Chapter One
Secrets had a way of feasting on a person’s soul. Their appetite was voracious, parasitic in their inability to stop consuming until there was nothing left of their host but an empty shell. Judge Natalie DeSalvo had witnessed this parasitic invasion time and time again, and would continue to do so as long as people walked the earth.
This week had been especially brutal for Natalie; just that morning she’d had a case centered around human trafficking. One of the kidnapper’s victims had been subpoenaed and forced to testify. When the woman had slipped into the courtroom, she had held her trembling hands together in front of her, and her eyes had never left the floor. Sweat beaded at her hairline and her face had been a sickly white. No doubt the victim feared for her life.
Natalie had asked the woman to look at her on the stand and had gazed directly into dark, nearly black eyes. In those seconds it was as if the woman’s penetrating stare had acted as a vacuum, pulling every shred of empathy and pity from Natalie until it threatened to ooze out onto her notes and smudge the ink.
Her entire body had hurt for the woman as she had told her story of being taken to the streets of Las Vegas and sold. The secrets poured from her, faster and faster, as the lawyers pressed her, until finally, she no longer stared down at the floor. Soon, some of the life that had seemed stripped from her began to return, filling her until she changed from empty automaton to flesh-and-blood accuser. Her voice became stronger, and then—when she looked at her kidnapper—the world shifted.
The woman came back to life.
It was those moments of self-acceptance and that break from secrecy that made Natalie love her job. There were only a handful of moments that made her feel like she was doing what she had been destined to do. The rest of the time she felt as if she was just a cog in the wheel of the criminal defense system, a system she found to be broken as much as she felt it worked.
By the end of the trial, and after hearing all of the victims’ testimonies about the atrocious things the man had done to them and their lives, she had sentenced the man to prison where he would serve twenty years, without the ability to seek parole. It was the maximum allowed for his crimes.
The sad truth was that, even if the trafficker spent the rest of his life behind bars, he could still get to this woman—even make sure she was killed if the mood struck him. Even doing everything Natalie could, the power she wielded as a judge wasn’t enough to promise anyone any real safety.
It was no wonder that she was often hard-pressed for a good night’s sleep.
Thankfully, the other district court judge, Steven Hanes, had been tremendously generous with his time and mentorship. Tonight she would need his ear and support more than ever.
She sighed as she packed up her things after the last trial of the day—one where a drunk driver had managed to get a jury of twelve to ignore his blood alcohol content and find him not guilty. That kind of thing was common. Often, there was someone on the jury who had gotten a DUI, or knew somebody who had, and comprehended exactly what kind of long-lasting ramifications came with a guilty verdict.
The man on trial had definitely played the pity card, talking about how he had been out of work and had just been trying to get out a series of résumés and applications when he’d been asked to have a drink with a potential employer. It was hard to know if the man was telling the truth or lying, but it was clear, based on his threadbare and too-small suit jacket, that he was down on his luck.
Little did the jury know, but the man had eight previous DUIs and this was nothing more than his best attempt to take advantage of the good nature of the people on the jury who only wanted the best for him.
He had walked away with the harshest consequence she could hand down—a warning not to repeat his mistakes.
Yes, this was one of the days she hated her job and the way that criminals so often knew exactly how to take advantage of others and the system.
She sighed and picked up her briefcase, slipping the strap over her shoulder, and the bailiff followed her out of the empty courtroom. She bid him goodbye with a nod and a small wave. Before she made her way from the courthouse, she stopped by Judge Hanes’s chambers. He’d had a DUI on his docket, as well, and he tended to take these kinds of trials harder than she did. His first wife had died as a result of a drunk driver when she was struck in the middle of the day while trying to cross a street. The accident had left him a single father of a rowdy boy who had become an even rowdier man.
Judge Hanes was at his desk when she stuck her head in. “Heard you had a heck of a trial. You doing okay?”
He sighed and reclined in his leather wingback chair, which sat behind his mahogany desk. “That was a tough day.”
She smiled but felt a tiredness in her eyes that she couldn’t blink away. “I’m sure you did what you could.”
He waved her inside. “Why don’t you come in, sit down? Or do you have somewhere to be?”
She loved hanging out with the age-wizened judge, and truth be told, she looked forward to their evening chats. Usually, he was like her, rushing about and needing to be somewhere, so it was a treat to receive the invite from the man she looked to as a father figure.
Besides, where did she have to be? Her house was empty and there was no one waiting for her at home. There hadn’t been in four years, ever since she had kicked her ex-boyfriend to the curb. Since then, she had poured herself into her work and became the youngest female district court judge in Montana’s history—some days, like this one, she wondered which had been harder, breaking up or being young and in power.
She walked into the office, clicking the door shut behind her.
“How did your case go this morning?” he asked, motioning to the chair across from his desk as he got up and went to the concealed side bar that was tucked away in the corner of his library beneath several shelves of law books. His lips were drawn into a tight line, and the creases in his brows were the deepest she had ever seen them. “Want a scotch?”
