Chapter 5 #2
Including you?
Especially me.
Daniela glanced up from her plate, met Kenneth’s watchful gaze and inwardly groaned. She knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be grilling her for information.
Her mother drew closer and brushed her palm over Daniela’s hair in a soothing, maternal gesture. “Don’t you worry about a thing, darling. You’ll do just fine in law school. I believe in you. We all do.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Daniela murmured, feeling like the biggest fraud that ever walked the face of the earth.
“You look a little tired, Mom,” Kenneth said, all gentle concern. “Maybe you should go lie down. I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”
“Oh, I’m fine.” But even as Pamela spoke, a telltale yawn escaped. She giggled sheepishly, covering her mouth with her hand. “Goodness, maybe I am a bit peaked.”
“Of course you are,” Daniela said with a trace of censure. “You cooked a full-course meal three days after coming down with the flu.”
“I told you I’m healed,” Pamela reminded her, rising from the table as Kenneth came around to meet her. She reached up and patted the lean curve of his cheek. “Be sure to take home some food to Janie and the twins. I made enough to feed an army.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will. You know how much they enjoy your cooking. It’ll be a real treat for them. Now come on, let me tuck you into bed the way you used to tuck us in.”
Pamela laughed. “Oh, go on with you, boy!” But she happily linked her arm through his and allowed herself to be escorted from the kitchen.
When Kenneth returned a few minutes later, Daniela had cleared the table and was washing dishes.
To preserve the Victorian charm of the small kitchen, she’d refrained from buying a dishwasher.
So far, she’d never needed one since it was just her and her mother, and Pamela Roarke—a compulsive neat freak—rarely let two forks accumulate in the sink between meals.
“How’d things go with Thorne yesterday?” Kenneth asked, propping a hip against the center island and crossing his arms.
“Ahh, now we get down to the real reason for your visit.” Daniela smirked over her shoulder at him.
“Let’s get something straight, big brother.
I’m not gonna be calling you every hour on the hour to provide a detailed report of what I’m doing.
If I’m gonna do this thing, you have to give me some breathing room. ”
“No one’s asking you to call every hour,” Kenneth retorted. “But yesterday was the first day of classes, El. I would’ve at least expected you to call to let us know you’d established contact.”
“I established contact. There, are you satisfied?”
“Hardly. A few details would be nice.”
“Not much to tell,” Daniela said, rinsing off a plate and sticking it in the dish rack.
“I arrived to class ten minutes late and got called out for it—so much for making a good first impression. The next time I ran into him wasn’t much better.
I got caught in the rain today and literally ran into him at the library.
” She grimaced at the memory. “I looked like a drowned rat.”
When Kenneth said nothing, she glanced over her shoulder to find dark eyes critically assessing her from head to toe.
“Is that what you were wearing?” he asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
A slow, devious grin curved his mouth. “Wet t-shirt, tight jeans. Trust me, baby girl, the last thing on Caleb Thorne’s mind was rats, drowned or otherwise. What’re you wearing to class tomorrow?”
Daniela wanted to clobber him upside the head with one of the copper pots hanging above the island. She settled for a withering look. “Don’t even think about giving me tips on what to wear, Kenny, or I swear—”
He laughed. “Relax, sweetheart. Your taste in clothes has come a long way from the high-water pants you used to call fashionable. I trust your judgment.”
“Gee, thanks.”
Kenneth paused a beat, his eyes twinkling with mirth. “Of course, if you happen to have any leather miniskirts lying around—”
“Go to hell.”
“I’m just saying—”
She flipped him off with a sudsy finger.
He laughed.
She drained the soapy water and dried her hands before joining him at the island. Without meaning to, she found herself blurting out, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull this off.”
Kenneth frowned at her. “Why do you say that?”
She shrugged, filling Tupperware containers with food. “I think something about me sets off Caleb’s Spidey senses.”
“What do you mean? What did you do?”
“Nothing, really. I just…I don’t know. We were talking at the library and I was trying to feel him out, trying to get him comfortable discussing his former life as a defense attorney.
Because that’s a good place to start, right?
