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Prologue
"One, two, buckle my shoe.
Three, four, shut the door." The little girl
shivered as she chanted the words, her shaky voice
filling the dingy bedroom. “Five, six, pick up
sticks.”
She was too big to cry. Mommy
said so. She closed her eyes tightly as if that
could shut out the loud voices that shook the
house like stomping monsters.
"Seven, eight, lay them
straight." She slid from the bed and scooted
her bottom across the rug, her limp dolly hugged
against her chest, the wiry doll hair tangled
in her trembling fingers. She didn't stop until
she reached the back corner of the room.
"Don't be afraid, baby,"
she crooned to the lifeless doll. "My mommy
will be all right. She will." A tear pushed
from her eye and slid down her cheek. She brushed
it away with the sleeve of her flannel pajamas.
The high-pitched voice from
beyond the door broke into sobs, and the little
girl buried her head in her arms and rocked back
and forth. She was sucking her thumb like a big
baby, but she didn't care-not now. “Mary had a
little lamb.”
Suddenly, a noise like thunder
cracked through the house, and the door to her
room shook as if it had been struck with a giant
fist. She huddled in a tight ball, quiet now,
the words to the nursery rhyme swallowed up by
her fear.
She cowered in the dark corner,
clutching the doll and waiting for her mommy to
take her in her arms and tuck her back into bed.
But the door didn’t open, and the house stayed
silent.
“Mommy.”
Still clinging to her doll,
she pulled herself to her feet and crept toward
the closed door. She wrapped her shaking fingers
around the cold roundness of the doorknob and
twisted. The door didn’t budge.
It couldn't. It was stopped
by the dead weight of a woman who'd never answer
to Mommy again.
Chapter One
It was a quarter before eight
when Rachel Powers slipped her key from the lock
and stopped to stare at the brass nameplate that
gleamed from the center of her office door. Rachel
Powers, Attorney at Law. Taking a tissue from
her handbag, she gave the Attorney a quick
swish. She hated smudges on her one bit of identity
in a building where she bobbed just above the
bottom of the seniority pool.
She breathed in the odors as
she stepped through the heavy wooden door. The
rich fragrance of leather, the subtle scent of
vanilla from the half-used bag of flavored coffee
she kept stashed away in the top drawer of her
file cabinet, traces of perfumes and musky aftershaves
left by clients and colleagues.
Early morning was her favorite
time in the office. It was more stately, judicious,
the way she’d imagined a law office would be when
she’ d been struggling to get her degree and pass
the bar. Before she went to work for a firm where
the bottom line defined justice.
If you can't stand the heat,
look somewhere else for employment. That
had been Phillip Castile's advice the day he'd
interviewed her for the position she'd finally
landed. Welcome to the law firm of Williams, Williams
and Castile.
Rachel slipped her arms from
the raw silk jacket of her forest-green suit and
draped it over the back of her chair. The suit
was her most expensive piece of clothing and her
favorite. It brought out her skin coloring and
the lighter locks of her short auburn hair.
Mostly she liked it because
it wasn’t gray or navy or black like the firm
requested their young attorneys wear. But forest
green was as far as she dared push the limit.
She pulled the file for Ballin
Industries, then settled at her desk to pour over
the research the firm’s most efficient law clerk
had compiled yesterday. Chaos was the
first word that came to mind. Ralph Ballin was
in his seventies, and he hadn't changed his accounting
methods since Truman had been in the White House.
The attorneys for the new and
friendlier US Treasury Department were surely
counting on a field day with his antique methods
of record keeping. But at least with Ballin it
was inability to adjust to new technology and
not greed that had led to his intimate relationship
with the lawyers of the IRS.
“Already at it. What did you
do, sleep here last night?”
Rachel highlighted a couple
of figures she wanted to return to, then glanced
up to find Ted Boyd standing in her doorway. He
looked great as always, suave and boyishly handsome,
and more rested than she ever was these days.
“ I sleep here every night,” she said. “Didn’t
you know?”
“I believe it.”
“What brings you in so early?”
she asked.
“A case review that Williams
Senior wants by noon. Tell me again why I thought
being an attorney was better than working in my
dad’s used furniture store.”
“It gives you a better pickup
line with babes in the bars.”
Ted snapped his fingers. “How
could I forget?”
