Courting Disaster (5 page)

“I’m fine, Sam. Really. I have a few questions about the night I was shot.”

“Oh?” The homicide detective’s black eyebrows arched. Then he glanced across the room and anticipation lit his eyes. Before I could look over my shoulder, he said, “That file’s been closed.”

“What? My client was brutally murdered within the detention center and I was nearly killed.”

His gaze flicked to my temple, where I knew the black fringe of bangs didn’t quite conceal the scar. Nothing could ever hide the mark. His expression softened.

“I’m sorry, but without any leads and you with no memory…” He shrugged.

“You simply gave up?” Dismay tinged my voice. I was a cold case? But I had lived. Didn’t anyone care who had done this to me?

“Hello, Carling.” Jared’s smooth voice sent a different kind of tingle through me.

He came around me to assume a lounging pose, much like Sam’s, against the desk. Talk about testosterone bookends. Although opposites in some ways, both men possessed the edgy maleness that could make a woman’s mouth water.

Focus, Carling,
I ordered.
You’re about to undergo a good cop-bad cop routine.
Sam probably called Jared as soon as he heard I was asking for him. Jared must have booked it to the station from his office.

I folded my arms, presenting a defensive shield. “What a surprise seeing you here.” I gave Sam a hard glare but the rat didn’t even squirm. His answering smile was pure bedevilment. It occurred to me that he was getting a ringside view of the sparring match between Jared and me. I made a point of glancing around.

Sam frowned. “What are you looking for?”

“Popcorn. And a diet soda would be lovely before the show starts.”

Sam bent over with laughter. A ghost of a smile even played about Jared’s lips before he could firm them. “Sam, don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

Straightening, Sam swiped his eyes. “Nope.”

“How about getting me a cup of the sludge that passes for coffee around here?”

Sam crossed his feet at the ankles. “Machine’s in the hallway.”

The pressure that had been building in me since I’d heard my case had been closed exploded. I knew I should remain calm but the control techniques I’d learned went straight out the window when it came to Jared. I bounded up and stabbed my finger into his chest.

“How could you, Jared Manning! You quit investigating my shooting as if I no longer mattered.”

His blue eyes blazing, Jared caught my hand before I could drill through his heart. “That’s not how it is.”

Sam pushed himself clear from the desk. “I guess I’ll go mosey up that cup of coffee after all.” Pausing beside me, he gave me a sympathetic pat on my shoulder. “Facing death’s a bitch, isn’t it? Tears a lot of good people up, changes them. Some never regain their balance. I hope you make it, Carling.”

He arched a brow at Jared. “It would do you some good to remember what she’s been through. Cut her some slack.” Then Sam tucked his hands in his pockets and strolled across the room.

I drew in a long breath. My voice was almost normal when I spoke again. “That hit was an inside job. You’re still actively investigating the Russian mob, so how can you give up on my case?”

When Jared ran his thumb across my palm, I suddenly realized he still held my hand. I tried to tug free but couldn’t. He kept up the comforting gesture.

“Don’t you mean why did I give up on us?”

I shrugged.

“You changed, Carling. You were no longer the same woman. Moody, unhappy, reckless. It was as if you were daring the gods to take your life. Nothing that you used to care about mattered, including me. But when you began losing your principles about cases, wouldn’t listen to my warnings, I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

I blinked back the tears burning in my eyes and held my head up high. “It’s one of the fundamental principles of our criminal system that a person is innocent until proven guilty.”

Jared released my hand and cupped my face. “Yes, but you used to represent those who you really believed were innocent. I bet you couldn’t swear on a bible that’s the case anymore.”

I thought of Larry, the accused rapist. I thought of the Rocket drivers with their various criminal records. My throat went dry on me and I couldn’t speak.

Jared must have seen the truth in my eyes because he let his hand drop. “Just as I thought.”

He walked away, every inch of space driving a stake through my soul. He turned and looked at me. “I didn’t give up on you, Carling. You gave up on yourself.”

