt and then yanked on my seatbelt. “Um.”
She ripped around the corner onto the main street. “I’ve heard he’s single. Was engaged.”
I perked up. “Nick was engaged?” I didn’t want to be interested, but engaged? “What happened?”
She sniffed and drove through an intersection as the light turned from yellow to red. “Apparently they were both lawyers in Boise, and things went south. I don’t have all the details.” Yet. She didn’t need to say the word. She would know the entire story within a week, and hopefully she’d tell me without my having to ask for it. “Dating somebody you work with would be a disaster.”
I stilled. Was my mother, the woman who was still waiting impatiently for one of her daughters to marry and give her grandchildren, warning me off Nick? “True.”
She nodded emphatically, whipping the car into a parking space on the main road through town, near a series of older and well-kept brick buildings. “Yes. If you went to work with your Uncle Gino, then you’d be free to date Nicolo. Prosecuting criminals, seeing the bad side of life, can’t be good for your spirit. It certainly isn’t good for my piece of mind, which is rapidly dwindling.”
Right. My mom was the sharpest person in any room every time. I bit my lip. From my first day of law school, my mom had tried to get me to work with Uncle Gino, who, as far as I could trace, was a seventh cousin three times removed on my dad’s side of the family. Gino was about sixty years old, did more transactional law than litigation, and thought a fax machine was too new-fangled to deal with. “I am not going to work for Gino,” I said for the thousandth time. At least.
“Just think about it.” She craned her head to look out the front window at the nearest building. “Wanda is on the third floor. There’s a public restroom on the first floor where you can wash off your hands.”
I’d forgotten about the blood. A chill skittered down my back faster than a firefly trapped in a T-shirt, which happened all too often while camping. How had I forgotten the blood, even for a second? I swallowed and opened the door, stepping out into the breezy dusk. “All right. I can catch a ride home.”
“Don’t be silly. Tessa is working, and I’ll go check on her. If you’re not interested in Nicolo, then maybe she should see if he has eaten dinner.” She started the car again.
I sighed and shut the door. Tess worked as a waitress at Smiley’s Diner, just down the street, and she’d probably love to take Nick a steak sandwich. Turning, I made my way into the building, which smelled like furniture polish over dusty wood. It took several pumps of gritty soap to get rid of the blood, and I tried not to watch the red swirl down the drain of the old porcelain sink. Scot’s blood. My stomach lurched and I coughed down bile.
After drying my hands, I made my way up the wide and squeaky steps to the third floor, which held three offices, all with closed doors. The doors were worn oak with square windows made of frosted glass, and not one had a sign. Light illuminated the window of the far-left door, so I headed that way and knocked, poking my head in. “Dr. Versaccio?”
A woman wearing dusty jeans and flannel looked up from across a smattering of boxes across the narrow wooden slats of the floor. She stood near a cushion top green built-in desk by the window. Her black hair was swept up in a messy bun, her wire-rimmed glasses were askew, and her lipstick half chewed off. “Hello?” She didn’t sound like she’d been expecting anybody.
I stepped inside. “I’m sorry. I’m Anna Albertini, and my mom…”
Wanda sighed and dusted off her hands. “My grandma, also.” She wiped a smudge of dirt on her cheek and spread it nearly to her eye, making her look like a boxer after a rough fight. “I said I’d love to see you next week.”
I forced a smile. “That sounds better, anyway.” I slowly edged backward in case a sudden movement changed her mind.
Her gaze sharpened. She looked younger than what had to be mid-thirties, and she had that ‘just got divorced and in shape and I’m feeling good’ look that was universal. “Well. I could use some company. Especially family.” Reaching down past a box, she drew out two Wallace Brewery Pale Ales. “Have a beer with me?”
My throat was suddenly parched but my suspicions up.
She gestured me toward her with one of the bottles, which had dew drops sliding down to the floor. It was fresh, probably bought just a few hours before. “You’re going to talk to me anyway, and we both know it, so why not do it over a beer?”
That was fair. I shut the door and wound around boxes to accept the brew before looking around.
She kicked a box my way. “There are books in there. You won’t fall through.” She leaned over and dragged an even bigger box close and sat, her sigh full of relief.
I twisted my cap off and took a seat, wincing as my ankle protested. I leaned down and readjusted the bandage.
Her eyebrows lifted as she tipped back her bottle.