“I’d love to chat with you,”
she said, looking back to the case file, “but
I have a meeting with the IRS at ten, and I need
to know what I’m dealing with when I talk to them.”
“Who’s the IRS attorney?
“Mark Effring.”
“Then you better have your
shit together. He treats every tax dollar as if
it were food being yanked from the mouths of his
own kids.”
“So I’ve heard.” More reason
she didn’t have time to waste. She walked over
to close her door as soon as Ted walked away,
but his voice regained her attention.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Yes. I’m here to see Rachel
Powers.”
The voice was female, tentative,
almost as if the woman was unsure she had the
name right or that she was in the right place.
Rachel kept the door open a crack so that she
could hear the conversation.
"Is this business or personal?”
Ted asked.
“Business.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Yes I do.”
A blatant lie. Rachel had no
appointments scheduled until her ten a.m. visit
with the IRS attorney. She peeked through the
door, hoping to get a glimpse of the visitor without
being seen.
The woman was standing near
where the corridor split off from the reception
area. Her back was to Rachel, but still Rachel
was pretty sure she didn’t know her.
She was in heels-a couple of
inches higher than anything in Rachel’s closet-and
a pair of hip-hugging designer jeans that fit
low enough below the waist that they revealed
a wide border of perfectly tanned flesh between
them and a silky, long-sleeved blouse. She did
not fit the image of their usual corporate clients.
Ted would have come to that
same conclusion by now and would probably have
already checked her credentials and ushered her
out the door if he hadn’ t been so busy ogling
her breasts. Even from here, it was pretty evident
by the slant of his eyes and the way he was leaning
over the woman that he was checking her out.
The woman backed up a couple
of steps. “I don’t have a lot of time,” she said.
“I really need to see Ms. Powers now.”
Spunky--or else desperate.
At any rate something in her voice got to Rachel.
She knew she should let Ted take care of this,
reminded herself of that fact even as she opened
her mouth and did the unthinkable.
"Oh, there you are,"
she called. “I didn't expect you quite this early."
Ted shot Rachel a look that
indicated he thought she’d lost her last shred
of sanity. The woman muttered a low thanks and
marched into Rachel’s office.
Rachel motioned her to take
a seat, but didn’t take one herself. Instead she
leaned against the backside of her desk and continued
her assessment of the woman and the situation.
She was mid twenties at the
most, probably younger, though there was a hint
of hardness in her delicate features. Great body.
Long silky hair the color of the pale-yellow roses
her Aunt Agnes used to grow. Her eyes were lost
behind a pair of oversize, dark sunglasses that
didn’t hide the purplish flesh stretching over
her left cheek. Someone had worked her over recently.
“I appreciate you seeing me,”
the woman said.
“Why did you lie about having
an appointment?”
“I would have made an appointment--if
there had been time.”
“If we’re going to talk, I
need to know your name.”
"Tess Shepherd. Ms Tess
Shepherd.”
“I was about to have a cup
of coffee,” Rachel said. “Will you join me?”
“Coffee would be swell.”
Rachel went to the coffeepot
and filled two china cups.
"How do you take it?"
"Black."
She handed her the cup and
took a satisfying sip of her own. It was her first
of the morning. “Now, what is it you think I can
do for you, Ms. Shepherd?”
“I need you to represent me
in a custody battle,” Tess said.
Now she knew the woman was
in the wrong place. “How did you get my name?”
“From a friend. You come highly
recommended.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m
afraid your friend gave you bad advice. This is
a corporate firm and we don’t deal with domestic
issues.”
“I’m not looking for charity.
I can pay.”
“It’s not a matter of money.”
Finally, the woman pulled the
sunglasses from her face and met Rachel’s gaze.
As Rachel had expected, the tissue surrounding
the left eye was even more bruised than the cheek.
“Look, as I’m concerned, a
lawyer is a lawyer. I’ve heard you’re the best,
and I need the best because I’m up against a wealthy,
arrogant son of a bitch who thinks he can walk
over me now the way he did five years ago. I don’t
intend to let that happen.”
The rich, arrogant bastard
description got Rachel’s attention. She’d met
more than her share of those since going to work
for WW&C.
“Is this rich son of a bitch
the biological father.”
“Exactly. He thinks he can
just walk up and take my sons from me, the way
he takes everything else he wants. But he’s not
going to get away with it. Not this time. I’ll
kill him before I let him have them. I swear I
will.”
