Stay (Dunham series #2) (4 page)

Annie looked through Vanessa, her mouth pursed.
“Maybe he’s gay.”

Uh, no.
“I don’t know.”

“Hey, Annie!” called the vice captain. “What
happened to your Italian stallion?”

Annie’s face darkened and Vanessa’s heart beat a lot
faster; she hadn’t seen
him
in almost two months.
Anywhere.

“He left,” Annie snapped back.

“Left? Left where?”

“Left town.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Don’t know.”

“Ask his mom.”

“She’s gone, too. It’s like they disappeared off the
face of the planet.”

* * * * *

And the Rich Have Their Ice in the Summer

* * * * *

5: Platinum Linings

January 5, 2009

The Chouteau County, Missouri prosecutor fought his
way through the crowd of people lining the sidewalk to the
courthouse. He shoved aside the cameras and booms, shouldered past
disembodied hands holding out micro-recorders, and attempted to
shield his eyes from the lights aimed ruthlessly at his face. Out
of the din around him, he could understand only his name.

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“Mr. Cipriani—!”

“No comment at this time,” he barked intermittently,
trying not to grin. He’d worked and prepared and waited for this
moment. He’d woven his web, caught his prey, and rolled them up in
silk, right here in front of the courthouse.

Time to start eating.

He reached the steps that led up to the doors and
turned to face the crowd of bloggers and reporters. At six A.M. in
January, the sky didn’t show even a tinge of pink, making the
bright lights from the cameras against the darkness blinding. He
held his hands up for silence and got it.

“Which part of ‘the press conference will be held at
ten A.M.’ didn’t you all get?”

That accomplished nothing except to restart the
shouting, as he had intended.

They were so easy, especially that prick Glenn
Shinkle from the
Chouteau Recorder
who hadn’t realized that
newsprint was dead. He’d kept his little twelve-page rag alive for
years on Knox’s back, always striving to be the next Bob Woodward.
He would have succeeded if he’d just realized that every bit of
Knox’s reputed corruption was an elaborately constructed façade and
had figured out a way to prove it.

Oh, yeah, Eric had plans for Shinkle.

He shook his head with a chuckle, turned, and opened
the door to go in the courthouse. He jerked his head at the
deputies on duty and they went out to control the crowd. He bounded
up the grand walnut staircase to the second floor, then through the
outer door of the prosecutor’s office—

—only to stop cold at the sign stuck on the closed
door of the private office toward the back of the bullpen.

ERIC CIPRIANI

PROSECUTOR

Knox must have had that placed as a surprise for
him, his last act.

He flinched when the lights flickered on and a hand
clapped him on the back. “Congrats,” Patrick Davidson said as he
brushed in behind Eric, walked to his desk and dropped into the
chair to rifle through his files.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Eric said over his
shoulder. “I still have to get through the press conference this
morning.”

Davidson shrugged. “Just keep your eye on that,” he
said, pointing to the white board hanging on the wall behind Eric’s
old desk, its to-do list printed in Knox’s precise block
lettering:

GRADUATE FROM COLLEGE 5/99

GRADUATE FROM LAW SCHOOL 5/02

TAKE OVER PROSECUTOR’S OFFICE 1/09

START CAMPAIGN FOR CC PROSECUTOR 1/09

START CAMPAIGN FOR MO AG 4/10

MO AG 2012 - 2016

MO GOVERNOR 2016 - 2024

1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE 2024

GET A MOVE ON!!

Eric felt a deep growl of satisfaction welling in
his chest. If he stayed on track, he’d be forty-seven when he hit
the White House, the perfect age—old enough to quash credibility
murmurs and young enough to avoid questions of senility.

As for the public scrutiny that had begun the minute
Eric had abruptly taken over as interim prosecutor the month
before, well, it’d take him a while and some savvy PR to sort that
out. His refusal to distance himself from Knox would make the task
more difficult, but Annie had hired a top-notch firm to help. On
the other hand, Knox’s relatively powerful family had already put
its political and financial wheels in motion to get Eric where he
wanted to go—and where they wanted him.

Richard Connelly huffed and puffed his way into the
office, then to his desk. “Why the long face? You still worried
about your juvie record?”

