LITMIR.BIZ

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understand.”

      The two men exchanged swift glances. Her father gave a quick nod to Cole and then, carrying his now-empty glass, walked to a glass-topped cart where a bottle of Crown Royal Whiskey sat near an ice bucket.

      “Civil suit. Wrongful death,” Cole explained.

      Enlightenment followed. “This is about Tracy Aliota again, isn’t it? I thought the police said you weren’t responsible, that you couldn’t have predicted her suicide, that releasing her from the hospital was normal procedure.” She stared at her father’s back, watching his shoulders slump beneath the fine silk of his shirt as he added a “splash” of amber liquor to his glass.

      Cole cut in. “This is different. It’s a lawsuit instigated by the family. It’s not about homicide or—”

      “I know the difference!” she rounded on him. Her face was hot, flushed. The anger and fear she’d been dealing with ever since first hearing that one of her father’s patients had swallowed so many pills that no amount of stomach pumping and resuscitation had been able to save her life, came back full force. Tracy Aliota had been under Dr. Terrence Renner’s care ever since her first attempt at suicide at thirteen.

      “But how…I mean, can they do this? Legally?”

      “If they find a lawyer willing to take the case…then they’re in business,” Cole said.

      Eve closed her eyes, hearing the mosquitoes buzzing over the sounds of a tractor chugging in a nearby field. The trill of a whip-poorwill sounded. Everything seemed so perfect, so easy and somnolent. She wanted it to be that way, but it wasn’t. “Damn it,” she whispered.

      Finally she opened her eyes again, only to find Cole staring at her.

      “You okay?”

      Of course I’m not okay! “Just dandy,” she responded tightly.

      “It’ll be all right.” Her father was swirling his drink, ice cubes dancing in the late afternoon sunlight. His voice lacked enthusiasm. And conviction.

      “Is that true?” Eve asked Cole, who had rested a hip against the porch railing as Terrence lifted the bottle of Crown Royal, his glance a silent offering to his guest.

      Cole shook his head. “No, thanks.”

      “I asked if everything will be all right,” Eve reminded.

      “I’ll do my best.” Again that hint of Texas flavored Cole’s words.

      “And you’re good?”

      A ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Beneath the worn Levis, ratty T-shirt, and “Aw-shucks, ma’am” attitude, he was a cocky son of a bitch.

      “He’s the best money can buy,” her father said.

      She stared straight at Cole. “Is that right?”

      “I’d like to think so.” Was there just the suggestion of a twinkle in those deep-set eyes? Almost as if he were flirting with her…or even baiting her.

      Whistling to the dog, she picked up her duffel bag and opened the screen door. “I guess we’ll find out.”

      And she had. Inside a dark-paneled Louisiana courtroom where ceiling fans battled the heat and Judge Remmy Mathias, a huge African-American man with a slick, balding head and glasses perched on the end of his nose, fought a summer cold, the trial had played out. Cole Dennis, the scruffy would-be attorney, had morphed into a slick, sharp lawyer. Dressed in tailored suits, crisp shirts, expensive ties, and a serious countenance that often showed just a glimmer of humor, Cole was charming enough to woo even the most reticent jurors into believing that Dr. Terrence Renner had done everything in his power to preserve and keep Tracy Aliota’s sanity and well-being. Cole Dennis indeed proved himself to be worth every shiny penny of his fee.

      And over that summer, Eve had fallen hopelessly in love with Cole, a man as comfortable astride a stubborn quarter horse as he was while pleading a case in a courtroom. A private, guarded individual who, when called upon, could play to judge and jury as well as to the cameras.

      He’d been amused that Eve initially thought him unworthy in his disreputable jeans and running shoes, and it was weeks before he explained to Eve that her father had called him and told him to “drop everything” to meet with him at the old man’s house. Cole had been helping a friend move at the time and on the way home had stopped by the old farm to do Renner’s bidding.

      In the end, after days of testimony in that small hundred-year-old courtroom, her father had been acquitted of any wrongdoing.

      And Eve, watching from the back of the room, had grown to wonder if justice truly had been served.

      CHAPTER 3

      Sam Deeds nosed his BMW to the cracked curb of the street surrounding Cole’s new home—a hundred-and-fifty-year-old bungalow that was the kind of place described as a “handyman’s dream” in a real estate ad. The front porch sagged, the gutters were rusted, the roof had been patched with a faded rainbow of shingles, and several of the original wood-encased windows had been replaced sometime in the past half century with aluminum frames. Cars were parked on both sides of the narrow, bumpy concrete of the street, crowding each other.

      “Home, sweet home,” Cole muttered under his breath as he climbed out of the passenger side of Deeds’s BMW 760.

      “Hey, I said you could crash with me for a while.”

      “You mean with you and Lynne and your two kids. And Lynne’s pregnant again, right? Thanks, but I think I’ll pass.”

      Deeds had the good grace not to look too relieved that his friend hadn’t taken him up on his offer. No doubt Lynne and Sam’s daughters might not have been so eager to have a near-miss felon sharing their roof.

      “Fine. But if you change your mind, the offer stands.”

      “I’ll be okay here.” He noticed a faded red Jeep parked before a sagging garage. “Is that mine?”

      “Not until you fill out the paperwork, but, yeah, essentially it’s yours. I bought it from a cousin. Runs great, drinks a bit of oil, and has a little over two hundred thousand on the engine.”

      “Just broken in.”

      “That’s what I thought. The tires are decent, and I figured you might want a set of wheels.”

      “Seein’ how you had to sell the Jag.”

      “Seein’ how.”

      Cole eyed the beaten Jeep and gave a quick nod of approval. “I like it.”

      “Fill out the papers. The title’s in the glove box, locked with a second set of keys, a copy of the bill of sale, and the registration.”

      Deeds popped the trunk of his 760, and Cole pulled out a slim black briefcase and fatter laptop bag. Deeds had managed to retrieve the two small cases from the police. No doubt the hard drive on the computer had been compromised and all of the information on Cole’s cell phone, Palm Pilot, and personal files was no longer private. After all, he’d been considered a criminal. Probably still was, in some circles. At least Deeds had gotten his stuff back; that was all that really mattered.

      He grabbed his things and glanced again at his new home, if you could call it that. The ramshackle cottage was a far cry from his last house, an Italianate two-story manor whose exterior still boasted its original cast-iron grillwork and wide porticos cooled by slow-turning ceiling fans and shaded by centuries-old live oaks. The interior had been renovated to its original charm with gleaming hardwood and marble floors, smooth granite and marble countertops, shiny white baseboards and doors, built-in pine and glass bookcases in the library, and a wrought-iron and wooden staircase that swept from the grand foyer to the library and bedrooms located above. Outside, behind thickets of crepe myrtle hedges, cut into the smooth stones of the backyard, was a lap pool that he used each morning before the sun had come up, before he drove his

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