“Grace from security needs a face-to-face,” Petula explained when I joined her in the hallway.
That was never a good thing. Except for the time Grace told me she was pregnant with twins. One look at my head of security’s face when I entered my office, and I knew this had nothing to do with maternity leave.
Grace wore a black suit, tactical boots, and a frown on her lovely face. Her black hair was tamed into its usual sleek bun that had been part of her uniform before I’d poached her from the Secret Service. “We’ve got a problem,” she announced without preamble.
Petula shut the door and left us alone.
“What is it?”
“We found a tracking device on your vehicle during our weekly sweep.”
“Which one?” I asked, aware that such a “rich guy” question would have Sloane rolling her eyes.
“The Escalade. I had the team sweep your personal vehicles as well, but they were all clear.”
Relief coursed through me. I’d driven the Range Rover to Knockemout. I could have led Hugo straight to Sloane.
“Did you remove it?” I asked tersely.
Grace’s lips curved. “Not yet. I figured you might want to take the opportunity to fuck with Hugo and his men, sir. My team is going over all the employee vehicles in the garage as we speak. Once we’re satisfied, we’ll do a bug sweep of your home and offices.”
“Good. Increase security here at the office while I figure out how to use this against Hugo.”
26
Dewey Decimal Justice
Sloane
Atiny groan escaped me as I maneuvered the cart into the reference section and pulled a volume at random off the shelf. My entire body hurt. It was distracting me from my Monday. And by “it,” I meant Lucian Rollins. My nemesis. The man who had fucked me into oblivion, promised to never call, and then made a date with me for Valentine’s Day.
I slid a dollar bill inside the cover and put the book back on the shelf.
It was official. I had lost my damn mind. It was why I’d abandoned my regularly scheduled to-do list to help Jamal set up for the monthly Kids Dewey Decimal Scavenger Hunt Extravaganza. I had to get away from my phone so I would stop checking it to see if the man I hated had texted me.
“There you are!” Naomi appeared in the stacks with a coffee in each hand.
I patted my chest. “Holy cheese and crackers, woman. Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“Sorry. I would have called for you, but the Shushy Twins already shushed me twice this morning.”
The Shushy Twins were elderly, widowed tattletales who spent every Monday morning on the first floor of the library working on their crossword puzzles and policing the behavior of all patrons and staff.
I shuddered. “They busted me for turning pages too loudly last week.”
“Then it’s a good thing we’re meeting in one of the conference rooms upstairs, because the lawyer is here.”
“She’s early,” I said, noting the time on my watch.
“I know. I like her already,” Naomi said, taking a hit of coffee.
“Are those both yours?” I asked.
“Well, they weren’t going to be, but it took me one entire cappuccino to find you, so unfortunately you have to acquire your own caffeine now.”
Fran Vereen was a tall, boxy woman in her early sixties. She wore her blond hair cut bluntly at the shoulders, black pants, neon-green heels, and a pale-pink leather blazer emblazoned with lilies of the valley. I too liked her already.
“Thank you for battling the traffic to pay us a visit,” I said, offering her my hand.
“It’s nice to get out of the city every once in a while and play Death Race through northern Virginia,” she said. “Shall we get started?”
Ten minutes later, Naomi and I shared a shell-shocked glance. Fran wasn’t your run-of-the-mill attorney. She was the kind you called when you woke up next to a dead body. Lucian had hand-delivered the best of the best. And the most expensive of the expensive.
“So what you’re saying is we should be mentally prepared for a very expensive, very long fight,” I repeated.
“Like I said, things are incredibly difficult once a person is incarcerated. There’s little incentive for a court to reopen a case they already invested in and won. But we have options.”
My head was spinning.
“Okay. Let me try to summarize this,” I said, reviewing my notes. “An appeal means taking the case to the appellate level and arguing the entire thing all over again. A commutation of sentence comes from the governor and could shorten Mary Louise’s sentence, possibly to time served. But the Virginia judicial system is so confident in itself this is a slippery slope. Which also means a full pardon—also from the governor—is an even trickier quest. To make matters worse, the state abolished discretionary parole in 1995, which means all prisoners are required to serve at least eighty-five percent of their sentence.”