WHYAn attorney with a spotless record. A client with blood on his hands. How much will she risk to set the verdict straight?
Prosecutor Genevieve Holst lives for the thrill of putting bad guys behind bars. She owes her undefeated court record to Perry, her boss and mentor. So when he’s accused of murdering his wife and children, she moves to the other side of the courtroom to defend the man who believed in her when no one else would. Her inevitable victory in court feels hollow when she catches Perry sneaking off to a secret meeting with a gorgeous woman and hosting extravagant soirees at the scene of the crime. Guilt-ridden at the thought of letting a possible killer go free, she follows her mentor’s every move… and runs into the same NYPD detective who warned her against taking the case. When the detective threatens to arrest her for stalking if she doesn’t stop, she’s faced with an impossible decision—save her career and let an almost-certain killer walk free or risk everything to bring him to justice. Why is the second standalone novel in an arresting series of psychological suspense thrillers. If you like tenacious heroines, courtroom drama, and a hint of romance, then you’ll love Megan Mitcham’s edge-of-your seat thrill ride. Buy Why to take your seat at the witness stand for a suspenseful courtroom thriller soon! |
ISBN ebook: 978-1-941899-37-3
ISBN print: 978-1-941899-38-0
Released: March 11,2020
Length: 340 pages
ISBN print: 978-1-941899-38-0
Released: March 11,2020
Length: 340 pages
Excerpt
She swallowed and shoved through the doors of the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse. It was a bit like coming home. She hadn’t spent her childhood here, but her profession had grown up in walls like these. Echoes of the past hugged her in a warm embrace, stretching out arms from every direction. Intricately patterned marble covered the floors. Vaulted and etched archways adorned with bold murals hung overhead, perennial reminders of how far they’d come. The sheer number of proceedings that had taken place inside this historical location boggled the mind. It offered Genevieve a peace she’d never felt in any other place.
Justice was served inside these walls. And justice separated humanity from the animal world. Justice was life.
“How does it feel, counselor?”
Genevieve couldn’t see the owner of the voice, but she recognized the deep baritone. In the past six months, it’d become heavily laced with sarcastically mocking undertones. More so with each lobbed insult and veiled threat. She slapped on a sultry smile, begged her body to cooperate, and turned.
Damn her, but her breath caught.
Detective Owen Graham strode from a dimly lit catacomb. There were so many darkened hallways in this massive expanse of concrete. Were it not for the open pack of peanuts he shook into his thick palm and the extra pack hanging from his pocket, she’d think him a vengeful wraith on a mission to steal her soul. Though wraiths didn’t possess the faces of angels. Seriously, the thing was too perfectly formed.
“Winning?” Gen cocked her head to the side. “It feels great.”
He stopped several feet away. His thick brows narrowed, turning his fiery blue eyes into quick shooting lasers. “You haven’t won yet.”
He popped a handful of nuts into his mouth. The pronounced muscles in his jaw went to work, drawing attention to the carved structure of his neck. Gen followed the line to the pointed collar of his gray button-up. For the first time ever, she’d caught him less than camera ready. The buttons on his sleeves were unfastened, and the wide cuffs flipped up. Under the smooth fabric, a hint of deep color marked the taut skin covering his forearms. She’d never expected the always-on-his-game, always-on-duty detective with an angel’s face to sport ink. Then again, knowing they existed made his haircut make sense. The buzzed on the sides, long on the top, and slicked back do didn’t match his all-business persona either.
Most people could be marked from twenty paces. Wall Street asshole. Yuppie. Detective asshole. Jock asshole. Lawyer asshole. It seemed there was more to Detective Graham than he let on.
“Sure, I have.” She winked. “They’ve deliberated for five days. A quick turnaround and Perry would’ve been facing a lifetime of appeals. Now, I’m just waiting to pop my cork.” Gen let the innuendo hang in the humid air that snuck in from the entryway and condensed between them.
He strangled the top of his open peanut bag and straightened. His stature in a slight slouch dwarfed her, so at his full height and breadth, forget about level playing fields. She banked the urge to stomp his toe with the stiletto of her pump and bring him down to her level.
“How does it feel to trade your high and mighty morals?” He licked his lips, seemingly satisfied with himself.
