Protection for Hire (17 page)

“Well, let’s see.
American Idol
,
The Amazing Race
,
Real Housewives of Fiji
…”

There was a
Real Housewives of Fiji
?

Elizabeth coughed. “May I please have some water?”

“I’ll get it for you.” Tessa got up, using the opportunity to stretch her legs. She poured a glass from a carafe on the corner of the conference table and walked to where Elizabeth was sitting to hand it to her.

She had to pass in front of one of the windows.

Her steps slowed. Her heartbeat slowed. The sound of Elizabeth’s voice became muted and indistinguishable. She glanced out the window at the buildings across the street, loft apartments built over the storefronts. Easy to get into. Easy to set up position on a rooftop.

For a moment she stared out that window, wondering if she was being too daring to taunt him. Wondering if he were even out there.

Then she was handing Elizabeth her glass of water. Tessa was just being melodramatic …

But she noticed Mr. Augustine let out a breath, as if he’d held it while she walked in front of the window. The pulse at his neck beat wildly. He saw her watching him and looked away quickly, pinching his lips together. His pencil moustache twitched.

Tessa passed the water glasses and carafe on her way back to her seat, and an imp on her shoulder prompted her to snag an empty glass.

As she sat, she leaned down and laid the glass on the floor. Then she sat up and tilted her chair on its back legs. With her boot heel, she nudged the glass directly under the chair leg.

She leaned back as far as she could without bonking her
head against the wall, then brought the chair down sharply on the glass.

Crack!

The noise was louder than she expected — probably because the glass was cheap and thin — and it rang through the conference room like … well, like a gunshot.

Elizabeth started. So did the court reporter.

Mr. Augustine, however, yelped mid-sentence and jumped a few inches in his chair.

Then he bolted toward the conference room door, shrieking and covering his head with his notepad, and escaped the room.

The four of them looked at each other for a moment in the silence that followed his dramatic exit. Then Charles stood. “Well, he left his own deposition. We’re done here.”

The court reporter shrugged and started packing up.

“Do I have to come back?” Elizabeth asked.

“Nope,” Charles said cheerfully. “He can only issue a deposition notice once per witness, unless we agree otherwise, and we’re not going to do that.”

They made their way through the building’s lobby, which had less people milling around than when they arrived, and got into the elevator to head down to the parking garage.

Just before the doors closed, a hand shot through in the opening and the court reporter squeezed into the elevator. “Thanks.” She smiled at them as she nipped into the elevator with a small satchel. Charles pushed the button for the garage again, and the doors slid shut.

Had Tessa been wrong about the sniper? Mr. Augustine’s reaction to the broken glass had been a bit hysterical, but maybe he was just a very nervous personality. Now all her precautions had seemed overkill, her wariness bordering on psychotic.

It was as the elevator stopped in the parking garage level that she remembered that in Mr. Augustine’s offices, the court reporter had arrived only a few seconds after them, but Tessa hadn’t seen any cars enter the garage while they’d been down here. And they hadn’t exactly dawdled on their way up.

At that moment, Charles turned to the court reporter with a confused look on his face. “Where’s your equipment?”

The court reporter slammed her hand into his throat.

He doubled over in pain, choking.

The woman brought her other hand out of her suit jacket. Tessa used both hands to grab the woman’s wrist, and she twisted a gun out of her grip. The woman jabbed a fist at Tessa, who deflected it, but the movement made her drop the gun. She heard the clatter somewhere on the elevator floor behind her.

Tessa couldn’t get her other arm up fast enough to block another blow that caught her in the side of the head. Pain exploded in front of her eye, and she was dimly aware of Elizabeth’s footsteps running out of the elevator. Tessa grabbed at the attacker but only caught empty air. She heard the court reporter running after Elizabeth.

Tessa blinked her eyes rapidly to clear the stars and ran after them. The woman had a wicked-looking switchblade in one hand, and it slashed downward at Elizabeth’s back when Tessa was still just half a step too far away to stop her. Elizabeth gave a short squeal and stumbled and fell.

Tessa launched herself at the woman and they both crashed into the ground a few feet from Elizabeth. The sound of metal skittered across the concrete — the attacker had lost the knife.

