Chapter 12

Hope glanced at Aaron Nash in the seat beside her. His profile was lit by the soft glow of the streetlights that skimmed dramatically over the broad forehead, sharp cheekbones, and a fierce blade of a nose. The well-trimmed beard was the same glossy black as his hair.

The beard made him look scholarly somehow and didn't quite match her image of an FBI Hostage Rescue Team operator who were the special forces of the law enforcement world.

Feeling her gaze, he turned to meet her eyes, but she looked away, not sure why.

She'd never particularly liked machismo. Had always preferred brains over looks, nerds over jocks. Danny had been an irresistible combination of both.

Rampant testosterone made her want to hit something, which was ironic and not something she was particularly proud of.

She had to admit that as far as alpha males went, the ones guarding her hadn't been too overbearing…yet. She'd been able to do her job and, aside from that ass, Beasley, things had gone smoothly.

There was a fine line between protection and control, and one of her many flaws was her need to keep control. She'd rather face Leech alone than be put in a box with no say in how she lived her life. Perhaps that was why she liked being the one putting violent offenders away—she could imagine how awful prison must be.

They pulled up outside Ella's crappy apartment building in Southie.

Hope squeezed her hand. She knew the young woman might be regretting her decision to hold Swann accountable, and she totally understood. "Do you have a friend who can stay with you?"

Ella's lips pinched, and she shook her head.

Hope wanted to take her home, but the DA took a dim view of getting too involved with victims. Hope didn't have space to shelter everyone she represented. Instead, she concentrated her efforts on making their cases before a jury and getting the immediate danger locked away. And she was good at it. Really good at it.

"Tomorrow, we have jury selection. It's going to be a tedious process that could take the day. I doubt the judge will want to start the trial on Thursday when Fridays are usually dark, but you never know. I'll call you when I know for sure, okay? Stay home and get some rest unless you really want to attend. Don't let that asshole defense attorney get to you."

"Easy for you to say," Ella muttered with a glance at the armed men sat in the car.

Guilt ate at Hope. The woman didn't smile as she climbed out of the car.

Hope glanced at Aaron Nash. "Will you make sure she gets inside safely?"

He looked surprised, then nodded and jogged after Ella. He came back less than five minutes later. "No one loitering outside. I checked inside the apartment and all clear. I told her to lock the door and not let anyone in."

It wasn't a particularly safe neighborhood for a woman in Ella's position but all she could afford at the moment.

Hope nodded. "I hope she listens."

What else could she do? Lock Ella up? Provide armed guards?

The hypocrisy ate at her, and she gritted her teeth.

Swann would be a complete idiot to go after Ella, but he was a complete idiot so…

Hope would make sure he answered for his crimes, but she was worried about Ella in the meantime. Fear was a great motivator—until you had nothing left to lose.

Beasley and his fleet of lawyers might delay the process, but Hope would win in the end. She was determined.

They rolled away, meandering through a neighborhood that had come a long way since the urban decay of the eighties and nineties. Gentrification had led to some of the highest real estate prices in Boston.

They weren't far from where her mother-in-law lived and where Danny and Brendan had grown up. Maybe she'd ask Brendan to swing by and check in on Ella if he was staying with his ma. But having a cop banging on the door was liable to terrify the girl too.

"She'll be okay," Nash said softly.

"Will she?" Hope wasn't convinced.

"She grew up around here, didn't she? She knows how to take care of herself."

For some reason, the comment made Hope feel judged. Sure, she came from a different part of the state and a completely different type of background. Rural. Upper middle-class. Only child. Pampered. But she knew how to take care of herself too.

It had been pure chance that she and Danny had met. They'd both attended Boston University but different programs. They had both gotten lost on their first day and had literally bumped into one another. They'd helped one another get oriented and figure out where they each needed to be and had darted off to their respective classes. But he'd written his number on her campus map in case she got lost again, and she'd called it the next day to ask if he'd found a decent coffee shop yet.

That was it. Coffee. Cake. Happily Ever After.

Until, it hadn't been.

There had never been anyone else, and she'd felt like the luckiest woman alive. They'd gotten married before they'd even graduated.

She'd been pregnant with Paige during her last year at Harvard Law, and she'd taken the job with Beasley, Waterman, Vander Co. to help pay off her student loans.

