Thorne’s shoulders sagged wearily. ‘The one where he reminds me that I’m not a thug, but that if people are stupid enough to be afraid of me, then I should make the most of it.’
‘The conversation that you and I have had a hundred times?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t realize anyone else was telling you the same thing.’ She lightened her voice to hide the anger that speared at the slump of his shoulders. ‘You’ve been double-dipping in the wisdom well, Thorne.’
He didn’t smile. ‘It’s not just my size.’
‘I know,’ she said softly.
She’d heard the racial slurs over the years, both as his paralegal in the early days and as the club manager more recently. Thorne was a burnished bronze all over. All. Over.
Not a tan line on the man. Anywhere. Which she only knew because she’d once accidentally walked in on him in the shower at the club. She’d nearly swallowed her tongue. The memory still made her want to fan herself.
All that gorgeous, flawless skin made him even more beautiful, but people were often assholes, and the fact that Thorne loomed over nearly everyone he met didn’t seem to deter the most stupid of them. Racists usually spewed their toxic bullshit when they were thrown out of Sheidalin or if Thorne refused to take their case, whatever his reason. If he lost their case, the slurs sometimes morphed into death threats.
Which could be the case here. This whole orchestration could be an angry client or family member looking for revenge. It made her so furious, because Thorne was the best man she’d ever known.
‘What’s really bothering you?’ she asked softly.
He didn’t say anything for a few beats, then shrugged. ‘All this talk of those days brought back a lot of bad memories, I guess. The prosecutor made me out to be some juvenile delinquent, even suggested I ran with one of the gangs, despite the fact that there was no actual evidence of that at all. Gang activity had begun taking hold in the city then. White neighborhoods were afraid of anyone who . . . didn’t look like them. And I didn’t. Jamie shut the prosecutor down fast, objecting that there was no basis for the intimation, but it still hurt, hearing someone accuse me of being a thug. I’d tried so hard to stay out of trouble.’
That didn’t come as a surprise either. Thorne had a kind of fluid ethnicity. He could pass as a member of several minority groups and had occasionally used that fact to go undercover, doing his own investigation into prospective clients. He was choosy about the cases he took on. He wanted the facts before agreeing to representation.
He enjoyed all the undercover intrigue. Gwyn had enjoyed going with him, but she hadn’t participated in any of his UC adventures in . . . She wanted to sigh. Four and a half years. Dammit. He’d been doing it all on his own since Evan. How many things had she just let go because of that fucker? Too many.
‘Good thing you didn’t have the tats then,’ she said, tongue in cheek. She knew he hadn’t, because she’d gone with him the day he’d had his first session. They’d just met, but there had been a connection from the beginning, fast and fierce. So fierce that he’d trusted her to accompany him to the tattoo artist. His first visit had been on the anniversary of his father’s death, taking on the tattoo that had adorned his father’s skin. The entire design had taken four visits. She’d held his hand through all of them.
They had history, she and Thorne.
Her comment finally elicited a small grin. ‘God help me if I had,’ he agreed. ‘I figured I’d never get a fair trial as it was.’
‘But you did,’ Jamie said firmly, bringing both of them back to the present. ‘I, for one, am happy you’re as big as a freaking house. I’ll feel safer tonight.’ He gave Gwyn an approving nod. ‘Go pack a bag. Bring a sweater. Phil keeps the A/C on sub-arctic.’
‘What about my dog?’
‘Bring him,’ Jamie said. ‘We’ve got a fenced-in yard with a lot of shade. Does he like to swim?’
‘Like a fish.’
‘Then we’ll put him outside tomorrow and he can play in the pool if he gets hot.’
Gwyn slid off the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll be quick.’
College Park, Maryland,
Sunday 12 June, 11.30 P.M.
Frederick accepted the cup of coffee with a smile. ‘Thank you for seeing me so late, Mrs Brown.’
Bernice Brown frowned as she took the chair at her cousin’s kitchen table, sitting opposite Frederick. ‘I saw the news about Mr Thorne. I don’t understand any of this.’
‘None of us do. Yet. But we know he’s not guilty. And it seems you’ve been involved in the situation.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Me? How? I never . . .’ She trailed off, her words suddenly failing her.
‘Bernie?’ Her cousin came into the room, his expression concerned. ‘What’s going on?’
Bernice threw him a panicked glance. ‘Wayne, they think I’m involved in that woman’s murder! The one on the news!’
‘Whoa,’ Frederick said soothingly, trying to calm her. ‘I don’t think that’s the case. I said you’d been involved – we believe by someone else.’ He gestured to her cousin. ‘Would you mind joining us?’
Wayne complied, sitting close to Bernice and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. Wayne Bullock was in his mid fifties, Bernice a decade younger. From what Frederick had gleaned from Thorne’s files, Wayne had been a father figure in Bernice’s life. Now retired, he lived in a trailer, which had provided a convenient hiding place for his cousin. When her husband had begun stalking her, Wayne had moved his trailer to a park two counties away. Having a portable home had its advantages.
‘Start talking, Mr Dawson,’ Wayne ordered.
‘I will. I’m Mr Thorne’s associate. I’ve been with him for about a year. I’ll be taking over your case, Mrs Brown, while he is under investigation. As I said, we have the utmost confidence he’ll be cleared.’
‘How is Bernie involved?’ Wayne asked.
‘Mr Thorne was attacked and abducted from a bar called Barney’s last night.’
Bernice frowned. ‘I’ve never heard of that place. What does it have to do with me?’
‘He was going – he believed – to meet you, Mrs Brown.’
She gasped. ‘Me? No!’
Frederick nodded calmly. ‘I believe you.’ Mainly because he’d traced the call and it had come from an untraceable cell phone. ‘The call came through our answering service. The caller identified herself as you, Mrs Brown. She told Thorne that a car had tried to run her off the road and that she was afraid.’
‘So he came,’ she whispered. ‘He would, wouldn’t he?’
‘He would,’ Frederick agreed. ‘He did. That’s the last thing he remembers. He was beaten and drugged.’
Bernice was shaking her head. ‘I didn’t call him.’
‘I didn’t think so. I traced the call to a disposable cell phone.’
‘I have one of those,’ Bernice said slowly, as if considering each word, ‘but I didn’t use it.’ She looked troubled. ‘Mr Thorne gave it to me. Told me it was for my safety.’
‘You can continue to use it,’ Frederick said. ‘Or I’ll get you another one. Either way, can I ask where you were last night around midnight?’
‘Here,’ she said. ‘We were watching a movie on Netflix. But I can’t prove it.’
Wayne’s arm tightened around her. ‘Will the police be looking for Bernie? She’s in enough trouble already because of that piece-of-shit husband of hers.’
‘Thorne didn’t mention her to the police.’
Bernice’s eyes widened. ‘But it’s part of his alibi. I could tell them that I didn’t call him, that he was lured.’
‘He won’t give your name, ma’am,’ Frederick reiterated. ‘He won’t disclose his clients. He just won’t.’
Bernice seemed to relax at that, even though she bit at her lip. ‘What can I do?’
Frederick smiled at her. ‘For now? Stay under the radar and stay safe. He was worried about you. It was one of the first things he said when he woke up. He asked us to check on you, to be sure you were safe. So that’s how you can best help him.’
Wayne was frowning. ‘But if someone pretended to be Bernie on the phone, that means they knew she’d hired him.’