Canyon of the Sphinx (29 page)

“I didn’t think you wanted to
yet,” she said softly. “His appearance was kind of a surprise.”

“To put it mildly,” he said with
a hint of irony. “But I admit that I’m glad he came to show us his sphinx.”

“I want to go.”

“I know you do.”

“I know you know, but how do you
feel about it? I won’t go if you don’t want me to. You asked me not to go
before and I probably should have listened to you. But for the good part of the
experience, I don’t regret it at all. I’m glad I went.”

He sighed, pulling her closer.
“This is one of the rare times you have actually asked me if you can go on one
of your little adventures, rather than just announce that you have already made
the decision to go.”

“Considering everything, I
thought I should.”

He was silent a moment, his
fingers caressing her arms. “I’m just going to have to let you go and do your
thing, huh?”

She smiled. “I know how you feel
about it. It would be like me letting you go back to Egypt with Jensen Elder
prowling after you. It’s painful. But I would trust you completely. I am strong
in the knowledge knowing that we are strong. I know you, Marcus Burton. I know
you’d never do anything to shame or hurt me, ever.”

“As I know you wouldn’t, either.
If you want to go, then you have my blessing. You need to do this.”

It was the most agreeable he had
ever been in terms of her wanting to pursue a task or assignment such as this
one. He had always fought her tooth and nail, concerned for her safety,
concerned for everything. She pressed against him, her arms going around his
neck and her naked body molded against his.

 “Is this the New Marcus? The one
who has matured, just a little bit?”

He smiled, feeling her hard
nipples against his chest, his thoughts inevitably turning sexual. “This is the
Marcus whose selfishness came too close to costing him everything he loved. It
won’t happen again.”

She kissed him, heatedly, and he
returned her passion with more of his own. When they finally slept, it was
fitfully. When they couldn’t sleep any more, they made love in her old bed
until the sun rose.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

“Dr. Trent was understandably
upset by the reports. She said she had never seen them before. I can only guess
that she didn’t want them found.”

“Objection,” Robert said in a
loud, controlled voice. “The witness is speculating.”

“Sustained.” The judge looked at
the tall, gangly lawyer from the IRS. “Instruct your witness to testify only on
what she knows, not on what she can guess.”

The lawyer nodded. He went to
stand next to Jensen, seated in the witness box. She was the prosecution’s star
witness, dressed in a beautiful deep-purple designer suit. She looked every
inch the proper accountant with the exception of dark circles under her eyes.
She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

“So you confronted Dr. Trent with
these expense reports and she denied signing them.” The lawyer went over to the
prosecution’s table and picked up a stack of papers. “But everyone who has
examined the evidence can clearly see that her signature is upon them. Dr.
Trent has admitted herself that it looks like her signature.”

Jensen nodded. “Clearly. I have
seen her signature enough to know. It is my job to process expenses reports
from the jobsite, among other things, so I very familiar with all of the
ranking officers’ signatures.”

The lawyer set the paper work down.
“But you didn’t catch these at your office at SCU, only at the actual field
operation office in Egypt. Why?”

Jensen shrugged. “She never
submitted them to us.”

“So she signed them, but didn’t
submit them? Doesn’t that mean she did not get paid?”

“I couldn’t trace whether or not
she got paid for them. I never found anything to suggest that she did. But she
can use them as tax write-offs for the IRS and submit them with her tax
returns.”

“Objection, your Honor,” Robert
stood up this time, smiling warningly at Jensen. “The witness is again
speculating. She is not a tax expert, but a bookkeeper that dropped out of
school in the eleventh grade. I would hardly say she is qualified to speculate
about regulated financial matters.”

Jensen’s cheeks flushed. The other
lawyer spoke in protest. “Ms. Elder is an assistant controller with Southern
California University. I assure you that she is more than qualified to…”

“Did you check her educational
record?”

“Beg pardon?”

“Her educational record,” Robert
said as if he was talking to a moron. “Really, counselor, you should do your
homework. Ms. Jensen attended public school in Hawaii and never made it past
the eleventh grade. The documents she used to apply for her job at SCU were
forged, including her degree. The University of Illinois at Chicago has no
record of her ever having attended, much less graduate. Or didn’t you know
that?”

The IRS lawyer’s eyes widened. It
wasn’t a criminal case against Ms. Elder and he had used her position at SCU as
credentials enough. He hadn’t bothered to dig on her; there had been no need.
Flustered, he turned to the bench. “Your Honor, Mr. Trent is out of order.”

“I’ll decide who’s out of order,”
the judge snapped. He looked at Robert. “Mr. Trent, you’re out of order. Be
careful how you treat my courtroom. I’ll not tolerate your theatrics. The jury
will disregard Mr. Trent’s statement.”

Robert sat down but the damage
was done, he knew. Jensen continued to flush violently but kept silent. The
courtroom quieted down and the lawyer from the IRS approached her again.

“Ms. Elder,” he began, struggling
to regain his composure. “When you confronted Dr. Trent and she denied signing
the reports, did you leave it at that? Did she say anything else?”

Jensen was silent a moment. Then,
her eyes welled with big crocodile tears. “She was rather aggressive with me.”

“I see. How?”

Jensen dabbed at her eyes.
“She... she pushed me. So did her colleagues. They all verbally attacked me at
one point or another. Dr. Juliana Davis went so far as to actually shove me to
the ground.”

Sitting in the gallery, Juliana’s
eyes widened with surprise. Everyone turned to look at her. At seven months
pregnant, she didn’t look capable of pushing anyone.

