Nothing But the Truth (8 page)

When she first arrived at her aunt’s house, Ryan was relieved to be far away from her arguing parents. They hadn’t been able to decide if they should skin her alive or send her to an exorcist. Aunt Eunice’s house of stern was their compromise. Within hours, Ryan realized life wasn’t going to be any easier with her stoic aunt than it was with her volatile parents. At least at home she could shout and wail about the injustice of her parents forbidding her to have any contact with Julia. Eunice forbade her to even speak Julia’s name out loud. She commanded Ryan to produce all the notes and tiny trinkets of her ill-fated high school romance and watch as all evidence of her relationship with Julia burned into ash.

“You’ve always been a prosecutor haven’t you?”

Ryan shuddered at the interruption. She realized she was sitting at a Starbucks, not in front of a roaring fire, and instead of her strict aunt, she was looking into the smiling eyes of Brett Logan. “I have.”

“Have you always been so talkative?” Brett immediately wished she’d asked an open-ended question.

Ryan wasn’t totally bereft of social grace. She smiled at the joke. “Yes,” she said, then promptly joined Brett in laughter. “Seriously, you could say I save myself for the courtroom.”

“Do you miss it?” The minute the more intimate question left her lips, Brett felt the air between them cool.

Ryan felt the conversation shift to less comfortable ground. She didn’t want anyone focusing on her several-year absence from the courtroom. She steered the topic in the direction she wanted it to go. “You’ll see me there soon.”

“Really?”

“I’m trying the Ross Edwards case.”

Brett, like everyone else within a three hundred mile radius of Dallas County, was familiar with the Edwards case. The press painted Edwards as a cold-blooded sociopath. Allegedly, he had murdered at least three women in various parts of the country, then collected their various government benefits. Women whose trust and devotion he had won. The crime reporter from the
Dallas Morning News
had dubbed him the Benefit Killer.

“I thought that was Jeff’s case.” The moment the words left her lips, Brett could see Ryan’s back arch as she puffed up.

“The case belongs to the District Attorney of Dallas County.”

Well, la-di-da. Who the hell talks like that?
Brett couldn’t resist the urge to push the point. “Well, duh. I mean Jeff’s been working on Edwards for months. Is he quitting?” Cases belonged to the court they were assigned to and were randomly assigned to a prosecutor in that particular court. Since Jeff was the chief in Langston’s court, he would naturally reserve the high profile cases assigned to that court. Even if he were transferred to another court, he would usually get to decide if he wanted to take the case with him. Logic dictated the only thing that would keep Jeff from working the Edwards case would be if he quit the office altogether.

Ryan didn’t like Brett’s implication. She considered saying Leonard had ordered her to work on the case, but abandoned the idea because that explanation would beg the question of why. Actually, it wasn’t uncommon for a super chief to try a high profile case. Less common, though, was a division chief taking over weeks before trial. Ryan had to admit that if she were Jeff she would have been floored to have the lead spot on the case ripped from her. She didn’t have an explanation she cared to share, but she realized she needed to work on one. Surely, Brett wouldn’t be the only one asking. Ryan opened her mouth to respond, still not quite sure what she was going to say. Brett’s vibrating BlackBerry saved her the trouble.

“Sorry, I need to take this.” Brett walked a few feet away and whispered into her phone. Ryan pretended to read the specials board, while surreptitiously glancing in Brett’s direction. Brett might be infuriating, but she was damn attractive. At five-ten, Ryan was used to being the tallest woman in the room, but Brett was just as tall or taller. Today she wore jeans, black leather boots, and a sea-green sweater that accentuated the emerald flecks in her hazel eyes. The jeans and sweater hugged her slender form, and Ryan felt herself wanting to hug her body along Brett’s form as well. Her desire to be close to Brett wasn’t limited to a physical urge.

She forced herself to look away. Years of discipline would not be undone today. She would make a call later to deal with her corporeal cravings. Her emotional hunger would keep

Ryan stood as Brett hung up the phone. “I need to go.”

