Holidays at Crescent Cove (8 page)

“I don't suppose it will make any difference if I repeat, I didn't bully her.”

“Nope, now go make us a couple of sandwiches, and after dinner you'll drive on over and make a place for her . . .” He jabbed his chest with a bony finger. “Here. But let's eat first. Don't do any good to woo a woman on an empty stomach.

Chapter Ten

G
RACE DROVE STRAIGHT
to Salt March Lane before she gave herself time to analyze what she was about to do. Or even to think about what she was going to do. She was fighting mad. Not the anger she felt about injustice and prejudice, but just pissed off. And for once she was going to go full barrel, whether it was logical or not. She would give him back anything he'd dished out.

He'd had the final word when he made her choose between her integrity and the letter of the law, between accepting a case she didn't believe in and refusing, between staying or walking away and losing her job and her father. She'd walked away. She was too young and too passionate about her work to see any other choice.

But not now. She'd spent the last four years studying and gaining assurance. It had been a long time coming, and she felt comfortable as a lawyer and as a person.

And then her father left those papers in her office. What did he think, that she would turn a blind eye again? Help him turn a hopeless case around by manipulating the evidence? They already had a jump on her there. The only reason for filing all those ridiculous motions was because they didn't have a case.

Her father had leveled the playing field by any means necessary, ethical or not. But she wouldn't let him skew justice, not this time. She wouldn't let that bastard Cavanaugh see freedom again. This time Grace Holcombe was standing her ground, and if it meant bringing his high profile law office to its knees, or getting her father disbarred—or worse, jailed—she'd do it.

She swallowed, but her mouth was dry. Her throat was tight and it burned, but she couldn't get a drop of saliva to ease the pain.

Could she really do it? To her own father? Even if he were in the wrong. Even if what he was doing was amoral at best, immoral probably. She hesitated. Then pushed ahead.

Instead of stopping at the front of the cottage, she turned onto a side street, making sure she parked out of sight. Not that her father even knew what kind of car she drove. Not since she'd given up her Beemer the week after she packed her bags and moved back to Crescent Cove.

She doubled back, hoping she was wrong and the cottage was rented to a nice family with happy children and she wouldn't have to do this today. She skirted the house and stopped at the garage to peer through the salt-rimed window.

The car inside was a late model Lincoln; her father always bought American. Which wasn't a total confirmation. A lot of people drove Lincolns. She considered trying to get into the glove compartment to check the registration, but if it was her father, he would have the car alarmed and she didn't want to take the chance.

Surprise attack, that was where her strength lay.

Grace went back outside, noticed for the first time than the sky had turned gray and the air was wet. Snow was coming. Fall would be over. And where would she be? She couldn't see any way to ever be a part of her family again.

She wouldn't know until she confronted him once and for all.

She went to the kitchen door; which put her between her father and the garage, blocking his escape.

Chastised herself for her hyperbole. Knocked on the door; stepped into the galley kitchen and a host of childhood memories.

“Are you here?” she called, and her voice echoed back at her. What if she were wrong? What if she had trespassed on an unsuspecting family? They might shoot her.

“In here,” came a disembodied voice. A voice that she knew. A voice that sounded old and tired, and for a tiny moment Grace felt sorry for him.

She walked slowly but firmly through the kitchen and into the living room that ran the length of the house. The curtains were pulled across the front, and only a side window let in the gray light.

There was a fire going in the Franklin stove, which heated that end of the room. The rest was chill. The house had not been weatherized.

The long room was cluttered with the same old furniture, enough couches, chairs, and tables to fill two rooms. Many of the pieces had been pushed back against the wall to make room for the wooden drop-leaf table set up near the fire and covered with a mess of paper and a laptop.

Nearby, a wing chair faced the fire, and an ottoman, on which rested two slipper clad feet. It was all Grace could see of the man who sat in the chair, but she knew who it was.

As she stood there, a hand stretched out from one of the high-backed wings and beckoned her forward.

Summoning her. Like he was some godless potentate and she was a lowly servant.

But she swallowed her disgust—never let your emotions get in your way—something she'd learned from the man sitting silently near the fire. She carried her bag of papers to the far side of the table and dumped them unceremoniously on top of the others that were already there.

She dropped the bag to her feet, then braced her hands on the table, facing the man she had once loved with complete devotion. He stared into the fire, not even deigning to acknowledge her.

He'd aged a lot in the last few years. He'd never been tall, but he was thickset and bullish. Now, he seemed to have shrunk inside his clothes. His face had taken on a grayish pallor that even the fire couldn't camouflage. He was so still that he seemed almost dead.

