The Proviso (14 page)

*

Justice, please come to my office at your earliest
convenience. I would like you to submit this to the law review.

Dr. Smythe

*

Justice gulped, again unable to believe the words in
front of her, but her attention caught when the diners around her
stirred a bit. She looked to the door to see Giselle Cox walk
in—well,
strut
, really—with Neal, an older (rather
unattractive, in Justice’s opinion) law student with whom she ate
lunch every day.

Justice wasn’t the best judge of appearance, but it
seemed to her that Giselle was . . . average. If that. Curly dark
blonde hair usually in a ponytail, light eyes, pale skin, and
orthodontic-perfect teeth. Short, compact body dressed in the same
sorts of things everyone else wore: faded jeans, a heavy yellow
sweater, hiking boots. Really the woman was wholly unremarkable to
Justice’s eye, except for a mysterious . . .something . . . that
made people notice her and defer to her. It wasn’t just her age,
although Justice figured that contributed to it; no, it was
something more nebulous, some sort of intense energy.

Half the people Giselle and Neal passed stared at
them openly, but neither noticed as they continued to talk and
laugh on their way to get food.

Justice sighed, pulled the earbuds out of her ears,
and began to shut down her laptop. She’d eaten well, written well,
and generally done
well
today, not to mention the fact that
she had learned she carried the DNA of “one of the greatest legal
minds of the twentieth century.” It might take her a while to get
used to the idea, to get over being angry with her grandfather for
keeping that from her, but it did bolster her confidence.

“I wouldn’t touch Giselle Cox with my ten-inch pole
and I don’t care that she’s cute,” came the voice of one of the men
behind her. “She’d kick my ass.”

Believe in yourself and your opinions. Have faith. I
don’t know you, but I’m very proud of you.

“You know,” replied his companion, “it’s not like
she’s hot or anything, because she’s not, but there’s just
something to be said for a woman with power.”

“And a gun stuck in her jeans.”

“Fuck, yeah.”

Justice gulped.

Power.

How Giselle got it, who gave it to her, why she
deserved to have it, Justice didn’t understand, but she wanted
to.

She just had to figure out how to go about getting
some of it.

* * * * *

14:
FRIENDS IN LOW PLACES

MARCH 2006

MEET ME AT TASSO’S TONIGHT AT 9:30

The terse email from his best friend—the one who’d
pegged him so neatly so long ago, the one he hadn’t considered any
kind of a friend for over a decade now—danced in front of his
mind’s eye like the snowflakes under the street light in front of
him. As he sat in his car in the restaurant’s parking lot, his
vision blurred by the March late-season sleet collecting on his
windshield, he didn’t have to wonder why he’d actually shown
up.

Giselle.

Naturally, she would have shared what had happened
in December with Knox, and Knox wanted to stake his claim.

The clock read 9:39 p.m. and still he debated
whether to go in or not. The pain of betrayal had lessened with
time, distance, and doubt, but had sharply resurfaced almost a year
and a half ago at Leah’s visitation.

He braved the cold and ice to get to the door of the
restaurant, his collar up and his scarf around his face. He didn’t
really want to be seen with the Chouteau County prosecutor, but
this was a good place to meet: dark and neutral. Plus, he loved
Greek food, which was probably why Knox had picked it in the first
place. Knox would have remembered that. Knox remembered
everything.

Small lanterns on the tables in their private
cubbyholes punctuated the dim interior. A floor show of belly
dancers was in full swing and the waitstaff yelled enthusiastically
back and forth at each other. Bryce knew no patrons would notice or
identify him, but the staff here knew him all too well.

“Hi, Bryce,” said the hostess. “Come with me.” It
vaguely disturbed him that she knew who awaited him. She led him to
a dark corner. He didn’t sit.

“You’re late.”

“I’m always late.”

“I hate late. So. You want to make love to her and
I’ve wanted to make love to her since before I knew what that was,
and she chose you. Are we even now?”

Bryce didn’t pretend ignorance or misunderstanding,
though that was not quite what he’d expected Knox to say, heavy
sarcasm notwithstanding.

“I don’t want to make love to her,” he found himself
replying.

