I Married a Billionaire: Lost and Found (Contemporary Romance) (19 page)

"You’re welcome," said Kelly. "I have to admit, most spouses don’t take this kind of news so well, in my experience." She sipped at her coffee, thoughtfully. "Then again, that might be because I mostly handle infidelity cases."

Daniel let out a little snort of laughter, and I found myself laughing too.
 

After we’d gone every everything with three different officers what felt like a thousand times, I was pretty sure all we’d done was thoroughly confuse everyone. They kept informing us that the insider trading issue was a pending federal investigation, no matter how many times we said we already knew. The captain kept shaking his head and saying he’d have to SEC, or maybe the FBI, and then he finally let us all go home.

The gray dawn light was just beginning to creep over the city as we shuffled, bleary-eyed, through the streets. Once we all remembered that we hadn’t eaten since lunch, we all sat in a diner for a while, filling out stomachs with greasy food until we’d unwound enough to yawn our way home.
 

I barely remembered most of the drive back. I could only hope that Daniel was more alert; we made it home without incident, at least, so he must have been in better shape than I was.
 

I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

***

I woke up with a start. The clock said 2:36 PM.

I had been thinking - or dreaming - I wasn’t sure which, really, but after going through every single detail of this nightmare with the police, there were two things that still didn’t sit right with me. Number one, the hostile judge. Number two, if Brewer were really telling the truth about how Flo and the plaintiffs from the old lawsuit met, how did the whole thing start? Was it her idea, and hers alone? If so, where did she get the money?

I sat down with a notepad and pen, and started to write. I had to just get my thoughts out of my head somehow, no matter how ridiculous they might be.
 

First of all, there was the judge. Even Ms. Greenlee, who seemed to know him personally, was shocked by his behavior. He didn’t normally conduct himself in that way. So what was it about this case that had put him in such a mood?

Judicial bias was a serious accusation, I knew. If I wanted to pursue this, I was going to need some serious evidence. But it was no more than a whim at this point, so much so that I hesitated to even tell Kelly about it. Where would she even start?

I drummed my fingers on the table for a while. Of course, most of a judge’s life would be a matter of public record. I could conduct my own investigation. And if I didn’t find anything, well, I didn’t find anything. But if I did…

I shook my head. What did I think I was going to find, exactly? Any bias would have to be on paper for me to prove it, and the far likelier scenario - that he simply didn’t like Daniel - wasn’t exactly a punishable offense. But there was something there. A hunch I just couldn’t shake.

And then, there was the question of who exactly started this whole mess. As much as I wanted to think Flo was the mastermind of it all, she seemed a little too…unstable. Then again, when we’d worked together, she’d managed to convince me that she was normal.

I chewed on the end of my pen, finally pulling out my phone and typing in the judge’s name. As I’d suspected, there was a sea of results - from elections, news blurbs, and everything else under the sun. It was an impressive array of information - everything about his family, his background, his voting record from when he was in congress - which I’m sure would have been vastly helpful, if only I could figure out if it
meant
anything.
 

Just when my eyes were starting to glaze over, something jumped out at me. I’d probably glossed over it a hundred times, but for some reason, this time it stuck.

Member of the University of Dartwood Alumni Association

Daniel had gone to Dartwood.

And so, by extension, had the plaintiffs in the old lawsuit.

It was probably a coincidence. It almost had to be, but for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it mattered. If the judge had some prior connection with the other plaintiffs, or even some prior knowledge of the case, it could be enough to sour him on Daniel forever.
 

I didn’t know enough about the legal precedents to be sure if this was enough to prove a serious breach of judicial ethics, but I figured it must be enough to at least get us reassigned with a new judge, if nothing else. That was, if I could demonstrate any more meaningful connection than all of them simply having gone to the same college.

Daniel finally shuffled out of bed a few hours later, raking his hand through his hair and thumbing blearily through his collection of takeout menus. I realized my stomach was growling.

