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“My body parts are the last thing you should be worried about right now.”
“They’re an intriguing alternative to thinking about my problems. Besides, I have you to think about my problems—at least until I fire you.”
That momentarily quelled her, but Grace rallied. “You won’t have to worry about firing me if you don’t cease and desist with this nonsense.”
“Cease and desist? Is that lawyer-speak?”
“It’s woman-speak. Trust me when I tell you that you’ll recognize the difference.”
“I’m not sure my feeble brain can handle the nuances.”
That startled her. “I never said your brain was feeble.”
“You were looking down your nose at me back there in the prison.”
“I was not.”
“You definitely were.”
He was relentless.
The maître d’ came back to them and cleared his throat. Now kissing was on her mind. Grace decided she would gladly pucker up for the dour-faced little gnome in gratitude for the interruption.
“If it wasn’t my intelligence you were casting aspersions on back there, then what was it?” McKenna asked as they started walking again.
Grace almost choked. “I never cast aspersions.”
“Lady, you had aspersions stamped all over that pretty face of yours.”
She decided to ignore him.
Dan Lutz rose when they reached him. He held a hand out to her. Grace braced herself and took it, knowing he would hold on for a while. It was his habit and it always made her uncomfortable.
There was a second place setting at the table with a half-touched plate of hors d’oeuvres, but Lutz was alone. Ah, she thought, this was a time to tread delicately.
“How in the world did you find me?” he asked.
“I called your secretary at home. She suggested that I contact Lou Russell,” she replied, referring to the firm’s other senior partner. “He said I might find you here.”
Lutz sat again, waving a hand at the other chairs to indicate that they should do so as well, then he motioned to the maître d’. “More wine, please, for my guests.”
They exchanged small talk until the wine steward brought two more glasses and another bottle. Lutz never liked to rush into anything. When the steward began to pour, McKenna held a hand out to prevent him from filling his glass.
“I’d prefer a Guinness,” he said.
Grace felt her blood pressure swell a notch. “Drink the damned wine.”
Lutz cleared his throat. “How did you manage to get a bail hearing so quickly?” he asked.
Time to get down to business, Grace thought. “Actually, I…ah, didn’t.”
“Yet here sits a man I presume is Mr. McKenna. Tell me.”
So she did. She explained about the paperwork glitch and how the authorities had no basis on which to hold him, while a waiter brought McKenna the beer. “By now they’re checking the computer system, of course,” she finished. “I’m sure someone has unearthed his proper paperwork and there are probably cops combing the city looking for him. That’s why I came here to find you and solicit your advice.”
“Some of those cops are my friends,” McKenna offered.
“They won’t look very hard.”
Grace felt something go ping behind her eyes. “Will you please shut up and let me handle this?”
“It was a salient point.” He lifted the Guinness to his mouth.
“I never said you were stupid!”
He ran his tongue over his lip to catch the foam, then he replaced his glass to the table. “Sorry, you lost me there. Must be those quicksilver turns of your own mind. What does my stupidity or lack thereof have to do with this?”
“You keep using college-degree words to prove your point.”
“I have a college degree. I’m also insightful and observant. Which reminds me. What were you casting aspersions on back at the prison? We never did answer that question to my satisfaction.”
Grace deliberately shifted her gaze back to Lutz. She grabbed her wineglass, drank deeply and waited for his verdict. She’d either just done something incredibly stupid…or she’d been brilliant.
Lutz stared into the ruby liquid in his own glass for a moment. “Technically, you should deliver him straight back to the arresting officers,” he said finally. “However, without the paperwork, we have no idea who they are, do we?”
Grace relaxed. He approved of what she had done. Then McKenna spoke up again and her nerves tightened.
“Well, technically, I do know who they are. At four o’clock this afternoon I was playing ball with a couple of my nephews at the city courts. Two uniformed patrolmen came by and slapped handcuffs on me. I don’t know how tight you all are with your families, but that’s something I’d have preferred my sister’s kids not be subjected to.”
Grace felt her heart twist. “We can’t always control what children are subjected to.”
“Yeah, well, I try.”
For the first time since she had made his acquaintance, he seemed sincerely angry. He might have slammed his chair around back at the jail, but that had been nothing compared to what simmered in his eyes now.
“They said they had a warrant for my arrest,” McKenna continued. “I went with them rather than play the whole thing out in front of the boys.”
He’d probably been expecting the arrest, she realized. He had to have known the extortion jig would be up for him sooner or later if he played it out too long. He was a cop; he’d know the odds.
“They took me to County and booked me,” he said. “It never occurred to me to check the name on all those blot pages they were affixing my thumbprints to. Stupid of me.”
Grace wasn’t touching that one.
He leaned forward suddenly, bracing his arms on the table to face her. “Funny that you haven’t gotten around yet to asking why Captain Plattsmier didn’t just have me sprung from that jail instead of calling you.”
Because you’ve been pocketing mob money. Grace shot a glance at Lutz. “Getting him out of County seemed paramount when I found the paperwork glitch. I decided to act first and ask questions later.”
“Tell us now,” Lutz said to McKenna.
“Plattsmier didn’t spring me, because this is payback and on some level he’s aware of it. He’s not going to cross whoever’s doing the paying back.”