Maybe she’d rethink the stiletto to toe decision. The things she could do with lips like those. A low and sultry laugh rumbled up Gen’s throat. “My morals have always been questionable, and my record squeaky clean.” She lifted her arms. Damn, her briefcase was heavy. “Search me, officer.”
“Detective.” His voice was even, unaffected. “And I have.”
“What a shame. I don’t remember it.” Genevieve let her hands fall to her sides.
Detective Graham gulped the distance between them and leaned his head down from the great mountain that was his shoulders. Lord, the handles those things would make. A nice anchor for a wild ride. Heat radiated through her chest and swirled low.
“You think you can throw me off the scent of a murderer with your provocative mouth and cheap bedroom banter?”
What she could do with her provocative mouth. Several scenes took turns playing through her indecent mind. Of all the men she’d come into contact with since the beginning of this trial, for the love of God, why was this the one her body responded to?
Gen bit her lower lip and leaned in, leaving only a scant inch between them. “I know I can.” She let her gaze drop to the bulge in the front of his slacks. “But, officer, I don’t need to. The evidence exonerates my client.”
“Detective.” When he growled, his perfectly aligned white teeth gnashed together. “The evidence was placed. Perry defended Edger Sanchez two years ago and got him off.”
“Are you upset because no one is getting you off, detective?” Gen tilted her head.
Graham’s nostrils flared. “Perry had access to Edger Sanchez’s DNA, and Sanchez had no motive for an attack. Perry got him off.”
This man was persistent. He had been on the stand, adding things to cross examination that she hadn’t prepared for. Things that made her client look bad. Gen was nothing if not more dogged. She drew a deep breath and blasted him.
“Sanchez couldn’t pay his bill. Perry put the collectors on his tail, and he foreclosed on his house. His family ended up in shelters on good nights and on the streets on the bad while Perry and his family lived in a house so big they didn’t use half of it.”
His head shook before she finished. “Bull. If you know anything about crime scenes, and from your record of prosecuting pieces of shit for eight years, I’d bet my pathetic salary you do, you know it’s too clean. Too perfect.”
Did the man never look in the mirror? Things that were too perfect existed, and they wreaked havoc on those around them.
Genevieve abandoned the innuendos and games and went with the only thing she had left. The truth. “I know Perry didn’t murder his family in cold blood. I know he couldn't have looked into his son’s eyes and carved out his heart while it still beat inside his chest.”
“Which is why he cut them out.”
Imagining that poor child and the hellish horror he endured rose the tide on her barricaded emotions. The only solace she’d found was that the boy’s eyes had been removed post-mortem. She didn’t blink. No way would she give Graham the satisfaction.
He straightened and stepped back. “Huh.” The plastic wrapper crinkled in his hand. He tipped the package and poured another heap into his palm.
She shifted her briefcase and jacket into her other hand and glared at him. “Huh, what?”
“You really believe he’s innocent.” His head shook, but it didn't stop him from tossing back the handful of nuts. There weren’t many left in the package.
“Because he is. Attorneys make enemies all the time.”
“Do you have enemies, counselor?”
“If you want to make a list, I hope you have unlimited storage on your phone.” She grinned.
He grinned right back. “And how many of those enemies actually seek retribution?”
She’d walked right into that one.
The doors to the courtroom opened behind them. “Genevieve!” She recognized the panicked voice of her assistant. “They’re starting!”
“I’m on my way.” Gen waved a staying hand to the frantic woman and then turned back to Graham. “A very dangerous few, detective. A very dangerous few.”
____
Gen stepped inside Perry’s office and slammed the door behind her.
Instead of appearing startled, which had been her aim, his still thick jowl turned toward her and offered a penitent quirk of his lips. “Genevieve.” The smile didn’t reach the tops of his cheeks, much less his shifting gaze.
There wasn’t shit else to look at in the office. The police had taken almost everything into their custody, though no crimes had taken place here. She stomped to his desk and braced her fingertips on the uncluttered top.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking at my star prosecutor and now, star defender.” His smile brightened a touch.
“Don’t do that,” she snarled.
“Do what? Compliment you?”
“Try to derail me.”