I spent the next day in waiting rooms. In the morning, I underwent a battery of diagnostic tests at the neurologist’s office, only to get a clean bill of health. Other than an adjustment in my headache meds, I was good to go and released to only periodic visits. However, as I left the doctor joked that I needed to wear a football helmet 24/7.

That afternoon as I sat in the Rocket reception room, I flipped through a local magazine featuring the new horse track that had opened in the southwest corner of Palm Beach County. I hadn’t visited it yet, but understood it was making rapid inroads on the business held by the Miami and Fort Lauderdale tracks. Whatever gamblers saved on gas was spent in the restaurants and at the betting windows.

The door to the inner offices opened and a drop-dead gorgeous man in a tan linen suit strolled out. He gave me a slow, appraising glance and an appreciative smile before he exited the reception room.

I blinked and checked out the glossy photograph in the magazine I held. Yep, I had just seen Vladimir Petrov, the owner of the new Palm Beach County racetrack. Was he making a deal with Rocket for horse manure?

“Mr. Navka can see you now, Ms. Dent.” Dressed in a form-fitting silk suit that was a bit incongruous given our surroundings, the secretary flashed me a smile.

Relieved to get out of the reception area where the unholy smells of chemicals and other unmentionables wafted from the fertilizer plant below, I grabbed my briefcase, rose and followed her into a hallway lined with offices. From my one previous visit I knew sales, marketing and accounting personnel were housed on the second floor.

In fact, the first postage-sized office to my left used to be Borys’s when he worked on the company’s accounts. While Borys had handled most of his clients’ work from his office or home, for Rocket and a few others, he had performed on-site services. Given what I knew now, for good reason. I slowed and glanced inside out of curiosity, expecting the room to be stripped of his personal effects.

I almost stumbled to a stop. Sitting at the desk in front of a large flat-screen computer monitor was the man I recognized as Borys’s former lover. I knew the two men had run an accounting firm, but I hadn’t known Drew Powell took over the Rocket Fertilizer account.

Glancing up in a distracted manner, Drew looked as startled to see me as I was to see him. He placed a finger across his mouth. Clearly, he didn’t want anyone else to realize I recognized him. What was he up to? My questions would have to wait for a more opportune moment.

“Carling?” Rocket CEO Greg Navka stood at the door of his corner office along with the secretary. Without missing a beat, I continued down the hallway.

I extended my hand. “Greg, how are you?”

“Good.” After shaking my hand, the CEO showed me inside and the secretary closed the door. I took one of the leather client chairs while Greg sat behind a massive mahogany desk. He folded his hands on top.

“How’s my boy Mike?” Although Greg was actually Grigori and Russian, he had been in the United States so long that he’d picked up and enthusiastically used all idioms and colloquialisms.

With a start I realized Jared once warned me about Grigori after I’d been shot.

He had gripped my shoulders, shaking me lightly as if he could shake some sense into me.

“Don’t take the Rocket account. You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“You have no proof.” Irritated, I pulled away. “Borys never named Grigori or his company as being involved.”

Frustration etched Jared’s face. “Not only is the owner Russian but one of Borys’s clients. Borys’s forte was setting up money-laundering operations. He did it in both Poland and the Soviet Union and he’s done it for years in Florida. If you weren’t being so stubborn, you would realize there’s no leap of faith or logic here, honey.”

“Nearly all Borys’s clients were Eastern Europeans,” I argued. “We both know how tight-knit the Russian community is.” I folded my arms. “I’m taking this account. It’s only representing the drivers on traffic violations, not the end of the world.”

“No, but it is the end of our relationship. I can’t watch you get killed for good this time.”

“Jared—”

I’d reached for him, but he had stalked out of my home, out of my life.

Jared’s admonition had served a reverse purpose. I’d decided to find out if Grigori was connected to Borys’s death. I’d managed to land the account but somewhere along the line I’d lost my focus on investigating Rocket. A year later I was nowhere closer to having an answer.

Face it. I’d let the shooter win. I’d been unable to get on with my life. Maybe Jared was right. I had given up.

“Carling?” Greg’s voice broke into my thoughts. “Are you all right? I heard about your car accident.”

