Beverly Bird - Risking It All

“Good point.”

Blessedly, there was another click and then the television went silent. Grace let out a careful breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He wouldn’t back off that easily. She knew the whole business with the skin flick had only been to get a rise out of her.

“Want a drink?” he asked. “It says here that the booze is complimentary.”

“The hell it is. I already paid for it. This room would have been three hundred dollars without it.”

“Well, we’re going highbrow tonight. So what do you think?”

“I think I just want to get your statement.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll help myself to a little of this Jameson’s. The better to dredge up nasty memories with.”

“By all means,” she said shortly. “As I said, it’s paid for.”

“That credit card receipt really knocked your socks off, didn’t it?”

“I’m wearing hose.”

“Oh, I noticed.”

Grace bit down hard on her tongue. “Exactly what did you do to warrant payback?” she tried again.

“I told you that already. At the restaurant.”

“Tell me again and give me the details.”

She heard ice tinkle into a glass. Something splashed delicately, then there was the suction-hissing sound of a bottle of cola opening. Grace couldn’t help it. She twisted around in her seat then she stared at him where he stood at the bar. “You’re mixing Jameson’s with cola?”

He cut a glance at her. “It’s Jameson’s, not vintage Bushmills.”

She didn’t know the difference. All she knew was that this room had cost her—until she put the chit in to the firm—seven hundred dollars plus change, so the liquor ought to be distilled from gold.

But she didn’t plan on admitting that she didn’t know the difference between Jameson’s and Bushmills until her next life. Grace lofted her brows. “I am impressed with a worldly man.”

“He would be your next case, honey. This man likes his Irish watered down. It lasts longer that way.”

He brought his glass back to the table and sat. He finally sat. Grace told herself that she should be grateful for that—now maybe they could get some work done. She watched him take a long swig of the whiskey and cola. He closed his eyes when he did it and he seemed to appreciate it deep in his bones.

“With the money they’re saying you took, you shouldn’t have to stretch out your whiskey,” she observed.

“The operative words there are…they’re saying.”

“Talk to me.”

“Sure. I grew up in a household where Jameson’s was considered manna from heaven. I still can’t take it for granted.”

Grace had to shake her head a little to clear her mind. She thought she’d finally gotten him on track. “Does that have anything to do with who’s…ah, framing you?”

He put the glass down on the table. “You were doing fine up until that ah.”

“What ah?” She pressed her spine to the back of the very well upholstered chair.

“As in…ah, framing you.”

“You said someone was framing you.”

“And—” He broke off to swig more whiskey. “You said ah.”

“What’s your point?”

“You don’t believe me. That ah was a classic measure of salt.”

That was an expression she knew. Grace clenched her jaw until it hurt. “My belief or lack thereof is not the issue here.”

“Of course it is. It’s the crux of the whole thing. It’s what stands between me keeping you or firing you.”

“We’ve been through all that.”

He grinned again. This time, she thought, it was the look of a wolf scenting prey. “No, honey, we haven’t.”

The tension in her jaw was giving her a headache. A worse headache, she amended. “Stop calling me that.”

“What you need to relax you is some Jameson’s,” he decided.

Arguing with him would get her nowhere. She already knew that. Grace told herself that that was why she clamped her jaw shut again and let him get up from the table to make her a drink. His voice came back to her from the bar, warm as smoke now.

“If you don’t know the difference between Jameson’s and Bushmills, the cola probably won’t throw you off too much,” he commented.

“I never said I didn’t know the difference between Jameson’s and Bushmills.”

“This may come as a shock to you—lady—but you’re as transparent as a hooker’s negligee.”

It was her curse, Grace thought. She’d escaped Maruja to come to America and her cross to bear for that was going to be a lifetime of weird analogies—first Jenny’s and now this man’s. The difference was that Jenny’s made a kind of sweet, warped sense, and McKenna’s were…heated.

She wasn’t sure what bothered her most—that heated reference or the fact that he thought she was transparent. Grace went for the latter and set about contradicting it.

“You see what I want you to see,” she told him.

He brought her the drink. Grace took the glass and sipped, choking as the fire went down.

“Whoa,” McKenna said.

Grace bore down hard on her breath. “I like Jameson’s.”

He gave that laugh again.

She couldn’t do this, Grace thought desperately. She could handle the crime he was accused of. She could handle his total disrespect for the situation he was in, and she could even handle his innuendos if she had to. But she could not handle that whiskey-rich laugh.

“You’re going to say ‘stop it’ again, aren’t you?” He sat and watched her. He was amused. “Or ‘shut up.’”

“It never occurred to me.” Grace took more whiskey.

“What is it about me that bothers you so much?”

“Wait. Hold on. Let me find my list.” She bit her tongue as soon as she said it, because it made him laugh again. “Please, I just want to do my job here and go home.”

He relaxed in his chair. “Let’s get back to the discussion of whether or not you even have a job—with me, that is.”

Every time he said that, it made her blood chill. Yes, Grace thought, yes, she had to fix that little issue right off the bat. “Are you telling me the truth?” she asked. “About being framed?”

“My ma would kick my butt for lying.”

“I’ve never met your mother, so I’ll settle for a simple yes or no here.”

“Then yes. I am telling the truth.” This time, when he got up, he brought the whole pint of Jameson’s back to the table, along with another bottle of cola. He topped his glass off with both of them. “But that isn’t the issue. The issue is that you don’t believe me.”

Grace sat back in her chair and gave him a level look. “Do you believe it?”

He frowned. “What kind of question is that?”

“Answer it.”

“Okay, sure, I believe I’m being framed. I am being framed.”

“Good. Fine.” She sat forward again and began tapping on the keyboard, opening a file for her McKenna notes. “Then I’m your lawyer. Let’s put that aside now and tell me why someone would frame you.”

“Clarify why we’re putting the issue of my representation aside.”

“Because you believe you’re innocent. You’d therefore want the best representation money can buy in order to prove it.”

“And that’s you?”

“Gosh. I just knew you weren’t stupid.”

“You’re a rookie.”

“I work for Russell and Lutz. Nobody gets hired by Russell and Lutz unless they’re ace.”

He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly he nodded. He gave her the point. If he was innocent, he was going to need the best representation money could buy, and that was exactly what he had unless he canned her or asked for someone else in the firm, and he didn’t have five-hundred-and-up an hour to spend on that.

“Let me start by telling you why someone would frame me,” he said finally. Then he tilted his head to the side and studied her. “Maybe I’m just a sucker for a pretty face.”