He reclined in his chair. “Give me some credit, Genevieve. I’ve known you for nearly your entire career, and I’ve never known you to lose course.” His thickly veined hand lifted in the air. “Shoot, give yourself some credit. Your closing arguments moved mountains.”
Her fingers relaxed, easing her palms onto the desktop. Unlike any before, her closing had come from her heart. “It was pretty damn great.”
Perry’s head bobbed. The overhead light glinted off the gray hair that had multiplied and migrated up from his sideburns over the course of the trial. He was more salt than pepper. Somehow, the lack of color smoothed the harshness of the wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes, taking five years off his appearance.
People who went through hell were supposed to look worse, not better.
“You know, as a defender, you could name your price, and people would pay it.”
Gen straightened. “And you know this is a conversation we’ll waste our breath having.”
“I thought maybe—”
“No, Perry.”
“You’re so hardheaded sometimes.” He snapped forward and slapped both fists on the arms of his chair.
“My hardheadedness saved your life.”
“Mine, yes. Why not others?” He stood. The breadth of his shoulders towered over her. He was actually smaller than he’d been six months ago, but a strength in his stance wedged her rebuke inside her lungs.
“Before, I wouldn’t push you into something you didn’t want to do. But now I’ve seen what good you can do for people like me. Think of all the people who are caught up in circumstance. In the wrong place at the wrong time. Who have the wrong associations.” He pointed at himself. “Who need someone to fight for them.” He pointed at her.
“Are you finished?”
“No. Because of you, I’m not finished.” He offered her a smirk.
Gen made a show of shoving her finger down her throat. She gagged and simultaneously glared at him.
“Ugh! I hate when you do that.” Perry wiggled his shoulders and shook his hands.
“I know.” She grinned.
“You’re not even going to hear me out?”
“I’d have left already, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
His brows hiked.
“You were supposed to give it some time before you came back to work.”
“That’s not a question.”
“God, I don’t know how the police kept from bashing your head into the interrogation table.” Her hands formed impotent fists.
“I had a great defense attorney.” This was the first smile that reached his eyes.
“Perry.” Her voice shrilled in the near empty confines.
His smile fell.
“You were supposed to hang low until the firestorm died down. It’s been less than a week since they read the verdict. Six days, to be precise.” She shook her head. “We were supposed to warn people and warm them to the idea of your presence around here. They’re freaking out, Janney among them, and she doesn’t let much upset her.”
“Look around, Holst.” He motioned to the empty office. “It’s past time I get back to work. There’s a lot to do, and I’m ready to tackle it. I’m ready to move on with my life.”
Ready to get on with his life … like he’d gotten a traffic ticket. Genevieve stared at him with no words.
“I ripped the Band-Aid off this morning. It was uncomfortable, but people will forget the sting by lunch.”
“You give people too much credit. Me, most of all.”
“You deserve all the credit. What you get is more work.” His even shoulders shrugged. “Make people okay with me being back because I’ll be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”
“And when the reporters show up?”
“My spectacular defense attorney will give a statement.”
“We came up with this plan to keep you safe and out of the public eye.”
“You came up with it. Not me.” He sat and rolled his chair to his desk, effectively dismissing her.
“Goddamn you, Perry.”
He was being so pigheaded. Her hardheadedness didn’t endanger her safety nor her livelihood or the livelihood of those around her. Genevieve turned and stalked to the door.
“He already did.”
She stopped with a death grip on the doorframe and looked over her shoulder. Perry’s eyes held none of the jubilee she’d heard in his greetings. None of the pizzazz he’d used in his arguments.
“I hired people to replace some things in the house. They were coming today, and I didn’t want to be there.”
Gen’s lips gaped. Sorrow dashed all irritation. Compassion seeped through her pores. “You’re back at the house already? I thought we agreed that the hotel—”
“The security was good, but it didn’t stop reporters from finding ways around it.”
Her heart dropped. “Perry, I’m sorry.”
“You’re not the sorry type. Don’t start now. Just do what you have to do to soothe people’s consciences or tell me who I need to fire. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
A nod was all she could offer. When she didn’t move, he shooed her with a wave of his hand. But her feet remained rooted until she asked the question gnawing at her.