The woman squirmed under Tessa’s body and launched her lithe form after the knife. Tessa bore down with her weight and aimed a few punches to the woman’s head. The hand reaching
for the knife faltered, and Tessa stretched out with her longer reach to grab the switchblade.

For a moment that seemed like an hour, she gripped the knife in her hand and eyed the woman’s exposed jugular vein right in front of her. Her arm wanted to descend and slice that vein, but something in her mind stopped her, made her hesitate. This hadn’t happened in a long time — since before her arrest — but this moment was like the last time, and the time before that. The temptation to take a life, and the hesitation that stopped her.

Saved her.

Tessa threw the knife away — removed the temptation — but the court reporter took advantage of her hesitation and slammed an elbow back into Tessa’s bruised eye.

Tessa felt the blow through her entire body. Worse, it made her slide off the woman’s body.

The attacker rolled to her feet.

Still blind with pain, Tessa tried to force her unresponsive limbs to leverage herself up.

The assassin kicked her in the gut, but Tessa had expected it and had tightened her stomach muscles, muting some of the blow. But not enough. She couldn’t get her diaphragm to move, to draw in air.

She had to get on her feet quickly. She couldn’t stay here on the ground, vulnerable. She had to protect Elizabeth.

Suddenly, her palms resting on the concrete registered footsteps approaching only a second before Charles launched himself at the woman. He’d taken off his shoes — smart man — and took her unaware.

However, the attacker wasn’t surprised for long. After his great running take down, Charles tried to pin her to the ground,
but she aimed solid blows to his gut and liver area that made him grunt with pain. She kicked him off of her.

But as she rolled to her feet, headlights blinded them all as a car entered the parking garage and drove down their aisle. The car stopped and the driver opened the door to stand and shout at them, “What’s going on?”

The court reporter took off running.

Elizabeth ran toward the car. “I’m on the phone with the police, but could you please call the building security? We were attacked.” She sounded okay despite the slice the assassin had aimed at her.

“Tessa!” Charles was stumbling toward her.

She rose shakily to her feet. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Are you — ?”

She didn’t give him a chance to finish. She grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket and pulled his head down to kiss him.

S
he felt like she was floating in a bathtub of sage soap bubbles, melded with that male musk that was distinctly Charles. His expensive cologne was only a spicy thread, like a scent that had wafted into a room from somewhere else in the house.

Charles’s lips were warm and firm despite the fact she’d surprised him. After a second, his arm snaked around her waist and pulled her closer to him. He kissed her back, deeply, almost reverently, as if he’d been dreaming of this for a hundred years. His kiss was delicious and decadent, like the sweet, rich cannoli he’d ordered for them at that restaurant for lunch.

But he wasn’t from her world and she’d never belong to his. She shouldn’t do this. What was she doing?

She pulled away from him, reluctantly. But his arms wouldn’t let go and still held her tight.

She met his eyes. It was like diving into a warm Jamaican sea. The current was his arms, tightening around her. He dipped his head to kiss her again …

She grit her teeth, squeezed her eyes shut, and pushed away
from him until she had the safety of two feet of space between them.

Then she turned and walked away.

She’d kissed him.

He hadn’t wanted to let her go.

He was dumber than a duck.

He watched her walk toward Elizabeth and the other man in the car, when suddenly police lights colored the walls with red and blue. Two cars entered the parking garage and shone bright spotlights on the four of them.

As soon as the light landed on Tessa, the shouting started.

“Hands on your head! Get on the ground!”

The doors to the cars opened and the officers pulled out their weapons, aiming them at Tessa. They approached her slowly, shouting all the while.

The man in the car — their Good Samaritan — looked startled and confused. Elizabeth, on the other hand, jumped in front of Tessa and started screaming, “What are you doing?”

Charles approached them, also shouting. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Sir, stop right there,” an officer ordered him.

“I’m an attorney, that’s my client.”

“Sir, stop right there. I won’t tell you again.”

Obeying the shouted orders from the police, Tessa was dropping to her knees slowly, her hands on her head. By now Charles was close enough to see that her eyebrows were raised in resigned disgust.

Elizabeth refused to move from in front of Tessa, increasing her decibels and her annoyance. “Stop being so ridiculous!” Finally, an officer grabbed her by the arm and pulled her aside like a recalcitrant child.

