Triple Jeopardy (Lawyers Behaving Badly Book 2) (13 page)

Trent glanced up. “If you don’t want to use the shower in here, there are plenty of more private bathrooms.”

That wasn’t a sentence one heard often. “I’ll take a bath here, if that’s all right? Then I can look down on the peons.”

Ethan met her eyes and nodded. “There are towels in the floor.”

In the floor?
But there they were, next to the tub, in a little recessed section that was, to Maisie’s shock, heated. When she lifted the cover to remove one, a fragrant cloud of steam gently swept over her face.

Laughing a little at the unimaginable excess of it all, she pulled out a fluffy towel and contemplated her options. The shower looked nice, but…

The bathtub. Definitely.

There weren’t any faucet handles on the tub, but it did have a digital display set in stainless steel. Maisie wasn’t sure what temperature she wanted, and she was weighing the advantages and disadvantages of asking Ethan—and thereby revealing her ignorance—when Raphael exploded into the room.

He was out of breath, and his eyes were wild.

Maisie’s first thought was that someone had died.

Her second thought was that she knew who.

17

M
aisie straightened slowly. Everything seemed to have become very still, as if the air had taken weight, or if time itself had been shocked out of its rhythm.

“Norm Ballystock,” she whispered.

“Norman Ballystock,” Raphael said. “They found his body. Davina sent the email right before Maisie arrived.”

Ethan and Trent were now standing as well. “I didn’t get an email,” Trent said, shaking his head in what could only be denial.

“She sent it to my private account.”

“Because she thought it was safer,” Ethan growled. “She shouldn’t have done that. I hope to god she didn’t say anything suspicious.”

“Nothing that can’t be explained away.”

Trent was still shaking his head. “Everyone calm down. This is good for us,” he said, and Maisie gasped.

The three men cut a glance her way. As often happened when they were in work mode, they’d forgotten she was there.

Trent scoffed. “Have some faith. I’m not glad he’s dead. What I meant is that if he’s dead, at least it’s known. At least they’ve got his body. They’ll investigate, and that’ll be the end of the inquiry.”

But now Raphael was shaking his head. “No. It’s bad. He was found in a cheap hotel a few hours south of here. Davina thinks
we
had something to do with it. In a misguided attempt to be helpful, she told her brother-in-law that we were all together the night he disappeared.”

Ethan and Trent both cursed.

Maisie blindly felt for the edge of the tub, then she lowered herself onto it; better to sit rather than pass out, fall over. “Why does she think that?” she asked, her voice thin.

“Because we told her we’d take care of it,” Ethan growled.

Maisie suddenly remembered the night she’d babysat Davina, and how nostalgic Davina had been, talking about the blissful first year of her marriage.

“She thought that weeks ago,” Maisie said numbly. “I thought she was just sad about the divorce, but it wasn’t that. She was sad because she thought…” Her voice trailed off.

Davina had been sad because she thought Norm was going to die.

Suddenly, Maisie didn’t feel so safe anymore, and a panicked feeling squeezed tight around her body, crushing her temples, her chest, her stomach.

She plastered a hand over her mouth to keep from puking everywhere. The thought of hurling in front of Ethan two days in a row made a nervous giggle bubble up in her throat.

That made the men look at her again, but she waved their attention away.

Not that they were headed toward her. No, they were all staring at their phones.

Maisie threw her head back and laughed.

She couldn’t help it.

She was aware of her bosses watching in alarm. “I’m fine,” she tried to say.

A tear overflowed her eye and ran warmly down her cheek. Then she was sobbing, her chin and lips quivering.

Alarm swept over Ethan’s face. “Why are you crying?”

He looked far more horrified now than ever before, and as he exchanged a helpless glance with Trent, Raphael hurried over to wrap his arms around her.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Maisie.”

Ethan stood awkwardly and left the room, returning a moment later with a handful of tissues, which he set on the edge of the tub.

Maisie dried her eyes. “Thanks,” she said, looking gratefully up at Raphael. “I’m fine.”

He nodded.

Glancing at Ethan, Maisie had a realization. Despite all his male stoicism, he didn’t know how to handle a crying woman. She smiled, because for the first time ever, she had an insight into Ethan’s behavior.

And almost immediately, a second realization dawned on her. Ethan had saved her on the street. He’d saved the woman on the roof. He’d wanted to save Davina from her husband. Now he was protecting Maisie from the investigation.

Ethan was driven by the need to save people. To help people. He was a goddamn knight on a white horse.

She felt her face go slack in surprise.

Raphael glanced at his watch and grimaced. “Good thing it’s just a motion this afternoon. I’ll see if I can’t get someone else to step in.” Phone in hand, he left the room.

“We need to call Davina,” Trent said.

“Not yet.” Ethan’s tone was final. He turned to Maisie. “Within the next hour, someone from the office will be calling, letting us know that the police are there. I’m officially retracting my offer of a job when this blows over. In fact, I never meant it.”

“I understand. I guess I have to leave now.”

He nodded. “Not immediately, but you can’t spend the night.”

Raphael reentered the room. “It’s taken care of. I also set up a meeting with Davina. Maisie, you’ll have to leave.”

“I know.” Maisie felt her guts twist with grief. “When will I see you again?”

“You’ll see us,” Trent said.

“And we’ve always got Plan B,” Raphael said. No one looked happy about that.

“What’s Plan B?” Maisie asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” Ethan moved the tissues and turned on the water in the tub. “We’ll take care of this, Maisie. What we have to do might not be legal.”

“Yeah, I figured that out.” She smiled a little. “You’re awful lawyers.”

“We’re
great
lawyers,” Raphael said, sounding offended. “We protect our clients when the law doesn’t.”

Ethan raised a hand to quiet him. “Are you ok with this, Maisie?”

She stared into his gray eyes, and she got the impression that he wanted her to say
no
. That he wanted her to refuse to take part.

Too bad. They were in this together.

“Yeah,” she said. “I trust you completely.”

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