Rooted in Murder Read online

  Her gaze flickered in my direction, and her hands edged up to her hair. She pulled out her hair tie, letting her hair loose. “Who’s this?”

  Around town, everyone now called me Nicole Cavanaugh, but this wasn’t a social situation. This was business.

  I held out my hand. “Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes.”

  The blank look that she gave me said my name didn’t register, then something shifted. Her shoulders drew backward.

  “You’re that lawyer Grady’s always complaining about hanging around the police station.”

  I swallowed down a snort of laughter. No surprise Grady hadn’t spoken of me in flattering terms. “I’ve been involved in a lot of cases since coming to Fair Haven.”

  “She’s obnoxious,” Grady said. “But she wins.”

  The truly sad part of that description was that both my parents would have considered it a compliment. They’d rather be successful than liked. I wasn’t sure that was the case for me. And, after all, shouldn’t I be able to be both? Society definitely had a stereotype that liked to portray successful women as heartless witches. Or maybe it was the other way around—that there was the conception that women had to be that way if they wanted to succeed.

  I had to hope and pray all that was smoke, mirrors, and lies. If it wasn’t, Anderson had bet on the wrong person when he asked me to join him as a partner in his law firm. I wanted to win, but I wanted to still like who I was at the end of it.

  Thankfully, I didn’t care if Grady liked me at the end of it. He’d never liked me, and the feeling was more than mutual.

  Hearing Grady’s description of me had restored my sense of humor at least. It also restored a bit of my sense of freedom. I wasn’t as much under his thumb as I’d originally felt due to the favor I owed him. He must have been desperate to come to me, given his opinions of me.

  Grady’s sister crossed her arms in a way that eerily mimicked Grady’s favorite stance. “Why do I need someone who wins? I don’t need a lawyer at all.”

  This was going to be fun if she was as much like Grady as this first impression was making her seem.

  My ears ached from the cold. “Could we discuss it inside before I lose an appendage to frostbite?”

  The quick look she exchanged with Grady felt like she was saying You weren’t kidding about her.

  I would have sworn the look he gave her back said You have no idea.

  She stepped backward enough that we could enter. “Just be quiet about it. Gina’s sleeping.”

  Her house felt sauna-warm after standing outside for so long. She pointed at where I could hang my coat, then led us into the living room. She took the armchair, sitting cross-legged. That left the couch for Grady and me. We took separate ends.

  And then neither of them spoke.

  To think I could have been home with Mark now.

  Pull it together, Nikki, I admonished myself. You’re a professional, after all.

  A professional who’d learned my lesson when it came to not knowing my client’s name. It’d gotten me into a pickle once when Elise tricked me into defending her ex-husband because I hadn’t asked for the full name of the man she wanted me to defend.

  I gave Grady’s sister my best impression of my mom’s smile—the one that gave every client who entered my parents’ office confidence that she was the right choice. “How about you start by telling me your name?”

  She glanced toward Grady, and I thought I caught an eye roll. “Geez. If you haven’t even told her that much, what did you tell her?”

  The affection in her tone when she spoke to him caught me off guard. From their first interaction at the door, I’d kind of expected that Grady’s sister liked him about as much as I did. Now it seemed like she’d merely been caught off guard—and I couldn’t blame her for that.

  She focused back on me. “Daphne…Scherwin.”

  She added her last name belatedly, like she didn’t want to risk any more vagueness.

  I almost reintroduced myself, then realized how inane it would make me sound. “Your brother brought me here because he thinks you’ll soon need a lawyer, but he wanted me to hear the story from you.”

  She closed her eyes and sagged slightly. She opened them again with a shake of her head. “I’m really sorry, but if he’s brought you out here over Lee, he’s wasted your time.”

  “Your boyfriend showed up dead.” Grady’s voice sounded like he was speaking around a clenched jaw.

  “Ex-boyfriend, and the last time I saw him was twelve years ago.”