Knox looked up at him, surprised.

He leaned down, his fists on the table, and got
right in Knox’s face, his voice hard. “I want to
fuck
her.”

Knox stared at him and Bryce took a second to
thoroughly enjoy his shock—then he noticed that Knox’s eyes were
the same ice blue as Giselle’s. And Taight’s.
Shit
. Bryce
sighed with an odd combination of confusion, relief, and guilt,
then shook his head at himself.

Resignedly, he cast a glance askance at the carafe
of orange juice and signaled a waitress. “Sandra, please take this
back,” he muttered, swiping it off the table and ignoring what Knox
would want. “A steak and a salad for him, the usual for me and a
big bowl of tzatziki. Water. Lots of it. Please.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Knox sneered once she’d left.
Bryce slid into the seat across from Knox. “I see you’re on a
first-name basis here.”

Bryce ignored that and grabbed a sugar packet to
have something to occupy his hands. “You have a lot of explaining
to do and I don’t need you passing out before you answer all my
questions.”

“Screw you. I don’t owe you
anything
.”

Bryce’s jaw worked in thought and he stared down at
the table. He said nothing because he couldn’t dispute that. Strike
two. How else had he willfully misjudged the only man who’d ever
told him the truth, no matter how nasty or painful?

“Michelle lied to you,” Knox groused. “I never
touched that crazy fucking bitch you married. You know that and you
always have. It was just easier for you to blame me than your own
shitty judgment in women—especially considering the fact that I
hated her and I specifically told you not to marry her. And on top
of all that, she was a blonde and skinny as a rail.”

“You’re right,” Bryce admitted with a heavy sigh. “I
knew. I didn’t want to
dis
believe her and . . . I’m
sorry.”

Knox grunted. “That’s a helluva way to split that
hair. I’m the one who should be holding the grudge. Do you actually
know how many other men she was sleeping with?”

“No. What I do know is that the men she liked were a
lot smaller than me.”

Knox looked at him for a moment and then murmured,
“Tell me something. If I could’ve proven it to you, would you’ve
listened to me?”

Bryce looked off toward the belly dancers without
seeing anything at all. “No. I was too invested in avoiding the
kind of women I like.”

They sat in companionable silence for a long while,
their friendship having begun in college and never really waning
except for Bryce’s determination to be angry with Knox for
something he hadn’t done. And, as he always had, Knox promptly
forgave and forgot.

“You and Taight are related to Giselle,” Bryce
finally said.

Knox barked a laugh. “Don’t tell me. It’s the eyes,
right?”

Come home with me tonight . . . Please. I need
you.

“I’m going to assume, for the sake of my own sanity,
that neither of you is her brother.”

“Cousin,” he confirmed with alacrity. “Close enough
to be creepy, not close enough to contaminate the DNA, and legal to
breed in twenty-three states.”

“So Fen—”

“Fen’s her and Sebastian’s uncle by marriage. Our
mothers are sisters.”

Their food came then and conversation ceased as they
ate. Knox’s grumpy mood changed markedly once he got some real food
in him and the orange juice wore off. It’d always been that way,
Bryce remembered absently, thinking that they’d taken up where
they’d left off. Nobody would have guessed that they hadn’t spoken
in a dozen years.

“I want to know about Leah Wincott,” Bryce finally
said, when it was clear that Knox had given all he intended to give
him concerning Giselle. At least for now—and at this point, he
wasn’t sure he wanted to know anyway.

“Well, I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re
thinking.”

“I never thought you did.”

Knox’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth as he
stared at Bryce. “You didn’t?”

Bryce had never seen Knox so shocked so many times
in the course of an hour. “No,” he replied warily, wondering where
Knox’s mind had gone. “Fen’s the only likely candidate.”

“What do you know?” he demanded.

“I don’t
know
anything,” Bryce returned,
irritated. “You’ve got no reason to kill her; he’s got every reason
in the world and I don’t know anyone who really thinks you killed
her. Your problem is your reputation versus his reputation. It’s
not like you don’t have a track record.” After a minute, he
gestured at Knox with his fork. “I’m listening. Start talking.”

