"Your Honor, Mr. Cavanaugh may need some a.s.sistance." She remembered to stand when she addressed the court, but she did not even try to make her tone ingratiating.

Cavanaugh was still in his seat, shoulders jerking. The guy was trying not to cry, though whether he was moved by relief, humiliation, or sorrow, she could not tell.

"Bailiff," the judge barked, "get Mr. Cavanaugh a cab. His counsel will no doubt provide the fare if necessary."

Cavanaugh stood and leveled a look at Hannah.

"I don't know where you come from, but that other fella said I might have to pay the increase, plus a few months back, and there was nothing I could do about it. I got the cab fare, thank you just the same."

Hannah watched him shuffle out, Deputy Moreland at his side, while Margaret called the next case.

Fortunato. Hannah grabbed for the file. Dad was alleging Mom made a lot more money than she admitted, and the children were with Dad most of the time. A deadbeat mom.

Hannah nodded to Margaret, who looked faintly amused.

"Madam State, a recitation of the facts, please." The judge's expression was bored, and Hannah saw his gaze go to the clock hanging on the side wall. Before Margaret could launch into her patter, the rear door to the courtroom swung open with a bang.

"Your Honor, my apologies." Gerald Matthews bustled up the aisle, a placatory smile directed at the judge. "I was detained by the matter of, shall we say, adequate public facilities?"

"We're on the Fortunato case, Mr. Matthews."

Just that, no scolding? Not a word of castigation for being AWOL? Hannah pa.s.sed Gerald the file and took a seat at the counsel table rather than give him the satisfaction of entirely yielding her post.

Gerald opened the file and ran a finger down the top page.

"I'll deal with you later, b.i.t.c.h." He didn't even look at Hannah as he fired that poison dart, his tone vicious. Had Gerald forgotten that every word spoken in the courtroom was recorded when the judge was on the bench?

"You're welcome," Hannah murmured.

Margaret recited her facts, and the next few cases went quickly, because the payors were agreeing to the increases called for by the child support guidelines. At 11:45 a.m., Margaret closed her last file.

"This concludes the morning docket, Your Honor," she said. "Permission to step back?"

"Thank you, Madam State, counsel. Court is adjourned until one thirty this afternoon."

"All rise!" the bailiff called. "Circuit Court for Damson County is now adjourned."

The judge had no sooner disappeared behind his Mr. Wizard curtain than Gerald was looming over Hannah, or doing his best to loom. Hannah had worn heels in honor of her first visit to the courthouse.

"I don't know what the h.e.l.l you were trying to pull, Hannah Stark, but making me look like an a.s.s before the judge in whose courtroom I work was the dumbest move of your short and doomed legal career. You messed with the wrong guy, this time. Find your own way back to the office."

He stuffed files into his briefcase, while Hannah caught Margaret frowning at them from the other counsel table. She'd heard every word, and that was something at least.

"Juliet? Juliet Randall?"

An elderly man in a gray suit stood in the door. He sported a courthouse employee's badge, and a smile wreathed his American Gothic face. "I knew that was you, I just knew it!"

"Joe?" Hannah moved away from the table rather than be anywhere near Gerald. "Mr. Jones?"

"Of course it's old Joe." The guy held his arms wide, and Hannah permitted him an old man's hug-careful and enthusiastic at the same time. "My goodness, you have grown up, lady. Just look at you."

Joe, who'd heard every word of every one of her foster care hearings.

Joe, who'd brought flowers to her college graduation.

Joe, whose name had mysteriously appeared next to hers on the very first lease she'd ever signed.

"It's good to see you, Joe." Good to recall not everybody at the courthouse was a grouch or a cynic. "Have you transferred from Douglas County?" And wouldn't that just be awkward as heck?

"Nah. I just get called in when somebody's on leave or gone hunting. I might work a couple days a month, mostly over in Douglas County. Don't tell me you're a lawyer now?"

She'd sent him Christmas cards signed Juliet Randall and without a return address. Most years, his was the only one she sent. She told herself she cut ties to keep Grace safe, but that wasn't the entire reason.

She'd had precious few ties to cut.

They small talked for a few minutes, until another bailiff came along and claimed Joe for lunch. Margaret stood a few feet away, files piled up in her arms, and Gerald was nowhere to be seen.