“I’m sorry.” Brett held up her phone. “Wrong number. I was expecting a call or I wouldn’t have answered.”

“Not a problem. I need to go anyway.” Ryan hoped by repeating the statement she might begin to believe it was true. Brett looked disappointed. Was she? A few moments ago, she’d seemed annoyed at Ryan, let down by her new role in the Edwards case. Now she looked sad to see her go. Brett was complicated.

Time to go.
Ryan pushed in her chair. “Thanks for the coffee.” She strode out the door without waiting for Brett’s response.

Brett watched as Ryan almost ran into Lori in her haste to leave.

“She sure was in a hurry to leave,” Lori said. “Something you said?”

Brett watched Ryan cross the parking lot until she disappeared from sight. “I guess. We were talking, then my phone rang and I took a call. When I came back to the table, she was up and out of here like she couldn’t get away fast enough.”

“You’ve got to stop letting work interfere with your social life, dear.” Lori’s smile softened the admonishment.

Brett nodded. Lori was right, but she sensed the interruption of her ringing phone wasn’t the real reason for Ryan’s exit. She was sorry their time together had ended so awkwardly. Beneath her prickly veneer, Brett sensed Ryan possessed a shy sensitivity only a few ever managed to see. Brett wanted to be one of those who got a glimpse.

*

“Dinner’s almost ready.” Brett watched her mom, Joan Logan, duck under the large platter of steaks her dad carried from the grill. “Let’s eat outside and enjoy this beautiful weather. Everyone grab a plate and pick out your steak. Brett and John, will you help me carry the salads outside?”

“No problem, Mom.” Brett grabbed the enormous salad bowl and a set of tongs and, along with her brother, helped set up the patio table. The Logan family jostled their way around the kitchen, handing plates back and forth as they selected their main course. Once they were all gathered, her dad, seated at the head of the table, spoke the words he did at the beginning of every meal.

“Let’s all hold hands and pray.”

Brett was used to these moments. She wasn’t a religious person. Brett believed in the power of prayer, but she called it positive thinking. When she made silent requests for intervention, she was reaching out to the universe, not a particular entity. If there was a God, she didn’t have a problem with him granting her requests, but she didn’t focus exclusively on him. Her thoughts were interrupted by the infernal ringing of the BlackBerry.

“Sorry, everyone.” Brett broke the circle and scooted out of the room with her purse in tow. She connected to the call. “Hello?” She sighed. Finally, the mysterious Mr. Phillips. She hoped she could make more headway in this call than e-mail had allowed. “Yes, I got your e-mail. I’m happy to answer your questions, but I don’t have simple answers. I think it would be best if we met in person.”

Brett listened as Mr. Phillips told her he had traveled to Austin himself to help his brother manage young Kenneth.

“He is eaten up with guilt about the man who is in jail. The one the police think committed this murder.”

Brett was done with abstract references. “Do you know the name of the man in jail?”

“Kenneth cut out some newspaper stories about him. I think his name is Ross Edwards.”

Brett gasped.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Brett struggled to compose herself. What a bizarre coincidence to learn she had a potential client who wanted to confess to Ryan Foster’s headline murder case. She squelched the nip of pleasure that came from knowing she would have an opportunity to run into Ryan again. “I’ve heard of the case.”

“I just need to know a few things to be able to set my son’s mind at ease.”

Brett struck a balance between comforting and firm. “Totally understandable. I’m happy to answer your questions, but I want to do it in person. We can all sit down and take whatever time is necessary to formulate a strategy.”

Mr. Phillips didn’t respond. Brett waited through the silence. She may need to pay her bills, but she didn’t need to beg for clients. Either Daddy brought his baby boy in for a meeting or not. Either way, this was the last time Brett was going to talk to this man without a retainer.

“I don’t know how much we can afford to pay you.”

