Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) Read Online Free Page B

old office. Mine now.”
    I drew in a ragged breath. The rectangular room we entered was easily a thousand square feet with windows all along the outside wall. The other walls were paneled, as were the floor and the ceiling. A picture gallery hung on the long interior wall beside me, with what looked shockingly like a real Remington in the center. Around it, lesser—but still magnificent—photographic pieces were carefully interspersed with framed diplomas and certificates. A large, arresting black and white of an old, abandoned mine stood out. Above the mine entrance, a lopsided sign read Sacramento Silver Mine. In the bottom right, the photographer had scrawled
Old Dreams at the Wrong Turn Ranch – Lena Holden
. A relative of Jack’s? A framed photo of an old Indian hung there, too—one I couldn’t fail to recognize, what with my Indian infatuation in my younger years: Geronimo. Below his picture was a quote of some kind, but I wasn’t close enough to read the small print.
    A round conference table with six cushioned leather chairs on casters stood in the near side of the room. In the center was a giant desk, and its natural wood beauty was marred only by a maelstrom of papers. Picture frames lined up on the near edge of the desk, their backs to the door. The far side of the room featured built-ins: cabinetry on the outside edges and shelving in the interior. Beautiful volumes of the South Western Reporter in tan, red, and black stood back to front to back along the shelves. A piece of fabric stuck out from the left side of the cabinets, like toilet paper on a shoe. Otherwise, the room was perfect.
    “Have a seat at the table.”
    I lowered myself into the sumptuous dark brown leather and let my hand run across it. “Wow.”
    Jack sat in the chair across from me and Snowflake settled at his feet. “Williams spared no expense. I got it for pennies on the dollar. What he cared about most was that I carry on his legacy. He did a helluva job preserving human dignity and constitutional rights for decades, from right in this office.”
    “So his practice was . . .”
    “Criminal law.”
    “Criminal defense?”
    “Absolutely. Somebody has to make sure our rights are protected. Mr. Williams had a passion for due process—for privacy, for innocent until proven guilty, and for liberty.”
    A flicker of something patriotic stirred within me. When put like that, criminal defense sounded like a noble calling. “Is that why you do it?”
    “I agree with him.”
    My flicker died in a wave of irritation. Jack had a way with not answering a question. Well, I wasn’t going to beg for it. I pulled a pen from my handbag and a yellow pad from my briefcase.
    “Can you tell me more about the job?” I asked.
    “I have far too much work, and I need help, but help that doesn’t require a law degree. We do a lot of legwork for our clients, and we’ve got a bunch of them.” He chuckled. “Oh, and you were right about the woman in the hotel, by the way. Her name is Sofia Perez, and she did need a lawyer—the court-appointed one. Me.”
    I blushed. Ms. Diplomatic, that was me. But to think he now represented the killer I’d seen Saturday night, the perpetrator of the murder that was the talk of the town, was a little bit titillating, in a smarmy, reality-TV kind of way. And I wasn’t above watching an occasional episode of
The Real Housewives of Orange County
.
    “Holy cow, really?”
    “Really. And she’s an illegal immigrant, and the sole parent of a six-year-old girl no one can find. Sofia is a bit . . . distressed. Can’t figure out heads from tails with her.”
    My heart lurched. I felt something in my gut and realized it was empathy. For the missing child, of course, but also for the killer, which surprised me. Maybe Jack was piping some brainwashing chemicals in through the vents. I tried to refocus on what he was saying.
    “And besides all of our existing clients and their cases, we’ve got some high roller