"You need a ride back to the office?" Margaret asked.

"I guess so. Thanks." Hannah would walk back to the office before she'd wander around the courthouse, looking for a Knightley brother.

Margaret dumped her files into a double-sized briefcase on rollers. "Does your first day in court leave you awed by the great Gerald Matthews, G.o.d's Gift to Litigation?"

"Impressed, not in a good way." Horrified was a sort of impressed. Hannah sank onto the front pew, her stomach in knots, her headache prowling around the base of her skull, and weariness dragging at her soul.

While Margaret took a call on a cell phone, Hannah surveyed the scene of the morning's various disasters. Late morning sun poured through the courtroom's cathedral windows and slanted onto the wooden pews, while velvet curtains added both elegance and color to an otherwise austere stage. Now that the room was empty, it exuded a sort of worn peacefulness.

"Don't turn your back on Gerald," Margaret said as she tucked her phone away. "I want to tell you he's just another arrogant son of a b.i.t.c.h with a little pee-pee, but Gerald plays with some bad actors."

Was this the lawyer version of girl talk? "What do you mean?"

"I saw Gerald leaving the courthouse with that Smithson woman. She has connections with a number of convicted felons, and solicitation ain't the half of it."

Soliciting, as in a prost.i.tute drumming up business.

Hannah rose, abruptly glad to be leaving. "Gack. Hasn't he heard of AIDS?" Or the attorney grievance commission?

"Don't spare him the concern. The practice of law would be a better place without him. You want to do fast food?"

"No, thank you. My appet.i.te took a hit this morning. I could do with a soft drink though, so maybe just a drive-through."

Margaret clicked the latches closed on her black briefcase, smiling that same cynical smile Hannah had seen on her earlier. "Sugar and caffeine for lunch. How quickly the practice of law corrupts us."

Chapter 6.

"We'll make this quick, because we hate to see a grown man cry unless we're the ones who rearranged his nose."

James closed Trent's door behind him as he delivered that opening line. Mac merely folded his arms and stood silently by the window.

"You've been missing me," Trent suggested. "Missing those fraternal lunches Mac tried to impose on us when he was first in practice."

"I do not miss watching grown men pitch linen napkins at each other across the table," Mac said. "This is serious, Trent."

When Mac said something was serious, particularly with that ominous, gentle note in his voice...

Trent rose from his desk and came around to sit on the front of it. "I'm listening."

"You won't like it," James said, "but we decided we had to tell you."

"So quit toying with your prey. Spill."

Mac spoke from his place by the window, his gaze on the parking lot, a manila folder in his right hand. "You recall Harold Niederland had a heart attack earlier this fall?"

"Yes, I do." Harold's heart attack had substantially increased the county bar a.s.sociation's representation at the local Y. Harold was a laid-back guy, not an ounce of fat on him, and not quite forty-five years under his belt.

"You probably don't recall that the Douglas County courthouse, in a display of well-meant humanitarian accommodation, continued every single one of his cases to the same day."

"I do remember hearing about that," Trent said. "That was likely a day long enough to put the man back in the hospital."

"Not quite," James said, taking over the narrative. "The rest of the criminal defense bar pitched in, and they each took on a case or two for Hal and waived the fee. Mac took a couple of cases."

"Decent of you."

"A lapse," Mac said. "Don't go having any heart attacks, because family law isn't my area of expertise."

"Point noted."

"Nor mine," James said. "Hal stopped Mac last night at the feed store and asked him since when did Hartman poach on the criminal dockets in Wicks County?"

"I wasn't aware we practiced criminal law in Wicks County, though I've heard rumors regarding a certain Hartman and Whitney partner's social habits with the employees in the clerk's office-note the plural."

"This isn't a rumor, Trent." Mac's tone was almost sad, and the uh-oh feeling started up in Trent's belly.

Mac didn't do overt displays of emotion any more than he did family law.

"It's Gerald Matthews," James said. "Mac and I spent this morning over in the Wicks County courthouse, nosing around the files, and Gerald has been regularly appearing on their Tuesday morning traffic docket. He dated some gal in the state's attorney's office there who pa.s.sed him a few quiet referrals for DUIs, and we're sure if you look at his time sheets, he's been ill, out seeing clients, down at the courthouse doing research, and otherwise lying to and cheating on his employers about his whereabouts."