“I’m fine, thanks.” I pulled myself together. “Mike’s been released without being charged.”

Greg smacked the palm of his hand against the desk. “Excellent! Good job!”

“I really had nothing to do with it. They had detained him only for questioning.”

“You’re too modest.” Greg’s eyes narrowed. “What did Mike have to say to the police?”

I gave the CEO a smile. “We’ve been over this before. You know that I can’t divulge the actual conversations. Attorney-client privilege.”

As Greg’s expression hardened, I added on a bright note. “However, I can tell you that the police found a kilo of cocaine in the back of Mr. Staminski’s truck. If he had been charged, I would have pled ‘not guilty’ as my client had no knowledge of how the cocaine got in the back of his truck.”

Relaxing marginally, Greg leaned back in his black leather executive chair. “Good, good.”

“Not so good. The police are hardly going to accept a kilo got into one of your trucks by accident. They’ll launch an investigation.”

My comment didn’t even faze him, but then again little did. Certainly, Jared didn’t have concrete evidence to indict either Greg or Rocket. For that matter I’d never discovered anything incriminating. Instead of allowing me to visit the plant, Rocket sent the drivers to my office. I hadn’t been able to get close enough to the operations here to learn more about Borys’s activities. My initial resolve had sputtered. It had been easier to take the money. Mortification burned in my stomach.

“Let them.” Greg shrugged, swiveling to face the bank of windows. I knew his office overlooked the shipping yard, rather than a postcard pretty manmade lake so common in southern Florida. Greg was a man who liked to keep close tabs on his business. “They’ll find nothing.”

As a public defender, I’d learned that there were shades of confidence in a person’s voice. Greg’s had undertones of smugness and yes, arrogance.

I went on alert. How easy would it be to hide drugs in shipments of fertilizer? Would all the chemical and other more putrid odors mask the scent for police dogs? Unless officers making a traffic stop had the entire van unloaded, how simple would it be to discretely tuck a bag here and there among the fertilizer? Someone must have been very careless in loading Mike’s truck…or framed him deliberately.

My heart pounding, I said in an off-hand manner, “The police could be obtaining a search warrant even as we sit here.”

Greg swung back to face me. “Don’t worry. Everything’s taken care of. This place is—how do you say?—squeaky clean.”

His bland expression revealed nothing but spoke volumes to me. Somehow Rocket was involved with drugs. I didn’t mind representing a first timer caught buying or selling on the streets. Normally that person’s life had gotten all screwed up, and I could hope she or he would be scared enough to get help and stay clean.

But this wasn’t the sad case of an individual. It smacked of an organized drug ring.

Here was where I could draw a line.

I gathered my briefcase and purse. “That’s good, Greg. I can now deliver my bad news with a clear conscience.”

“What bad news?”

“I’m afraid I can no longer continue working on retainer. My trial schedule is so heavy now that I can’t devote the time needed for traffic court.”

Greg arched his eyebrow. “Is this a way of negotiating a higher rate for retainer? Okay.” He then named a figure that made my stomach twist. Oh yeah. This was a buy off.

I rose, grateful to find my knees held. “Thank you. Your offer’s quite generous and flattering. But my clientele’s taking me in a different direction and I can’t give Rocket the kind of representation it needs. I know there are plenty of good attorneys who would love a chance at this business.”

Attorneys more willing to sell their souls and turn a blind eye to the drug business.

I extended my free hand, trying to look and act normally. “I’ll send you a check for the remaining two months of the retainer.”

Greg clasped my hand and held on to it. “That’s not necessary. I am grateful for the work you’ve done.”

“Thank you, but I insist.” I managed to extract my hand. “A deal’s a deal.” The gesture meant I would be living on peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches for the next few months, but I didn’t want to keep any more of the retainer than I had to.

“I know you’re busy so I’ll just show myself out.”

Although I felt like breaking into a run to put as much distance between myself and this place, I walked with a non-hurried pace out of the office into the hallway. I heard the creak of leather and knew Greg had risen to stand in his door. I could feel his gaze boring into my back. Talk about wearing a bull’s-eye.