"Any requests?" he wanted to know.

"Anything." I waited until he’d gotten off the phone with the Greek place up the street, then gestured for him to come sit down. He did, glancing at me sidelong.

"Look," I said. "There’s this thing about the judge. I know you didn’t want to pursue it, but…"

He sighed. "All right, all right. What?"

"He went to Dartwood. Did you know that?"
 

Daniel rested his elbows on the island, turning to look at me with an expression of measured patience. "Lots of people go to Dartwood, Maddy."

"Yeah, well, not that many. He’s active in the alumni association. It’s not outside of the realm of possibility that he might have met those guys who tried to sue you, about the prototype."

We hadn’t discussed this yet, in so many words. It had come up at the police station, and his face now looked the same as it had then, and on our honeymoon when Brewer had brought it up. Something closed off in his eyes. He wasn’t going to discuss it. The matter simply wasn’t on the table.

"I’m just saying," I went on. "We don’t have to talk about that situation at all if you don’t want to, but I think we probably shouldn’t just…dismiss this whole thing. The way he acted with you…I just don’t think it was a coincidence, is all."

He was playing with an empty wrapper from something. I had no idea where he’d gotten it from. "Why don’t you consult with your detective?" he asked. "You never needed my permission before."

I looked at him carefully, but I couldn’t quite detect the bitterness that I expected.

"Maybe I will."

We sat there for a moment, in silence. He hadn’t yet asked me how I managed to pay Kelly. Maybe he didn’t care. Or maybe he already knew.

***

Just a few hours after I’d put her on the case, Kelly called me back about the judge.

"The bad news is, I couldn’t find anything personally. Yet." I heard the unmistakable sound of liquid being poured into a glass. "The good news is, there is an avenue that you can pursue. But Daniel would probably have to approach it himself. Maybe with law enforcement involved - or maybe not. Depends on what he thinks. I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s what I’m trying to say - if any of the plaintiffs had any communication with the judge through their Dartwood email accounts, the college should still have it on file somewhere. Everything is always archived at those schools. You never know when there’s going to be some kind of academic dispute and they need to pull up emails from ten years ago. The trick will be convincing them to look it up for you. That’s where I think Daniel’s alumni connection might help out."

"He doesn’t really…I mean, I don’t think she’s set foot on campus or even talked to anyone there since he graduated."

"Well, considering what happened there, I can’t really blame him," said Kelly, sensibly. "But that might not matter. Especially if he walks in with his checkbook open."

I hesitated for a moment. "Thanks for not thinking I’m crazy," I said, at last.
 

"Hey, no problem," Kelly replied. "You’re keeping me in good scotch. I’d go to the ends of the earth for you."

I hung up laughing.

As it turned out, Daniel wasn’t quite as resistant as I feared he might be. He even made the phone call to one of his contacts at Dartwood in front of me, rather than sequestering himself behind closed doors. Once he’d promised to sponsor a fundraising dinner, it was amazing how quickly they acquiesced. He was promised a call back with information within a few hours, and it came in thirty minutes.

As he scribbled furiously on a piece of paper, I idly wondered if any Dartwood students actually read the agreements carefully enough to realize that they had absolutely no privacy in their email accounts whatsoever. I highly doubted it.

"Well," said Daniel, once he’d hung up. The expression on his face spoke volumes.

"What? What is it?" I jumped up and ran over to look at what he’d written.

"Nothing too damning," he said. "But enough to prove they had contact. The judge and…one of them." He was chewing on the edge of his fingernail.

"You don’t know which one?" I frowned over his shoulder at the notes, but I couldn’t really make any sense of them.

"Well, of course. But the name wouldn’t mean anything to you." His face was getting that expression again - I was running up against another wall. I decided not to push it.

"Well, great," I said. "I hope you’re going to take that right down to the court when you file a request for a new judge."

"Of course," he said, with a faint smile. "What else would I do?"

***

I found out the answer to that question the next morning.