Well, yeah, he was, and Connelly interpreted Eric’s
silence correctly.

“Nobody cares,” he said flatly, “as long as you keep
hanging it out there for everyone to see. You
are
the
American dream.” Davidson made a noise of agreement.

“I got lucky,” Eric muttered, ever mindful of the
fact that he
couldn’t
have done it on his own because he
wouldn’t have known where to start. “Knox just . . . handed it to
me.”

“No, he gave you help and guidance,” he said.
“
You
did the rest. You set your goals and you’ve worked at
them. More importantly, you’ve kept yourself squeaky clean. Nobody
did that for you. You have an impeccable education from a religious
university. Your politics are consistent, even though you’re as
full of shit as Justice is.” Eric laughed. “You have an extremely
photogenic fiancée who’s as well educated and smart as you are.
Future First Lady as of a year from now.”

“The next President and Mrs. Obama, Republican
version,” Davidson intoned.

“Not Republican.”

“Yeah, you’re not planning to run on a Libertarian
ticket, I bet.”

“I might.”

“You’ll split the conservatives right down the
middle.”

“Libertarian does not equal conservative,” Eric
reminded him. “I’m not on board with the entire Libertarian party
platform, either.”

Connelly grunted. “The Republican leadership’s
dying. You could take all the conservatives with you and win as a
Libertarian if you make sure to clarify where you differ from the
party.”

“And they know that,” Davidson added. “All other
conservative issues being equal, they might vote for a candidate
who’d decriminalize marijuana and prostitution, but they’ll never
go for an isolationist.”

“Which I am not, which is why I haven’t decided
yet.”

“But it means the Republicans need you more than you
need them.”

Eric didn’t bother to respond to that because it was
true. The political landscape was shifting like quicksand
underneath the old guard’s feet. Eric was young, outspoken, and had
a growing nationwide blog audience. He represented real change, and
he intended to capitalize on it. “I have a meeting with Tye Afton
next week in Jefferson City.”

Davidson looked at him warily. “You better watch out
for him,” he said soberly. “He’s a snake in the grass.”

Eric blinked.

He turned to Connelly. “Do you remember? About
fifteen years ago? Afton was involved in some coverup of real
estate acquisition and funding when he was on the state House
appropriations committee? The governor was livid because he
couldn’t prove it, and then that was about the time Knox went nuts,
so he had to deal with that, too? Two scandals going at the same
time and he couldn’t nail Afton
or
Knox.”

“Really,” Eric drawled.

“Really,” Connelly said. “Missouri’s version of
Whitewater. And then he went to Washington. He’s been chair of the
Senate Appropriations Committee for so long, it’s like nothing can
touch him.”

“I guess it’s a good thing the FBI likes me,
huh?”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,”
Connelly said. “I refuse to vote for you for anything but attorney
general, but if I wanted to sabotage you, I’d tell you to get on
his bandwagon. Afton’s not your friend and I don’t care how
powerful he is.”

Justice Hilliard dragged in unexpectedly, dark
circles under her eyes and a can of Red Bull in her hand.

Eric, Davidson, and Connelly all stared at her,
shocked on two levels. “Uh, Justice, aren’t you supposed to be in
the Ozarks tending to Knox?”

“He said I was getting too bossy,” she growled. She
thunked the can down on her desk and turned to face them, her hand
on her hip. “It’s not like he
died
last month or anything,
right?”

All three of the men burst out laughing, but Justice
scowled. Her sense of humor usually didn’t show up until after
lunch, but that didn’t keep her from being funny by default.

“So . . . you’re here on time.”

“Early, even.”

“By an hour and a half. What’s the occasion?”

She plopped down in her chair and folded her arms
across her chest. Glared. “For your information, I can’t sleep
without Knox, okay?”

“Justice,” Connelly said. “You can sleep standing up
with your eyes open. When did that get to be a problem?”

“Since my house was broken into, my baby was shot
at, my home was burnt to the ground, and my husband was killed,”
she snapped, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “All of
which I would’ve slept through if Knox hadn’t been there.”

Eric reflected that now might not be the time to
tease his predecessor’s wife, all things considered. Nobody wanted
to think about the details of
why
Eric had had to take over
as Chouteau County prosecutor a month sooner than anybody
planned.