“Burned by a bullet,” I explained before taking a big drink. The smooth brew washed down my throat and settled, warming and easing me more than it should. Alcoholics ran in my family, and I never wanted to be dependent on alcohol. On anything, really. “Second time this week.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. “You sound like a badass.”
“Right?” I agreed, settling more comfortably on the cardboard. “That’s what I was thinking.”
“Do you feel like a badass?”
Such a shrink question. “No,” I said honestly. I liked her. She reminded me of Donna. “I feel scared and lost and like there’s a monster coming for me out of the darkness.”
“Well.” She set her beer down. “I guess that gives us a good starting place.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Okay.”
Chapter 10
Both of my sisters stayed the night, probably figuring that my getting shot at required double protection. Tess kicked me at various intervals, mumbling about dogs and men, and Donna shifted restlessly on the sofa outside the bedroom, so none of us got much sleep. Escaping to the office early on Saturday was almost a relief. While my talk with the shrink had been necessary, I was still feeling a little raw from it, and escaping into work probably wasn’t the way to deal with stress.
But as I entered my office, the quiet of the empty building surrounding me, I finally took a full and deep breath. Okay. I might not be able to steer much in life right now, but I could investigate Aiden’s case. This, at least, was under my control.
I grabbed a newspaper off the floor, wincing at the front-page picture of Nick with his arm around me at Scot’s house. We looked pretty friendly.
Wonderful. All I needed was that type of gossip.
I started with some misdemeanor case files just to get into the flow of litigation. Two minor burglaries, several drug charges, and a trespass case. All pretty easy to schedule and plan. My guess was that only the trespass case defendant would go to trial and the others would plea out.
Then I opened the too thin case file for Aiden Devlin, and my heart rate automatically quickened. I’m not sure what I was magically hoping to find, but the only documents secured inside were the arrest warrant and the Notice of Arraignment sent from the court. No notes on why or how Aiden was arrested, no trial plan, no evidentiary documents. Only ineligible notes on one piece of yellow legal paper that had been ripped unevenly off the pad. No wonder I hadn’t been able to decipher it in the stressful situation of District Court. Swirls and clouds all attached by jagged lines from a pen that had apparently lost most of its ink.
And now Scot was dead.
I bit my lip and squinted, trying to understand the odd diagram.
&nbs
p; It looked like ‘ice cream’ was in the center cloud. What legal words looked like ‘ice cream?’ I couldn’t think of any, and now I was hungry.
Scot had scrawled Aiden’s name and phone number at the top left corner. Since it appeared that Aiden hadn’t hired an attorney as of yet, that made sense. Scot could speak directly with Aiden.
As could I.
At the realization, I leaned back in my chair. It made no sense for Aiden to talk to me, and in fact was an incredibly bad idea for him to do so, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask. First, I had to figure out what was going on. They taught us in law school to never ask a question in court that we didn’t know the answer to, and this wasn’t court, but I still needed some sort of background before I could talk to the defendant. Or maybe I just wasn’t ready to see him again.
I leaned over and studied the paper closer. A barely legible scrawl on the bottom right corner caught my attention. I frowned and partially turned the paper, squinting to read better. The name took shape, coming together like a Captiva Code on a website. Melvin Whitaker.
Wait a minute. I lifted my head and shut my eyes, trying to attach facts in my brain. Why would Melvin Whitaker’s name be on notes in Aiden’s case file? Whitaker supposedly had supplied the pot that Randy Taylor had been caught with and that the elderly ladies had been trying to find.
Just who was this guy? The connection for every drug case in the darn county?
The DEA had gone through my computer, and having found nothing, they’d left it in place, unlike Scot’s. Leaning over to type on my keyboard that unfortunately was missing the S, I conducted a criminal defendant search for Melvin Whitaker. Nothing. No arrests, no records whatsoever. Not even a parking ticket. Huh. Well.
Then I went through the database to find investigators who contracted with the prosecuting attorney’s office. While we worked with the police on every case, I wouldn’t mind an outside source on this one. I found the number for one of the Lugi uncles, who were distant cousins on my dad’s side and had been PI’s for years. I left a message asking for investigations into Melvin Whitaker, Randy Taylor, and Aiden Devlin.
Disorderly Conduct (The Anna Albertini Files Book 1) Page 7