Operation Notorious

Chapter 2

“Sorry, I’m a bit scattered,” Katie said, hands wrapped around the steaming mug of hot cocoa Hayley had fixed for her.

She was starting to feel warm again, thanks to it and the fire. And Cutter’s presence. The dog had taken up residence at her feet, lying on them in fact, and his body heat was doing nearly as much as the fire and cocoa to warm her up. She felt miles away from the new pit of shock and despair she’d been cast into just a short time ago, and for the moment she let herself revel in the warmth.

“This rascal is good at distractions, when needed,” Quinn said. His voice was quiet, steady, but it took nothing away from his formidable appearance. In fact it added to it. This was a man, she thought, who had nothing to prove to anyone.

“He’s been visiting me a lot lately,” she said. “He’s really been quite sweet. I don’t know why he did this.”

Quinn and Hayley exchanged a look that was both knowing and wary, but also seemed slightly amused. They didn’t seem the type to take their pet’s misbehavior as funny, not after Hayley had gone to the trouble of introducing Cutter to the neighbors, but maybe she was wrong. She hoped not.

As for their guest, introduced as Gavin visiting from St. Louis, he was something else altogether. When a complete stranger had answered the door, all sorts of crazy thoughts had run through her mind. She’d known she had the right house; she’d done her due diligence on the neighborhood before she’d moved in five months ago. But when the man who now sat slightly apart from them, as if he were in the room but not the group, had opened the door, her heart had slammed into her throat.

Hayley’s husband was tall, looked strong, and his military background showed in his demeanor. This Gavin might be a little less imposing physically but there was something about the way he looked, something in eyes so dark they almost appeared black, that she found even more imposing—a bright, quick intelligence that to her crackled as tangibly as the fire she was sitting beside. And the way he’d stared at her, making her overly conscious of how wet and bedraggled she must look, left her feeling she had been thoroughly assessed and cataloged.

Could you tell I’m a basket case? About to fly into a million pieces?

“Katie runs our new library,” Hayley was saying to their friend. “And it’s become quite the success thanks to some of her ideas.”

Katie found herself watching the man who’d opened the door, awaiting his reaction, half expecting some kind of joke or comment she’d heard too many times before. Somehow being a librarian came with certain judgments or stereotypes, many of them wrong, some of them very, very wrong. But nothing showed in his expression, and he said nothing. She wasn’t sure why she had reacted to him so strongly, with that startled leap of her heart.

“So, Cutter’s been visiting you a lot?”

Hayley’s quiet question snapped her out of her ruminations. “Yes. I haven’t minded,” she put in quickly. “He’s been...quite comforting, actually.”

“He has the knack,” Quinn said.

“He does,” Hayley agreed. “He can always sense when someone is in turmoil. Or pain. Or has a problem.”

Well, all three of those fit her just now, Katie thought.

“And,” Hayley said, her voice even softer now, “he’ll do whatever it takes to get that person the help they need.”

“Including making off with their cell phone,” Quinn added.

Katie blinked. She stared at them both, then at the dog at her feet. Then she looked back to Quinn. “Wait. You’re saying he took my phone on purpose? To...what? What are you saying?”

Hayley leaned forward, focusing on Katie. Her voice was gentle, encouraging, like a hug from a friend. “He can always sense when someone needs the kind of help the Foxworth Foundation can provide.”

Katie frowned, puzzled. She remembered the name from when Hayley had come by, but she’d been too entranced by the charming Cutter to really focus on the brief mention of the foundation she and her husband—and the dog—were part of, other than to register she’d heard of it before. But while she appreciated the concern—and heaven knows she needed any support she could get—she doubted this foundation of theirs could help, even though she had only a vague idea of what kind of work they did.

“I’m afraid your foundation can’t solve my problem,” she said. “Because what I need is a really, really good attorney.”

Neither Foxworth answered her. There was no sound but a loud pop from the fire. But Hayley, Quinn and even Cutter had all shifted their gaze. And they were staring at the man sitting in the chair opposite her. The man who had gone suddenly very still.

“Told you,” Quinn said, breaking the silence.

Katie had no idea what Quinn was referencing, but Gavin muttered something she guessed she was glad not to have heard.

“Katie,” Hayley said in a more formal tone that was no less gentle, “let me more fully introduce someone to you. This—” she gestured at Gavin “—is the Foxworth Foundation’s attorney, Gavin de Marco.”

She was so startled at the coincidence of their guest being an attorney, on top of their dog seemingly leading her here, that it was a moment before the name registered. When it did she gaped at him, she was sure gracelessly.

“De Marco? The Gavin de Marco?”