Careful, Grace.
Her father was canny like a fox. He was probably sitting there like a bump to make her feel pity for him.

Well, it wouldn't work with this lawyer.
She stood there watching him watch the fire, wondering which one of them would break and talk first. Because speaking first was a sign of weakness. They were both stubborn enough to stay like this all day and into the night, just to prove a point.

But she didn't have all night. She had other more important things that needed to be done.

“I brought these back.” She turned to leave.

“What did you think?”

It hurt to breathe. Grace wasn't sure she could even form coherent words.

“Why do you care?”

Her father shifted in the chair almost as if he were in pain. “I knew you'd see that article in the newspaper and flip out.”

“I didn't flip out. I can be as tough as the next person when it matters.”

“And this doesn't matter?” He gestured toward the litter of paper on the table.

“Evidently it matters to Holcombe, Lacey, Danforth and Estes,” Grace said. “Who, by the way, you might want to call. They seem to be a bit worried by your absence.”

Her father snorted. A little sound, almost perfunctory. “I bet they are. So did you get a chance to look at the case?”

Grace glanced at the papers, avoiding her father's astute eye. “Not really.”

His lips curved. “You did. I can tell. That's why you're so angry. Not just because Harrison Cavanaugh is on trial again, not even that the firm is representing him in that trial. But because you know that we have no case, all that pile of garbage is just that—garbage—evasion, obstruction, manipulation of the facts, and a game plan to destroy witness credibility.”

The admission hit Grace right in the solar plexus. What was he doing? How could he use this confession to his benefit? She would not play into his hands, but she didn't recognize this tactic, and it made her wary.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

Her father shrugged, a cast-off gesture. “Thought maybe you could help.”

“What? Are you crazy? Help you get Sonny-boy off? Not if you were holding a gun to my head.”

Her father looked at her, and she saw a stranger.

Carefully controlling her voice, she said, “Nothing has changed in the last four years. No argument you can make will change my mind. I may have a tiny little nothing practice, but I wouldn't give it up for all the high profile cases in the world, if it meant playing favorites with the law.

“You wasted your time coming here. You might as well get in your car and go back to Hartford. At least mother will be glad to see you.”

“Help me find the Achilles' heel of this case.”

“Are you listening? I won't help. I have half a mind to report your actions to the bar association.” She snapped her carryall from the floor and straightened up to see her father grinning back at her.

Grace took a step back. She didn't know this look. Didn't trust it. Was afraid it was the look of a man pushed against a wall.

“I have a few ideas. I need you to vet them. Grace, I want you to help me unravel this defense.”

Grace blinked. For several long minutes she said nothing. Couldn't think. Was sure she was hearing wrong.

“Wh-Why?”

Her father templed his fingers, brought them to his lips, closed his eyes. “We got the call almost immediately after the accident.” He coughed a bitter laugh. “Hell, call it what is was, hit and run, Harrison Cavanaugh ran over a young pregnant woman and left the scene. He must have gone straight to his father, because we were notified before he'd even been arraigned.”

Her father took a shuddering breath. “It would be one thing if Cavanaugh denied it. I might have been able to rationalize repping him again. I wanted to. His father and I go way back. He called me personally, begged me to help with his defense, this once, and he'd guarantee he'd never let the boy get in trouble again.. I told him I'd look into it. He didn't even try to deny that Harrison was the driver. It was pretty obvious he knew that he was.

“But when the police arrived, Harrison claimed someone had stolen his car.”

“The report named several witnesses, two of whom have subsequently backed down,” Grace said. “Would you know anything about that?”

Her father sighed. “There were several ‘quasiwitnesses,' two nurses going off duty and another couple of pedestrians, but it was after five. Dark except for a couple of streetlights. Easy to discredit their testimony because of that.”

“The paper said there was a car chase. What about the guys in the other car?”

“A bunch of punks, guys with records as long as your arm. They panicked, pulled a U-turn, and one of the nurses got the license number.”

“Which the defense will say is inadmissible since it was too dark to see,” Grace said wearily. “Same old, same old.”

“Except one of them ratted in exchange for not being named in any possible litigation.”

“Suspects cop pleas all the time,” Grace pointed out. “The prosecution will portray them as a remorseful patsy. The defense will attempt to show that he would lie, cheat, say anything the police wanted them to say. What else have you got?”

“The prosecution's strongest witness is the girl's husband.”

“The husband?” Grace sat up. “I thought he was in the parking lot.

“He'd gone ahead to warm up the car for his new family and was on his way back for his wife when Sonny sped right past him and hit his wife. She flew a good ten feet. The husband totally broke down during the interview, raved about killing the driver that killed his wife and baby. ” He held up both hands. “A fragile witness.”

