Read Natural Suspect (2001) for Free Online Page A

around him. "I know, hon. I know you're working. I didn't mean that. I just don't see why it had to be you. Us."
    He held her against him for a minute, marveling at the changing feel of her, the once-flat swimsuit belly now a beautiful orb of potential--their family beginning at last. "Well, Janie, I don't think there's any why about it. Me getting summoned just happened." He moved his hands down to her stomach. "You're thinking I've got a duty to this little zygote here, and you're right, but it's not just the store. Long term, best thing I can do for the next generation is be a good citizen, dumb as that sounds. Guys like me, maybe going against type, making the system work, doing what's right. That's the hope."
    Janie put her arms around him, so glad Jack was the person he was. She felt the baby move. "Oh, feel." She put Jack's hands on the spot until it happened again. "Okay." Janie beamed up at him. "The bump checks in and agrees with you. So I'll work here and keep this place going, no more complaints. Meanwhile you and this jury make the right decision, hear?"
    At the opposite end of the Hightower mansion from the Rotunda, Devin was attempting to conduct a postmortem on the first day of the trial. When they'd left the courthouse, Julia had suggested that her lawyer drive them both back to the fabulous Hightower estate. Since Devin's alternative was either her one-bedroom apartment in the Village or her drab and depressing (and embarrassingly small) office on Fourteenth Street, she had accepted.
    Devin always accepted, she never said no--that was, she told herself, her problem.
    Because she believed that no one really liked her, that she wasn't worth liking, she sometimes did things that were not in her own best interest--driving her client out to the Island in a blizzard so she could be in a nice environment for a couple of hours. Sleeping with Trent Ballard.
    No! She wasn't going to think about Trent Ballard. Not tonight of all nights.
    She and Julia had gotten here at around seven forty-five, and it had immediately become apparent that her client didn't really care for her company after all. And she didn't care about the case either, even if it did threaten her life. Didn't care about her ex-husband, her kids, the gardener.
    But she did care about her cocktails, especially after the dry and exhausting day she'd already put in at the trial. Julia Hightower wanted to come home because that's where the gin was.
    So five minutes after they'd arrived, they were sitting at the kitchen table--really not much nicer than Devin's own, she noted with some disappointment--and Julia had taken her pitcher from its home in the freezer and filled a glass and started to drink. The frozen stuff poured like maple syrup and disappeared with what Devin thought must be a kind of alchemy.
    They made small talk about the case for a while, but Julia's agenda here wasn't communication. Seriously sipping the gin, Devin's client slipped from slurring to snoozing in under an hour. Now, Julia's head was down on the table, and Devin was thirty icy miles from her own sad and lonely apartment, just about ready to cry.
    After enduring a few minutes of Julia's graceless snoring, she foun d h erself wondering, and not for the first time, what she had gotten herself into. Also, not for the first time, she wondered why Julia Hightower had chosen her. Out of all the lawyers in the city, why her?
    But she could wonder about that as she drove home. With the snowstorm and the slick roads, she'd have plenty of time. She poked a gentle hand into her client's shoulder. "Julia," she whispered. Then spoke more loudly. "Julia! Let's get you up so you can go to bed. We've got another full trial day tomorrow."
    But she might as well have been trying to wake Arthur Hightower. His wife was out for the night.
    Sighing, Devin finished her coffee and went over to put the cup in the sink. She opened a couple of drawers until she found the kitchen towels and pulled out a