She’d known the name since before the scandalous downfall of the governor last spring, but once it was discovered that the formerly famous but now rarely heard from attorney was involved in sorting out the aftermath, his name had been included in every news story. And suddenly she remembered that was where she’d heard about the Foxworth Foundation before, in those stories. She just hadn’t realized that Quinn and Hayley were those Foxworths.

But she doubted there was any adult in the entire country, except perhaps those who lived purposely in ignorance, who hadn’t heard the name Gavin de Marco. Any criminal case that had hit the national news in the last decade, there was a 50 per cent chance de Marco’s name was attached. After blasting into the public awareness at a young age when a senior attorney had died midcase and he’d had to take over—he often referred to himself as the understudy who made good—his record was so amazing that it had become, in the public mind, an indicator of guilt or innocence in itself. Not because of lawyerly tricks or clever dodges, but because he always seemed to turn up the evidence or get testimony or make an argument that exonerated his client so thoroughly juries could vote no other way.

And then there were the other cases. She’d read about them, back when she’d been living and working down in Tacoma, because they were hard to avoid as she shelved the newspapers patrons had still wanted in those days. The Reed fraud case, the Redmond murder case, and the others where he had withdrawn from the defense. By then his reputation was such that it was practically a conviction in itself, no matter what reason was given.

All these thoughts raced through her mind in the embarrassingly long moment when she simply stared at him. Along with a rapid recalculation. She’d thought he must be about her age, but he had to be older. College, three years of law school, however long it had taken to hit the national stage, all those famous cases, and then the three or four years since he’d dropped out of sight for reasons still a matter of wide speculation.

He didn’t look like the pictures and video images she remembered. Gone was the exquisitely tailored suit and the haircuts that had likely cost more than her monthly food budget. Now he was wearing a pair of black, low-slung jeans and a knit, long-sleeved shirt that stretched over broad shoulders and clung to a narrow waist and hips. His hair was longer, with a couple of dark strands kicking forward over his brow. Outward signs of inward changes? she wondered. It all made him less intimidating...until you looked at his eyes. No one with those eyes could be anything less than intimidating.

She had no idea how long she’d been sitting there gaping at him when he said, in a level tone that told her he was familiar with her reaction, “And you need an attorney because...?”

No preamble, no “Nice to meet you” exchange. He’d cut right to the chase. But then, wasn’t that what an attorney was supposed to do? Be objective, get to the heart of things, and not be distracted by such messy things as emotions?

Easy, when you’re not the one whose life is being blown up.

The spark of emotion she felt at his cool detachment enabled her to pull herself together. And instead of saying the multitude of things piling up in her mind, she made herself answer his question simply.

“I need an attorney because my father is suspected of murdering my best friend.”

Chapter 3

Well. He hadn’t expected that, Gavin thought.

He’d wanted to cut through her obvious reaction to his name, even as he wondered yet again when it would at last fade from the public consciousness. He looked forward to that day with more longing than he ever had getting into a courtroom, even in the fresh, young days of idealistic fervor.

That it was likely going to take until an entire generation grew up having never heard of him was a thought he tried not to dwell on. For a guy who, unlike many of his fellow attorneys, had never wanted that kind of fame, he surely had acquired enough of it to last a lifetime. And he was likely going to be a crotchety old man before it faded.

And who says you’re not a crotchety old man already, de Marco?

“No wonder you’re scattered,” Hayley was saying. She’d moved to sit next to the woman on the sofa, putting an arm around her. Cutter sat up and shifted so that he could rest his chin on her knee. The woman lifted a hand to stroke the dark head. He could almost feel some of the tension ease from her, even from over here.

That dog was...something. Then again, Gavin couldn’t blame the dog for wanting to be stroked by this woman.

He blinked. Where the hell had that come from?

“Can you tell us the story?” Hayley asked gently.

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Gavin heard the husky tremor in her voice, saw the sudden gleam in her eyes, recognized the welling of moisture. She was on the edge of breaking. He knew there were usually two ways to go with someone who was teetering like this. Let them go, let it gush out uncontrollably and try to make sense of it after, or take the lead and control it for them. Both approaches had their benefits. An emotional flood sometimes netted information the person would not necessarily have revealed had they been in control. But it could also lead to confusion, because emotionally distraught people often saw connections where there were none, assumed cause and effect where it wasn’t warranted, or at worst made no sense at all.

He decided on the latter approach, and told himself it was not because he simply did not want to see this woman break down in front of him. And it had nothing to do with that errant thought that had blasted into his mind as he’d watched her stroke Cutter’s soft fur.

“Or,” he said, intentionally rather briskly, “would you rather just answer some questions, in a logical order?”

Gavin saw her take a deep breath, as if to steady herself. Her mouth tightened slightly, and he found himself disliking the tension of it in a very peculiar way.

