Jo Leigh - Confessions Bundle

Those were pretty much the same words Blake’s father had said to him the first time he’d called home—a year to the date from when he’d left—to tell his father he wasn’t through with traveling. The old man had taught Blake well and he’d presented his case so logically that there was no room for argument. He could feel his father’s displeasure from halfway around the world, and knew that the elder Ramsden’s acquiescence had been offered in a way meant to manipulate Blake right back to the fold.

He’d taken it at face value instead, thus successfully meeting one of the challenges he knew his time away had been meant to help him to master—standing up for what was right, even in the face of conflict.

Growing up under the thumb of Walter Ramsden had taught him to avoid conflict at any cost. It had taken Blake a long time to break the hold his father had over him. And more, to see that it wasn’t himself who was so lacking.

The time away, while much longer than originally intended, had been fraught with painful introspection, introspection that had taken him many places, taught him what mattered and what did not.

“Ms. McNeil, do you have any questions?”

Schuster had finished with his second witness of the afternoon.

Juliet stood, her long body as gorgeous as he remembered, even in the sedate brownish skirt and matching jacket. Her arms were long and slender and she moved with such conviction.

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

Juliet sat, leaned over to whisper something to a suited man on her right. A member of her team?

Eaton James, the man Blake considered an accomplice with himself in his father’s death, was seated on her left.

The judge turned to the elderly man on the stand. “You may step down.” He asked Schuster to call his next witness.

Blake sat up, ready to go.

He leaned back with a deliberately deep inhalation as a name other than his was called. Lifting the sleeve of his jacket where it rested against his leg, he had to stifle the groan of frustration. It was three o’clock. If he didn’t get out of here soon, he wasn’t going to make it to the McGaffey site before work shut down for the day. The site check had been scheduled for the previous Friday.

He wondered what Juliet McNeil was thinking as she sat there watching the proceedings. What she’d whispered to her colleague. While Blake didn’t know her well, he’d bet a year’s income that her relaxed, almost bored, stance disguised a mind that was racing as fast as Schuster’s.

Amunet had had a mind that was unable to slow down. Always thinking, planning, wondering, she’d had a hard time staying in one place for long without growing bored. With a trust fund left by her long-deceased French father, and a wanderlust in her soul to match his, she’d quickly become travel companion to him, playmate, and then wife.

That tug at his stomach was back. It happened every time he thought of the irrevocable step he’d taken, so sure, in his youth and arrogance, that he was absolutely doing the right thing. He’d been honest with her; he was a man who was looking for meaning in the sometimes meaningless acts he saw, trying to understand violence, starving children, death. And love. A man looking for answers with no way to predict where they might lead…. So why did he feel guilty about being led back home?

This time when the judge asked Juliet if she had any questions, she shook her head. Then she began gathering up her papers, sliding them into a leather briefcase.

“Then this court is adjourned until tomorrow morning, 8:30 sharp.” The gavel came down hard, resounding around the courtroom, as if to emphasize the fact that Blake had just wasted an entire afternoon he couldn’t afford to waste.

As people rose around him and shuffled out, Blake felt impatient to be with them. Juliet McNeil was busy speaking with the men at her table. Blake looked for Paul Schuster.

“I’ll need you here first thing in the morning,” the man said after coming down the side of the courtroom and joining Blake.

Blake nodded.

“You’re next,” Schuster added, “so it should go fairly fast.”

With one last glance at the woman to whom he did not want to speak, Blake nodded again and, as a reporter approached Schuster, quietly left.

“WHY ARE YOU CHANGING?”

With her arm half in and half out of one of her favorite navy silk-lined suit jackets, Juliet turned to see a fully dressed Mary Jane standing in the doorway of her closet Tuesday morning. She finished removing the jacket.

“You look cute,” she told the child. Today Mary Jane had on a short denim skirt, an orange long-sleeved sweater, orange socks and tennis shoes. The kid had her own sense of style. Even in this, she stood out from the crowd.

“Thanks,” she said, coming in to hold Juliet’s jacket while she stepped out of the navy skirt. It had to go on the hanger first.

The child stood, unusually silent, watching while Juliet stepped into one of her most expensive suits—black skirt and tailored red jacket with black silk piping.

“What was wrong with the first one?”

“Nothing.”

Pulling her favorite black pumps from their slot, Juliet did a mental run-through of the questions she had for Eaton James that morning in light of the new evidence the prosecution would be introducing. And of the first witnesses she’d be calling when the prosecution finally rested.

Mary Jane was looking in her jewelry box, pulling out the eighteen-karat gold-and-diamond heart necklace, bracelet and earrings she usually wore with this suit.

“Are you going to see my father this morning?” She handed them to her mother.

“Yes.” Schuster was winding up and so far, he hadn’t given them anything she couldn’t rebut. They weren’t arguing about the facts, but about whether or not Eaton James’s intentions were fraudulent. There was no personal gain to give truth to that claim. The man might have been desperate and stupid, but he hadn’t done anything with the intent to steal from his investors.

“Is that why you’re wearing the red power suit?”

“No!”

With her head slightly lowered, Mary Jane peered up at Juliet, her full lips puckered disapprovingly.

“Okay, okay, yes, maybe that’s why. I’m really trying not to think about it.” She held out her bracelet and her wrist. “He’s just a guy.”

“Don’t tell him about me, okay?” The girl’s forehead creased as her little fingers fumbled with the clasp.

“Of course not, imp. I’d never do something like that without telling you.”

“Promise?” Wide green eyes stared up at her.

“Yes.” Unequivocally.

Pulling the little girl into her arms, Juliet knew there was at least one thing in her life she’d gotten completely right.

And that she’d give her life for it.

For her.

JULIET WAS LETTING THE prosecution lay everything out on the table, waiting for Schuster to show all his cards so that, when her turn came to explain those cards, she could do so without confusing the jury. The tactic didn’t always work, but in a case as convoluted with paper trails as this one, it was an almost sure win.

That was why she’d let every single witness pass unquestioned by the defense. Those she needed, if any, she’d call back.

It was also why Judge Lockhard didn’t have much patience with her. Judges didn’t like it when defense attorneys refused to cross-examine.

And then Schuster called his last witness that Tuesday morning in early April. As she’d been doing for a couple of weeks, she waited while Schuster questioned Blake Ramsden, revealing to the twelve-member jury that until his death, Walter Ramsden had held a seat on the board of Semaphor—along with Eaton James. Semaphor served as a clearinghouse of sorts, collecting and providing data to potential contributors all over the world. Schuster maintained that James used this connection to find his prey.