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Winthrop nodded. “In my office.”
“The office where you slept last night,” Finley confirmed, her instincts rousing to a higher level.
Another nod.
Jack said, “Did anyone besides you have access to your office? A housekeeper? Assistant?”
She’d already said only she had access, but Jack was giving her an out here. A place to show doubt ... to produce other potential suspects.
“No.”
And there it was. The reason Jack was here rather than one of the likely numerous lawyers already on Winthrop’s payroll.
The police had 7.8 million motives and no other suspect besides the victim’s spouse. Worse, they had the murder weapon to which only the spouse had access.
Not good. Not good at all.
“Ellen,” Finley said, her gaze fixed firmly on their client, “do you know of anyone who may have had a reason to want your husband dead?”
Winthrop considered the question for a moment before shaking her head. “No one.” She exhaled a weary breath, and then she laughed a sort of defeated sound. “I suppose from the perspective of the police that only leaves me.”
Oh yeah. This client was on a fast track to being charged with murder, and she knew it.
3
9:55 p.m.
The Hidey Hole Tavern
Downtown Nashville
Finley nursed a beer. Had been for the better part of an hour. Their new client hadn’t been arrested, which meant Detective Ventura had opted for the smartest, cleanest route for the case: he wouldn’t make an arrest until the evidence was irrefutable. A good move, in Finley’s opinion.
Now she was back to her usual off duty pastime: monitoring the leisure activities of one of the men responsible for tearing apart her life.
So far, he appeared to have no idea he was being watched.
For a man in his line of work, that was saying something—mostly abouther. She had gotten damned good at this surveillance thing.
It was of course entirely possible that tonight had something to do with how much alcohol her target had consumed. Certainly, he was off his game. He had picked up a lady friend Finley had seen him with before. Generally, he showed up at her low-rent-apartment door and stayed for the night. This was the first time he had brought her along for an evening out—at least on Finley’s watch. Maybe the guy had something to celebrate. Another job well done for his employer. Maybethe assassination of some poor schmuck who’d said or done the wrong thing. Life meant nothing to this bastard.
Tark Brant.That was his name. He was an off-the-record employee for Carson Dempsey, the creator of Dempsey Pharma ... the kind of man who didn’t get his hands dirty. His wealth and power rose like smoke and ash from the pharmaceutical empire he had single-handedly—or at least this was his claim—built. The creation of a new, powerful nonaddictive painkiller had been the true source of his incredible success. The rumors of bizarre side effects and his ruthless, possibly lethal tactics with the competition occasionally sprouted among the expansion cracks of phenomenal growth and threatened to damage his illustrious kingdom. But there was never any proof. Dempsey’s answer was always the same: Only those who did nothing were ignored. Those who did the work to make things happen were scrutinized. He would bear the scrutiny because his work was for the greater good.
His arrogance and self-righteousness made Finley sick.
Although she couldn’t prove it, Dempsey had given the order for her husband’s execution.
Fury blasted through her. She wanted to nail him more than she wanted her next breath. After more than a year, one would think she would be closer to achieving that goal, but there had been complications. Like her own physical and emotional recovery. Add that to the fact that Dempsey’s financial support of this city and certain leaders made him a hero. Made him untouchable. So here she was a year later, barely past square one.
Bastard. Finley’s grip tightened on her beer bottle.
Brant threw back his head and laughed at something his lady friend said. A flash of memory—that broad mouth clamping over Finley’s, stifling a scream—seared through her. She flinched, blinked away the rip of horror fromthatnight.
She rarely allowed those unbearable moments to touch her so deeply and sharply. For the most part, after all this time, she had reached aplace where she could analyze the event with an emotional distance that allowed a clearer look at the players and each moment as it evolved into the next. It was amazing the things she had missed the first thousand or so times she had replayed those seemingly endless minutes.
Her throat thickened as the fractured pieces darted through her mind like images in a rapid-fire video game. The bastard she watched tonight wasn’t the one who had killed her husband. No, this piece of shit had been busy raping her as one of his pals beat her husband to death with careful oversight from the third man in the group. The three had broken into Finley and Derrick’s home with one purpose: to murder Derrick and torture Finley within an inch of her life.
In the beginning she had believed her survival was a mistake. A miscalculation or oversight of some detail by one or all three. After all, these were hired killers with measurable levels of experience. But she eventually came to understand that her death likely hadn’t been part ofthatnight’s plan. Therefore, she had lived. Barely. And not because she’d wanted to do so at the time or for many months afterthatnight. There were times even now when she briefly pondered the point of going on with this hollow existence.