Her throat tightened as they passed a tavern she and Danny had drunk in back in the day. It seemed like a different lifetime now. Worse, it seemed like someone else's lifetime. Someone else's memories. Someone softer. Someone kinder. Someone a lot more naive.

Someone who wouldn't rip out a throat with her bare teeth if it meant protecting her child. Someone who wouldn't sell her soul to bring her, or her dead husband, back.

They got on the Southeast Expressway and headed downtown. Traffic was thick. Roads were slick with a mix of rain and ice and general impatience.

She watched her reflection, still against the moving background. The snow had turned to sleet and water was running down the window in slow, fat rivulets that warped and distorted the lights of this city she both loved and hated. Her throat went tight at the person she saw there.

She didn't think she was the sort of woman Danny Harper would give his number to anymore. She didn't think she was the sort of woman Danny Harper would have loved.

Sadness pressed around her like a cloak.

"You okay?" Nash asked.

Another FBI operator sat in front beside Kincaid. Her intern, Colin Leighton, and yet another federal agent occupied the third row behind them.

She shivered and hunched her shoulders. "Just thinking."

"We won't let him get to you, Hope."

She huffed out a breath. "I wasn't thinking about him."

Their eyes met across the seat. Connected.

He nodded solemnly, obviously understanding the direction of her thoughts.

"Any news on Leech?" She hadn't wanted to talk about the serial killer in front of Ella. The other woman hadn't held up well today despite her insistence on being in the courtroom. This trial was going to be hard on her. Maybe Hope should hand it off to another prosecutor so that Jeff Beasley would crawl back into his lair, but she doubted he'd stick around for long anyway. Too important.

But no one else would fight as passionately or care quite as much about getting justice for Ella Gibson as Hope did. She'd visited the young woman in the hospital after the assault. Witnessed the pain and terror in Ella's eyes. Promised her the DA's office would put this guy away and keep her safe. Ten years wasn't forever, but it was a good chunk of time—a lifetime for some.

"Any evidence yet he escaped as opposed to being dead?"

Colin's rapt attention was on their murmured conversation.

Who wouldn't be enthralled by all this drama? He'd signed an NDA before working for the District Attorney's office, but she doubted that would stop him dropping juicy details at dinner parties.

"Nothing yet."

Where was the rat bastard?

Their vehicle took the turn onto the road in front of the DA's office and pulled up sharply.

"Wait," Aaron Nash instructed as she reached for the door.

She held on to her patience.

Kincaid hurried out of the front passenger side, and Nash climbed out and strode around to join him. The man from the back followed her out when Kincaid opened her door.

She belatedly spotted the crowd of reporters camped out near the doors and pulled her shoulders back as, one by one, their heads raised, scenting blood, and cameras were shouldered. They scurried toward her, microphones outstretched as they shouted their questions.

"What do you think about the fact Julius Leech may have escaped custody?"

"Do you think Leech will come after you now that he's free?"

She and her band of armed merry men strode quickly across the wide sidewalk toward the entrance.

She had no idea where Colin was, but she wasn't given the opportunity to wait for him.

"Will he kill again?"

"Are you scared that Julius Leech means to attack you next?"

"Is he a danger to the public?"

"No comment."

"Will he come for you the way he promised, Hope?"

"Is that why you have so many bodyguards, Ms. Harper?"

"Do you really think you should be in the prosecutor's office when you're the person who got him released at the first trial?"

Gah. They were relentless. "No comment."

"Julius Leech always maintained he was innocent. Said that you set him up."

Hope came to an abrupt halt, the hard body of Aaron Nash slamming against her as he tried to crowd her toward the door.

She pushed away, ignoring the spatter of icy rain, and turned to face her hit squad.

"Julius Leech walked free from that first trial because a Boston police detective planted evidence at the scene of one of the murders then lied about it on the stand. That same detective was later overcome by guilt and confessed before taking his own life in a tragic act. I filed a motion to dismiss based on the legal facts of the case. But let's get one thing straight for those of you who need it spelled out. Leech was not innocent. He was never innocent. And I helped prove that when he was convicted of murdering my family." She held back her hair that the wind had blown across her face. "I'm not scared of that sonofabitch. I am shocked he somehow managed to escape from prison when tying his own shoelaces was always a struggle."

