Guilty as Sin (33 page)

Harry did his business, then made a mad dash around the yard, excited by the fresh powder. Ellen left him to play, knowing they would both regret it later when he came in wet and aromatic and would have to be banished from his usual spot on the bed.

When she came back to the living room, she took her coat off and hung it in the closet. Jay stood with his back to the fire, watching her, tumbler of Scotch in one hand, the other stuffed into his pants pocket. Too aware of his gaze, Ellen picked up her glass from the coffee table and sipped at it. The liquor seared a smooth path to her stomach.

"It's been quite a day," she said, settling herself into the corner of the couch. She pulled her legs beneath her, careful to keep her skirt around her knees.

"Why didn't you take that call?" he asked. Though the tone was casual, those cool blue eyes focused on her like a pair of lasers.

She weighed her answer. Her impulse was to keep the calls a secret, to protect herself from yet another avalanche of publicity. Of course, Brooks would have no desire to inform the press. He was here for his own purposes. She had to think he would guard the confidence jealously. And if she didn't give it to him, he would dig for it.

"Cranks," she said with an air of dismissal. "I've had a couple of calls. My nerves are just a little too frayed right now to take another one."

A half truth, Jay decided. Better than a lie. Less than trust. He couldn't have expected more.

"Enberg's secretary told me he'd got some nasty calls," he said. "Think they're related?"

"It wouldn't follow. We were on opposite sides."

"That all depends on your point of view. From where I stand, ol' Denny looked like he'd just as soon throw the game."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. . . ."

Ellen looked away from him, into the fire, curling her fingers tighter round her glass. Dennis had got calls, and now Dennis was dead. She was getting calls and ... In the flames of the fire she could see the switch-blade protruding from the tire of her car and the word scratched into the paint. Bitch.

"Rumor has it you think Enberg had some help with that shotgun," Brooks said, his eyes narrowed as he watched her for a reaction.

"Where did you hear that?"

"Around."

"If there's a leak on this case—"

"No one fed it to me," he said. "I don't have a mole in your office, if that's what you're worried about. This is a small town, Ellen. People like to talk. I know how to listen."

"I'm not paranoid," she said defensively. "Corruption makes no geographical distinctions. A week ago Sheriff Steiger was trading information for sex."

The pirate's grin made a return even as he feigned shock. "Are you suggesting something tawdry, Ms. North?"

"In your dreams."

"Mmm ... I should say so," he drawled, his gaze caressing her bare calf.

He moved away from the fire, prowling, his eyes locked on her. Once gain playing the rogue, the sexual tomcat, master at seduction.

"The point is," she began.

"The point is, I don't pay for information—cash or favors," he said, asing himself down beside her. His hard, muscular thigh brushed her bare foot. "And so far, the only one who's made any noise about it is Paul Kirkwood."

"Paul asked you for money?" Ellen said, surprised. "Well—for Josh, I suppose," she rationalized.

He shook his head. "I get the impression Paul thinks about Paul first and the rest of the world can queue up behind him, including his son."

"He's under a lot of pressure," she said with forced neutrality.

He made a dubious sound and pulled a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket. Ellen took it from his fingers and, ignoring his frown, set it out of his reach on the end table.

"He was a suspect for a while, you know," she pointed out.

"But he isn't anymore."

"There's no evidence against him." Even as she said it, she was recalling the night Josh had been returned. Paul nowhere to be found for hours, showing up at the hospital in a snit. The story Mitch later relayed of Josh reacting violently to his father's appearance in his room.

"There was that bit about the van," Brooks offered.

"That went nowhere."

Wilhelm was supposed to be looking for connections between Paul and Wright. He had turned his suspicion on Kirkwood days ago but hadn't said a word about it since. Ellen had to wonder if he had followed up or if the other cases had taken all his attention.

"What about Todd Childs?" Jay asked carefully, watching her through his lashes.

Ellen gave a little shrug. "What about him? We'll be serving him with a subpoena calling him to testify at the hearing. He isn't happy about it, but life is hard."

"Maybe he decided to take it out on you."

"It's hard to imagine his getting up the energy for that kind of rage."

"She's a bitch." Jay could hear Todd Childs's voice, see the venom in his eyes as he watched Ellen talk to the press. "Rage can be chemically induced. I'd hazard a guess he'd know all about that. I had me a little chat with Todd this morning." He took another sip of his drink and looked at her sideways. "Just long enough to give me the willies."

"Oh, great," she groaned. "That's what I need—you tampering with my witnesses."

She swung her feet down off the couch and sat with her elbows planted on her thighs and her face in her hands.

"I wasn't tampering," he said. "I can have a conversation with anyone I choose. I'm a private citizen."

"With an in to the state attorney general and a truck parked in my driveway."

She had to fight the urge to get up and peek out her front window for signs of reporters staking out her house. The unwanted, unwarranted publicity that Mitch and Megan's relationship had drawn was fresh in her mind. It had indirectly cost Megan her field post, and she and Mitch were

the same side. Ellen shuddered to think what the ramifications of having Jay Butler Brooks in her home might be. He was looking for inside information. She was the lead prosecutor on the case.

