CHAPTER 18.

Name no one man. Will gazed at his computer, unable to get that damn phrase out of his head.

Will was fried. He'd spent all day at his desk, including more than an hour on the phone with an attorney. The guy was a childhood buddy, and he'd given Will a crash course in litigation as Will had taken pages of notes. He thumbed through the notes now, unable to shake the feeling that somewhere in all this legal mumbo jumbo was the key to Alvin's murder.

The LivTech case had been a product-liability suit, which was tried in federal court. The players included the family of a dead stockbroker, one judge, fourteen jurors-twelve regulars plus two alternates-and an army of attorneys on both sides, although the actual courtroom participation had been limited to a select few.

The victim's family took home more than thirty million dollars when the case settled prior to appeal. Wilkers & Riley's cut of the settlement had been twenty mil, with five going to each of the two litigators. Will stared at his notepad and the numbers started swirling together. His paltry salary paled in comparison, and he knew Courtney had been right when she'd said she probably made more money than he did.

Courtney invaded his brain again, and Will glanced at his phone. She'd been gone a week now, and each one of the days had been a month.

"You still here?"

Will glanced up to see Devereaux standing beside his cubicle. "Still here."

"How was Dallas?"

"Dead end."

After receiving a call to come get his Suburban from an impound lot near the bus station in Austin, Will had tracked down a Greyhound worker who remembered selling Courtney a ticket to Dallas last week. So Will had driven his ass to the Dallas bus station, but the trip had been a waste of time.

"You check the security tapes up there?" Devereaux asked.

"Yeah."

"Hmm. I bet she's got some tricks up her sleeve. Woman's a beautician. She can probably change her looks at the drop of a hat."

"No kidding."

"I talked to Fiona again," Devereaux said, ignoring the sarcasm. "Still nothing."

Will squeezed his pencil. Fiona was the most promising link, and it amazed him that Courtney hadn't reached out to her. In fact, he wasn't sure he believed it. But Fiona kept telling Devereaux she hadn't heard a thing, and Devereaux seemed to be buying it.

"You know, you look like shit," his partner said. "How 'bout we get some dinner over at the Smokin' Pig?"

Will's gaze dropped to his notes. "I keep coming back to the trial. Two litigators, a man and a woman. Lindsey Kahn. You remember her from the funeral?"

Devereaux sighed, obviously realizing Will wasn't going to be lured away from his desk even though it was nearly ten. He dragged a chair over from a neighboring cube and plopped into it.

"Yeah, I remember her. Blonde. Hot. So what?"

"So she's the youngest partner at the firm. The least experienced litigator they have, yet they hand her their most important case. Her and Alvin."

Devereaux crossed his arms. "So juries like attractive lawyers. What's the mystery there? Lots of businesses put their best faces out front."

Will tapped his pencil. "But what if it was carefully calculated? A man and a woman. The jury foreman isn't chosen until the end of the trial, during deliberations. So what if Wilkers and Riley hedged its bets?"

"You mean put something out there for everyone?"

"Right." Will leaned forward. "The jurors heard hours and hours of boring testimony from doctors and scientists and drug experts. It would have been miserable. They would have welcomed a distraction. Shit, Pembry was so bored, he was doodling pictures and dreaming up word puzzles."

"Okay, they were bored. So what?"

"So then the deliberations lasted eight days," Will continued, "interrupted by a weekend. What if the lawyers found out who the foreman, or woman, was going to be, and then moved in as soon as it was decided and tried to influence the outcome of the case?"

Devereaux frowned. "But why just the forewoman? They needed ten people on their side to win."

"Yeah, but the foreman is key. It's usually someone persuasive. Someone influential with the other jurors. Eve Caldwell was in sales, so she fits. Now, this group was made up of mostly men, so you'd think they'd end up with a male foreman. So they dangle Kahn out there. But then Caldwell gets picked, and Alvin moves in on her."

"That's a serious offense," Devereaux pointed out. "It's not just disbarment. Both those lawyers could go to jail for jury tampering in a federal case."

Will shrugged. "Sixty mil is serious money."

"Also, it's a risky plan. What if the jury foreman or forewoman or whatever wasn't the type to fall for it? What if it was some dried-up old librarian still in love with her husband?"

"I thought about that," Will said. "But maybe they weren't just manipulating Eve Caldwell. Maybe Kahn was busy, too, meeting up with some of the male jurors after hours. It was a nine-week trial. Maybe they didn't wait until the deliberations to begin targeting people, seeing what kind of favor they could rustle up."

"And what do the crooked jurors get out of it?"

"Sex. Flattery. A break from the monotony."

Devereaux leaned back in his chair and seemed to think about it. "You've been to that law firm a dozen times. We've been all over their finances, their backgrounds. Nothing looks amiss."

"Maybe we're the only ones really looking," Will said bitterly. It still burned him up that Cernak had gotten an arrest warrant for Courtney. He and Webb had already made up their minds; they weren't interested in any other theories. "Why go after the lawyers when they've got the jealous mistress angle tied up with a bow?"

"What about the plaintiff? Out of everyone, that broker's husband benefited the most from this thing."

"Guy looks clean as a whistle. Fact, he gave half the money to some charity foundation already." Will sighed and rubbed his eyes. "But, shit, I don't know. Maybe that's just another smoke screen."

"You sound pretty cynical."