  Thanks to makeup, it could sometimes be difficult to guess a woman’s age. Since we’d woken Daphne up, she wasn’t wearing any. I’d have put her age somewhere slightly younger than me, which meant she would have been close to finishing high school when Lee Mills disappeared.

  If there really was no need for me to be here, the sooner we established that, the better for me. “Do you know why Grady might think you’d need a lawyer?”

  Daphne brought her shoulders up close to her ears and then lowered them down. It wasn’t an I-don’t-know shrug. It was more an I-don’t-see-the-point shrug. “Lee and I had a public, nasty breakup, and his parents reported him missing the next day. Everyone assumed he’d run off to some big city somewhere the way he liked to talk about. ‘More opportunities,’ he always used to say.”

  She made air quotes around more opportunities in a way that made me think whatever Lee was talking about it hadn’t been a hungrier job market. Presumably he wouldn’t have talked to his girlfriend about romantic conquests that way. Mark had mentioned that the dead man was in the system because of petty crimes. Perhaps he was looking to move into bigger things that way, and he knew he couldn’t do it in Fair Haven without being caught.

  Daphne targeted Grady with a stare that would have shot laser beams at him if magical powers were a real thing. “I thought that’s what happened when he disappeared. I told the police then—I didn’t see Lee after our fight.”

  She’d obviously also told Grady.

  With Lee’s skeleton showing up still in Fair Haven, it was clear he hadn’t gone anywhere. Daphne would be the first person the police questioned once they reopened the case. It wasn’t surprising that an older brother would be concerned for her, but if what she said was true, she probably had nothing to worry about. Teenagers had messy breakups all the time. They didn’t usually kill each other over it.

  “Mom?” a girl’s voice came from directly beside me, and I jumped.

  I swiveled in my seat, but no one was there. A baby monitor sat on the end table. I could have sworn the voice belonged to an older child, but I must have been wrong.

  Daphne unfurled her legs and got to her feet. “I have to check on her. Bottom line, I don’t need a lawyer. Lee was alive the last time I saw him.” She gave me a smile that missed her eyes. “I’m sorry he dragged you out here, Nicole. You weren’t the obnoxious one tonight.”

  She hustled off into the house. Apparently, she figured Grady knew his way out.

  I got to my feet, but he didn’t move.

  “So what’s the next step?” he asked.

  As far as I knew, the next step was he took me home. It was so late at this point that I didn’t know whether to hope Mark was still up so we’d get a little time together or hope Mark had been able to fall asleep so he wouldn’t be as exhausted tomorrow as I would.

  I had a feeling, though, that Grady wasn’t talking about taking me home. He might feel his badge gave him more importance than it did, but he hadn’t struck me as stupid. When Mark and I needed his help last December, he’d actually been quite cagey in the way he went about it.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  He narrowed his eyes, as if he couldn’t decide whether I was being intentionally dense or whether I was the stupid one. “With taking Daphne’s case. Is there some paperwork we need to sign?”

  “We have a contract for clients to sign, but unless I don’t need a lawyer is code for the opposite, your sister isn’t going
to need to sign anything.”

  I internally cringed. I’d only meant to think that slightly antagonistic reply, not actually say it. But really, I couldn’t be blamed.

  Grady got to his feet. He didn’t move toward me, but I felt the difference in our height and size. He’d probably intended me to feel it. When working with potential criminals, police officers had to come across strong and slightly threatening. “We have an agreement. You owe me a favor. Defending Daphne is it.”

  “I can’t defend someone who doesn’t want a lawyer. You can’t sign for her.” I headed for the front door. I might not be able to navigate without a GPS, but I could certainly find my way back to the front door myself. “Now, are you going to drive me home, or do I need to call Mark for a ride?”

  Grady followed after me and clamped a hand down onto my coat before I could grab it from the hook. “She says she doesn’t need a lawyer, but she will. I want your promise that you’ll defend her when she does.”