When I woke up, Daniel was already gone. That wasn’t terribly unusual, but it was pretty early for him to be meeting with someone. And after last night, I still felt vaguely unsettled. I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly needed to know where he was.

The first thing I did was call John.

His phone rang and rang and rang, but then he finally picked up.

"…Hello?"

"John, it’s Maddy. Are you with Daniel?"

He cleared his throat. "I’m…I drove him, yes, if that’s what you’re asking."

"Drove him where?"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I’m not supposed to say."

"Come on. Seriously?"

"He was very adamant about it." There was something strained in his tone. Something beyond just his resistance to spill Daniel’s secrets.

"John, I can tell you’re worried about something. Come on, just tell me. I’ll take care of it."

"I just -" John sighed. "It’s hardly any of my business, Maddy. But I think what he’s doing is a bad idea, to say the least."

My heart clenched in my chest. "Please. Please tell me where he is."

"I’m waiting for him," said John. "Outside of the courthouse. He went to see the judge. He seemed very…agitated, very angry. Not in any kind of state to meet with someone that important. I thought at first he was going to just file a request for a reassignment, like you were all talking about on the way back from the hearing. But he finally told me. I think he just needed to tell someone." John swallowed audibly. "I shouldn’t have said anything, but…"

"No, no, you absolutely should have." I was already hopping into my shoes. "I’m going to get there as fast as I can; let’s hope the judge has a full waiting room already."

I managed to nab a taxi with a driver who knew how to beat the growing rush-hour traffic, getting me to the courthouse in record time. I rushed up the huge staircase, through the heavy wooden doors, and breathlessly approached the receptionist.

"Judge Warren, please."

She gave me a look.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"No," I said. "But it’s urgent."

"You’re the second person to come in today without one," she said, irritated. "It’s highly unlikely that he’ll see either of you."

"Fine, okay, thank you," I said. "Which way is his office?"

She pointed wordlessly, and I could feel her eyes on me as I walked through the metal detector, fetched my purse from the end of the x-ray machine, and ran up yet another spiral staircase. When I finally rounded the corner where the signs told me his chambers would be, I spotted Daniel sitting on a bench in the hall.

He looked up at me, startled.

"Are you insane?" I asked him, trying and mostly-succeeding at keeping my voice down.
 

"How did you find me?" he hissed.

I sat down. "Take a wild guess. Don’t you dare get mad at him - he did the right thing. What are you planning to do, exactly? What could this possibly accomplish?"

"Personal satisfaction," said Daniel. "After all this, I think I’m entitled to a little."

"This isn’t going to accomplish anything, except warning him that you’re about to request another judge. That’s insane. If he has any evidence, he’ll destroy it. You’re not thinking straight."

"He’s destroyed it already," said Daniel. "I promise you that. If you -"

The judge’s door swung open, heavily.
 

"Mr. and Mrs. Thorne," he said, looking at us like we were evangelists on his porch. "Please do come in, I’m very interested in what you have to discuss with me."

I briefly considered turning and running away, but that certainly wasn’t going to accomplish anything at this point.

"I’m sure you are," said Daniel, as we all crowded into the small, wood-paneled room. A clock ticked loudly in the corner.

"Well?" said the judge. "I have a limited amount of time between cases."

"I appreciate that," said Daniel. "You’re a busy man. So am I. I just thought you might be interested to know that I found out about you and the plaintiffs from my last case. The one about the prototype. You’ve heard about it, yes? The case that settled in court just about eight years ago?"

"You seem to have made up your mind already," said the judge. "But as it happens, no, I’m not familiar with that particular case."

"Bullshit." Daniel’s nostrils were flaring with every breath. "I spoke to my friends at Dartwood. I have the emails, back and forth between you and Jim Paulson."

The judge blinked. "I seem to recall someone by that name," he said. "I believe he was a Dartwood student, yes. We met at an alumni dinner. He had some very interesting ideas for a handheld personal organizer."