Lutz and Grace spoke at once. “For what?”
“You’re implying that someone is framing you but you don’t know who?” Grace added.
“I blew the whistle on my partner about six months ago. She was on the take. Now they’re pulling me down for it, either the mob or the cops who’re involved with them.”
Lutz sat back thoughtfully. Grace glanced at her boss and realized that her head hurt. Badly. How much of this was he buying?
“I had no idea what they were hanging on me until Miss Lawyer here told me about the extortion charge.” McKenna inclined his head in her direction.
“What about those arresting officers?” Grace asked quickly.
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Nope.”
She felt something fire in her blood. “There’s a possible loophole.”
“I thought I was better off not pointing that out to them. I didn’t want to give them a chance to mend their mistake.”
She was almost starting to believe him, Grace realized. “The police department is doing this to you?” There had been rumors of corruption, but there were always rumors.
“I’ll put a call in to Chief Baines in the morning,” Lutz said.
“Baines may be in on it,” McKenna said.
“I know.”
Grace thought of another rumor she’d heard. Plattsmier was next in line for Baines’s job. If Baines was dirty, if he was found out and removed, then Plattsmier would become chief. Now she understood why Lutz was so willing to do Plattsmier this favor and take McKenna on free of charge.
“Plattsmier is hedging his bets,” Lutz said. “He’s not a good guy, and he’s not a bad one. I think the jury’s still out on which side he’ll line up on.”
Yes, Grace thought, he definitely believed McKenna.
In the meantime… “What am I supposed to do with him?” She pointed at McKenna.
Lutz took a hotel key from his trousers pocket. “Room 412 at the Penn’s Landing Hyatt.” He glanced at McKenna. “You can’t go home, not until we put this in some sort of order. That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”
Grace felt her headache getting worse. “You’re putting him up in a hotel for the night?” And not just any hotel, she thought. The Hyatt. “Doesn’t that leave us a little vulnerable on aiding and abetting technicalities?”
“At the moment, there’s no paperwork,” Lutz pointed out reasonably. “No one has yet arrested him a second time. Once that happens, of course, we’ll have a horse of a different color. Which is why I want to avoid it as long as possible. By the time I place that call to Baines in the morning, I want this man’s entire story in summary form on my desk. Let’s aim for nine o’clock.”
He’d just consigned her to working pretty much all night. Grace considered the raise she would get when this was over, when she had won.
She decided she didn’t have a problem with that.
Chapter 2
Grace stood and took the key. She didn’t want to know why it had already been in Lutz’s pocket, not with that half-eaten plate of hors d’oeuvres over there on the other side of the table. He had a wife and several children at home.
McKenna remained seated. “How much is this going to cost me?” he asked.
Dan Lutz waved a hand. “That’s not important.”
“With all due respect, it’s kind of an issue for me.”
“We take on a few pro bono cases each year without charge,” Lutz replied.
“I’m not one of them.”
Who was this man? “Do you have any idea what this will cost you otherwise?” she demanded.
McKenna sat back in his chair and watched her. “Gosh, gee, I’ve been a cop in this city for some eleven years now. Have I ever heard of Russell and Lutz?”
An almost-grin pulled at Lutz’s mouth. “I would sincerely hope so.”
“A hundred thousand?” McKenna guessed. “Two hundred? I need to know what I’m up against here.”
“That would be a retainer,” Lutz said equably. “You’d be billed hourly from there, of course, if this escalates.”
“Which? The one hundred thousand or the two?”
“One,” Lutz said. “We’re not God.”
McKenna finally stood. “You’ll have the money by Friday. I don’t take handouts.”
Grace’s blood ran suddenly to ice. She didn’t wait to hear any more. She turned on her heel and left the restaurant. She’d almost bought his story.
She was on the curb outside before he caught up with her. “How does a cop have access to a hundred thousand dollars?” she demanded. “And you expect me to believe that you don’t have that extortion money stashed someplace, that this is all fabricated?”
Then he—this man on the take, this cop gone bad—had the absolute nerve to touch her. He cupped her chin in his hand.
Something happened there at the point of contact. If it had just been heat, she could have jerked from him and let her eyes spit fire. But there was a gentleness there in his grip, too, and it was so at odds with the rest of him that it had her going still, afraid to even take in air.
“I don’t have money stashed anywhere, lady.” Then he paused. “You know, I keep doing that. I keep calling you lady. First impressions and all that. But you’re not a lady at all, are you, despite those incredible legs?”
He was back to her legs again. That was all she could think.
“And you’re not a siren,” he continued. “Once again, your looks aside, I don’t know what you are.”
“You don’t need to know. This isn’t about me.”
“We’re about to share a hotel room tonight—I think that was your boss’s inference with all the talk of reports due by nine in the morning. So I’m thinking that maybe we ought to draw ourselves a few lines in the dirt here.”
She had the wild but certain thought that this man wouldn’t keep to his side of the lines anyway. “Let me go. Don’t touch me. Ever.”
“Sorry.” Finally, blessedly, he dropped his hand. He looked around for a cab. “Not a lady, not a siren. A drill sergeant, maybe. You’re used to giving orders.”