“There’s no point.” She glanced at Gavin. “I need an attorney for my father, but we can’t afford Gavin de Marco.”

Quinn stepped in then. “If we determine Foxworth can help—and that is a big if—you won’t have to. Gavin works for us.”

“In that case, I probably can’t afford you, either.”

“Not an issue,” Gavin said. “Whether your case meets Foxworth criteria is.”

“And if it does,” Quinn said, “there’s no cost for Foxworth’s help.”

“No cost?” She glanced at Gavin. “What’s your billable rate? A thousand an hour?”

His mouth quirked upward. There had been some bite in the question, a sign she was steadying. Given even what little he knew of her situation from her stark explanation, he found it admirable. He doubted many could manage it.

“It was actually a bit more,” he said. “Back in the day.”

Her gaze shifted to Quinn. “So you have him on retainer, or what?”

“Actually,” Quinn answered mildly, “we don’t pay him at all.”

She drew back rather sharply. Hayley put a hand on her arm. Cutter nudged her to keep petting. Between the two of them Katie didn’t have a chance, Gavin thought, but he hid his amusement.

“Gavin,” Hayley said, “works with us because he, like all of us, believes in what we do.”

Katie’s gaze shifted from Hayley to Quinn to him in rapid succession. “For free?” she said in obvious disbelief.

“I get compensated in...other ways,” he said. Like the easing of my soul.

She looked genuinely confused. People always were, when first confronted with the idea of an organization like Foxworth. It just didn’t seem possible these days that anyone would take up causes like this.

“What exactly is it,” Katie said carefully, “that you do?”

Gavin glanced at Quinn, the man who had pulled him out of a quagmire of betrayal and self-doubt and given him a clear and bright path to follow. Were he not here Gavin might have tried to explain himself, but the Foxworth Foundation was Quinn’s creation, his and Charlie’s. Quinn walked over and sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of Katie, his elbows resting on his knees.

“When I was ten, my parents were killed in a terrorist bombing. I have never felt so helpless or so enraged as when the terrorist was set free and nobody would tell me the truth. Foxworth was founded to help people who are in that same boat, fighting injustice. Honest, good people in the right, who have fought but can’t fight anymore, or who haven’t been able to get help anywhere else.”

Gavin watched with interest as Katie Moore studied Quinn. “And who,” she asked after a moment, “decides they’re in the right?”

Gavin registered the question that many didn’t even think to ask. Ms. Moore was clearly not in the nonthinking category. He could almost hear the click in his mind as he checked off that box in his assessment. She would not be difficult to work with in that way. In other ways...

Again he had to slam on the mental brakes. Maybe Charlie had been right, and he really was going nuts.

“That’s the joy of being a private enterprise,” Quinn answered with a smile. “We do. We have our values, and our criteria are ours alone.”

“We only take cases we can get behind wholeheartedly,” Hayley added. “We can’t help everyone, but those we do help get it all.”

Katie seemed fascinated by the concept, and was now distracted enough that she appeared and sounded calmer than when she had arrived. Gavin knew he was right because Cutter settled back down at her feet, head resting on his front paws.

Her hair had dried now, and he saw it was a sandy sort of blond with strands of a lighter, golden color here and there. And her eyes truly were that blue. Even as he thought it she glanced at him, giving him the full force of that vivid color. Then she turned back to Hayley and Quinn.

“What kind of cases?” Katie asked.

“We’ve reunited long-lost families—my own included,” Hayley said with a smile. “Recovered a kidnap victim. Helped some troubled kids, and adults, find their way. Gave a grieving family a reason they could bear for a suicide. And Quinn found a stolen locket that was the only memento a girl had of her dead mother.” She looked at her husband proudly. “That’s still his favorite case.”

Katie smiled at that. It was a nice smile, Gavin thought, yet it was tinged with a sadness that made him wonder about her own mother. Not something you need to know. Stop it.

Katie only asked, “Even more than taking down a corrupt politician?”

“In a way, yes,” Quinn said.

“And there you have it,” Gavin said, speaking for the first time since this explanation of Foxworth had begun. “The reason Foxworth is what it is. It’s in what they value.”

Katie’s head turned and she studied him for a moment. She clearly took her time, thought through things, processed them. He wondered if she ever did anything on pure impulse. Images flashed into his mind, of things Katie Moore might do on impulse. Heat shot through him, as if the fire they were gathered around had suddenly flared. He quickly shifted his gaze to that fire, wondering what the hell was happening with him, and if she’d seen anything in his eyes.

He looked up again when she spoke, but she was back to looking at Hayley and Quinn, and he could breathe again. He would analyze this later, far away from those eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she was saying, “I didn’t realize you were the Foxworths mentioned in all the stories last spring.”

