Read Shattered Virtue for Free Online

served, Mitch unfurls his napkin over his lap before he asks, “How’s Madrigal doing?” He leans forward, causing me to think his interest is more than casual.
    “Smart, focused, dedicated to the law. She’ll make a fine lawyer from what I can see.” She might have been forced on me, but I have to give credit where credit’s due.
    “That’s good,” he says after biting into his chicharrón .
    I may have been warned off the subject, but I can’t let it go. Something about Madrigal pushes me to find out as much as I can about her. “What happened to her parents?” Their murders occurred before I came to work at the firm, but I’d learned about them through the office grapevine.
    His gaze turns glacial. “That subject is off-limits.”
    “Why?”
    “Because it’s none of your business, that’s why,” he spits out.
    “She’s my intern.”
    “And her parents’ murders have nothing to do with that job.”
    “Mitch, one way or another, I’ll find out. Wouldn’t it be better if it came from you?”
    His hand tightens on his water glass before he takes a sip. “The Berkeleys’ house was broken into. A home invasion gone wrong. That’s how Holden ended up with the girls.”
    “And the killers were caught but let off on a technicality.”
    “Yes, they were.”
    “Did Holden conduct his own investigation into the matter? I can’t believe he wouldn’t have done so.”
    “He didn’t, as far as I know.”
    “That makes no sense.”
    “After his daughter was murdered, he had to contend not only with the girls but his own grief. He had more than enough to deal with at the time.”
    “But—”
    Mitch holds up his hand. “Enough. That’s as much as I’m going to say about this topic. Can we get back to our dinner, please?”
    He knows a hell of a lot more than he lets on, but I won’t get anything else out of him. At least not tonight. I’ll have to do some digging on my own.
    I think we’re done with the subject, but after we finish with the appetizers, he surprises me. “She’s the spitting image of Marlena, her mother.”
    Madrigal’s lovely enough to make a saint weep, so if she resembles her mother, she must have been something else. “Is she? Beautiful name.”
    He nods. “Beautiful girl. After prep school, Marlena went off to William & Mary while I headed to Harvard. She fashioned herself a poet.” The small smile that lights up his face conveys fondness and a touch of sadness.
    “Did she become one?”
    “No. She met Tom, her husband, at William & Mary, and that was that. She married him right out of college and settled into complacent domesticity. Madrigal was born soon after their wedding.”
    The way he talks about Madrigal’s mother makes me think there’s more to the story than a friendship, but Mitchell only shares what he wants to share, so it won’t do any good to push him. I’ll need to find out another way.
    Our waiter interrupts once more with our main entrées—suckling pork for him, Angus New York steak for me with a side of Idaho baked potatoes stuffed with Parmesan cheese, bacon, chives.
    “How’s Dick Slayton?” he asks once we’ve dug into our food. An obvious attempt to change the subject.
    Fine. I’ll play along. “Pissed because I stole the twelfth-floor suite from him.”
    “Be careful, Trenton. He’s the wrong man to make an enemy.”
    “Is that why you left? Because you got in his way?” He’d never shared his reason for leaving the firm, but I always suspected it’d been a disagreement between him and Dick Slayton.
    “No. It was time. After twenty years at Gardiner, I needed a fresh pasture.”
    “Sure you did.”
    Eight years ago, I’d been brought on board at Gardiner by Mitchell, who vouched for me. Even though I didn’t attend an Ivy League school like most of the partners in the firm, Holden hired me on his word. I’d come through, bringing in business right away. Once I’d managed to keep a congressman from landing in jail, my