1990. The elevator was crowded. Rebecca Cullen was trying
to balance three cups in a box without spilling coffee all
over the floor. Maybe if she learned to do this really
well, she thought, she could join a circus and go on stage
with her performance. The lids on the Styrofoam cups
weren't secure β as usual. The man who worked the counter
at the small drugstore downstairs didn't look twice at
women like Rebecca, and who cared if coffee spilled all
over a thin, nondescript woman in an out-of-style gray
suit?
He probably figured her for Ms. Businesswoman, she
thought β some rabid man-hater with a string of degrees
after her name and a career in place of a husband and
kids. Wouldn't he be shocked to see her at home on
Granddad's farm, in cutoff jeans and a tank top in supper,
which this wasn't, with her mass of gold-streaked light
brown hair down to her waist, and barefoot? This suit was
pure camouflage.
Becky was a country girl, and the sole support of her
retired grandfather and her two younger brothers. Their
mother had died when she was sixteen and their father only
stopped in to visit when he was broke and needed money.
He'd moved to Alabama a couple of years back and none of
them had heard from him since. Becky didn't care if she
never did again. She had a good job. In fact, the law
firm's recent relocation to Curry Station worked to her
favor because her office in the industrial complex right
outside Atlanta was now only a short drive from Granddad's
farm where they all lived. It was just like coming home,
because her people had lived in Curry County for more than
a hundred years.
She didn't have a complaint about her job, except that she
wished her bosses would remember to buy a new coffee urn
before much longer. This several-times-daily trip down to
the drugstore snack counter was getting to be a grind.
There were three other secretaries, a receptionist, and
two paralegals in the office, but they had seniority.
Becky got to do the mule work. She grimaced as she headed
for the elevator, hoping she wouldn't run into her nemesis
on the way up to the sixth floor.
Her hazel eyes scanned the area quickly. She relaxed as
soon as she was able to conclude that the towering figure
was not waiting around the elevators. It wasn't bad enough
that he had a stare like black ice, or that he seemed to
hate women in general and her in particular. But he also
smoked those god-awful thin black cigars. In an elevator,
they were pure hell. She wished somebody would tell him
that there was a city ordinance against smoking in crowded
public places. She meant to, but there always seemed to be
a crowd around, and for all Becky's toughness of spirit,
she was shy in crowds. But one day it would be just her
and that man, and she'd tell him how she felt about his
extremely smelly cigars.
Her mind drifted as she waited for the slow-moving
elevator to descend. She had worse problems than the cigar
man, she reminded herself. Granddad was still recovering
from the heart attack two months ago that had brought his
career as a farmer to an abrupt halt. Now Becky was
feeling the increased burden keenly. Unless she could
learn to run the tractor and grow crops, in addition to
working as a legal secretary six days a week, Granddad's
truck farm was destined to be a total loss. Her oldest
brother, Clay, was a senior in high school, constantly in
trouble these days, and no help at all around the house.
Mack was in the fifth grade and failing math. He was a
willing helper, but too small to do much. Becky herself
was twenty-four, and she'd never had a social life at all.
She'd just barely finished school when her mom had died
and her father had taken off for parts unknown.
Becky allowed her thoughts to drift for a moment,
wondering what her life could have been like. There might
have been parties and nice clothes and men to take her on
dates. She smiled at the thought of not having people
depend on her.
"Excuse me," a woman with an attachΓ© case muttered, almost
upending the coffee all over Becky.
She came out of her daydream in time to pile aboard the
elevator, already crowded from its trip to the garage in
the basement. She managed to wedge in between a woman who
reeked of perfume and two men who were arguing, loudly,
the benefits of two rival computers. It was a blinding
relief when they, and almost everyone else, including the
abundantly fragrant lady, got off on the third and fourth
floors.
"Oh, God, I hate computers," Becky sighed out loud as the
elevator slowly began climbing to the sixth floor.
"So do I," came a gruff, disgruntled voice from behind
her. She almost upset the coffee as she turned to see who
had spoken. She had thought she was alone in the elevator.
How she could have missed the man was the real question.
She was only slightly above average height, but he had to
be at least six foot two. It wasn't just the height,
though β it was the man's build. He was muscular, with a
physique that would have done a professional athlete
proud. He had lean, beautiful, dark hands and big feet,
and when he didn't smell of cigar smoke, he wore the
sexiest cologne Becky had ever smelled. But his masculine
beauty ended at his face. She couldn't remember ever
having seen such a rough-looking man.
His face was all sharp angles and fierceness. He had thick
black eyebrows and deep-set, narrow black eyes with a
peculiar piercing quality. His nose was straight and
elegant. He had a cleft chin β not terribly cleft, but
noticeable. His face was kind of long and lean, with high
cheekbones, and he had the kind of dark complexion that
was natural and didn't come from sitting in the sun. His
mouth was wide and well-formed. She'd never seen it smile.
He was in his midthirties, but there were some hard lines
in that dark face, and he had a coldness of manner that
chilled her. His very best quality was his voice. It was
deep and clear and very resonant β the kind of voice that
could caress or cut, depending on his mood β and it
projected easily.