There it was. The motive for all the hesitation. Mystery dispelled. She could hear Tony’s voice now: “Tell him to call legal aid. Tell him the court will appoint an attorney if he can’t afford to hire one for his son. Tell him you can’t eat gratitude.” In response she thought:
The court won’t appoint counsel until the kid is already under arrest. Legal aid isn’t going to know how to deal with this kind of case. I don’t eat much.
Finally, Brett found her voice.

“Come into the office, and we’ll figure something out.”

*

“Dinner’s great.” Brett scooped another forkful of her mother’s famous garlic mashed potatoes. She was on her third helping.
I guess I do eat a lot.
“It’s so nice to get a home-cooked meal.”

Her brother John chimed in. “If you’d ever settle down, you could make your own.”

“Better yet, if you got a real job, you could hire someone to make dinner every night and then tell people it’s your own,” her brother Brian added.

Brett punched him in the arm. “Oh, aren’t you all funny?” Brett knew her brothers were teasing. Mostly. “Like you two ever have to think about where your next meal is coming from.” She directed her comments at their wives. “Seriously, do they even know how to turn on the oven or even order from a take-out menu?”

Brian was the first to speak up. “Precisely my point, dear sister. Marry well and all your troubles will be gone.”

 “Yep, Brian’s life is perfect since he met me,” his wife Ashley said.

“And I’ve already asked if you have a sister, right?” Brett batted her eyelashes. Despite all the teasing, Brett knew there was an undercurrent of seriousness in their words that needled her even though she had long ago decided to stop using their yardsticks to measure her success. They both knew she was fully capable of doing anything she put her mind to, but they couldn’t comprehend her choice to do more work for less money. Both brothers followed in their father’s footsteps, launching their careers at the same venerable Dallas law firm where their dad was a senior partner. Tax advice, unwinding derivatives, mineral rights. All three males in the Logan family were happily engaged in the practice of transactional law. Brett could not imagine a more boring existence. Right now all she could think about was sneaking upstairs and Googling everything she could about the Edwards case. If she took Kenneth Phillips’s case, she might fill up the first page of results herself. She knew a whole page of Internet hits wouldn’t impress the males in her family, but it might soften the blow for Tony who was expecting her to collect a decent fee. Publicity was golden.

*

Ryan was amazed at the number of search results on her screen. A persistent curiosity had driven her to the Internet after her encounter with Brett earlier that day. Simply typing her name into the Google search engine yielded a wealth of information. The results ranged from information about Brett’s legal career to her involvement in local organizations and social issues. Brett Logan graduated from law school in 1994 from the University of Texas at Austin. If she hadn’t taken any breaks between undergrad and law school, Ryan calculated she and Brett were probably close to the same age. She was a member of the local GLBT Chamber of Commerce and the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Bar Association. She volunteered at the local GLBT Resource Center and she regularly donated her time to legal clinics in the Oak Lawn community. She cosponsored a booth at the Gay and Lesbian Pride festival. The evidence all pointed to one revealing conclusion. Brett was a lesbian. She had to be.

And, in every online photo, she was as gorgeous as she appeared in person.

Ryan had desperately sought the information, but wasn’t sure what to do with it now. After she read everything she could find, she cleared the search history on her Internet browser and dialed a familiar number. After a brief conversation, she hung up the phone and repeated the address out loud several times as if the sound of her voice would etch the location in her mind. She gazed at the bottle of Scotch across the room longingly. She was edgy tonight, but she worried she wouldn’t be able to stop at one or two shots of the golden liquid to calm her nerves. She could indulge in whatever she wanted once she reached the house, but she wouldn’t risk driving intoxicated. She needed the salve that waited for her more than she needed to quiet her jittery nerves in this moment.

The drive was long. She had not been to this area of town in quite some time. Decidedly suburban, this area was populated by hard-working dads, mall-going moms, and their two point five children. She drove the speed limit and signaled all turns. Full stops at signs and careful entry into intersections. At a flash of her badge, any patrol cop would close his ticket book, but her badge couldn’t erase memories. Her ability to be invisible would reap the rewards she sought this evening.