Chapter 10 #2
One perfectly arched brow lifted, and he swore she was even more beautiful when she was challenged. “Are you planning on helping me do that?” she asked.
Ben knew what his job was, he also knew the ethical lines with which he’d never thought to cross.
But he wasn’t the one who’d crossed the line, Vega was.
And because of that Ben had the wherewithal to end his representation of him.
It would’ve stopped at just that, Ben was certain.
But Ebony had been killed and Victoria’s personal space invaded.
Vega had run headlong over the line and landed right in Ben’s backyard.
To him, those were fighting terms, and next to law, boxing was Ben’s favorite pastime.
“I’ve got someone looking for Alayna Jonas. She’s the key to your case,” he said.
“The cops think she’s dead,” Victoria stated, pushing her plate to the side.
“And so they’ve stopped looking for her. But if she’s dead, where’s her body? Vega likes recognition. If he kills someone, he leaves them for everyone to see.” And sometimes he leaves a note, like a signature, Ben kept that part to himself.
“You think she ran because she knew he’d come after her?”
Ben nodded.
“But she left her daughter unprotected. What kind of mother would do that?” she asked.
“The kind that has a lot of information,” he said. “Killing her daughter would only enrage her, possibly enough to have her talking faster than they could shoot her. As long as she’s alive her family is safe because what she knows means more to Vega than another dead body.”
Ben had thought long and hard about this.
He’d even considered that Vega could’ve gone the opposite route and killed all of Alayna’s family as a way of keeping her afraid and subsequently, quiet.
But that would’ve gone against the person who’d hired him to kill the Congressman and his wife’s instructions.
Her brow furrowed as he suspected she was considering his words. “You work the opposite side of the law than I do. Why tell me all this?” She always had another question, always knew to push forward to get her desired outcome.
He finished chewing the last bit of his sandwich, swallowed and wiped his mouth, all the while watching her closely. At this point, they were in this together, whether she liked it or not, so he didn’t see a problem with being honest with her, at least about this.
“I want Vega in jail for the rest of his life,” he said, “or I just might kill him myself.”
Victoria
The afternoon hours flew by as Victoria stayed closed in her office, pouring over both the police and the prosecutor’s files on Ramone Vega.
She knew where he was born, where he went to school until ninth grade, the first man he’d been accused of shooting and the first woman he’d raped.
He was a vicious character, a heartless killer that would let absolutely nothing come between him and his money.
Born Jose Ramone Vega to Conchita and Raphael Vega, Mexican immigrants who came to the United States in the early seventies and ran a fruit stand off the local highway.
Reports told a story of stark poverty and endless teasing in Vega’s elementary years.
Sometime in middle school he’d met up with Salvatore “Big Sal” Pena.
Joining Big Sal’s gang had been the turning point in Vega’s life and before he’d hit his sixteenth birthday he was Big Sal’s lead enforcer.
Now, at almost thirty-eight years old, five feet eleven inches tall, two hundred and thirty-five pounds, Vega’s name carried more clout than the local law. He and Big Sal ran the streets with an iron hand, one that wouldn’t hesitate to slit the throat of anyone who crossed them.
To put it mildly, this case was huge, it was highly publicized and more dangerous than any case Victoria had ever tried. And that made her heart beat a little faster as she sat back in her chair looking around her office at all the spread out papers and sighed.
“Can I do this?”
The words came out on a whispered breath but seemed to echo in the small government office she called home from nine to five.
Of course she could do it. She had no choice.
This was her job, bringing justice to the same streets that had taken her father’s life was the goal she’d been working toward all her life.
It was everything to her and the stems of fear taking hold deep inside her weren’t going to win.
She could get a conviction on Ramone Vega.
She was going to get a conviction on Ramone Vega, no matter what the cost.
Her cell phone chimed with a notification and the loud sound almost jolted her out of her chair.
For as important as it was, especially when she was out of the office, she could never put eyes, or her hands for that matter, on that phone quickly.
She picked up folders, moved aside stacks of paper and finally found it practically buried on her desk. The text was from Grace:
Dinner is at six
“Crap!”
She was running late. To appease her friend and to hopefully head off all the questions she knew would undoubtedly come her way if she had declined, she agreed to dinner with Grace and Clinton tonight.
In the next fifteen minutes she performed a partial clean-up of her office and a passable organization of the Vega file.
Tossing the police reports from the congressman’s murder into her briefcase she grabbed her purse and headed out.
Thirty minutes later Victoria had showered and changed into jeans, a blouse and one of her favorite pair of pumps. Then, she was off to the prestigious single family home development of Judge and Mrs. Clinton Ramsey.
“Besides my wife, you’ve got to be the sexiest prosecutor in Clark County,” Clinton said kissing Victoria on the cheek as he welcomed her into their home.
“Don’t let your wife hear you talking like that, she’s liable to hurt us both.” She joked right along with him.
Clinton was a tall, slim man, with strong arms and an even stronger temperament.
Lawyers and defendants alike feared the moment they learned their case was being heard in his courtroom.
More traffic citations were paid through Clinton’s verdicts than any other traffic court in the county.
And he loved his wife to pieces. Victoria could hear it in his voice each time he said her name, could see it in his eyes whenever he looked at her.
It was that all-encompassing love that was meant to last forever.
The love she’d seen between her parents.
The kind of love she feared she’d never have a chance to experience for herself.
“She’s gorgeous and she knows it. Besides, you’re her best friend so you know you’d have to look good too for her to tolerate you,” Clinton continued.
They walked toward the den where Grace was no doubt sitting in her favorite chair, feet propped up and the television tuned in to whatever reality show she was currently addicted to.