“We don’t advertise it. We work mostly by word of mouth,” Hayley said. Then, rather pointedly, she nodded at Cutter. “Although these days, he brings us enough work all by himself.”

Katie blinked. Gavin understood. He was more than a bit bemused himself by how easily Quinn and Hayley accepted that their dog had not only sensed this woman needed their help, but apparently had engineered this entire meeting.

Quinn smiled. “I was as skeptical as you are, but he’s proven himself time and again. I’ve learned to just go with it.”

“We all have. Even Gavin,” Hayley added with a grin and a sideways look at him, “and he’s the least fanciful guy you’ll ever meet.”

“Thanks,” Gavin said drily. “I think.”

“I would think being fanciful wouldn’t be a good trait for an attorney,” Katie said.

Gavin found himself oddly curious. “And what traits would be?”

Katie studied him again, perhaps looking for any sign his question had been facetious or snarky. His curiosity was genuine, and apparently she sensed that. Once decided, she seemed to consider the question as thoroughly as she had everything else. After a moment she said, “Sifting. Through all the dross to the essentials, I mean. Empathy that doesn’t cloud objectivity. Researching. An affinity for the facts.”

Gavin stared at her. “That was very concise.”

“I read a lot. Remember most. Was I close?”

“Very.” His mouth twisted at one corner. “Except the objectivity and affinity for facts seem to be falling by the wayside these days.”

“You asked what traits would be good, not which ones were common.”

He blinked. Quinn laughed aloud. “She got you there, Gav.”

He laughed himself, something rare enough to be appreciated. “Indeed.”

Cutter’s head came up, and Gavin found himself the object of the dog’s steady gaze. He got the oddest feeling it was a look of approval. Then he almost laughed again, at himself for attributing such things to a look from a dog. And he was glad when Quinn turned things back to Katie’s situation.

“It’s up to you, of course, but if you tell us the story and Foxworth can’t take the case, we can perhaps guide you to someone who can. We have a lot of contacts, people who’d be willing to help.”

“That’s the payment Foxworth gets,” Hayley told her. “The willingness to help someone else down the line.”

Katie glanced at Gavin again. He could almost read the question in her glance, if he was one they had helped who was now paying them back.

More than you could imagine, he told her silently.

She continued to look at him. Cutter made a small, low sound, drawing his gaze. The dog was staring at him again, and he felt oddly compelled to tip the troubled woman over that edge, get her to open up. He leaned back in his chair, as if settling in.

“What was your friend’s name?” he asked.

“Laurel,” she said. “Laurel Brisbane.”

The pain that echoed in her voice jabbed at him. The old instincts still kicked in, but the old impartiality was struggling. He tried to ignore it and went for the easiest question that was likely to get her started. They’d get to the rest once she’d gotten used to the idea of talking.

“Tell us about her.”

She drew in a deep breath, and he knew the ball was rolling.

Chapter 4

Katie was amazed at what a relief it was to talk about Laurel to people who hadn’t heard it all before. People who neither wanted salacious details nor tried to steer her away from the painful subject. She knew her friends and even her family meant well, but the way they shied away from even speaking about Laurel or her death, as if the lively, clever and utterly loyal woman she’d been had never existed, only added to the hurt.

And yet she herself shied away from her death now, choosing to start at the beginning, when two girls had laughed at the same thing in a fourth grade classroom, and a fast, enduring friendship had begun. And they listened, these people she barely knew, even though this wasn’t the story they were really waiting for. Even Gavin—she had to think of him by his first name because realizing she was sitting in the same room with the celebrated Gavin de Marco disconcerted her—listened quietly, not interrupting or prompting. That was unexpected to her; she thought he’d be more of a “cut right to the chase” kind of guy. At least, that was the impression he’d always given in news reports and video clips. He’d been renowned for his talent for reducing a case to its simplest aspect in a broadcast-worthy sound bite, succinct and pithy. Of course, the fact that the camera loved him didn’t hurt, she’d thought back then when she’d seen him.

Now, however, she knew it wasn’t the camera at all. He really was that good-looking, and more compelling in person than any recorded image could be. And that was a path she was not walking, she told herself sternly. But didn’t it just figure that the first spark of real response she’d had to a man in a long time would come now, not only amid an impossible situation but with an impossible man?

Ignore it. It will go away. Or he will.

She jumped ahead to where Laurel had, temporarily, moved into Katie’s apartment in Tacoma after a final breakup with her boyfriend of a couple of years, Ross Carr. Laurel had seemed both unsurprised and resigned, and Kate’s role seemed to mostly be offering commiseration, ice cream and reassurance that she was better off without him.

Until that day a week later, when she had come home from work to find a bloody nightmare of a scene. Her fingers curled into fists as she fought to get it told. The words came out in compressed chunks, in between harsh breaths.