  This was ridiculous. He was a member of the Fair Haven police. He knew Chief McTavish. He respected Chief McTavish, something that could be said of very few people where Grady Scherwin was concerned. Chief McTavish wasn’t a man who went on witch hunts. He wasn’t going to arrest Daphne simply because they’d been dating and had a fight the night Lee went missing. There would have to be more evidence than that before she’d need a lawyer.

  After all, the police who’d interviewed her all those years ago hadn’t felt they had enough to prove Lee hadn’t simply run off. Even knowing he hadn’t, if nothing back then had pointed to Daphne, it wasn’t likely something now would, especially since she insisted Lee was alive the last time she saw him.

  Grady’s hand was still blocking me access to my coat, and it was too cold to go outside and wait for Mark without it. I glared at him.

  The expression on his face lacked the confrontation I’d expected. The fire drained out of me and left a bit of an ache behind. He looked almost…scared. I’d been looking at him and seeing Grady Scherwin, badge-heavy police officer. Standing before me now was Grady Scherwin, worried older brother.

  He might be a jerk, but just like with Ashley, that didn’t give me an excuse to be one. I was the Christian here, after all. I should be kinder and more merciful even to people who weren’t kind to me. “What makes you think she’ll still need a lawyer?”

  He lowered his hand to his side. His fingers twitched. “Because I know when my little sister is lying to me.”

  4

  The next day, Anderson watched me as I made my cappuccino from the fancy coffee machine he’d bought for our office. I’d been tempted to add a shot of expresso to it, but there was a fine line. I needed enough caffeine to keep me awake, but not so much that my heart raced like a hamster on a wheel.

  Anderson tapped the side of my mug with his pen. “Are you sure you’re not spreading yourself too thin between the two businesses?”

  He didn’t say now that you’re also married, but I heard it. Anderson had never said so directly, but I knew he felt the best marriages were between people who worked in the same field because they often had similar hours and goals. He’d modeled his business after my parents, after all.

  But I wasn’t trying to be a superstar in even one of my businesses, let alone both. I was happy to simply do a good job. Besides, trying to balance married life with work had nothing to do with why I felt like all my energy had been sucked out with a straw and needed to be replaced by a caffeine drip. Mark and me living in the same house actually simplified my schedule.

  I slurped down a too-hot gulp, leaving my tongue feeling like it was covered in fuzz. “It’s not that. I got dragged out in the middle of the night by a potential client who was afraid she was going to need a lawyer.”

  Anderson slid his tablet closer. He tracked my legal schedule in it as well as his so we knew when each of us were available in case we needed to team up. “When’s the bail hearing?”

  I hadn’t been entirely clear, so it made sense that he’d assume the only reason I’d go out in the middle of the night was if my client had actually been arrested. “The police haven’t even questioned her yet. It was more precautionary. From what she told me last night, it’s unlikely she’ll even need a lawyer.”

  Anderson had a way of looking at me sometimes like he was channeling my dad. I secretly suspected he watched news footage of my dad in his spare time and practiced in front of a mirror. Though I might suspect that because practicing was how I had to work on maintaining a confident expression.

  “You know what your dad would say about boundaries,” he said.

  I did. My dad would say that anything routine could wait for business hours because that way you kept yourself sharp for when it was most needed.

  I warmed my hands on the mug but didn’t risk a second sip yet. “I owe a favor.” Grady and I hadn’t discussed it, but I had a feeling he expected me to work Daphne’s case for free as well. “And it’s pro bono.”

  Anderson’s expression and posture gave nothing away. He was too good a lawyer for that. Technically, we were supposed to discuss any pro bono cases before accepting them. It was part of our agreement.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “They called in the favor unexpectedly, and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He slid the tablet out of his way. “That’s okay. It’ll happen sometimes.”

  I covered my smile with a hand. Anderson a few months ago might have been less easygoing about it. He had revenue goals for the business and big plans. I hadn’t met his public defender girlfriend yet, but I had a feeling I’d like her.

