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I stormed into the kitchen, only just realizing his card was still in my fingers. As quickly as I could, I tossed it into the garbage and sat back down at the table. My cereal turned out to be just as soggy as I thought it would be, but I ate it anyway, blaming Cormac Murphy with every bite.
I hoped that I never saw him again.
CHAPTER5
Cormac
I don’t know what I’d expected from that whole interaction, but I especially hadn’t foreseen Caitlin slamming the door in my face. The last time I’d seen her in person was when she was still a toddler, stumbling over her first words as she crawled all over Nora’s living room. Her innocence was still there deep inside her, but it was covered up by sorrow, loneliness, and grief.
She built up strong walls over the years to keep people out and I didn’t blame her. She’d probably been too young to remember me back then and to be honest, I understood the reservations she had over moving across the country to live with a perfect stranger that offered her a charitable chance to turn her life around.
I didn’t like it, but I did understand her point of view.
That didn’t mean she was going to have a choice about accepting my help though. Her straits were dire. Her arraignment hearing was only a week away and from my tentative phone calls to a few members of the police force, I knew the case against her was iron clad.
I had my work cut out for me.
I strode back to the car and settled in the backseat. The divider between me and my driver Bobby was down. He looked at me from over his shoulder and cleared his throat.
“Where to, boss?”
“Take me back to the hotel. We’re going to be here a few days longer than expected and I need to put in a few calls,” I directed.
“You got it,” he replied.
Bobby and I went way back. He’d been my personal driver for years and he knew my wants and needs sometimes better than I did. He was sensational at finding ways around traffic no matter what city we were in, and Seattle was no different. He more than earned his commission, and I typically sweetened the pot with bonuses several times a year as a reward. His loyalty was mine.
“I’ve never seen a girl slam the door in your face so fast, boss,” he teased.
I chuckled and shook my head.
“Maybe I need to work on my intro,” I replied.
“Flowers work well, or so I’ve been told,” Bobby offered.
“Perhaps I’ll even throw in some chocolates next time,” I laughed.
“Whatever works. No promises though. Women are complicated,” he suggested, and I grinned in agreement.
“That they are,” I replied.
I pulled out my phone and scrolled to my connection within the courthouse. I needed to get every piece of information that the police had collected on her case, the names of her friends, the gang members, the officers that had been there at the time of her arrest, the works. I had a week to call in every favor in the book just to make certain that Caitlin would be by my side when I returned to Boston. I was going to look after her one way or another.
She wasn’t going to have a choice about that.
CHAPTER6
One week later
Caitlin
I hadn’t heard a single word from Stacy or Tina since the day my dad died and we were arrested. Tina was rich enough that I was certain her parents probably got her out on bail, but of the three of us, she was the only one that had gone inside the jewelry store. I wasn’t sure what kind of role she’d played in the robbery itself, but she was probably in much deeper shit than Stacy or I were. Stacy was the most likely to get off on minor charges, since I’d been the one driving the getaway car. I’d tried calling both of their cells, but they went straight to voicemail.
In a bit of good news, my lawyer called midweek to tell me that the clerk had survived, which meant that a manslaughter charge was off the table and replaced by aggravated assault. Rico had been rushed to the hospital that night too, but it had been too late for him.
Mr. Abernathy had told me that my chances of getting off without any jail time were slim. He’d assured me that Trey was going to get the brunt of the blame since Rico was dead, and that Tina would get some of it too. The state wanted to make an example out of all of us, but he was hopeful that they wouldn’t come down as hard on me and Stacy since neither of us had gone into the store. Trey was off on his own in the male section of the prison system. Truthfully, I didn’t much care what happened to him.
Being ghosted by Tina and Stacy hurt more than I thought it would, though. The only way I found out what happened to them had been by watching the news. Their cases had been scheduled before mine. Stacy’s parents had paid an expensive hot-shot lawyer to get her off on light charges with community service. Tina was in too deep to avoid jail time, but the particulars of her case had been settled behind closed doors, so I wasn’t certain where she’d ended up.