Tessa remained handcuffed in the backseat of a police cruiser for a good long while even after Elizabeth and Charles explained what had happened. All of Elizabeth’s Southern charm had vanished, replaced by Louisiana ire.

“Are ya kiddin’ me?” she kept repeating to the police officers, until one of them, an older man with grizzled hair, asked her if she’d like to join the yakuza in the backseat of the car.

Elizabeth shut up but glowered at them all.

They finally had to release Tessa when it was obvious they’d get in trouble if they didn’t.

After the police reluctantly removed her handcuffs, she approached Charles where he stood next to Elizabeth, whose back was being dressed by a paramedic. The paramedics had already looked at Charles’s bruised throat and probed his aching gut where the court reporter had punched him, but proclaimed him fine.

“Are you all right?” Tessa asked Elizabeth.

“No, I’m not all right,” she snapped. “I’m so annoyed.”

“She’s fine,” Charles told Tessa. “She might end up with a scar, but she doesn’t need stitches from the cut.”

Tessa nodded but didn’t look at him.

He felt a bruise on his breastbone — maybe the attacker had hit him there too.

The paramedic finished and Elizabeth stood up from her seat on the vehicle’s bumper. There was an awkward moment when the EMT looked at Tessa, fear in his eyes but feeling obligated to look at the bruise on her face.

She waved him off, and he couldn’t hide his look of relief.

“You should get that looked at,” Elizabeth objected. “You’re getting bruises on top of bruises.”

“At least give her some ice,” Charles commanded the EMT, who gingerly offered the bags to Tessa before scurrying away.

She slapped the ice on her face and rolled the one eye he could see. “Poor kid probably would have a heart attack if he had to treat a yakuza.”

“But you’re not a yakuza,” Elizabeth said hotly.

“But the only ones who care about that are yakuza,” Tessa said. “He probably thinks I have twenty guns stashed in my …” She looked down at her white silk blouse. “… somewhere.”

“If you didn’t inspire so much fear, Xena, the police might not have wanted to book you on sight,” Charles said.

“They’re probably not even going to look for that court reporter,” Elizabeth groused. “I didn’t get her name. Did you?”

“Kristin Miller, but who knows if that’s her real name. They have to investigate Augustine because he’d have hired her through a court reporting service.”

Tessa shook her head. “I wasn’t paying attention to her name. I was worried about the windows and a possible sniper.”

“Mr. Augustine obviously thought there was going to be a sniper,” Elizabeth said, “so you probably prevented that from happening too.”

“It’s my fault,” Charles said. “I should have realized something was up when the reporter got into the elevator at the same time. Most court reporters stay to pack up their equipment — they don’t leave a deposition as early as that woman did.” He shook his head. “I should have been paying attention.”

Tessa shrugged. “You’re not paid to be paranoid. I am.” She turned to Elizabeth. “You know what this means, right? Heath wants you dead.”

Elizabeth bit her lip.

“That woman went after you,” Tessa continued. “Good thing she underestimated us or it might have been worse.”

“Getting hit in the throat wasn’t bad enough?” Charles protested.

She finally looked at him, but it was to give him an Are-ya-kiddin’-me? look like Elizabeth had given the officers. “She could have shoved her knife in your throat rather than her fist.”

Hmm. Good point.

“But why does he want to kill me?” Elizabeth asked. “I don’t pose any kind of threat to him or to his business.”

“It could still be all about money,” Tessa said. “If you die, he gets it all.”

“But if Elizabeth is murdered, her bank accounts would be frozen until they could prove Heath had nothing to do with it,” Charles said. “And everything Heath has done would be under a thorough investigation in the meantime. So why would he want to put himself under the microscope like that?”

“But we know Heath has to be involved,” Tessa said. “This attack was planned with his lawyer.”

“The deposition notice distracted me,” Charles confessed. “I should have arranged to hire a P.I. to look into Heath’s background, his business, everything. We need to find out why he would prefer Elizabeth dead.”

But Tessa shook her head again. “This changes everything. We suspected her life was in danger before, but we know it for certain now. And I’d be stupid if I let them take pot shots at her.”

Tessa took hold of Elizabeth’s hands and looked her in the eye.