Careful not to glance inside, I passed Borys’s former office and gave the waiting secretary a brilliant smile as I passed her into the reception room.

I breezed through the factory level and made my escape from the building. Welcoming the blast of sun on my face, I dragged in a gulp of humidity-laden summer air. Man, it was good to be outside again. I hurried to my car, parked in the meager shade offered by a strand of palms lining one side of the parking lot. A table and bench placed on a patch of grass indicated this functioned as the employees’ break area.

Before I could open the car door, I heard a low call. “Miss Dent.”

Looking over the hood, I spotted Drew Powell standing inside the break area, the palms concealing him from the factory. I started to go toward him, but he held up his palm. “Please, stay where you are. Pretend you’re on your cell phone.”

Since he had shot to the top of my list of people to question, I made a show of putting on my sunglasses and digging through my purse. I held the cell phone to my ear.

“Okay, Drew. What’s going on? What’s with the secrecy?”

“The police didn’t seem to want to waste a lot of resources on investigating the death of a dirty accountant. Borys deserved better. I’m trying to come up with new evidence so they’ll reopen the case.”

“What?” My pulse kicked up a notch as I studied Drew closely.

Borys’s lover had aged significantly since I’d last seen him. Graying blond hair had frosted to white and was considerably thinner. His deeply tanned face bore the ravages of too much sun, looking like old, cracked leather. His once kind brown eyes wore the look of indelible resignation shadowed with grief.

My client had been such a sad, lost man that I drew comfort from knowing someone had truly loved him. “I haven’t had a chance to say this before. I’m so sorry about Borys.”

“Thank you. You were the last person to see him alive.” Accusation mingled with hurt in his voice. “Yet you still have amnesia?”

“Bullet versus skull. Who knew my hard head would lose.” I resisted the urge to touch the tender skin where the stitches had been removed this morning.

“Didn’t you visit him that night as well?” After tugging at my jacket, which now clung to my damp skin, I dug out a small notepad from my bag. Might as well take notes.

“Yes.” Drew glanced around. Was he more nervous of being caught with me or the topic being discussed?

“I had some harsh words with him. To put our business in jeopardy like that, my reputation…I was hurt. Furious. I’d broken off our relationship.” He swallowed. “But I kept thinking of how lost he looked in jail. So I went to see him, to tell him he could come home when he got out and we would work things out.”

Drew brought out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lighter and lit a cigarette with a trembling hand. “I’m so glad I did. I couldn’t have lived with myself, knowing our last words together had been in anger.”

The man gave all appearances of being sincere. But it was also possible that Borys’s criminal activities had pushed Drew over the edge. I wasn’t about to strike anyone off the suspect list.

“What time did you see him?” I already knew from the register but needed to see if the man would tell the truth. A poor liar would perjure himself on the dumbest details, but a clever one would weave in the truth, making a tighter fabric of lies to unravel.

“About four-thirty. I had a late afternoon meeting and then went straight to the prison.”

That time squared with his sign-in. I had arrived at five-thirty, having gotten hung up in a hearing.

“Did Borys ever talk about his clients?”

Drew blew out a puff of smoke. “Specifically? No. Like attorneys, an accountant’s confidentiality about his clients’ affairs is vital.”

“Was he afraid of anyone at Rocket?” Had Borys known if Rocket smuggled drugs? Was that why he was murdered?

Drew’s brow furrowed. “Greg for starters. That’s why I took over the account. Anytime he received a call on his cell, Borys would drop everything and rush off. I thought he might have left some information in his office there but…”

He dropped the cigarette butt and crushed it beneath his heel. “I haven’t found anything yet on the computer.”

“Did Rocket know you two were partners?”

“No. Our relationship was—” Drew paused, “—private.”

In other words, secret. I sought for a politically correct way to ask the next question. “Did all the news concerning Borys’s arrest affect your business?”

The man’s lips twisted into an ironic smile. “Do you mean did my clients mind that I had a gay lover who was also a crook?”

So much for being PC. I shrugged. “Yes.”