LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter One

      The sun shouldn’t be shining today. It should be cold and dark and dreary. Or raining. Rain would work.

      With a sense of foreboding, Lucy Donner looked up at the modern-styled concrete-block building. She imagined the stairs leading to the front doors were actually steps leading to the gallows. The line of people patiently waiting to go through the security checkpoints in the courthouse lobby were the condemned waiting their turns.

      She really needed to stop watching late-night movies where everyone ended up murdered.

      She didn’t want to walk up those steps even though she knew her son’s fate hung in the balance up there.

      “There you are, dear.” Lou and Cathy Walker came up to her. Cathy immediately pulled her into a hug then cupped her hands around Lucy’s cheeks. The older woman looked concerned as she studied Lucy’s face. “How are you doing?” Cathy asked, clearly not missing the worry shadowing Lucy’s eyes.

      “I’ve gone through four bottles of antacids in the past two days,” she whispered, gripping Cathy’s arms as if she needed a lifeline. “What does that tell you? It’s wonderful that you’re here, but as I told you last night, you didn’t have to come. I have an idea it’s not going to be pleasant.”

      “Of course, we would come. You’re family,” Lou told her. The relationship was only that Lucy’s brother was married to their daughter, but Lou continued, “We Walkers stick together.” He curved his arm around Nick’s shoulders and tugged him against his side.

      Lucy blinked rapidly. The threat of tears quickly dried up when she looked at her son. This was her darling baby boy. The light of her life. The reason they were spending their morning in court.

      Once this was over she was grounding him until he was fifty.

      And here she’d thought things would change for the better after they moved.

      Lucy had seen it as a sign when she’d found a house not far from the Walker homestead in Sunset Canyon, California. She was even happier to find a school that believed in challenging its gifted students without giving them any special treatment just because their IQs happened to be higher than those of most of the rest of the human population. She was even relieved that puberty seemed to settle down Nick’s mischievous nature now that he’d turned thirteen. He spent many of his free hours with Lou Walker during which he learned what went into renovating an antique automobile. Lucy had decorated their new house and made it into a home for herself and her son.

      Life was great.

      Until it took a crazy U-turn. Lucy received a call from the school’s dean telling her that not only had Nick hacked into the school’s computer, but that he’d deleted all student and personnel files and replaced them with new ones that bore no resemblance to what had been there. The dean explained that Nick’s actions were considered a crime, which was why they would spend this morning at the courthouse.

      Lucy was grateful Cathy and Lou had come to lend her moral support. Since the day the dean had called her, she’d alternated between fury at her son for what he’d done and fear he’d be sent to a juvenile facility that would make those late-night bad-boy movies look like a fairy tale.

      Now they were in court to learn Nick’s fate. Determined to look the part of the most responsible mother in the world, she’d chosen a black skirt and a cream blouse. She mentally cursed the black high heels that were killing her feet. She’d chosen the extra three inches for courage. Judging by the condition of her stomach, it hadn’t worked very well. For once, she hadn’t had to resort to threats to get Nick into a dress shirt and tie. Even his usually unruly sandy-brown hair was brushed into submission.

      “What judge did you draw?” Lou asked.

      Lucy had to think for a moment. “Judge Kincaid.”

      The man’s face darkened.

      “What?” Lucy felt her fears return. “How bad is he?”

      “It’s nothing like that, dear,” Cathy soothed as she shot her husband a warning look. “Everything will be fine.”

      “The man should have retired years ago,” Lou muttered.

      “He’s the same age as you are,” Cathy reminded him.

      “He has no heart.”

      The bantering was halted by the arrival of Lucy’s brother, Zach, and his wife. They hurried toward her and Zach wrapped his arms around her for a warm embrace then hugged Nick.

      “Everything will be fine,” her sister-in-law, Ginna whispered.

      Lucy wasn’t as confident, but now was the time to find out. Together, they all walked up the steps and went through the security checkpoint, then they looked for the courtroom in which Nick’s case would be heard.

      Lucy was relieved to see Nick’s attorney already there. She only wished he didn’t look like Opie from The Andy Griffith Show. It didn’t help that at their first meeting he had told her to call him Ritchey. All that did was bump him up to the teenager from Happy Days.

      Oh my God, she wailed to herself, I’d forgotten that my son’s lawyer looks twelve years old! She dredged up a faint sickly resemblance of a smile.

      “Hey, Mrs. Donner.” Ritchey grinned as he offered his hand. He nodded at Nick. “Are you ready, Nick?”

      “Sure,” the boy said, sounding almost adult.

      “Maybe he is, but I’m not. But I guess that won’t matter, will it?” She touched her stomach, which sent out burning signals again. “You don’t think—” She found herself afraid even to say the words. “He won’t be—” She stopped because she just plain couldn’t go on and voice what had been giving her nightmares since this had all begun.

      “I wouldn’t worry, Mrs. Donner. I’m sure Nick will be put on probation and assigned to community service,” he assured her. “We’ll be in and out of here in no time.”

      Lucy breathed her first sigh of relief in days.

      “I’m sorry, Mom,” Nick said quietly as he touched her shoulder.

      She didn’t hug him, because she knew a display of affection would only embarrass him.

      “No matter what the judge does to you, you are still grounded until you’re a hundred and five,” she told him as they went inside.

      “You told me I was grounded until I was fifty,” he reminded her.

      “I changed my mind.”

      Lucy’s sense that things would turn out all right disappeared the moment the judge entered the courtroom and settled into a high-backed black leather chair. Her blood turned to ice as she saw the man’s stern expression.

      We

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