“You’re staying in the house?” The words squeaked between her collapsed throat.
“This is my practice. I’m not going anywhere. That is my home. I’m not going anywhere.”
No matter that someone slaughtered his family inside it.
Justice was served inside these walls. And justice separated humanity from the animal world. Justice was life.
“How does it feel, counselor?”
Genevieve couldn’t see the owner of the voice, but she recognized the deep baritone. In the past six months, it’d become heavily laced with sarcastically mocking undertones. More so with each lobbed insult and veiled threat. She slapped on a sultry smile, begged her body to cooperate, and turned.
Damn her, but her breath caught.
Detective Owen Graham strode from a dimly lit catacomb. There were so many darkened hallways in this massive expanse of concrete. Were it not for the open pack of peanuts he shook into his thick palm and the extra pack hanging from his pocket, she’d think him a vengeful wraith on a mission to steal her soul. Though wraiths didn’t possess the faces of angels. Seriously, the thing was too perfectly formed.
“Winning?” Gen cocked her head to the side. “It feels great.”
He stopped several feet away. His thick brows narrowed, turning his fiery blue eyes into quick shooting lasers. “You haven’t won yet.”
He popped a handful of nuts into his mouth. The pronounced muscles in his jaw went to work, drawing attention to the carved structure of his neck. Gen followed the line to the pointed collar of his gray button-up. For the first time ever, she’d caught him less than camera ready. The buttons on his sleeves were unfastened, and the wide cuffs flipped up. Under the smooth fabric, a hint of deep color marked the taut skin covering his forearms. She’d never expected the always-on-his-game, always-on-duty detective with an angel’s face to sport ink. Then again, knowing they existed made his haircut make sense. The buzzed on the sides, long on the top, and slicked back do didn’t match his all-business persona either.
Most people could be marked from twenty paces. Wall Street asshole. Yuppie. Detective asshole. Jock asshole. Lawyer asshole. It seemed there was more to Detective Graham than he let on.
“Sure, I have.” She winked. “They’ve deliberated for five days. A quick turnaround and Perry would’ve been facing a lifetime of appeals. Now, I’m just waiting to pop my cork.” Gen let the innuendo hang in the humid air that snuck in from the entryway and condensed between them.
He strangled the top of his open peanut bag and straightened. His stature in a slight slouch dwarfed her, so at his full height and breadth, forget about level playing fields. She banked the urge to stomp his toe with the stiletto of her pump and bring him down to her level.
“How does it feel to trade your high and mighty morals?” He licked his lips, seemingly satisfied with himself.
Maybe she’d rethink the stiletto to toe decision. The things she could do with lips like those. A low and sultry laugh rumbled up Gen’s throat. “My morals have always been questionable, and my record squeaky clean.” She lifted her arms. Damn, her briefcase was heavy. “Search me, officer.”
“Detective.” His voice was even, unaffected. “And I have.”
“What a shame. I don’t remember it.” Genevieve let her hands fall to her sides.
Detective Graham gulped the distance between them and leaned his head down from the great mountain that was his shoulders. Lord, the handles those things would make. A nice anchor for a wild ride. Heat radiated through her chest and swirled low.
“You think you can throw me off the scent of a murderer with your provocative mouth and cheap bedroom banter?”
What she could do with her provocative mouth. Several scenes took turns playing through her indecent mind. Of all the men she’d come into contact with since the beginning of this trial, for the love of God, why was this the one her body responded to?
Gen bit her lower lip and leaned in, leaving only a scant inch between them. “I know I can.” She let her gaze drop to the bulge in the front of his slacks. “But, officer, I don’t need to. The evidence exonerates my client.”
“Detective.” When he growled, his perfectly aligned white teeth gnashed together. “The evidence was placed. Perry defended Edger Sanchez two years ago and got him off.”
“Are you upset because no one is getting you off, detective?” Gen tilted her head.
Graham’s nostrils flared. “Perry had access to Edger Sanchez’s DNA, and Sanchez had no motive for an attack. Perry got him off.”
This man was persistent. He had been on the stand, adding things to cross examination that she hadn’t prepared for. Things that made her client look bad. Gen was nothing if not more dogged. She drew a deep breath and blasted him.
