“The State had requested two prior postponements,” he said. “I vehemently argued at the last one that my client’s right to a speedy trial was being jeopardized at the State’s whimsy. There were going to be no more postponements. Besides, I needed Alayna to back all this up. Either her or Mayor Radcliffe and I knew he wasn’t about to confess. But, Alayna was gone. Which meant I didn’t have anything either way. I tried the case I hadgoing on my client’s account of where he’d been and what he’d been doing that night.”
“And there was a mistrial.”
Ben sighed realizing this wasn’t what she really wanted to hear, but knowing that she needed to hear it. “Think about it, Victoria. The State has no real case against Vega. No weapon and no eyewitness.”
“Alayna signed a statement,” she argued.
“But she’s not here to be cross-examined, or to even verify that she signed that statement. Her statement means nothing. Nobody can place Vega near the crime scene nor can anybody prove that Vega and McGlinn had ever even met. I know you know all this.”
The sound of her releasing a shaky breath said she did indeed.
“So what now? I try a losing case and Vega continues to haunt you because he somehow knows what you know?”
She was very smart, there was no doubt about that. “Yeah. I think Vega knows. I tried calling the informant from the mayor’s office on his cell but I didn’t get an answer. The name he gave me when I asked was a fake. Nobody by that name has ever worked at the mayor’s office. Trent’s tracing the number but I’m not real hopeful. It would’ve been common sense to use a disposable phone. But I should’ve at least gotten his real name.”
“You can’t get information that he wasn’t willing to give,” she said. “And thinking of what you should have done isn’t going to help us now.”
She was right and he’d already been down that road with himself. Especially on the night he found out Ebony was dead. But the one thing that was always true about the past was that it couldn’t be erased, no matter how badly he wanted it to be.
“Probably not,” he admitted. “But I went to see the mayor earlier today.”
“You did what?” she asked bolting up from the bed.
“I have to make this right. I still believe everyone deserves a fair trial and I believe I’m a damn good defense attorney and that’s why I declined to represent Vega again. But he’s bringing all this right back to my door. If he had simply walked away and let his new counsel handle his case, I would’ve been okay with that. The information I had was hearsay, it couldn’t be corroborated. But he couldn’t walk away. He had to show me who he really was. He killed Ebony.”
Victoria
In that moment Victoria saw something she never in a million years would’ve guessed she’d see on Ben’s face. Guilt. It weighed on him like a hundred tons of steel, in his eyes, his shoulders, even in the way he breathed as he’d said those words. This was personal for him now, very personal.
“And if that wasn’t bad enough, he started coming after you,” he continued. I can’t let him get away with that. So I have two choices, get him legally or illegally.”
“Ben,” she said placing a hand on his chest. “Think about this rationally.”
He nodded. “I have, Victoria. Believe me, I don’t want to lose all that I’ve worked for and I definitely don’t want to disgrace my family in any way. But I’m not the type of guy to sit back and quietly take a beating. I fight back. And I fight to win.”
He was about to say something else when his cell phone rang. She watched him reach across the bed to retrieve the pants he’d dropped to the floor soon after they’d made it to the bedroom. Once he had it in his hand he was taking the call.
She thought about everything he’d said and couldn’t believe it. This was like something off a television show. It couldn’t bereal. The mayor and the congressman sharing a woman, a baby with a father who most likely would never publicly claim it and the senseless and infuriating fact that murder seemed to be the easiest answer to all of these supposed intelligent adults. It was heartbreaking and infuriating all at the same time.
“We gotta go!” Ben’s words jolted her out of her thoughts.
“What? Who was that on the phone?”
“It was Devlin. He followed us from your place. When he figured out who was tailing us he distracted them, then circled back to come up here to keep an eye on us. One of his men just spotted Vega’s infamous Lexus heading this way.”
“How does he know that and where are we going? There’s nowhere to go out here.” A fact that wasn’t reassuring right about now.
“Which makes us sitting ducks in here. Besides, there are some back roads,” he told her as he was already off the bed and tossing her clothes to her. “And we’ll have a head start. Dev and his guys will stay between us and them.”
She talked as she dressed. “So we’re running from Vega?”
Ben shook his head. “I doubt he’d chase us himself. He’s had guys following both of us. My guess is that my little meeting with the mayor ended with him calling Vega to finish the job, so he’ll send his flunkies to collect us and bring us to him.”
Her mouth went immediately dry, her heart pounded so fast it was almost painful. “So now he’s past intimidating us. He’s going to just kill us?”
“He’s going to try,” were Ben’s words before he pulled open a drawer and lifted a gun into his hands. “I’m betting he won’t succeed.”
This motorcycle ride was different from the first. There was no romance here, no closing her eyes to inhale the scent of the wind. Ben had hurriedly placed the helmet on her head before donning his own and climbing onto the bike. They took off without Victoria seeing anyone, anywhere. If there was a threat she hoped they made it out before it arrived.