Grace nodded. She'd seen that memo. “Easy to badger and then dismiss as distraught and unreliable.”

“It's all the defense has at this point.”

“Which is you,” Grace pointed out, trying to stop the sick feeling roiling her stomach.

“Which
was
me.”

Grace heard the past tense but it took a second to register. “What do you mean ‘was'?”

Her father turned in his chair so that he faced her. “I've left the firm.”

Chapter Eleven

“
Y
OU WHAT?”

“I've resigned. Quit. Retired.”

“I don't understand.” Grace moved around the end of the table, pushed his feet over and sat down on the ottoman.

“I advised we not take the case. I was overruled.”

“Because you thought you couldn't win?”

He barked out a bitter laugh. “Of course that's what you'd think. And who could blame you? But no. I quit because I knew that Cavanaugh would be willing to reach deep in his very deep pockets to win his kid's freedom.”

“Kid? Kid? I wish everyone would stop calling Harrison Cavanaugh a kid. He's almost thirty. Most people are responsible members of society by that age.” She bit her lip. “Or behind bars.”

“Where Harrison Cavanaugh should be.”

Grace couldn't believe her ears. Something was deadly wrong here.

“You were right about him all along.”

Grace hugged herself as the chill of his words settled over her.

“Oh, I went through the motions at first. You know me. Old innocent until proven guilty.”

She'd thought she'd known him. And she thought he'd sold out for the prestige and the money.

“I talked to Sonny after his father had put up a half mil for bail. He said someone else had driven his car but he didn't know who. That model Jag can't be hot-wired, so I asked him who had access to it. He named several of his lowlife buddies. Bunch of crap. After all these years in court and dealing with all sorts of clients, I can pretty much tell who's lying. I knew he was. He wasn't even doing much to convince me otherwise. He was so sure of himself. So arrogant. Vicious—”

His voice cracked. “The police reports came in. The girl he hit was on her way back to her car after a sonogram. The baby was a girl. Mother and baby died. The father was half crazy with grief. He IDed Cavanaugh, but in his state, the defense will make mincemeat of him.

“But it was the photos . . . of that young . . . woman. I looked at them. And . . . and . . . she looked a bit like you. And I thought, what if it had been you instead of her? And suddenly I knew I couldn't do it. Not again.

“I'm sixty-two. I'm tired. I worked hard to build my practice, but I lost sight of what was important along the way. Then I asked myself, ‘What if this was my last case? What if I defended Harrison Cavanaugh, walked out of the courtroom and dropped dead?' ”

He breathed out a laugh. “I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas yet to come. So I wrote my letter of resignation, informed my clients that I was leaving, and here I am.”

A shiver of apprehension crawled up Grace's spine. “When was this?”

“Let's see. Last Thursday.”

“Did you tell Mother?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? She's worried sick. Don't you think—Oh, crap. I've got to call Nick. I asked him to have his officers look out for you.”

“The police?”

“Yes, damn it. I didn't think they would be looking for you to arrest you.”

“Arrest me?”

“You took all these files. You've compromised the defense by showing them to me. They're going to do I don't know what to you. No wonder they're frantic to get their hands on you.”

Her father waved away her objections with a flick of his hand. “I named you lawyer of counsel before I resigned. Technically you're working on the case.”

Grace groaned and reached for her cell.

“I found him,” Grace said as soon as Nick answered. “Thanks. Sorry to bother you. Yeah, he's okay. Thanks again.”

She turned to her father. “You noticed I didn't say where I found you. Now you'd better call Mother and let her know you're okay before we figure out what to do with this mess.”

But her father just sat there.

“Dad, move it.”

One side of his mouth crooked. “You haven't called me Dad in a long time.”

She looked at him. Really looked at him. And her anger and hurt began to melt away. She was helpless to stop it. And she wasn't sure she wanted to hold onto it any longer. He'd come to her. She didn't begin to know what it meant. But she knew she'd follow it until it was over and hope there would be something good at the end. “Call,” she said, and began to unbutton her coat.

Her father reached for his cell, talked for a few seconds. Listened for a few more. Ended with, “Okay, okay, I'll tell her.” And hung up.

“She insists on driving down. She's bringing food. And says to tell you to go out and get a turkey.” He pushed himself out of the chair. “Oh, and that she loves you.”

He moved stiffly toward the table and reached for a folder. “And so do I.”

They stood side by side, leaning over the table, hands braced on the edge, father and daughter, studying the files of the defense's case.

“What do you want to do?” Grace asked.

“I don't know that there's much we can do. I guess I didn't know my partners at all. Or have I lost my grip? Does this look like a case to you?”