“Fen killed my father. Insulin overdose. Obviously
looks like natural causes for an old diabetic with heart
disease.”

Bryce’s eyebrow rose.

“Remember I told you my mom kicked me out of the
house when I was fifteen because I accused her of having an affair
with Fen? And I went to live with my aunt and cousin?” Bryce
nodded, recalling his shock over finding out that his roommate was
the heir to a fortune and how that had come about—

“Giselle was the cousin?”

“Yes. Well, the proviso is dated just about a week
after Trudy kicked me out, and then my dad died the week after
that. I tell you what. That proviso’s been the bane of my
existence, stuck in professional limbo, never feeling like I had a
place in life until I turned forty. And hell, when I was fifteen,
forty-year-olds were damn near on their deathbeds.”

—and all the sleepless nights when the
nineteen-year-old heir had paced their dorm room trying to figure
out how to pass the next twenty years or how to weasel out of the
course his uncle had set for him. “What was your father
thinking
?”

Knox sighed. “I don’t know.”

“So . . . how do you know Fen murdered your father
and why haven’t you had him investigated?”

“After you and I parted company, Giselle and I were
over at the estate clearing out my old bedroom. We went to Fen’s
office to ask him something and overheard him confessing to his
bishop. I’ve had him under investigation ever since. Short of
exhuming my father—and insulin is damn near the perfect weapon, so
I haven’t bothered—I can’t find anything.”

“Did you confront him?”

“Yes. He didn’t deny it.”

“So he’s had it in for you since.”

Knox waved a hand. “He likes me and he’d rather not
kill me. First, I’m the heir. That just looks bad. I’m the most
conspicuous person in ten counties and the FBI camps on my
doorstep. I disappear, Fen’s suspect number one. Second, I have a
reputation that he doesn’t dare breach since, you know, the entire
city thinks I’m capable of murder.” Bryce smirked and Knox rolled
his eyes. “Fen doesn’t have the balls to come after me, vicariously
or otherwise. Third, he’s squeamish and he has an unfortunate
tendency toward half-assed contrition: He won’t dirty his own
hands; he’ll confess to the bishop and get excommunicated—but he
won’t give any of it up. Fourth, after Giselle and I confronted him
about killing my dad, he got scared we’d just get married to
fulfill the proviso and that’d be that.”

“Would you?”

“No. I don’t give a fat rat’s ass about OKH and
Sebastian’s welcome to it.”

“You found your place in life.”

“Sure did. You know Fen had me chasing my tail all
those years, telling me to go here, get this degree. Go there, get
that degree. ‘Prepare for the handoff, son. I’m just holding OKH
for you to take over.’ And he meant it. He flat-out told me he
wasn’t going to let me be a trust fund frat boy who couldn’t be
trusted to drive a car, much less run a company, and he was going
to make sure I knew how to do that job.”

“And got pissed off at you for wanting to be a
prosecutor instead of learning how to take care of OKH,” Bryce
muttered.

Knox nodded. “Or at least get a job making some real
money. I had another offer in the Clay County prosecutor’s office,
but Nocek found out, came courting. Fen blew his top when I told
him, said Nocek was bad news and I’d get stuck in that cesspool. It
was the last place Fen wanted me to go, so naturally, that’s where
I went.”

Bryce cast back in his memory, years before when
they had just graduated from law school and settled into their new
jobs, how tense Knox had grown, how closed-mouthed he had been
about his boss and the rumors of corruption in the Chouteau County
prosecutor’s office. Knox had walked out of Bryce’s life not long
after that, so Bryce had never known what happened. “You were
miserable.”

Knox nodded. “I was young and dumb. Flattered. See,
Nocek thought I had a trust and unlimited access to OKH funds that
he could squeeze out of me, but I didn’t, which pissed him off—and
then I realized I couldn’t get out of that office any way but in a
pine box.”

“You’re kidding.”

Knox shook his head. “Bad things happened to people
who left or talked. Nocek used the sheriff’s department as his
personal thug patrol. So I bided my time, cut my teeth on the
hardest cases they could foist off on me, and found out I really
liked the job.