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He drove to the office, mentally reviewing his schedule for the day. His first appointment was with Heather Ladrow, whose divorce from one of Denver’s most successful venture capitalists he’d helped negotiate fifteen months earlier. Heather had indicated in making this morning’s appointment that there was now a problem with the financial settlements.
Heather looked older and a lot more worn than Liam remembered. Once he learned what she was going through, he wasn’t surprised by her frazzled appearance. Heather’s former husband, multimillionaire Pierce Ladrow, had reneged on his legal obligations and stopped paying child support.
“Don’t worry,” Liam reassured Heather. “We’ll get a court order to compel him to pay everything he owes. We’ll ask the judge to impose penalties and interest. If he still refuses to pay up, we can garnish some of his assets.”
“I wish it was that easy,” Heather said, plucking angrily at the strap of her purse. “But he’s left the country.”
Her ex-husband had married a Frenchwoman and moved to Monaco, she explained, taking out French citizenship for good measure. He’d sold his remaining property in the States and put his entire fortune in various complicated trusts held in banks scattered around the globe. Financially speaking, as far as the U.S. authorities were concerned, Pierce had dropped off the edge of a cliff. What’s more, he’d told Heather the last time they communicated that the moon would explode in the sky before he’d send her or the kids another dime.
Liam listened in grim silence, not enjoying the advice he felt obligated to give. “The unwelcome fact is that your former husband has put himself out of reach of our American civil courts, Mrs. Ladrow. We can get a court order to attach his assets anywhere in the States, but from what you’ve told me, it seems clear there are no assets in this country for us to go after.”
“What about all the money Pierce has in Europe? And in the Cayman Islands? And the Bahamas? And Hong Kong, too!” Heather Ladrow’s cheeks were scarlet with frustration. “My pig of an ex has twenty-five million dollars and I’m struggling to afford new running shoes for my son! Meanwhile, my daughter had to give up ballet lessons because we can’t afford them.”
“I understand how unfair it must seem, but I don’t see any effective legal recourse open to you—”
“But Pierce owes me that money!”
“Yes, he does. Right is absolutely on your side. The law is, too. The difficulty is that nobody is in a position to enforce the court rulings.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Let Pierce win? Dammit, I won’t let that bastard win!”
Liam suppressed a sigh. The Ladrows were so angry with each other that their divorce was a bloody battle ground, not a mechanism for dealing sensibly with a failed marriage. “Fortunately, you own the house in Cherry Creek. There’s no mortgage on the property and it’s worth at least two million dollars.” Liam had insisted, despite fierce opposition from Pierce Ladrow’s lawyer, that Heather was entitled to the house, free and clear of a mortgage. Now he was doubly grateful that he hadn’t accepted the attorney’s offer of a divorce settlement that granted Heather extremely generous annual payments but left all the capital assets in Pierce’s hands. In retrospect, it was obvious why Pierce had been so willing to pay his wife far more alimony than any court would impose. The guy had clearly planned all along to renege and then decamp abroad.
“It’s outside my area of professional expertise to offer financial advice, Mrs. Ladrow. But in your situation, I would sell the house and buy something smaller and cheaper. Then I’d invest the balance in a mutual fund. That would generate more than enough income to cover dance class for your daughter and running shoes for your son.”
“I thought there was a law against deadbeat dads in this state,” Heather said bitterly.
“There is, and I’ll certainly do the paperwork to get a warrant issued for Mr. Ladrow’s arrest—”
“You can do that?” She brightened.
“Absolutely. If Mr. Ladrow comes back to Colorado, he’ll face a choice between paying up and going to jail. But how do we enforce the warrant if your ex-husband remains out of the country?”
“Can’t we get the police in Monaco to arrest him?”
“We can try, but there’s almost no chance we’ll succeed. The authorities in Monaco aren’t going to arrest your husband on charges stemming from a contested divorce settlement, especially since he’s now a French citizen.”
“But nonpayment of child support is a criminal offense, not just a civil matter like divorce.”
“True, but it’s not a criminal offense that foreign countries are willing to extradite for. Bottom line, as long as your ex-husband and his money stay out of the country, he’s found an effective way to thumb his nose at the American legal system.”
“I hate him.” Heather spoke with quiet venom. “I really hate him.”
Liam let that comment slide. “Is there no chance that your ex-husband is going to decide he misses his children? After a few months, he may decide it’s worth paying the money he owes in return for the chance to visit with his children.”
“That’s not going to happen,” she said bleakly. “My children are adopted. They’re wonderful young people, and the light of my life, but in fairness to Pierce—and God knows, it kills me to be fair to him—I have to admit that he always told me he’d never be able to love children who weren’t his own flesh and blood.” She gave a bitter smile. “That seems to have been the one thing he didn’t lie about.”
“I’m very sorry. The situation must be very hard for you and for your children.”