"You have armed guards. Not exactly screaming self-confidence there," one man jeered.

She looked off to one side and saw a bunch of cops watching with sneers on their faces, including Lewis Janelli, the dead detective's former partner, a man who'd been investigated for his part in planting that evidence. The DA and Internal Affairs had never been able to prove he'd known the evidence was false, and he'd been allowed to return to work, bad-mouthing Hope to anyone who'd listen ever since.

"The security detail was not my idea. The DA insists if I want to work cases I need to have security."

"At least they're hot." That from a laughing female voice at the back of the crowd.

Hope brushed the comment aside.

"Do you regret it now?" This voice was more measured. Questioning without condemning. "Revealing the truth about the evidence. The suicide of Detective Monroe. The deaths of your family?"

The words pierced deep.

"Every day. Every damned day." Hope struggled to identify the speaker as rain spat in her eyes. "But I'd do the same thing if I was put in that situation again." Her voice caught, tore open a ragged gaping wound that bloomed red. The crowd went silent knowing they were about to get the soundbite they'd waited for all day. "Justice matters. Justice has to matter so people like Julius Leech are put behind bars where they belong. Cops have to play it by the book, along with the District Attorney's Office and Department of Justice. Then the system works as it was meant to work. Otherwise, we're all just paying lip service to the idea of law and order, and we're no better than the scumbags out there committing crimes."

She whirled and pushed past people to get into the building and to escape the spotlight.

Dammit. Why couldn't she have said "No comment" again like a good girl?

They skipped the metal detectors and headed toward the elevator that led to her third-floor office.

No one spoke on the ride up, but her heart pounded, and she wondered if the others could hear it.

She stepped off and followed Kincaid down the corridor. Nash and the other man were close at her back.

An older woman stood talking to the DA outside her office, and Hope's mood crashed even further. Lincoln Frazer was also there. Nash moved to her shoulder.

"It's okay." Her voice was a rough tumble of emotion. "I know her. Give us some space."

Minnie Ramon was the mother of one of Leech's female victims from the trial where Hope had represented the scumbag. During the proceedings, Minnie had been called as a witness for the prosecution, but Hope had used the opportunity to question her about her daughter's less than perfect marriage. Although Hope had been gentle, the process had broken Mrs. Ramon, and the woman had been practically carried off the stand weeping. Minnie had been admitted to a psychiatric unit that same day. Hope regretted every second of that cross examination.

She'd walk barefoot over broken glass if she thought it would help ease the pain of those families, but it wouldn't. The lack of justice regarding those murders was galling to this day.

"Mrs. Ramon came in when she heard about the possible prison break. She wanted to talk to you and waited for most of the day, despite knowing you were in court." The DA spoke smoothly.

"How are you? What can I do for you?" Hope reached forward to shake her hand, but the woman ignored it.

Embarrassment hit, and she pulled her hand back and put it in her pocket, squeezing it into a tight fist.

The light in Minnie Ramon's eyes changed, her expression filled with a dislocated kind of wonder that made Hope want to look away. "I wanted to see your face now Julius Leech is free when he should be locked up. You let that monster go once, and he killed. Now he's out there, and he's gonna come for you, he's gonna come for you because he wants you—but he's not gonna get you."

Hope opened her mouth to apologize again for the woman's plight and distress but everything after that happened in slow-motion.

The woman drew a knife out of her pocket and thrust it toward Hope's abdomen.

Nash lunged, grabbed Minnie Ramon's thin, bony wrist and jerked her arm up and away. The DA stumbled back in fright as Minnie dropped the knife and cried out in pain.

"Don't hurt her." Hope jumped forward to pull Nash off the older woman. "Don't hurt her."

Kincaid cuffed the poor woman.

Their eyes met, Minnie's not vague anymore but instead molten with hate and fury. Bile rose up Hope's throat. Then she was dragged into her office by Aaron Nash while long-suffering Minnie Ramon was pushed against the wall.

Hope's door was slammed shut. Minnie Ramon was marched away by a member of security who'd come running over at the ruckus.

Hope covered her mouth with her palm. "They need to let her go."

"She tried to stick a knife in your gut," Nash snarled.

"She needs help. She's been through hell." Hope stood there shaking. "And I'm largely to blame."