“Sanchez couldn’t pay his bill. Perry put the collectors on his tail, and he foreclosed on his house. His family ended up in shelters on good nights and on the streets on the bad while Perry and his family lived in a house so big they didn’t use half of it.”
His head shook before she finished. “Bull. If you know anything about crime scenes, and from your record of prosecuting pieces of shit for eight years, I’d bet my pathetic salary you do, you know it’s too clean. Too perfect.”
Did the man never look in the mirror? Things that were too perfect existed, and they wreaked havoc on those around them.
Genevieve abandoned the innuendos and games and went with the only thing she had left. The truth. “I know Perry didn’t murder his family in cold blood. I know he couldn't have looked into his son’s eyes and carved out his heart while it still beat inside his chest.”
“Which is why he cut them out.”
Imagining that poor child and the hellish horror he endured rose the tide on her barricaded emotions. The only solace she’d found was that the boy’s eyes had been removed post-mortem. She didn’t blink. No way would she give Graham the satisfaction.
He straightened and stepped back. “Huh.” The plastic wrapper crinkled in his hand. He tipped the package and poured another heap into his palm.
She shifted her briefcase and jacket into her other hand and glared at him. “Huh, what?”
“You really believe he’s innocent.” His head shook, but it didn't stop him from tossing back the handful of nuts. There weren’t many left in the package.
“Because he is. Attorneys make enemies all the time.”
“Do you have enemies, counselor?”
“If you want to make a list, I hope you have unlimited storage on your phone.” She grinned.
He grinned right back. “And how many of those enemies actually seek retribution?”
She’d walked right into that one.
The doors to the courtroom opened behind them. “Genevieve!” She recognized the panicked voice of her assistant. “They’re starting!”
“I’m on my way.” Gen waved a staying hand to the frantic woman and then turned back to Graham. “A very dangerous few, detective. A very dangerous few.”
____
Gen stepped inside Perry’s office and slammed the door behind her.
Instead of appearing startled, which had been her aim, his still thick jowl turned toward her and offered a penitent quirk of his lips. “Genevieve.” The smile didn’t reach the tops of his cheeks, much less his shifting gaze.
There wasn’t shit else to look at in the office. The police had taken almost everything into their custody, though no crimes had taken place here. She stomped to his desk and braced her fingertips on the uncluttered top.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking at my star prosecutor and now, star defender.” His smile brightened a touch.
“Don’t do that,” she snarled.
“Do what? Compliment you?”
“Try to derail me.”
He reclined in his chair. “Give me some credit, Genevieve. I’ve known you for nearly your entire career, and I’ve never known you to lose course.” His thickly veined hand lifted in the air. “Shoot, give yourself some credit. Your closing arguments moved mountains.”
Her fingers relaxed, easing her palms onto the desktop. Unlike any before, her closing had come from her heart. “It was pretty damn great.”
Perry’s head bobbed. The overhead light glinted off the gray hair that had multiplied and migrated up from his sideburns over the course of the trial. He was more salt than pepper. Somehow, the lack of color smoothed the harshness of the wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes, taking five years off his appearance.
People who went through hell were supposed to look worse, not better.
“You know, as a defender, you could name your price, and people would pay it.”
Gen straightened. “And you know this is a conversation we’ll waste our breath having.”
“I thought maybe—”
“No, Perry.”
“You’re so hardheaded sometimes.” He snapped forward and slapped both fists on the arms of his chair.
“My hardheadedness saved your life.”
“Mine, yes. Why not others?” He stood. The breadth of his shoulders towered over her. He was actually smaller than he’d been six months ago, but a strength in his stance wedged her rebuke inside her lungs.
“Before, I wouldn’t push you into something you didn’t want to do. But now I’ve seen what good you can do for people like me. Think of all the people who are caught up in circumstance. In the wrong place at the wrong time. Who have the wrong associations.” He pointed at himself. “Who need someone to fight for them.” He pointed at her.
“Are you finished?”
“No. Because of you, I’m not finished.” He offered her a smirk.
Gen made a show of shoving her finger down her throat. She gagged and simultaneously glared at him.
“Ugh! I hate when you do that.” Perry wiggled his shoulders and shook his hands.