She smiled sadly. “I should have listened, shouldn’t I? It’s amazing how easy it is when you’re inside a marriage to ignore what your partner is telling you. The reality is I should have seen this coming, but I refused to accept that Pierce meant exactly what he said. He didn’t want to adopt children. I insisted, he went along to the extent of signing the papers, and—here we are.”
We get too soon old and too late smart. That had been one of his grandmother’s favorite sayings and Liam’s work provided almost daily reminders of its truth. Married couples, it seemed to him, took an especially long time to get smart about each other. His work had convinced him—if he’d needed further convincing—that marriage was a damn good way to expose yourself to the agony of hell without the extra inconvenience of dying first. He had no idea why so many otherwise sensible men and women chose to submit themselves to the torment. He realized, of course, that not every marriage degenerated into the sort of vicious endgame that Pierce Ladrow had inflicted on his wife and kids but, from Liam’s perspective, far too many of them came disconcertingly close.
Jenny, the young woman who kept watch over the reception area, came in as soon as Heather Ladrow left. “Chloe Hamilton is waiting to see you.” Jenny had clearly watched the morning news. She spoke in hushed tones, dazzled by Chloe’s celebrity and the aura of criminal scandal surrounding her. “She realizes she doesn’t have an appointment but she says she really needs to see you as soon as you can spare a moment.”
“Tell her I have no openings in my schedule this morning.” Liam was in no mood to pander to Chloe Hamilton’s strange fixation for hiring him as her defense attorney.
“You have almost half an hour before your next client is due to arrive,” Jenny pointed out.
“If you watched the news this morning, you know Mrs. Hamilton needs a criminal lawyer,” Liam said curtly.
“You were a criminal lawyer until a couple of years ago.”
Liam glanced up, startled by Jenny’s comment. She’d been with him eighteen months and had never before indicated that she knew anything at all about his professional history.
“You’re correct,” he said coolly. “I used to be a criminal lawyer. Mrs. Hamilton is almost three years too late to hire me.”
“Okay, you’re the boss. I guess I’ll tell her you’re not avail—oops.” Jenny stood aside as Chloe walked into Liam’s office.
“Mr. Raven, I’m sorry to force my way in, but I’m desperate.”
Chloe gave every appearance of speaking the truth. She looked nothing like the self-possessed, elegant woman who’d visited Liam’s offices back in early April. Her hands visibly shook and her blue eyes had huge dark circles under them, all the more visible because her face was so pale beneath its golden tan. Her outfit passed beyond casual and well into ratty. She was wearing a misshapen lime-green T-shirt that didn’t match the formality of her tailored beige slacks and her hair was haphazardly tied back with a black scrunchie. Oddly, Liam still found her attractive, a fact that did nothing to improve his mood. Sherri Norquist had taught him everything he needed to know about the idiocy of defense lawyers who took on clients to whom they felt sexually attracted. He didn’t need Chloe to provide a brush-up course in stupidity.
“As I informed you earlier this morning, Mrs. Hamilton, you should make an appointment to see Bill Schuller. I can assure you that Bill will provide outstanding counsel.”
“I tried to hire Mr. Schuller. It can’t be done. He’s fishing in the Alaskan wilderness. Nobody can reach him until he gets back to the base camp on the Alagnak River, and that’s going to be another forty-eight hours at least. I can’t wait forty-eight hours, Mr. Raven. I need a lawyer now. This minute.”
“Why the urgency?”
“Because I think the police will arrest me as soon as I go back to either my home or the official mayoral residence. My sister called me a few minutes ago. The cops have even been out to her house to see if she knew where I was.”
Liam looked at her assessingly. If Chloe was right, she definitely needed immediate legal help. “I can give you fifteen minutes,” he said, although he wasn’t sure why he made the concession. He gestured for her to take a chair.
“Do you want me to take notes?” Jenny asked hopefully.
Liam inclined his head. “Yes, thank you.”
“No,” Chloe said abruptly. “I prefer to speak to you alone, Mr. Raven. No notes.”
Jenny looked at him inquiringly, and Liam shrugged, then nodded to indicate that she should leave. As soon as they were alone, Chloe sat down, although she perched on the edge of her seat as if she might take flight at the slightest provocation.
“Tell me why you think the police are going to arrest you,” Liam said. Since he only had a narrow time window before his next client arrived, he figured they might as well cut to the chase.
Chloe’s hand fluttered, then she clenched her fists and shoved both hands into her lap as if despising the helpless gesture. “They have a witness who claims to have seen me stab Jason.”
“Who’s the witness?”
“Sophie’s nanny.”
“Does the nanny dislike you?”
“I don’t think so. Trudi’s from Finland and came over here to improve her English. She’s reliable and honest and she’s never given the slightest sign of having a grudge against me. I like her and thought she liked me. Or that she used to, until this morning. Now I daresay she thinks I’m a vicious killer.”
