Risking It All

“Plattsmier didn’t spring me, because this is payback and on some level he’s aware of it. He’s not going to cross whoever’s doing the paying back.”

Lutz and Grace spoke at once. “For what?”

“You’re implying that someone is framing you but you don’t know who?” Grace added.

“I blew the whistle on my partner about six months ago. She was on the take. Now they’re pulling me down for it, either the mob or the cops who’re involved with them.”

Lutz sat back thoughtfully. Grace glanced at her boss and realized that her head hurt. Badly. How much of this was he buying?

“I had no idea what they were hanging on me until Miss Lawyer here told me about the extortion charge.” McKenna inclined his head in her direction.

“What about those arresting officers?” Grace asked quickly.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“Nope.”

She felt something fire in her blood. “There’s a possible loophole.”

“I thought I was better off not pointing that out to them. I didn’t want to give them a chance to mend their mistake.”

She was almost starting to believe him, Grace realized. “The police department is doing this to you?” There had been rumors of corruption, but there were always rumors.

“I’ll put a call in to Chief Baines in the morning,” Lutz said.

“Baines may be in on it,” McKenna said.

“I know.”

Grace thought of another rumor she’d heard. Plattsmier was next in line for Baines’s job. If Baines was dirty, if he was found out and removed, then Plattsmier would become chief. Now she understood why Lutz was so willing to do Plattsmier this favor and take McKenna on free of charge.

“Plattsmier is hedging his bets,” Lutz said. “He’s not a good guy, and he’s not a bad one. I think the jury’s still out on which side he’ll line up on.”

Yes, Grace thought, he definitely believed McKenna.

In the meantime… “What am I supposed to do with him?” She pointed at McKenna.

Lutz took a hotel key from his trousers pocket. “Room 412 at the Penn’s Landing Hyatt.” He glanced at McKenna. “You can’t go home, not until we put this in some sort of order. That’s the first place they’ll look for you.”

Grace felt her headache getting worse. “You’re putting him up in a hotel for the night?” And not just any hotel, she thought. The Hyatt. “Doesn’t that leave us a little vulnerable on aiding and abetting technicalities?”

“At the moment, there’s no paperwork,” Lutz pointed out reasonably. “No one has yet arrested him a second time. Once that happens, of course, we’ll have a horse of a different color. Which is why I want to avoid it as long as possible. By the time I place that call to Baines in the morning, I want this man’s entire story in summary form on my desk. Let’s aim for nine o’clock.”

He’d just consigned her to working pretty much all night. Grace considered the raise she would get when this was over, when she had won.

She decided she didn’t have a problem with that.

Chapter 2

Grace stood and took the key. She didn’t want to know why it had already been in Lutz’s pocket, not with that half-eaten plate of hors d’oeuvres over there on the other side of the table. He had a wife and several children at home.

McKenna remained seated. “How much is this going to cost me?” he asked.

Dan Lutz waved a hand. “That’s not important.”

“With all due respect, it’s kind of an issue for me.”

“We take on a few pro bono cases each year without charge,” Lutz replied.

“I’m not one of them.”

Who was this man? “Do you have any idea what this will cost you otherwise?” she demanded.

McKenna sat back in his chair and watched her. “Gosh, gee, I’ve been a cop in this city for some eleven years now. Have I ever heard of Russell and Lutz?”

An almost-grin pulled at Lutz’s mouth. “I would sincerely hope so.”

“A hundred thousand?” McKenna guessed. “Two hundred? I need to know what I’m up against here.”

“That would be a retainer,” Lutz said equably. “You’d be billed hourly from there, of course, if this escalates.”

“Which? The one hundred thousand or the two?”

“One,” Lutz said. “We’re not God.”

McKenna finally stood. “You’ll have the money by Friday. I don’t take handouts.”

Grace’s blood ran suddenly to ice. She didn’t wait to hear any more. She turned on her heel and left the restaurant. She’d almost bought his story.

She was on the curb outside before he caught up with her. “How does a cop have access to a hundred thousand dollars?” she demanded. “And you expect me to believe that you don’t have that extortion money stashed someplace, that this is all fabricated?”

Then he—this man on the take, this cop gone bad—had the absolute nerve to touch her. He cupped her chin in his hand.

Something happened there at the point of contact. If it had just been heat, she could have jerked from him and let her eyes spit fire. But there was a gentleness there in his grip, too, and it was so at odds with the rest of him that it had her going still, afraid to even take in air.

“I don’t have money stashed anywhere, lady.” Then he paused. “You know, I keep doing that. I keep calling you lady. First impressions and all that. But you’re not a lady at all, are you, despite those incredible legs?”

He was back to her legs again. That was all she could think.

“And you’re not a siren,” he continued. “Once again, your looks aside, I don’t know what you are.”

“You don’t need to know. This isn’t about me.”

“We’re about to share a hotel room tonight—I think that was your boss’s inference with all the talk of reports due by nine in the morning. So I’m thinking that maybe we ought to draw ourselves a few lines in the dirt here.”

She had the wild but certain thought that this man wouldn’t keep to his side of the lines anyway. “Let me go. Don’t touch me. Ever.”

“Sorry.” Finally, blessedly, he dropped his hand. He looked around for a cab. “Not a lady, not a siren. A drill sergeant, maybe. You’re used to giving orders.”