“I know.” She grinned.
“You’re not even going to hear me out?”
“I’d have left already, but you still haven’t answered my question.”
His brows hiked.
“You were supposed to give it some time before you came back to work.”
“That’s not a question.”
“God, I don’t know how the police kept from bashing your head into the interrogation table.” Her hands formed impotent fists.
“I had a great defense attorney.” This was the first smile that reached his eyes.
“Perry.” Her voice shrilled in the near empty confines.
His smile fell.
“You were supposed to hang low until the firestorm died down. It’s been less than a week since they read the verdict. Six days, to be precise.” She shook her head. “We were supposed to warn people and warm them to the idea of your presence around here. They’re freaking out, Janney among them, and she doesn’t let much upset her.”
“Look around, Holst.” He motioned to the empty office. “It’s past time I get back to work. There’s a lot to do, and I’m ready to tackle it. I’m ready to move on with my life.”
Ready to get on with his life … like he’d gotten a traffic ticket. Genevieve stared at him with no words.
“I ripped the Band-Aid off this morning. It was uncomfortable, but people will forget the sting by lunch.”
“You give people too much credit. Me, most of all.”
“You deserve all the credit. What you get is more work.” His even shoulders shrugged. “Make people okay with me being back because I’ll be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”
“And when the reporters show up?”
“My spectacular defense attorney will give a statement.”
“We came up with this plan to keep you safe and out of the public eye.”
“You came up with it. Not me.” He sat and rolled his chair to his desk, effectively dismissing her.
“Goddamn you, Perry.”
He was being so pigheaded. Her hardheadedness didn’t endanger her safety nor her livelihood or the livelihood of those around her. Genevieve turned and stalked to the door.
“He already did.”
She stopped with a death grip on the doorframe and looked over her shoulder. Perry’s eyes held none of the jubilee she’d heard in his greetings. None of the pizzazz he’d used in his arguments.
“I hired people to replace some things in the house. They were coming today, and I didn’t want to be there.”
Gen’s lips gaped. Sorrow dashed all irritation. Compassion seeped through her pores. “You’re back at the house already? I thought we agreed that the hotel—”
“The security was good, but it didn’t stop reporters from finding ways around it.”
Her heart dropped. “Perry, I’m sorry.”
“You’re not the sorry type. Don’t start now. Just do what you have to do to soothe people’s consciences or tell me who I need to fire. Because I’m not going anywhere.”
A nod was all she could offer. When she didn’t move, he shooed her with a wave of his hand. But her feet remained rooted until she asked the question gnawing at her.
“You’re staying in the house?” The words squeaked between her collapsed throat.
“This is my practice. I’m not going anywhere. That is my home. I’m not going anywhere.”
No matter that someone slaughtered his family inside it.
"Romantic Suspense at it's finest!"
- Book Addict, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer, Verified Purchase
"Holy moly!!!! I absolutely ADORE this series. This is the second book of the adrenaline filled Stalker Series. Where it's not 100% necessary to have read book one first, it might help to understand a few of the characters better. This series is FILLED with twists and turns, secrets, treachery, betrayal, heartache, friendships and family. Basically the making of a kick butt, adrenaline filled book!"
- TX Brit Gal, Verified Purchase
"Thrilling! Twists and turns galore. Boy oh boy...I love when a story keeps me on the edge of my seat and Megan Mitcham has done that for me. I love the way she writes and these characters have put so much excitement into this book."
- Catwoman, Verified Purchase
- Book Addict, Amazon Top 500 Reviewer, Verified Purchase
"Holy moly!!!! I absolutely ADORE this series. This is the second book of the adrenaline filled Stalker Series. Where it's not 100% necessary to have read book one first, it might help to understand a few of the characters better. This series is FILLED with twists and turns, secrets, treachery, betrayal, heartache, friendships and family. Basically the making of a kick butt, adrenaline filled book!"
- TX Brit Gal, Verified Purchase
"Thrilling! Twists and turns galore. Boy oh boy...I love when a story keeps me on the edge of my seat and Megan Mitcham has done that for me. I love the way she writes and these characters have put so much excitement into this book."
- Catwoman, Verified Purchase