“Is she right?” Liam asked mildly. “Did you stab your husband?”
She looked straight at him. “No, Mr. Raven, I didn’t stab Jason. I didn’t harm him in any way. When Trudi saw me, I was trying to unbutton Jason’s shirt and look at his injuries. I know it was a crazy thing to do, but when you see somebody you love lying in a pool of blood, you don’t think, you just react. I thought that if I could only get the knife out and pad the wound, then maybe I could give him CPR and he’d start breathing again.”
Her explanation was ridiculous coming from a woman as smart as Chloe Hamilton, especially in view of the knowledge she must have of human anatomy after her years of intensive athletic training. However, that didn’t mean her account was a lie. Liam’s training and professional instincts all suggested to him that Chloe was the most likely murderer, but he also knew that innocent people occasionally ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time—and not only on TV crime shows.
Jenny buzzed the intercom. He picked up the phone, so that Chloe wouldn’t hear whatever Jenny had to say. “Liam, Terry Robbins has arrived.”
“Thanks, Jenny. I’ll be right with him.”
Liam glanced at his watch. Terry Robbins was ten minutes early, but he was a man with a high regard for his own importance—not a good client to keep waiting. Terry couldn’t be shunted aside for a preliminary meeting with Helen, Liam’s highly competent paralegal; his self-importance meter would explode from righteous indignation at the prospect of discussing his failed marriage with a mere paralegal.
Liam started scribbling a list of names onto the notepad on his desk. “Mrs. Hamilton, I’m sorry but my next client has already arrived.” He tore off the sheet and handed it to her. “These are for you. In my opinion, those are the half dozen best criminal attorneys currently practicing in the Denver area. As I mentioned earlier, Bill Schuller is the best, but any of these six would be more than competent. I’ve also included Robyn Johnson’s name on the list. She’s outstanding, but she’s approaching sixty and these days she spends most of her time on pro bono work for people who’ve already been convicted.”
Chloe ripped the list in two and tossed the crumpled pieces onto Liam’s desk. “I don’t want Bill Schuller or the great Robyn Johnson, who probably isn’t available anyway. I don’t want any of these other attorneys. I want you.”
She really was beginning to sound somewhere close to obsessive. What the hell was her problem? There was something going on here that he was missing, Liam decided.
“I’m a good lawyer, Mrs. Hamilton, but I’m not that good and it certainly isn’t to your advantage right now to have a lawyer whose courtroom skills have been rusting for almost three years. You ought to be begging Robyn Johnson to put aside her pro bono work and take you on, if you want truly brilliant representation. Why are you so determined to hire me?”
She looked at him in silence and for a moment he was sure she wouldn’t answer. Then she gave a tiny shrug, as if clearing some final mental hurdle.
“Because you’re Sophie’s father,” she said. “I thought that might give you a vested interest in keeping me out of prison.”
Two
Right up until the moment she spoke, Chloe hadn’t been sure she was going to tell Liam the truth. She’d imagined this scene a thousand times, but it seemed despite all the practice, she’d never envisioned Liam’s reaction correctly. He didn’t shout, he didn’t protest, he didn’t appear angry. He didn’t even look surprised. Disconcertingly, his face displayed no expression at all. She’d decided back in April that he was one of the most self-controlled human beings she’d ever met, but his calm right now was unnerving. He simply fixed his gaze on her, his expression shuttered and his amazing hazel eyes bereft of emotion.
“Sophie is your daughter, isn’t that right, Mrs. Hamilton?” Liam’s question was polite, but distant.
“Yes.”
“How old is Sophie?”
His coolness set Chloe’s jangled nerves on edge. “She’s three and a half. A little more. She’ll be four on the first of October.”
“I see. I thought she was somewhere around that age.” Liam opened a gilt-embossed, leather-bound appointment diary on his desk and flipped quickly through a few pages. Chloe was too emotionally battered even to wonder what he was doing.
He apparently found what he was looking for. Swinging the diary around on his desk, he pushed it toward her so that she could read the entries and pointed to a line in the middle of the left-hand page. Her name—Chloe Hamilton (Mrs. Jason Hamilton)—was written in the space for 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 5 of the current year.
Liam spoke soothingly, as though to a lunatic, or an overexcited child on the verge of pre-Christmas meltdown. “As you can see, Mrs. Hamilton, we met for the first time almost exactly three months ago. In April this year, to be precise. Quite apart from the fact that there has never been any form of sexual contact between the two of us, you’ll understand why I’m quite sure that you’re wrong about the paternity of your daughter. Sophie can’t possibly be my child. She was already three years old the first time you and I met.”
Chloe wished that she had an elegant leather-bound diary in her purse with a notation showing the night when they’d really met for the first time. It would have been eminently satisfying to pull it out of her purse and shove it under Liam’s patronizing nose.