She turned and looked at him. "I don't need any more complications my life."

Complications. The case. His involvement in it. The attraction that sparked between them whether she liked it or not. It struck him as funny, a bitter, twisted sort of way, that he had come here to escape the implications of his own life and had become a complication in someone else's. And Ellen had come to Deer Lake to escape the complications of her life in Minneapolis and now found herself in the center of a madman's web.

He stared at Ellen. Backlit by the fire, her hair was burnished gold, the barriers were down. He could have turned the moment to his advantage. Instead, he tossed back the last of his Scotch and set the glass aside.

"No," he said. "You need a break. In the case and from the case. So tell me about your mother."

"My mother?"

"You know, the woman who gave you birth. The woman who called see how you're doing."

Suspicion lowered her brows. "Why?"

He dropped his head back against the couch and rolled his eyes. "I reckon she called because she loves you, but that's just speculation on my part. If you're asking why I asked, it's called making conversation. Or if you're intent on casting me as a bastard, call it looking for background."

That was the problem with him, Ellen thought—there was no telling which definition suited.

"My mother is an attorney," she said. "My father, too. And my sister, Jill. Tax law."

"Ah, a nest of lawyers," he said with a warm, teasing smile. "And you're the white sheep."

The term brought pleasant surprise. Her father called her the white sheep, always with a gleam of pride in his eyes.

"My father says I inherited the recessive North gene for justice. His gandfather was a circuit court judge back in frontier times. They called him Noose North."

Jay laughed. Ellen let herself relax marginally, glad for the diversion, whatever his motive, she had to be grateful. She needed the downtime, a chance to lower her shields for a moment or two. She turned toward him, once more tucking herself into the corner of the couch.

"Anyway, they have a nice practice in Edina—the suburb where I grew up."

"And you're close."

"Yeah," she said, smiling to herself.

Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of something sad in Brooks's eyes. He covered it in a blink.

"You come from a family of lawyers, too," she said.

He leaned toward her in confession. "I'm the black sheep."

"Big surprise. You were an attorney, though," she pointed out. "Why not with the family firm?"

"I go my own way. Make my own rules. I was too much of a rebel for an old southern law firm, as contradictory as that may sound to a Yankee."

"Your opinion or theirs?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, not liking the probing quality of her gaze. "We were talking about you."

"And now we're talking about you. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Brooks?"

"Oooh, trick question." He grinned and tipped his head. "I can't wait to see you handle a cross-examination. You know what I thought when I first laid eyes on you? I said to myself, Jay, that little gal looks sharp as a tack and cool as tungsten steel. What the hell do you think she's doing here?"

"Asked and answered."

"You seemed evasive."

"Not so. There simply isn't anything more to tell."

"Then your leaving Minneapolis had nothing to do with the rape trial of Art Fitzpatrick?"

The shields came up again. "What would make you ask that?"

"It was the last trial of any real consequence you were involved with up there."

"A number of victims of other crimes might beg to differ with you. I tried any number of cases after Fitzpatrick."

"But none so high profile. A prominent businessman accused of an ugly crime. It was common knowledge you took the loss hard."

"A rapist went free. Of course I was unhappy. And, in point of fact, I was not the lead prosecutor on Fitzpatrick. That was Steve Larsen's case. I was his second. May I ask why and how you've been digging up this information?" Just what did he know about the Fitzpatrick case? Did he ow about her relationship with Costello? About Costello's link to Fitzpatrick?

"It's part of my job," he explained. "I know you think I'm just as lazy a poor boy's sigh, too unimaginative and slothful to create plots of my own; that I just waltz into the middle of a story and save up the news clippings. But the fact is, I do my homework, Ellen, same as any good journalist."

"Then why aren't you doing homework on Wright? Why dig into my boring past when you could be revealing this man for the monster he is? You could actually be doing someone some good."

"You don't want me tampering with the case—unless it's on behalf of the prosecution. Is that it?"

"Associate you with my office and run the risk of having my conviction thrown out on appeal? No, thanks. I would just like to think that maybe you wanted something more out of this than money."

"Such as?"

"Justice."

"That's your quest, counselor. I'm just an observer."

"And that excuse is supposed to absolve you of all responsibility, humanity, compassion, emotion? How can you look at Josh, at his parents, and not feel something?"

He felt plenty. Pity, compassion, sympathy . . . lucky, confused. He had come here to escape his own tearing sense of loss. Had come deliberately to study people who had lost more, thereby consoling and punishing himself at once.

"You don't know what I feel," he said quietly.

"And you won't tell me."

"Not tonight." He drew in a deep breath, mustered a weary smile, and pushed himself to his feet. "I think you've had enough intrigue and twisted drama to last you. What you need is a good night's sleep."

He offered her a hand up from the couch. She gave it a dubious look.