Chapter 7 #2
Ben believed every word Devlin spoke.
“You need security,” Trent said.
“I do not need or want a bodyguard,” Ben replied. “But what I came to see you about was some protection for Victoria. If he’s toying with her to get to me, I don’t want her hurt.”
Trent leaned against the edge of his desk, muscled arms crossed over his chest and nodded. “I figured as much. I’ll assign someone to her. But let’s think about what you just said. Why would Vega toy with Victoria to get to you? There’s no connection between you two other than this trial. Right?”
Ben had been thinking about that all night.
Vega could simply be after Victoria in an attempt to make her drop this case.
But that wasn’t her call. She could ask to be removed from the case but the District Attorney would still prosecute.
They wanted Vega behind bars. So there had to be another reason he’d ordered someone to her house last night—because Devlin was absolutely right about one thing, if Vega wanted Victoria dead, she would be.
Ben didn’t like how that thought made him feel.
“We went to law school together,” he told Trent.
“Did you sleep with her?” Trent asked.
“No,” was Ben’s adamant reply.
Trent narrowed his gaze on his cousin. “But you wanted to?”
Lying wasn’t an option. It wouldn’t get them anywhere and Trent would still know. Donovan men knew how to appreciate beautiful women. When he’d come into the office Trent already had a file on Victoria Lashley, including the very attractive DMV photo sitting on his desk.
Ben did shrug however, not ready to let his cousin know that he’d always thought of Victoria as the one that got away. Or the one he’d never been able to catch. “I was interested.”
“And she wasn’t? Why?” Devlin asked.
“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “Guess the old Donovan charm was slipping.”
Trent chuckled. “Never that. There must be another reason. When’s the last time you’ve tried to take her out?”
“Law school,” Ben admitted. “Look, I like to limit my rejection to first and second helpings. After that, I kindly move on. But since we’re both attorneys, I’ve seen her a lot over the years either in court or at lawyer functions with the bar associations or other entities.”
“Doesn’t sound like anything that would interest Vega,” Devlin replied.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. So right now we don’t know for certain why Vega killed Ebony or why he sent me the note to let me know where her body was. And we don’t know why he’s messing with Victoria,” Trent said.
“Right,” Ben nodded. “So, let’s go with what we do know.
Vega killed Ebony, else how could he have sent me the note telling me where the body was?
Vega wasn’t happy that I wouldn’t take his case again.
Vega wasn’t happy to see me in the courtroom.
And Vega is definitely connected to what happened at Victoria’s. The gray Lexus is proof of that.”
“And your police buddy knows all this?” Trent asked rubbing a hand across his chin.
“Noah’s a good guy. We went to undergrad together. He’s solid,” Ben said knowing where Trent was going with his question.
“Solid cops get bought off all the time,” was Devlin’s reply.
“Noah’s helping me with the case,” Ben argued.
“But he hasn’t made an arrest even though he knows about the gray Lexus being at two crime scenes and he knows about the note Vega allegedly sent to you telling you the location of a dead body?” Trent asked then waited for Ben to answer.
But Ben didn’t have an answer.
“Vega’s a slippery character. I had a hell of a time planting enough doubt in the first jury’s mind.
The missing witness I think was key. If Victoria doesn’t find that witness she’s not going to have much luck.
In the meantime, if Noah comes up with more to connect Vega to Ebony’s murder, that’s another charge they can go after him on,” he told them.
“And possibly lose,” Devlin stated. “Vega needs to go down hard and quick, just like he takes people out. The justice system may not prevail on this one.”
Ben stood, tired of this meeting and the issues running through his mind. “Let’s just stick with the justice system for now. That’s what I do.”
Devlin stood also. “Well, you know what I do.”
Ben nodded. “Yeah, I know and you do it so well you scare me half the damn time.”
The corner of the guy’s mouth twitched and Ben knew that was as close as he was going to get to a smile from Devlin Bonner.
“Dev’s going to keep an eye on you, and we’ll set something up for the prosecutor. You and Noah work the justice system, and I’ll work the back end to see if there’s any loophole we need to fill to make sure this guy goes down once and for all. That sound good to you?” Trent asked.
“Sure,” was Ben’s half-hearted reply. He didn’t want to know about what lengths Devlin and Trent would go to in order to take Vega down.
And he wanted to trust the justice system that he loved so much, but as he walked out of the offices of D&D Investigations, he had to admit that his faith in that system had begun to waiver.
And that hadn’t just happened with these latest events. Ben had been wary of the justice system doing its job right around the time he got wind of what might have been the motive for the Congressman and his wife’s murder.