Rachel used a calm voice, trying
to defuse the woman’s anger. “I’m sure killing
is not the best option. Why don’t you tell me
a little more about the situation.”
“The situation is Logan McCain.”
The name evoked an instant
image, but surely they were not thinking of the
same man. “This wouldn’t be Logan McCain of McCain
Construction?”
“McCain Construction. McCain
Development. McCain Towers. McCain take what we
want and screw everybody else. I'm sure you've
heard of him."
More than heard of him. Rachel
had met Logan briefly a couple of weeks ago. He'd
sat across the table from her at one of the charity
events members of WW&C were expected to attend.
She remembered the evening well. Logan McCain
was the reason.
Hard to buy that he was fighting
this woman in a custody battle Yet here she was.
Angry. Bruised. And asking for help. But if there
was any question before of Rachel’ s being able
to help her, it was off the table now. The McCain
family was not only wealthy, they were politically
connected and socially prominent There was no
way in heaven or hell WW&C would let Rachel
touch this case.
But if Tess really was the
mother of Logan McCain’s sons, someone would take
the case. An attorney looking to make a name for
himself-or herself. "Tell me about your
relationship with Logan McCain.”
"There never was a relationship.
I was just a convenient distraction.”
"How long ago did this
distraction take place?" Impulsively, Rachel
reached over and flicked on the small recorder
at the back of her desk.
"Five years ago. August
17, 2000. Danny and Davy are four.”
“Twins?” Rachel asked, just
be sure she had this straight.
“Yes, twins.” Tess took a slow
sip of the coffee and stared into the cup.
“Has Mr. McCain provided financial
support for the children?”
“No way,” Tess answered, looking
up. “Not a penny. I sell my soul to the devil
on a regular basis, and I can afford to give them
anything they need. I wasn’ t good enough for
Logan McCain five years ago, so my sons wouldn’t
be good enough for the haughty jerk now.”
“How did you meet Mr. McCain?”
“In a bar on St. Charles Avenue.
I was out with some of my friends from school.
Logan came around and started hitting on me.”
“By school, you mean college?”
“High school. It was eighteenth
birthday. We were celebrating.”
At least she’d been legal.
She wondered if Logan had known that--or if he’d
cared. “So you left the bar with Logan McCain?”
“Yeah. I know now it was stupid,
but I didn’t know shit about men then. He had
a cool car, and he told me I was beautiful. I
fell for his lines. Like I said, I was young and
stupid.”
“Where did you go when you
left the bar?”
“We parked awhile, out by the
lake. We started kissing, and things just got
out of hand. You know how it is when your hormones
are pumping.”
“Did you ask him to stop?”
“As a matter of fact, I did.
I started crying and told him to let me out of
the car. He held me down.”
“So, you’re saying he raped
you?”
“I don’t want to press charges
against him at this late date. I just don’t want
the bastard getting his hands on my sons.”
Rachel tried to listen objectively,
lawyer fashion, but all kinds of scenarios were
running rampant through her mind and none of them
made Logan McCain look like a gentleman. But she
also knew that Tess Shepherd could be lying.
“Go on. You had intercourse
with Mr. Logan and became pregnant. What was his
reaction to that news?"
“There was no reaction. How
could I tell him? You don’t think he gave me his
real name? He knew my name and number, but he
never called again. He didn’t want me, but now
he wants my sons. And he has the money to hire
any lawyer he wants. That’s why I need you to
represent me.”
"So you never told Logan
McCain that you were pregnant?”
"The boys were eighteen
months old before I even found out who he was.
I saw a picture of him in the society pages. He
was escorting some debutante to her ball. Friggin’
big shot. Wait, I can tell you exactly when that
was, too. I have the date right here in my notes.”
“Do you always keep such good
records?”
“Always have. Now I even keep
a duplicate copy of everything I do, and I mean
names, places, dates.” She thumbed through a small
notebook. “Here it is, October 22, 2002.”
She was precise. “Why
didn’t you call him then?”
“So he could take them away
from us like he want’s to do now?”
“From us?”
“My stepmother and me. She
takes care of the boys while I work.”
“Do you live with her and your
father?”
“My father died while I was
pregnant with the boys. Cancer. Never even got
to see his grandsons.”