If there are any skeletons to be found, learning more about his time at the law firm could point us to where the bodies are buried. ”
Kenneth nodded. “Exactly.”
“Right. But the thing is, he’s super guarded, like you guys warned me. He doesn’t open up very easily, and he has this way of looking at you…like he can see right into your—”
“—soul?” Kenneth rolled his eyes. “He’s dreamy and intense. I get it.”
Her face flushed. “I just worry that I’m going to say the wrong thing and blow my cover.”
“That’s because you’re thinking too hard. Just try to relax and go with the flow.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one playing cat-and-mouse with a scarily brilliant legal scholar.” Daniela snapped the lid on a container filled with mac and cheese, mulling something over in her mind.
“What now?” Kenneth prodded, sounding wary.
“Nothing. I’m just thinking about a question I asked him.
” She looked at her brother. “As a former police officer, how do you feel about the fact that Caleb had a policy against representing crooked cops? Like, his rogues’ gallery of clients included murderers and embezzlers.
But he drew a line in the sand when it came to defending dirty cops. ”
“Is that what he told you?”
“Pretty much.”
Her brother nodded slowly. “It’s true. He believed that public servants should be held to higher standards.
He loathed police officers who abused their power and violated the public’s trust.” Looking down at the marble counter, Kenneth traced a golden vein with his index finger.
“I remember one particular case, back when I worked in Internal Affairs. There was this cop. Lem Conklin. He was dirty, no question about it. There’d been several citizen complaints about excessive force, and he was already under investigation at the time he killed Jahmir Drayton.
It was a bad shooting. Anyone who saw the video could tell that the kid was unarmed, defenseless and clearly terrified.
” Kenneth’s jaw tightened at the memory.
“You probably don’t remember the case that well because you were studying abroad that summer in Madrid.
It was a big local story, but it never made national headlines. ”
“I remember,” Daniela murmured. “Not all the specific details, but I remember enough. I was surprised—and thrilled—when Conklin got life without parole.”
Kenneth nodded. “There was a window, several years ago, where the tide seemed to be turning, and more and more dirty cops were being held accountable for their actions. The facts weren’t on Conklin’s side.
He was going down for murder, and everyone knew it.
The police union wanted Caleb Thorne to represent him.
Even though Thorne had only been practicing law for three years, he was already making a name for himself.
Being Crandall Thorne’s son certainly didn’t hurt, of course.
The union hoped the optics would play well with the jury: a handsome, brilliant, charismatic black man who was around the same age as the victim, who was willing to reject racial solidarity to defend the white man who’d taken Jahmir Drayton’s life.
It would have sent a powerful message, good or bad.
And like I said before, Thorne was a menace in the courtroom.
He regularly had female jurors eating out of the palm of his hand—half the men, too.
The union threw obscene amounts of money at him to take the case.
A senator reached out to Crandall Thorne’s senior law partners, trying to use his political clout to force Caleb’s hand.
Hell, even the POTUS himself put in a secret call.
But nothing worked. Caleb wouldn’t budge.
He wanted nothing to do with the case, and he was unmoved by bribes or threats.
He actually visited Conklin in prison to personally inform him of his decision.
Every cop in the city has seen the footage of him telling Conklin to his face to burn in fucking hell.
As if that wasn’t gangsta enough, after he delivered his message, he calmly stood up, adjusted his shirt cuffs, winked at Conklin and then sauntered out the door with no fucks to give.
” Kenneth’s chuckle was tinged with admiration.
“Wow,” Daniela said softly. If she wasn’t already impressed with Caleb Thorne, she definitely was now. “A man of conviction.”
“You could say that.” Her brother’s eyes narrowed, suspicion sharpening his gaze. “You can’t fall for this guy, El. That’s not part of the deal.”
“I know that, Kenny. You think I don’t know that?”
He frowned at her. He didn’t look convinced.
She dragged her hands through her hair and screwed her eyes shut. “I just…I don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”
“You are,” Kenneth said forcefully.
“Maybe, maybe not.” She let out a deep, world-weary breath. “It’s been a long day. Can you just—”