The Hot Ladies Murder Club. Ann Major
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loss.
“I went out on a limb for you, buddy. I told the other partners you just had a run of bad luck in Houston and got a rotten hand here with that medical case.”
“Thanks.” Campbell hadn’t reminded Africa that he’d been the man who’d rammed that loser Crocker down his “buddy’s” throat and then he’d kept the more promising cases for himself.
Bob had smiled his wolverine smile and slapped his back again. “You’re the best, buddy. But, we don’t pay you to lose—”
Lose. Campbell had felt the blood rising in his face. Hell, at least Africa hadn’t reminded him about the death threats all the partners had been receiving ever since Campbell had lost the case. Hell, the incompetent quack had won. What was he so mad about? Crocker’s wife, Kay, maybe? She’d made a play for Campbell, a helluva play.
Today a letter from some crackpot, who said he was praying for Campbell, had arrived. The letter was in the same loopy handwriting as the death threats. Strangely, somehow it was even scarier. Mrs. Crocker had called three times this week, too.
But it was the woman across from Campbell who had him rigid with tension. He had to beat her—or else.
Her face was damnably familiar. Her husky voice was so exquisite and raw, it tugged at Campbell on some deep, man-woman level.
He hated her for her easy power over him even as his cold lawyer’s mind told him she was a fake. This was a staged performance. There was definitely something too deliberate and practiced about her lazy, luscious drawl.
To buy time he played with his shirt cuff. He’d asked dozens of questions and had gotten nowhere. She was a liar, and if it was the last thing he did, he would expose her.
“I—I swear I knew nothing, absolutely nothing about mo-o-old in the O’Connors’ house,” she repeated for the tenth time.
I think the lady doth protest too much.
When he shot her his most engaging smile and leaned toward her as if the deposition were over, she jumped. Her lovely, long fingers and unpolished nails twisted in her lap so violently, she almost dropped the damning photographs he’d jammed into her hands a few seconds earlier.
“I—I swear…no mold,” she pleaded.
Then why won’t you look me in the eye?
“Toxic mo-o-old,” Campbell drawled, pleased his o lasted even longer than hers. His mocking gaze drilled her.
She shook her dark head like a true innocent and began flipping through the photographs he’d made of the black muck growing inside the walls of the O’Connors’ mansion.
“There has to be a mistake,” she whispered.
No, you little liar. No mistake.
Campbell’s long, lean form remained sprawled negligently behind his sleek ebony desk. His beige silk suit was expensive. So was his vivid yellow tie.
Hannah Smith, her knees together beneath her full white skirt, sat on the edge of the black leather chair opposite him. Flanking her was the attorney from her insurance company, a mediocre, colorless little stick of a man. Hunkered low in his chair in an ill-fitting undertaker’s suit wearing smudged, gold-rimmed glasses Tom Davis looked about as dangerous as a terrified rabbit.
“No mistake,” Campbell said. “The O’Connors had to abandon their home. It’ll cost more to remediate it than they paid for it, which was a substantial sum—”
“More than a mill…But it’s not my fault!” she protested. “I was only the Realtor. I thought smart lawyers like you only sued rich people.…”
Didn’t she get it? The deep pocket here was her insurance company. Not her. So, why was she working herself into a sweat?
“Mold was not in your clients’ disclosure statement,” he said.
“There was no mold!” Her voice shaking, she began a boring repeat of her defense.
“Maybe you didn’t realize mold is a very serious issue on the Texas Gulf.”
“Because lawyers like you have made it into a billion-dollar industry?”
“I’m supposed to be asking the questions. And you are liable—”
She opened her pretty mouth and gulped for a breath.
Hannah Smith was lying. And she wasn’t all that damn good at it, either.
And yet he liked her.
This was bad.
Joe Campbell, or rather just plain Campbell, as he was known to most people, at least to those with whom he was on speaking terms, and there were fewer and fewer of those in this town since his line of work tended to alienate a lot of people, had been a trial lawyer too long not to be able to smell a liar a mile away.
He’d been screwed, glued and tattooed by the best liars in the universe—his ex-wife and his former best friend and boss had taken him to the cleaners.
Here we go again. The pretty little con artist across from him smelled warm and sweet. And thanks to his air-conditioning register that wafted her light fragrance Campbell’s way, he was too aware of that fact.
Chanel. He frowned, shifting his long legs under his desk as another unwelcome buzz of man-woman excitement rushed through him. By now he should have boxed her in. She was scared and pretty, and he should have had her on the run. And yet…she had him oddly off balance.
Her nervous fingers shuffled and reshuffled the photographs of the O’Connors’ estate. He caught glimpses of the abandoned pool, the empty hot tub, and the red brick path that wound through the strawlike remnants of formerly showy flower beds. Her slim, graceful hands trembled so badly when she came to his damning shots of the mold, she nearly dropped the whole bunch.
“Think how those images will affect a sympathetic jury, Mrs. Smith.”
“That’s not a question,” her lawyer said. “You don’t have to answer.”
Deliberately, she licked her lips with her pink tongue. “I’m sorry Mr. O’Connor’s sick, but…”
Hell. She sounded sorry. A jury would believe her, too. He almost believed her. When she began talking faster and faster, swallowing, and glancing everywhere but at him, Campbell found himself studying her wide, wet lips with obsessive interest.
Sexy voice, intoxicating scent…and that delectable mouth…Everything about her seemed soft and vulnerable and likable. She was too damned likable. Not like him.
Suddenly Campbell wanted her to shut up and just look at him, and that scared the hell out of him. His big house was lonely and empty, his footsteps echoed when he finally made it home and climbed the stairs to his bedroom alone every night.
Was anything about her for real? Was she sucking him in…as Carol had?
Mrs. Smith was damned attractive, too damned attractive, despite that shapeless white sack that concealed her figure, despite thick, inky bangs and huge dark glasses that masked her face. Her legs were long and shapely, her ankles slim…even though those low-heeled, stained canvas shoes did nothing for her calves.
Yes, she was pretty despite the fact that she’d gone to a lot of trouble not to be. Why had she done that? Most women liked to add pretty to their arsenal of weapons when they went up against him or a jury. For an instant, he remembered Mrs. Crocker’s slit skirts and shapely legs. She’d been built like a gymnast.
“Call me Kay,” she’d said the day Campbell had lost. “Better, call me…anytime.”
He’d been angry because he’d lost. “I don’t mess around with married women.”
“So, my husband’s wrong about you,” she’d purred. “You do have a principle or two. I like that.”
“No principle. I just