“You’re right about that. Grace has always been stuck on the glitz and glamour of fashion.” And she loved the shoes Victoria was wearing, had often offered to buy them from her. So when Victoria entered the den she didn’t think anything of the first word to slip from Grace’s lips.
“Bitch.”
“I love you too, dear,” Victoria said waltzing her four-inch fuchsia peek-toe heels right over to her friend and kissing her soundly on the cheek.
“Sit down, Clinton’s cooking on the grill. We have about ten minutes alone to talk before he comes back with the food,” she told her pointedly.
“Make that fifteen. I’m going down to the cellar to get a bottle of wine,” Clinton said rubbing a hand over his wife’s belly before leaving the room.
“That is one fine man,” Grace said watching her husband leave the room.
“And he’s going to be a great father,” Victoria noted. “You’re so lucky.”
“You could be lucky too if you’d stop being so picky all the time,” Grace snapped.
She was indeed sitting in the antique rocking chair Clinton bought her for her birthday three months ago.
The seat cushion had been hand-sewn for her in a bright yellow satin material.
She’d changed out of her work clothes to a loose fitting maternity dress that hugged her swollen breasts and flared out softly around her girth.
Her hair was free at the moment—Victoria didn’t figure that would last long as Grace’s body temperature took shift changes that alarmed Victoria each time she witnessed them.
And the woman still managed to look absolutely beautiful.
“I know you are not calling me picky. Who had her ten-point husband criteria typed and framed by her twentieth birthday? And if I’m not mistaken you never once swayed from that criteria when you were dating.”
Grace nodded. “But at least I dated. When’s the last time you’ve been out with a man?”
“Just this afternoon at lunch to be exact,” Victoria automatically replied.
“Ah ha! I knew it. You and Ben Donovan are dating. If I could jump out of this chair I’d come over there and shake you for not telling me.”
“If you jump out of that chair Clinton’s going to be heading to the delivery room instead of to the wine cellar.” Victoria laughed as Grace had actually shifted in the chair like she meant to move all that body with any sort of swiftness.
Most likely uncomfortable now and visibly a little winded, Grace sat back in defeat. “Don’t try to change the subject. What happened at lunch and when are you going out with him again?”
“We talked about work and we’re probably not going out again.” Victoria reached over to the end table that separated the sofa from Grace’s chair and snagged the remote. She began channel surfing as she knew Grace’s total attention was now on her and what she wasn’t telling her.
“The minute after I deliver you and I are going to fight.” Grace declared. “What do you mean you’re not going out again? I told you years ago you two made a cute couple.”
Victoria sighed and flipped past an infomercial. “We’re so totally opposite. He’s rich, I’m not. He’s defense, I’m prosecution. He’s all glitz and glamour while I’m…I’m—”
“A little on the glamour side with your three hundred dollar shoes and high-end salon treatments,” Grace added.
She shook her head. “That’s no comparison to the women he’s probably used to dating.
” On the rare occasions the society pages drew her attention, she’d seen some of those women pictured in newspapers with him at his family’s many charity functions.
Ben and his cousins were known for their dating prowess.
And the women were always picture-perfect gorgeous.
The last thing Victoria wanted was to become one of the growing number.
“He’s wanted you for eight years. And he still does. I could see it clearly in his eyes today. How long are you planning to ignore that?” Grace asked.
“ “That” is purely physical,” she said. “And you know Ben’s the type to want what he can’t have, just for the thrill of the chase.”
“How do you know that? He seems like a decent guy to me.”
She turned to Grace and stared incredulously. “How do I know? You’ve seen the stories in the paper I know because you live and breathe the society pages. You’ve even been to a couple of the Donovan functions with Clinton. So you’ve seen them all in action, in person.”
Grace was shaking her head and Victoria looked away from her back to the television.
“What I saw was a close family dedicated to giving back to the world some of what they have. Clinton has even played golf with Henry and Lincoln Donovan. He says they’re good, stand-up guys. They just have a lot of money.”
Her finger pressed the channel button so hard now the pad was beginning to hurt. Irritation grew as the verbal exchange between her and Grace added to the tug of war going on inside her head.
“I really don’t want to discuss this,” she told Grace. “Ben is who and what he is and that has no effect on me.”
“Uh huh, you keep right on telling yourself that,” Grace said. “In the meantime, tell me what work you talked about because as you stated you’re both on opposite sides of the legal table.”
“That’s the weird thing,” she replied immediately because this was something she felt comfortable talking to Grace about. “He thinks the witness in the Vega case is still alive.”
“Who? The girl? But nobody’s seen her in almost a year. The cops don’t even hold out much hope of finding her.”
This time, she pointed the remote at Grace as she said, “That’s exactly what I told him. But he said he has someone looking for her.”
“Why would Ben Donovan have someone looking for Alayna Jonas when he no longer represents Vega?” Grace asked.
“Exactly,” she replied, glad she and her friend were finally seeing eye-to-eye.
“More importantly, why tell you?” Grace asked with overblown drama added to her voice and a lift of her elegantly arched eyebrows.
Victoria shrugged that question off and was relieved when Clinton came into the room with a tray holding two filled wine glasses and one glass of milk—which Grace detested.
Victoria didn’t want to talk about why Ben was giving her information on Vega, not with Grace anyway.
Actually, she didn’t want to talk about work or Ben any longer.
For tonight, she wanted to relax and enjoy spending time with her friends.
That was something good in this world—friends and family.
Not death and betrayal, two things she prayed wouldn’t dampen her doorstep again any time soon.