“And you’re positive Logan
McCain is the father?”
“Oh, I’m sure, okay. He was
the first guy I ever went all the way with, the
only one until after the boys were born.”
“If you didn’t tell Logan McCain
you gave birth to his sons, how did he obtain
that information?”
"I’d love to know that
myself. All I know is he found out... and now
he’s demanding I give them up or he’ll take me
to court and prove I’m an unfit mother."
“Would he have grounds to do
that?”
“No, but he probably thinks
he could just because I’m a dancer at the Fruits
of Passion. That’s a gentleman’s club in the French
Quarter. It’s a classy place. There’s no shame
in working there.”
Rachel studied Tess’s expressions
as she talked. She was usually good at reading
the faces of clients. Sometimes it was the eyes,
sometimes a nervous twitch, or a catch in the
voice when they veered from the truth. But Tess
was hard to read. Maybe it was the bruises and
the fact that her cheek and eye were swollen.
Still, Rachel was pretty sure
Tess was leaving out a few pertinent facts. “Out
of the blue, after almost five years of seemingly
not knowing you existed, Logan McCain appeared
and asked for custody of his sons. Was this at
your house, on the street, at work?"
"Not his sons.
My sons."
"Did Logan come to your
house?"
"First he sent his personal
lawyer. Mr. August Fonteneaux. What a creep that
guy is. I know that date as well. I can look it
up if you need it."
“No need.” August Fonteneaux.
Rachel had heard of him. He had a reputation for
being savvy and persuasive and was known for his
piranha- like attacks on the opposition.
"Logan didn't show up
until I told Fonteneaux what he could do with
his orders," Tess continued. "Then Mr.
Mighty showed up in person and mad as hell."
Rachel leaned over and ran
a finger lightly over Tess’s bruised cheek. "Did
Logan do this?"
Tess stared into space without
answering.
"You have to be honest
with me, Tess, if you expect me to help you. Did
Logan do this?" she repeated, her voice sharper
than she'd intended.
Again, Tess looked away, this
time studying her hands as they slid back and
forth on the arm rests. "Don't worry about
the bruises. They're nothing. I got them while
working out at the health club. One of the machines
swung back and hit me in the face."
Rachel didn’t buy that for
a minute. "Being rich doesn’t mean Logan’s
beyond the law or that he has the right to beat
up women.” Rachel waited until Tess lifted her
eyes and met her gaze before she asked again.
"Is he the one who used you for a punching
bag?"
"I didn’t come here about
that. I came to hire you to help me keep my sons.
Are you gong to take my case or not?”
“I can’t take your case, Tess,
but I can recommend someone who knows a lot more
about this sort of thing than I do.”
“Is she an attorney?”
“No. She runs a center for
abused women, and she’s familiar with several
attorneys. I’m sure she can hook you up with one
who’ll handle your case reasonably and competently.”
Rachel rounded her desk and retrieved one of her
friend Karen’s cards from the top drawer.
She handed the card to Tess.
“I want you to call this woman, and I’m sure she’ll
be able to help you.”
Tess took one look at the card
for the Abused Women’s Center, then stood and
set her coffee cup on the back of the desk so
soundly that the dark liquid spilled over the
top and pooled onto the polished wood.
“Keep your phone number. My
friend was wrong. I don’t need your help. I can
take care of this myself.”
"No, wait, Tess. You
can't fight this by . . ."
Her pleas were interrupted
by the ringing of her phone. Rachel started
to ignore it but thought better of it. Obviously
the call hadn’t gone through the receptionist,
so whoever was calling had her extension. “ Excuse
me a minute, Tess.” She picked up the receiver.
“Hello.”
"Just checking to see
if you need me to get rid of your visitor,” Ted
offered. “It’s under control.”
“Okay, just remember that I
offered when Mark Effring is wiping up the floor
with you.”
“I’ll remember.” By the time
Rachel hung up the phone, Tess was already out
the door.
Exasperated and annoyed, Rachel
went back to the file. She tried to regain her
focus, but even with the prospect of facing Mark
Effring staring her in the face, she couldn’t
totally put Tess Shepherd out of her mind.
She scribbled Logan McCains’s
name on a sheet of paper and tossed it in her
to-do basket. She had no idea why except that
she was almost certain that Tess’s visit was going
to come back to haunt her.
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