“Sure.” She wasn’t much of a drinker and she definitely wasn’t a scotch drinker, but she always made the exception for Hanes. “I’m surprised that the man’s lawyer didn’t ask for a change of judge. If I’d been the lawyer on that case, it would have been the first thing I would have done. He couldn’t have assumed a female judge would remain impartial in a case of trafficking women.”
Judge Hanes scoffed. “You know public defenders. Most are so overwhelmed that they don’t have time to tie their shoes let alone do the legwork required in high-intensity, emotionally riveting cases.”
He opened a bottle of water and filled her tumbler halfway and then added a dot of scotch as though he was aware she was only going along with this for his benefit. He handed her the glass and then filled his own, the mixture more to his taste. As he sat down in his chair, he let out a long exhale.
She had seen him after many of these kinds of trials, but tonight he seemed more road worn than normal. “What’s wrong?”
He chuffed. “That easy to tell?”
“I know you’re a poker player, but tonight I would advise against hitting the tables,” she said, hoping to lighten him up. “You want to tell me what’s on your mind? I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’m willing to listen.”
He took a long drink, nearly emptying his glass. This was unlike him. He wasn’t a man about getting drunk; he was a man about making a statement. Whatever was on his mind must have been eating him up inside, making her wonder if this was less about the trial and more about whatever was happening in his personal life.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve always appreciated that about you. You’re good people, Judge DeSalvo. It is all too easy to fall into the darkness that comes with our position.”
Yep, he definitely wasn’t being himself. He normally used her first name when they were in private...why the sudden shift to her professional moniker? What was the significance?
“What’s on your mind?” she pressed.
He closed his eyes and sighed as if he was trying to decide whether or not he really wanted to open up to her, and it made her feel for him. Finally, he looked at her and there was a pain in his features she had never noticed before. “I’m trying to clean up some trouble. And because of it, now someone wants me dead.” He took a drink. “I’m used to this kind of thing, but...”
She sat in shocked silence, waiting for him to continue and not wanting to rush him even though she wanted to ask about the threat. She couldn’t believe how calm he seemed. Yes, he was thrown off balance and worn, but not overly surprised.
Hanes opened up his top desk drawer and pulled out a photograph. “I’m having a hard time dealing with the fallout.” He slid the picture across the desk.
Picking it up, she looked at the image. Hanes was standing at the top of the steps that led into the courthouse on the day she had been made district court judge. The picture had been on the front of the local paper the next day and was now framed in her office. There were several court clerks, the sheriff and the district attorney standing around them. Everything looked as it should except Hanes had been circled. His face was ex-ed out. A note in Sharpie had been scrawled on the bottom. It read: “Your death is coming. Soon. Turncoat.”
She dropped the picture and it skidded out from her before lurching to a stop. “Did you report this to the police?” She looked back toward the door. “I could go and grab the bailiff. Maybe he hasn’t left for the night yet.”
He waved her off. “No. I don’t want the police involved. I have a feeling that their digging into this would cause more harm than good.”
Troubled by that answer, she ignored it for the time being. “Why did they call you a turncoat?”
He shrugged. “To the guilty, we’re all turncoats.”
“Have you told anyone else about this?”
“Just a couple people.”
“What about your son, Sven?”
“Not yet. He doesn’t need trouble. He’s still trying to find his feet at the fire station, you know.” He refused to meet her eye.
She didn’t doubt Sven was still struggling, not for a second. It was well known the only reason Sven had gotten the job and wasn’t in prison—thanks to his alleged drug possession and several assaults—was because of his father. “What do you think he would say?”
“Sven? He’d brush it off, probably say something about it having to do with one of my cases.” He ran his hands over his face. “And he’d probably be right. You know how this world of ours works. There is always someone gunning for us.”
She nodded, trying to come up with advice that would actually do some good. For now all she could think was that it was best if she gave him an opportunity to get things off his chest. Judges received threats from time to time, and most of them were empty blasts of anger meant to instill fear, but with no real follow-up. Hanes was a tough man and had enough security in place that he would remain safe. That wasn’t to say someone couldn’t get to him if they wanted him to be hurt, but they would definitely have to know what they were doing.
“Wait,” she said, thoughtfully. “How did you get the picture?”
He emptied his glass before standing up, and this time just going for straight scotch instead of watering it down. “I found it on my desk this morning.”
“On your desk?” She sat back like the object she had been leaning on was directly responsible for the death threat.
He chuckled, then took another long drink. “Yeah. That’s the thing that is bothering me the most about the whole deal. I can handle the occasional threats, no biggie. Only the cleaning staff had access at night, but they have been through security checks and clearances.”
“You don’t think it was one of them, do you? Was anything else amiss?” Her mind whirled as she thought about her own chambers—she hadn’t noticed anything out of place, but she hadn’t been looking. Thankfully, there had been no picture on her desk and no obvious threat.
He shrugged, the action so foreign coming from this man that panic filled her. “Nothing appeared tampered with and my desk was locked when I came in this morning, but you and I both know that safety is nothing more than an illusion.”
Actually, no...she hadn’t felt that way, not until right now. ...
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