“I’m going to have to make you and Daniel disappear.”

They were throwing Elizabeth under the bus. And Charles had this one chance to prevent that.

The hostess looked up as he got off the elevator on the second floor of Lorianne’s Café, and he said, “Greer?”

“Right this way —”

“No, I see him.” Charles shouldered his way past the reception desk and sat down at a small table across from Manchester Greer.

“You have fifteen minutes before my meeting with the vice chair of the firm,” Mr. Greer said, setting down his cup of coffee. “What did you need to speak to me about so urgently?”

“I asked for approval to hire a P.I. for the St. Amant case, but it was denied.”

“Yes? So?”

“Why? My justification memo listed the police record of the attack on my client at the Augustine law offices.”

“The attack was in the parking garage of a building that holds more than just the Augustine law offices. There’s no evidence it was connected to her case at all.”

“The attacker posed as the court reporter for the deposition.”

“She could have chosen you randomly. All she had to do was walk into a law office, say, ‘I’m the court reporter,’ and they would have let her in, assuming she was there for whatever deposition they had going on.”

“It’s possible but a bit … far-fetched.” Charles couldn’t believe the words were falling from Manchester Greer’s mouth.

“Look, Charles, this is a pro bono matter. You were cleared for fifty hours, and your hours are getting too high.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t write down the rest of my time so it doesn’t cost the firm.”

“That’s not enough. I don’t feel this case needs this out-of-pocket expense. Just drop the idea of hiring a P.I.”

“Sir, our client is in danger —”

“You haven’t definitively proven it.”

Only a baby couldn’t connect the dots in this case. “You asked me to take care of Elizabeth St. Amant. In order to do that, I need to hire a P.I. —”

“What you need to do is ensure you don’t damage your chances of making partner.”

The threat was like a slap in the face.

The murmur of other diners in the restaurant faded away, and Charles had a moment of piercing clarity. This had nothing to do with the expense to the firm or proving his client was in danger. He’d been right in thinking it didn’t make sense for Heath to arrange the attacks on Elizabeth when it would only cause problems for him.

This wasn’t about Heath getting his wife back, or getting revenge, or getting control of Elizabeth’s money, or even covering something up. This was about Stillwater Group. Elizabeth somehow did know something about the company or maybe a deal going down. Or at least they thought she knew something.

Mr. Greer hadn’t agreed to be lead on this case because of the prestigious St. Amant family. Manchester Greer, senior partner and expert in venture capitalists and private equity firms, knew exactly what was going on with Stillwater Group, and intended to hand Elizabeth St. Amant to them on a silver platter.

And if Charles didn’t agree to play by his rules, he could kiss his career goodbye. He wouldn’t just not make partner. Mr. Greer could have him blackballed from every law firm in San Francisco. He might even be able to have him disbarred on some trumped-up accusation.

Heath would be implicated in all the attacks on Elizabeth. The angry, abusive husband out to get revenge on the wife who had dared to leave him. No one would even suspect a spoiled Southern belle had been killed because she somehow knew something that would jeopardize a multibillion dollar corporation.

“Your time is up, Charles,” Mr. Greer said. “Mark Tyndall will be arriving at any moment.”

Charles rose slowly, unable to trust his voice.

“You’ve done a good job so far,” Mr. Greer told him with steely gray eyes that would have pierced him if he hadn’t already been numb with shocked realizations. “This little case will have a significant impact on your career at Pleiter & Woodhouse.”
Don’t forget the carrot I’m dangling in front of you: partnership.

Charles walked out of the restaurant without speaking to anyone, without making eye contact. At the reception desk, he walked past Mr. Tyndall, the vice chair Mr. Greer was meeting, without even a nod.

He got off the elevator on the first floor and stepped out onto the street and just stood there.

All the thousands of hours he’d put in to making partner at this prestigious law firm, and now it all came down to a choice.

He should do what Mr. Greer said. It would keep his nose clean — or make it brown, depending on how he looked at it.

But it also wouldn’t endanger Elizabeth because Tessa was already making arrangements to help them skip town with new identities. Elizabeth would have to find a new bodyguard in her new town because Tessa couldn’t violate her parole, but if things ever improved enough where they could return, she had set up a system with him for how to contact them.