Grace shook her head. “Looks like a case of desperation to me.”

“Exactly.” He turned to look at her. “But if you think I would have stayed with this case if I had a better chance of winning, you'd be wrong.”

“I don't. I've seen you try a case successfully with less.”

Her father sighed. “Yes. But was it the right thing to do?”

“I don't know, Dad. I know you can't practice according to whim. That everyone—even the criminals—are entitled to a fair trial. But I can't do that. And this isn't even fair.” She picked up a few papers and let them drop. “It's just machination.”

“Yeah. You start out in this world so altruistic, so fired up, and then you win a case, then another, and it becomes so tempting to win. You get seduced by the idea of winning. The lines get blurred, what's important begins to shift. You've made a promise to do best by your client, but one day you wake up and realize you're not working for your client, you're not even working for justice, but for the win. And you know you've gone off the rails. Because that's not what the law is about.

“This case gave me my wake-up call. You figured it out long before your old dad did. I wished I had listened.”

Grace had never heard her father speak like this. He never brooked an argument except for the sake of finding the weak spots, never from the heart. But this was different. She was still wary. She'd spent too many years around him to think that he'd changed overnight. And yet . . .

She stopped. “But are you really ready to give it all up. Just because of this?”

His brows knit. “Yes, I think I am. I still work ten, twelve hours a day. It's time I let someone else take over.”

“I'm not going back to the firm,” she said.

“No. I can see you're happy with what you're doing. The other partners can buy me out. I'm done.”

Grace shook her head. “I think you should give this more thought. I mean, what are you going to do, play golf every afternoon?”

“If I want. God knows we have enough money to enjoy my retirement and even leave you a decent inheritance.”

Grace held up her hand.

“Don't worry. I'm not planning on kicking off just yet. I may even take your lead, do some volunteer counseling.”

“Pro bono work?” Grace stammered.

“Why not?”

“Dad, I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this.”

“I know. I am, too. But it's the right thing to do. Oh hell, Grace. I don't expect you to believe that I'm serious about this. I can be a mean SOB, stubborn, but I like to think I'm an honorable man. And this case pushed me beyond that. There have been others, I'm sure. There are bound to be in this business. I just didn't notice, or I chose not to look too closely.

“It's a fine line we lawyers walk. Trying to balance justice, legalities, and humanity all at once. But this case— Hell, the Cavanaughs have been a thorn in my side since they walked into our offices five years ago. I can't do it. I can't represent the guy. Flimsy defense or no, I'm afraid I might win.”

Grace shut her eyes, trying not to think about her part in letting Harrison Cavanaugh go free. “Like I did.”

“It wasn't your fault. You were bright. We egged you on. We did our best for him and got him off, then he threw it back in our faces. And we got him off again. But this time he's gone too far.”

He reached over and tugged her hair, something he hadn't done since she was ten at least. She turned into him and he wrapped his arms around her. And she fell into this deceptively soft, teddy bear of a man. He could be ruthless, often was, but for some reason she believed him now.

“I'm sorry if I misjudged you,” Grace said. “I was just defensive. I wanted your respect, your approval, all my life. But I was afraid you would never forgive me for walking out.”

“You've always had it. Well, I was pretty angry for a while. I know how to hold a grudge.”

“Yeah you do.”

“So do you.”

“I learned it from the best.”

“Yeah, well. Your mother put me straight—eventually. And after that . . . it took a while to get up the nerve to try to change things.”

He kissed the top of her head and eased her away, keeping hold of her shoulders. “Your mother will be here any minute and we still haven't gotten the turkey.”

Grace stepped back. “I'll go get the turkey. I think you two should be alone when you tell her that you've resigned.”

“Retired.”

“Retired. You're on your own.”

“Can I tell her that everything is okay between you and me?”

Grace hesitated, picked up her bag. “Yeah, tell her that everything's fine. I'll come by in the morning and take you to breakfast.”

“You don't want to come back later for dinner?”

“No, thanks. I have something I need to do. See you tomorrow.”

Her father walked her to the front door and watched until she reached her car. She made a U-turn and waved as she drove past the house toward Shore Road.

When she reached the exit from Little Crescent Beach, she stopped, deliberating about what to do next. Get the turkey or call Jake?

Hell, the turkey wasn't going anywhere, but Jake might. He might decide she was too high maintenance and take a hike. But she wouldn't know until she asked.

Besides, she'd just faced her father without losing skin, surely she could face someone who wanted to be her boyfriend. A smile crept onto Grace's face.
Boyfriend.
Did people really call themselves that these days? And was he serious?

There was only one way to find out. Heart clanking, she turned left toward Jake's house.