He was well-dressed, in an obviously expensive dark gray
pin-striped suit, with a white cotton shirt and silk
paisley tie beneath it. And she thought she had avoided
him, for once. Maybe it was her karma.
"Oh. It's you again," she said with resignation. She
pushed the jolted Styrofoam coffee cups back into
place. "Do you by any chance own the elevator?" she
asked. "I mean, every time I get on it, here you are,
scowling and muttering. Don't you ever smile?"
"When I find something to smile about, you'll be the first
to see it," he said, bending his dark head to light a
pungent cigar. He had the thickest, blackest, straightest
hair she'd ever seen. He looked rather Italian, except for
his high cheekbones, and the shape of his face.
"I hate cigar smoke," she said, to break the silence.
"Then stop breathing until the doors open," he replied
carelessly.
"You are the rudest man I've ever met!" she exclaimed,
turning back, infuriated, to watch the floors light up on
the elevator panel.
"You haven't met me," he pointed out.
"Oh, lucky, lucky me," she said.
There was a muffled sound from behind her. "Do you work in
this building?"
"I don't really work for a living." She glanced at him
over her shoulder with a venomous smile. "I'm the kept
woman of one of the attorneys at Malcolm, Randers, Tyler,
and Hague."
His dark eyes slid down her trim figure, in its extremely
conventional suit, to her small-heeled shoes, then back up
again to her face, which had not a trace of makeup on it
today. She had nice hazel eyes that matched her tawny
hair, high cheekbones, a full mouth, and a straight nose,
but her face was rather quiet. He guessed that she could
look more attractive when she made the effort.
"He must have failing vision," he said finally.
Becky's eyes sparkled and narrowed as she got a firm grip
on the cup holder and her own temper. Oh, the joy of
dousing him with steaming black coffee, even if she had
asked for it. But that might have unfortunate
consequences. She needed her job, and he might know her
bosses.
"He is not blind," she made a half turn toward him and
replied haughtily. "I make up for my lack of looks with a
fantastic bedroom technique. First I smother him in
honey," she whispered conspiratorially, leaning
forward, "and then I bring in specially trained ants..."
He lifted the cigar to his mouth and took a draw from it,
blowing out a thick cloud of smoke. "I hope you take his
clothes off first," he said. "Honey is hard to get out of
fabric. This is my floor."
She stepped back to let him off, glaring at him. This
wasn't their first encounter. He'd been making terrible
remarks and scoring off her since the first day she'd been
in the building, and she was heartily sick of him β
whoever he was.
"Have a nice day," she drawled sweetly.
He didn't even turn. "I was, until you came along."
"Why don't you take your cigar and stick it up your...?!"
After the doors closed off her last word, the car carried
her unwillingly up to the fourteenth floor, where a man
and woman were waiting to go down.
She noticed the floor number with a sigh. He was ruining
her life. Why did he have to work in this building, when
there was all of Atlanta for him to get lost in?
The elevator descended, and this time it opened on the
sixth floor. Still fuming, she went into her bosses'
lavish office, glancing as she walked at Maggie and
Jessica, the other two secretaries, hard at work on
opposite sides of the office. Becky had a cubbyhole
adjacent to Bob Malcolm's. He was the junior partner, and
her main boss.
Without knocking, she entered the big office to find Bob
and two of his junior colleagues, Harley and Jarard,
impatiently waiting for their coffee while Bob talked
irritably on the phone.
"Just put it down anywhere, Becky, and thank you," he said
brusquely, with his hand over the receiver. He glanced at
one of his colleagues. "Kilpatrick just walked in the
door. How's that for timing?"
Becky passed the cups of coffee quietly and received
mumbled thank-yous from Harley and Jarard. Bob began to
speak into the telephone again.
"Listen, Kilpatrick, all I want is a conference. I've got
some new evidence I want you to see." Her boss banged his
fist on the desk and his swarthy face
reddened."Dammit,man,do you have to be so inflexible?!"He
sighed angrily,"All right,all right. I'll be up in five
minutes."He slammed the receiver down."My God, I'm praying
he won't run for reelection," he said heavily.
"This is only the second week I've had to deal with him,
and I'm already sweating blood! Give me Dan Wade any day!"
Dan Wade was the Atlanta judicial circuit's D.A. Becky
knew he was a nice man. But here in Curry County, the
district attorney was Rourke Kilpatrick. Perhaps, she
thought optimistically, her employer had just gotten off
on the wrong foot with Kilpatrick. He was probably every
bit as nice as Dan Wade when you got to know him.
She started to point this out to Mr. Malcolm when Harley
broke in. "Can you blame him?" Harley asked. "He's had
more death threats in the past month over this drug war
than any president. He's a hard man, and he won't back
down. I've had a couple of cases down here before, and I
know Kilpatrick's reputation. He can't be bought. He's a
law-and-order man from the feet up."
Bob sat back in his plush leather chair."I get cold chills
remembering how Kilpatrick once eviscerated a witness of
mine on the stand. She actually had to be tranquilized
after she testified."
"Is Mr. Kilpatrick really that bad?" Becky asked with soft
curiosity.
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