But she was beginning to believe Nick Navarro might be her future.
Suddenly, Mike jolted and shoved something into a drawer, then hastily shut it before darting around the desk and heading toward the camera—and the office door. His footsteps sounded loud. As he crept closer to the camera, it picked up a sheen of sweat on his face and the nervous shift in his eyes.
“Damn it,” Nick murmured. “This is my thing. He sucked at clandestine.”
She couldn’t disagree. Had the honesty she’d treasured in Mike been one of the qualities that led to his demise?
“Porter. What are you doing here?” said a faint voice belonging to someone out of the camera’s view. But Sasha knew exactly who spoke. She’d heard Walter Clifford too often not to recognize his gruff tones.
“Looking for you. I wanted to give you an update on the Ector case.”
“Later.” Clifford sounded dismissive. “I just came back from lunch, and I’m late for a conference call. See me at four.”
“Of course.” Mike all but bowed and scraped as he headed for the door.
Watching him leave the screen cramped Sasha’s stomach with a physical pain. He disappeared from the shot quickly, and it felt like losing him all over again. There would be no more of Mike’s movements or smiles or complaints on a Sunday morning that the most important political shows shouldn’t be airing when people should be in church. She wouldn’t see him rock his daughter, touch his smooth cheek, or hear him sing in the shower ever again.
He was gone.
“Shit,” Nick muttered beside her.
Sasha refocused on the screen and watched Clifford shuffle into view. Balding, portly, pushing sixty, he looked far more like someone’s grouchy grandfather than a corrupt politician and criminal mastermind. The man scowled and searched the room, seemingly suspicious, before he shook his head, plopped down behind his desk, and yanked the receiver of his phone to his ear.
Seconds later, he began hissing at whomever was on the other line. “Has Mike Porter been sneaking around your office?” After a pause, Clifford gripped the phone tighter. “Well, today is the third time I’ve found him snooping around mine. I don’t like it. I’m pretty sure he overheard us fixing the evidence in that criminal dumping case against that fucking oil driller. The moral stick up that church boy’s ass has become an antenna, and I haven’t been able to redirect him.” Again, another hesitation while the other party—probably a sheriff or police chief—spoke. “Fuck the money. We stand to lose our reputations and careers if Porter has evidence and he goes public.” Clifford swore. “Let me find out what he knows. If he’s onto us, I’ll make sure he can’t talk anymore.”
Beside her, Nick stiffened. And he looked at the screen like he hated Walter Clifford almost more than he could contain, like he had to swallow it down to keep it from spewing out, like he had to breathe through it or he might explode. Sasha understood that. The same furious incredulity spread through her. How dare that man leave a woman without her husband, a child without her father, a friend without his buddy? But he’d talked about murder so casually, so thoughtlessly—as if he’d done it before.
After another hesitation during which the cop must have mentioned another problem, the DA scowled. “Yeah? Keep that fucking P.I. Navarro in jail until we can figure out what he knows about my affairs. And for fuck’s sake, don’t tell the press who’s accused him of rape. They’ll start connecting the dots, and the whole thing will turn into a PR nightmare. My horny little niece will crumble under the pressure. Fiona is a pretty girl…but not a bright one. We’ll get this fucker’s case rammed through fast. Find out who Navarro’s attorney is and put the screws to him. Make sure Judge Marburn presides when it gets to trial. He owes me. Don’t fuck this up.”
Sasha watched Nick, glanced at the screen for a moment, then back to the seething, dangerous man beside her again. Not only had Mike captured the evidence that might put away his murderer, he had also proven that Nick really had been framed.
His jaw clenched. He didn’t say anything for a moment, like he was too furious to speak without giving into his violent urge to kill Walter Clifford.
She lay a gentle hand on his forearm, trying to ease his tension. “We’ve got him. This should be enough to send him to prison for a long time.”
“You better fucking believe it. We need to figure out who to give this to. Who will make sure this evidence gets into the hands of someone with enough power to take Clifford down? Since he’s the one responsible for prosecuting crime in this parish, it won’t be simple. And you can bet he won’t prosecute himself. New Orleans isn’t my town, so I don’t know who to trust.”
“I’ve been thinking…” She gnawed on her lip and thought the idea through. It was risky, but doing nothing was deadly. “Make a copy of this on the hard drive. We need a backup.”
“Already done, and as soon as we hit some reasonably secure Wi-Fi, I’ll be sending it to the Santiago brothers for safekeeping. Their backup system is incredibly hack-proof, fireproof, and redundant. Now what?”
Sasha had never seen Nick any way except sure of himself and his direction. When she looked back, he’d done so much to help her, make sure she had a future. What if she could expunge his record and give them both the vengeance they sought? What if she could give him a happy future, too?
“Mike had this coworker Josh. He’s a sweet guy. A real crusader. He once got into hot water at work for listening to a defendant’s side of the story and wanting to drop all charges. In the end, Josh was right, the guy Clifford wanted to charge with the crime was innocent. I remember Mike coming home and shaking his head because their slimeball boss didn’t care that he might send an innocent man to prison. Clifford only cared that the police had no other suspects, so without this slam-dunk trial, his conviction rate didn’t look as dazzling.”
“Yeah.” Nick snorted. “No one knows better than me that he’s got a hard-on for sending the innocent up the river. So this Josh guy can help?”
“I think so. After that incident, the mayor put him on a citywide crime task force. From what I can tell, he made a lot of high-powered friends. I’m betting if we contact Josh, he can put us in touch with the right people. I mean, Josh and these folks went over Clifford’s head once. Why wouldn’t they do it again?”
Nick hesitated for a moment, then nodded, the gesture gaining strength the more he thought about it. “Yeah. You know how to reach Josh?”
“I think so. Let me double-check with some Internet searches.”
He thrust the computer in her direction. “Be quick. The laptop battery is dying. We need to plug this thing in.”
“Where? We checked out of our motel.”
“I’ll hunt down another one.” He grabbed his phone. “You find Josh.”