She’d wondered for years if he had recognized her the night Sophie was conceived. In April, when she approached him about the divorce, she’d been almost sure that he had no recollection of their previous encounter. Now, unfortunately, she was convinced he didn’t remember the time they’d spent together. Liam wasn’t trying to evade the fact that he’d fathered a child by denying the fact that they’d been lovers; he was simply humoring a woman he believed to be mentally unbalanced. Presumably he was afraid she would start frothing at the mouth or throwing wild punches if he showed surprise or anger.
“I’m perfectly well aware of the fact that we met on April 5 to discuss the possibility of my filing for a divorce from Jason.” Chloe repeated the exact date of their meeting in an effort to sound as sane and in control as possible. “But that wasn’t our first encounter. We’d met before. To be precise, we met at the Grovelands’ New Year’s Eve party four years ago.”
Liam’s expression remained controlled but she saw a faint flicker of emotion in his eyes before he once again retreated behind his mask of impassivity. “You’re claiming that your daughter was conceived at the Grovelands’ party?”
“She was conceived in a motel on Hampden Avenue, but we met at the Grovelands’ house in Cherry Creek. Do you remember the occasion? It was the year the Grovelands threw a fancy dress party.”
Liam’s eyes narrowed and the faintest trace of color flared along his cheekbones. The color vanished almost as soon as it appeared. “I remember the party,” he admitted.
“You came as John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States.” And he’d damn near taken her breath away in the velvet coat and ruffled cravat of an eighteenth century gentleman.
Liam said nothing.
“I came dressed as Cleopatra,” she added.
His head jerked up, but his face still gave away nothing.
He remembers, Chloe thought. Thank God. She was relieved that he had some recollection of their time together, even if the memory hadn’t been scalded into his soul.
Given how smooth Liam’s seduction techniques had been, Chloe suspected that sleeping with a woman he barely knew was his standard operating procedure. But from her perspective, their encounter had been infinitely memorable, and not just because Liam had been a fantastic lover, or even because of the epic fact that it had resulted in Sophie’s conception. It had also been her single foray into adultery. No point in telling him that, though. He certainly wouldn’t believe her.
“My costume explains why you didn’t recognize me,” she said. “I wore lots of eye makeup and a dark wig. Almost nobody recognized me that night.”
“Tell me something, Mrs. Hamilton.” She was sure Liam’s continued use of her married name was intended as an insult, not as a mark of professional courtesy. “Did you deliberately set out to get pregnant that night, or was I just the lucky son of a bitch who happened to be hanging around when you felt in the mood to get laid?”
“I didn’t plan to get pregnant. I swear I didn’t.” On her good days, Chloe was almost sure that was true. On her bad days, she considered that, mere hours before the party began, she’d discovered Jason was sterile. Not only that, but he’d known of his sterility for over two years and had chosen not to tell her, for fear that she would leave him. She’d gone to the Grovelands’ party in a volatile state somewhere between furious anger and extreme despair.
But surely even in that dangerous mood she’d been smart enough to realize that the solution to the multiple problems of her marriage was divorce? She couldn’t have been brainless enough to think that getting herself impregnated by a virtual stranger was a smart or correct thing to do.
“It’s highly unlikely you conceived your daughter that night we were together,” Liam said tersely. “I know I used a condom. I always use condoms.”
“Condoms aren’t fool proof. There’s something like a five percent failure rate.”
Liam’s gaze touched hers. “Well, hell, didn’t I get lucky?” He gave a short, hard laugh. “One chance in twenty and you’re claiming I hit the jackpot?”
Chloe drew in a shaky breath. “I’m quite sure you’re Sophie’s father but we can arrange for a DNA test if you want to be one hundred percent certain. There are plenty of labs that will make the identification without needing to know the names of the people being tested.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Whose identity are you trying to protect, Mrs. Hamilton? Mine or yours?”
“Everyone’s,” she said. “Especially Sophie’s. If there’s anything we can agree on, surely it’s the fact that she’s the one completely innocent person in all of this.”
“I’m feeling pretty innocent myself,” Liam said curtly. “I didn’t go to the party planning to have sex with a married woman. More to the point, I came away not knowing I had.”
“I didn’t plan to commit adultery, either. I’m not in the habit of sleeping around.”
“That’s hard to believe. You were married, Mrs. Hamilton, but you told me—more than once, in more ways than one—that you were single.”
She made the mistake of attempting to justify the inexcusable. “Jason and I had an argument right before we left for the Grovelands’ New Year’s Eve party. We both said some hurtful things and I was in a reckless mood by the time you and I met.”
Liam’s expression remained controlled but she realized that his anger was rapidly escalating toward the tipping point. “So I was your therapy for the night? A little bit of sex on the side to get back at your husband?”