Knox’s death and resurrection was still too fresh
for gallows humor.

“Sorry,” Connelly finally muttered when he spotted
the moisture on her cheek.

She sighed. “Me, too, Richard. I’m just—” She raised
a hand helplessly and dropped it on her desk. “I’m kind of lost
right now, you know? Too many changes in too short a time, too many
things to think about, too many plans to make. This whole last
year, being pregnant and planning a wedding— Having a
baby
,
for God’s sake. Then Knox getting shot— Leaving Mercy with Giselle
this morning just killed me. She’s three months old and it’s the
first time I’ve been away from her since I had her. And we’re
supposed to be moving to Utah in May—not like I
want
to go,
but it’s important to Knox—and I just don’t know how . . . ”

“You don’t have anything to move, Justice,” Davidson
murmured. “It’s a lining. Not much of one and fairly tarnished, but
Knox and Mercy
are
alive.”

“Don’t forget the cat,” Eric teased to see if he
could get a smile out of her. It worked. Barely.

“I swear, I’ve done nothing but cry for a month,”
she muttered, and pulled a box of Kleenex out of her desk
drawer.

Eric figured she was perfectly entitled, but he had
his doubts about her ability to remain cool and collected in front
of a judge today. Or any time in the near future. If he had to send
her home, he would.

But he kept his mouth shut about that for the time
being. “I’m assuming you left Knox with a bunch of nurses and
physical therapists?”

Justice huffed and blew her nose. “Yes. But he
wouldn’t let me stick around to supervise them.”

“Terrorize them, you mean.”

“That’s what he said, but it’s so not true.”

Her cell phone rang and she snatched it open without
looking at the caller ID. “What,” she snapped, but then her pixie
face lit up. “Okay. I love you, too.” She clapped it shut and
stuffed it in her purse, picked up her things and scampered out the
door, a hurried, “He can’t sleep without me, either,” floating back
to them. “Be back later.”

Davidson chuckled. “Later meaning in a couple of
months.”

“If ever,” Eric muttered, staring at Justice’s desk,
and wondering if she’d ever be back and how fast he could get some
new lawyers hired. He was down to four at this point, not including
himself, and their docket was full to bursting. Discussing
political strategy with his staff wouldn’t get the business at hand
done, and the business at hand was his ticket to the next step of
his master plan.

“I’ll tell you something,” he said, pointing from
Connelly to Davidson and back again. “We’re getting some
secretaries in here. And no more Chouteau County residency program.
I’m hiring experienced attorneys from now on.”

He took in their amazed stares. “Oh, is that right,”
Davidson said, and Eric grinned when he heard the approval in
that.

“I—
We
are done training newbs. If I hire any
new grads, they’re going to have to pass the Justice McKinley
Hilliard test.”

“Oh, hell,
I
wouldn’t pass that test,”
Davidson grumbled, and turned his attention to his latest case.
Connelly chuckled.

“Well, boy,” said another deep voice from the
doorway of the common area. Eric looked up to see Judge Wilson.
“You’ve finally come into your own. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“I remember when you were standing in front of me in
shackles.” Eric’s mouth tightened a bit. “How long ago was that,
anyway?”

Suck it up, princess. Hold your head high. Face ’em
all down and dare ’em to find fault. You aren’t going to get
anywhere in politics if you let that drag your ass.

He couldn’t count the number of times Knox had said
that to him.

“I don’t know. Twelve, thirteen years.”

“That long! Well, I’m telling you now. If you pull
anything like what Knox pulled, I’ll have you disbarred. I’m tired
of all that bullshit and you know every one of his tricks.”

“Aw, Wilson, that’s not fair. I don’t know every
trick.”

He pointed his age-gnarled finger at Eric. “Don’t
push me or you’re going to find out what it’s like to have your
political career go up in smoke before you really catch fire.” He
looked at Justice’s desk, which was as clean as it had been when
she left for maternity leave four months before. Adam and Lesley
hadn’t come in yet, but it was early. “I’m really gonna miss that
crafty bastard,” Wilson muttered, a catch in his voice, as he
left.