"I am. You know, you expect the plaintiffs' attorneys to be all about standing up for the little guy. But they're just as greedy as the corporations. It's bullshit. It's all about money. All these deaths over some pile of money."

Devereaux stood up, grabbed Will's cell phone off the desk, and held it out him. "Come on. You've been here long enough. Let's get some dinner."

Will checked the message icon on his computer before packing it up for the night.

Devereaux led the way through the dimly lit maze of cubes. "We'll find her," he insisted.

Will felt the weight of his phone in his pocket and said nothing.

He bolted upright and checked the clock. Four fifty-eight. He grabbed the phone off his nightstand.

"Hodges."

"I just got a call from a homicide cop I know down in Corpus."

Will's brain snapped to attention. They'd found her.

"They found him," Devereaux said.

"Who?"

"Martin Pembry."

Two minutes later, Will stood in front of his bathroom mirror and gulped down a handful of aspirin. Going to the Smokin' Pig with Devereaux had been a mistake. Will felt hung over and he looked like it, too-a long way from the prime condition he'd been in when he reported for duty in Austin less than two months ago. He threw on some shorts and sneakers.

The pounding in his head echoed his soles on the pavement as he wended his way toward the Y. It was five miles north, which would take forty minutes, given his sluggish pace. Their gym opened at 6:00, and Will would punish himself with an hour of weights before heading into work.

The case had taken a turn.

Corpus Christi investigators said it was a homicide. Scavengers had made a mess of the corpse, but a credit card found on the body belonged to Martin D. Pembry. Before being dumped in Laguna Madre, the man had been garroted with a length of barbed wire.

Will's headache raged as he made his way up Congress Avenue toward the spotlighted capitol dome. The humidity was like a blanket already, and he knew it was going to be a bitch of a day.

Pembry was dead. Executed, mostly likely by the same goons out looking for Courtney. The only bright component of this bleak news was that his murder went a long way toward clearing Courtney's name. The jeal ous mistress theory was strained way past the point of credulity now, and the case would have to be reexamined as part of a bigger crime spree, a crime spree being orchestrated by someone with money and power and determination.

Will pounded out the miles, grimly satisfied to be making headway on at least part of his mission-exonerating Courtney. The other part-actually finding her before someone else did-was no further along.

His heart pumped in his chest, and he thought of her body underneath him in bed. He wanted her back. He wanted her safe. He wanted her every way imaginable, and with a ferocity that scared him. He'd never felt this way about anyone, and he couldn't believe he was feeling this way now about a woman with purple hair and a rap sheet. About a woman he was investigating.

He still couldn't believe she'd run away. And he'd been so blinded by lust, he hadn't seen it coming.

She'd covered her trail well, too, and every tracking technique Will could think of had failed to produce a solid lead. It was beyond frustrating, except for the fact that if Will was having this much trouble finding her, somebody else must be, too. He was beginning to think Fiona's passport theory had merit.

Sweat streamed down his face and arms. Mile three, and he still felt like shit. This was pathetic. He was a soldier, for Christ's sake. He was better than this.

He was a soldier.

And even though he really wasn't anymore, the mind-set had been hammered into him through years of training. He wouldn't turn loose of it. He couldn't. He never wanted to be one of those burned-out old cops who let his body go to hell and his life slide into a bottle.

He had a mission: find and retrieve. And he would approach it the way he approached every mission-with the knowledge that failure was not an option.

CHAPTER 19.

Lindsey Kahn exited her office building and walked north on Rio Grande. Nathan predicted she was destined for the sandwich shop two blocks away and smiled slightly to himself when she veered into the cafe and lined up with dozens of other yuppies seeking midday eats.

He hung back and perused a menu as she ordered. She paid with plastic, collected a number from the cashier, and filled a cup with Diet Coke, no ice. She tucked herself into a booth, pulled a phone from her purse, and started checking messages.

Nathan made his move.

"Hey, there."

She looked up, startled, as he slid into the seat across from her. Her gaze darted around anxiously.

"Nathan Devereaux." He pushed a business card across the table to her, but she didn't look at it.

"I know who you are."

"We need to talk."

He studied her up close for the first time. She had a certain toughness about her, despite the blond hair and the cream suit. Her purse and shoes were cream, too. Very feminine, but the outfit didn't hide the edge.

She sighed. Then she zipped the phone back into her purse and folded her hands in front of her. She gave him a look that said, "Bring it," but her tightly clasped hands said something else.

"You've been avoiding me."

"I have?"

"You have."

Another sigh. "What can I do for you, Detective?"

"I want to talk about the LivTech case."

A server appeared with a bowl of minestrone and a breadstick that smelled like garlic.

"Thank you," she said to the server. Then to Nathan, "The transcript's a public record. You can read about it."

"True enough. Thing is, I'm more interested in what's happened since the trial."

She scooped up a spoonful, and he admired her for ordering red soup while wearing an outfit like that. "Which means?"

He leaned back in the booth. "A dead attorney. Two dead jurors. Kind of weird, don't you think?"

She dabbed her mouth with a napkin and some of that pink lipstick rubbed off. "I wasn't aware there were two dead jurors."

"Martin Pembry washed up on the shores of Laguna Madre yesterday morning." He shrugged. "I'd think you'd be getting a little jumpy."

"Jumpy?"

"'Bout your safety."

She reached for her drink. Her gaze was nonchalant, but she gripped the cup too hard.