  A text made my phone shimmy on the table. I glanced at it.

  Mr. Huffman signed the new papers, Tom McClanahan wrote. I need you and Russ to come in and re-sign.

  Ugg, that made it sound like all the originals had somehow disappeared. Maybe I did need to talk to Tom about Ashley if that was the case. Just not now. Now I had enough other things to deal with.

  “Sugarwood business?” Anderson asked.

  “Nothing urgent.” This partnership was ideal for me. It gave me the freedom to consult when Anderson needed me, but to only work a case myself when a client came in who claimed to be innocent. I didn’t want to screw the arrangement up by having him think I wasn’t committed. “It can wait.”

  Anderson collected up the papers. “That was the last item anyway.”

  He smiled, his teeth flashing extra white in his bronzed face. At first, I’d thought he did something vain like visit a tanning salon to stay so brown even in winter, but it turned out it was because he liked to ski and snowboard on weekends.

  Anderson had originally hoped he and I might be a romantic match—before he learned I was engaged—but it never would have worked out even if I hadn’t already been in love with Mark. A weekend on the slopes sounded like a great way to break a leg.

  He tucked the papers into their folders. “I have a lunch date with Diana to get to anyway.”

  My phone rang before I could give him a teasing elbow nudge. I picked it up. The number wasn’t Tom’s office or Russ the way I’d been expecting.

  “Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes,” I said.

  “Chief McTavish brought Daphne in for questioning.” Grady’s voice was quiet and unnaturally calm, like he was trying not to let on that he felt anything other than confidence.

  “That’s okay.” I slung my soft-sided bag over my shoulder. Once I disconnected with Grady, I’d call Russ. I could pick him up, and we could get the papers for the purchase signed this afternoon. “We knew they’d question her the way the police originally did because of her relationship with Lee and the argument.”

  “It’s more than that,” Grady said. “I’m in the middle of my shift, and the chief is sending me home.”

  That suggested that they were looking at Daphne as a person of interest rather than just double-checking the earlier statements. The chief didn’t want Grady anywhere near the case because of his personal connection.

  What I
would never admit to him was that it was probably partly also because he’d crossed lines to help Mark when we needed it. While it’d been the right thing to do from the perspective of proving Mark’s innocence and catching the real killer, Chief McTavish couldn’t risk that Grady might violate the rules again to save his sister.

  “Remember your promise,” he said.

  I remembered without him needing to remind me. Part of me balked at the strong-arming and the fact that he felt the need to exert control. He needed my help, but he also wanted to be sure that he remained the one in charge.

  But I had promised, and it wasn’t Daphne’s fault that her brother didn’t know how to interact with people as equals rather than as minions. “I’m half an hour away in White Cloud. If you can get a message to her, tell her not to answer any questions until I get there.”

  Sheila waved at me from the reception desk before the door to the Fair Haven police station had even closed behind me. Her wave was so big she looked like she was attempting to take flight.

  Ever since Mark was cleared, she’d been trying too hard to act like nothing had changed between us. Things had changed. I knew now that I couldn’t count on her to have my back. While I didn’t blame her for looking out for herself, I also couldn’t manage to pretend what had happened hadn’t hurt me.

  I lifted a limp hand in return and stopped in front of her desk. “I’m here as counsel for Daphne Scherwin.”

  Sheila jerked backward. Then she leaned in. “You know she’s Grady Scherwin’s sister, right?”

  She whispered it, as if she expected me to back out once I learned the dirty truth about Daphne’s identity. It wasn’t a secret that Grady and I weren’t best friends…or friends at all.

  I wanted to tell her that Grady had shown loyalty to Mark and Chief McTavish and had helped us when we needed it most. All of that would have been true. It also would have been petty, rubbing it in that Grady—who I didn’t even have a relationship with—had helped when she refused.