“I see,” the lawyer continued.
“Did Dr. Trent, at any time, threaten you?”

“No,” Jensen sobbed softly. “But
her husband… when we were alone…”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Robert
jumped in before she could say anything that the jury would be instructed not
to remember but, being human, would. He had just used the tactic and didn’t want
it turned on him. “Dr. Burton is not on trial here. He has no relevance to
this.”

“If he threatened her, your
Honor, then it is indeed relevant,” the other lawyer implored.

“Over ruled,” the judge said.
“Ms. Elder may continue.”

Robert, displeased, shut his
mouth. The IRS lawyer gently encouraged his witness.

“What did Dr. Burton say?”

Jensen dabbed her eyes, but the
tears kept flowing. “He said he had known she’d had them but that Dr. Trent had
made him promise to go along with her. They don’t make a lot of money as
archaeologists and she was going to use them for their joint tax return so that
they could get some money back. He said three kids were very expensive and they
were just trying to get by, but that he was afraid her fraudulent reports would
eventually land them in jail and he’d lose his dig.”

“Objection,” Robert said sternly.

“Over ruled,” the judge said,
even more sternly.

She was off on a tangent of soft
weeping, making sure she sobbed in the direction of the jury. “I was terrified
for my life. The entire Trent family is powerful and I was terrified that they
would somehow try to silence me. What can I do? I’m just an accountant. I’m not
a world-famous archaeologist with millions of dollars. I’m a nobody. Even now,
look at her – her attorney is a powerful defense lawyer and the courtroom is
full of influential people here to support her. What chance do I stand? I just
have to hope the truth prevails!”

Robert shouted objection at least
three times during her tirade. The judge banged the gavel, but Jensen kept
going, each word more emotional than the previous. The IRS lawyer finally
quieted her, though he wasn’t sorry in the least for her behavior. It would
show the jury what she was up against: the Trent Empire.

When the courtroom settled down,
Jensen was eventually turned over to Robert as a witness, but he waived the
right. He had a better witness and intended to use Jensen to rebut his own
witness’s statement. If he were to question her now, he would be perceived as
the big, bad defense attorney and confirm everything Jensen had just said about
the Trents. It would likely sway the jury in her favor. So he would wait.

Kathlyn, having sat quietly
through the entire exchange, leaned in to her brother.

“What kind of shit is that?” she
whispered. “Robert, I swear if I had a gun, I’d…”

He shushed her, not wanting to be
distracted. He didn’t dare look at his sister for fear that the expression on
her face would cause him to lose his control.

And he must have all of his
control for what was to come.

***

“Dude, she was obsessed. Totally
obsessed. She wanted money and she and her mom cooked up this plan to get it. I
didn’t want to be no part of it, dude. I’m tellin’ you the truth.”

“Objection, Your Honor.” The
lawyer from the IRS was flustered. It was his sixth objection in as many
minutes. “This witness is speculating.”

“Over ruled.” The bald judge
looked at Mike Sutton. “Continue, Mr. Sutton. But remember that you are under
oath. There is a difference between truth and your opinion.”

Mike wasn’t the red-haired,
freckled lad that his brother was. Two years older, he had dark hair and big,
brown eyes. He was smart, but his speech patterns indicated his maturity wasn’t
quite up to his physical age. He spoke like he just came off a surf board.

He wore a blue, short-sleeve
dress shirt and a pink tie with a cartoon character on it to court. Andy sat
with the rest of Kathlyn’s team, having known for a few weeks about his
brother’s involvement in this incident but still very ashamed about the whole
thing. He couldn’t even look at his brother as the man continued with his
testimony.

“Yes, sir,” Mike responded to the
judge, sitting quietly as Robert paced around thoughtfully before him.

“So you were pulled into this
plot,” Robert offered helpfully.

“Objection!”

“Sustained.” The judge lifted an
eyebrow at Robert. “Mr. Trent….”

Robert understood, nodding his
head like a kid who just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Mr.
Sutton, let me back up on all of this and see if I understand the chronology of
things between you and Ms. Elder, okay? First, you two met at SCU, correct? One
year ago?”

“Yep. I mean, yes. Correct.”

“And you started a relationship
with her.”

“Relationship? Yeah, I guess so.
We hung out, you know. Went to movies and stuff.”

“But you had sex with her.”

Mike fought of a grin, which
finally broke through. “Yeah, dude, sure. I mean, look at her. I’m not gay or
nothin’.”

The courtroom rippled with
titters. The judge stopped short of banging his gavel when they quickly died
down and Robert, grinning, continued.

“Completely understandable,” he
said, holding his hands out as he formulated his line of thinking. “So, you
entered into a relationship with her. And you mentioned that she had a
particular fascination with Kathlyn Trent and was quite interested in your
affiliation with her.”

“My brother worked with her,
dude. I’d never met her.”

“But Jensen knew your brother
worked with her, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she know this before she met
you or after you two started dating?”

Mike shifted in his seat. “She
knew that before, dude. We first met in the Student Union when she came up to
me and asked me if I was Andy Sutton’s brother. She already worked for the
Social Sciences department at the school in the accounting office and said she
knew who my brother was.”

Robert nodded coolly. “So she
approached you first.”

“Hell, yeah, she did.”

“Then who instigated the
relationship, Mr. Sutton?”

“I guess she did. She asked me
out and she kept calling me.”

“Did you ever try to break up
with her or call it off?”

“No, dude. She was all over me.
Why would I break it off?”

The implication that Robert was
trying to achieve was obvious. Everyone in the courtroom could see the pattern.
He moved on.