"Well, h.e.l.l." Trent pinched the bridge of his nose and mentally added a quarter to the Bad Words Pay Back jar sitting on top of the fridge at home. "You're sure?"

Mac pa.s.sed Trent a manila folder. Certified copies of Gerald's entries of appearance as counsel for the defendant in a dozen different cases were neatly arranged by date in the file. Driving Under the Influence, Driving While Intoxicated, Driving on Suspended Tags, Driving Without a License... Gerald had a regular full-service traffic practice going two counties over.

"This has been happening almost since he started with us," Trent said. "For c.r.a.p's sake, we pay him enough. Why moonlight when you know it will cost you your job?"

"He's a litigating attorney," Mac said, twisting off a wilted rhododendron leaf and pitching it into the wastebasket. "The only people with more testosterone than litigating attorneys are convicted murderers, and neither group is known for its humility."

"He's a greedy little t.u.r.d," James paraphrased. "He likely has expensive taste in recreation."

"What does that mean?" Though Trent knew-drugs, gambling, expensive toys. All manner of vices beckoned when the job was stressful, the ego inflated, and the coping skills few.

"It means I don't want him in my department," James said. "Mac?"

"Not if he were the last law school graduate admitted to the Maryland bar and voluntarily surrendered both b.a.l.l.s."

"That's clear enough," Trent said as more quarters silently flung themselves at that jar on the fridge. s.h.i.t, d.a.m.n, h.e.l.l, and s.h.i.t. He'd chosen Gerald from the pool of applicants, thinking a hard-nosed slant on the occasional case would give the department balance.

"You have another problem," Mac said, gaze on the snow-dusted parking lot.

"Besides a breach of ethics on my staff?"

"Your breach of ethics is coming back from the happy pappy docket now, but I don't see your newest a.s.sociate with him. Better hope he didn't run her off in her very first week, because I will not under any circ.u.mstances take on a family law case to bail your a.s.s out."

"I can't take on any," James said. "I have federal depositions coming up in December, and my Christmas shopping isn't done yet."

It was an attempt at humor. A lame attempt.

"I'll handle this," Trent said. But if Gerald had sent Hannah packing on her first day at the courthouse, the guy had a lot more trouble to deal with than the mere loss of his job.

"It's good to be the king."

Gerald addressed the interior of his Beemer, where he did, indeed, feel like the king. The lease payments were killing him, but oh, the pleasure... He'd spent a few minutes of his lunch break in the backseat with the estimable Joan Smithson, and between her enthusiastic attentions and the goodies she'd brought to the party, Gerald's mood was confident and expansive.

Maybe he wouldn't snitch to Trent Knightley about Hannah's head-b.i.t.c.h-in-charge behavior in court. What could the girl have been thinking, to just stand up and start handling cases when she hadn't the first hour of courtroom experience? Of course, Gerald had told Judge Linker she was pawing and snorting to take on cases, and the results had been lovely. Throw a bored judge a chew toy, and he'll entertain himself every time.

Then that bit with the zillion-year-old bailiff calling her Juliet Randall...

Gerald switched off the ignition, adjusted his d.i.c.k in his boxers, and made a mental note to see if Gail's HR files held any clues to the Hannah-Juliet Stark-Randall mystery.

He'd parked in an empty slot at least two s.p.a.ces away from other vehicles, positioned so that any partners staring out of their office windows could see him hustling into the building. The receptionist-upon whom Gerald had long since ceased hitting-told him Trent wanted to see him ASAP.

Trent's summons likely involved nothing more pressing than a rehash of the morning docket, so Gerald ducked into the bathroom to blow his nose and address the damage Joan's busy fingers had done to a ninety-five-dollar haircut.

To snitch on Hannah, or not snitch on Hannah?

He hung up his coat, stowed his briefcase, and ambled down the hall, both hands in his pockets. A partner-schmoozing smile affixed to his features, he tapped on the door and let himself into the office.

"You wanted to see me, Trent?"

Knightley was probably about to offer him one of the contested divorces, like it was some big deal to be given honest-to-G.o.d litigation. If the Knightley boys only knew.