Falling For Rachel: the classic story from the queen of romance that you won’t be able to put down

He continued to rock in his chair, but a fresh line of sweat was sneaking down his spine. A cell. This time they were going to lock him in a cell—not just for a few hours, but for months, maybe years.

“I hear the jails are overcrowded—costs the tax-payers a lot of money. I figure the DA would spring for a deal.”

“It was mentioned.” Not just bitterness, Rachel realized. Not just anger. She saw fear in his eyes now, as well. He was young and afraid, and she didn’t know how much she would be able to help him. “About fifteen thousand in merchandise was taken out of the store, over and above what was in your possession. You weren’t alone in that store, LeBeck. You know it, I know it, the cops know it. And so does the DA. You give them some names, a lead on where that merchandise might be sitting right now, and I can cut you a deal.”

His chair banged against the floor. “The hell with that. I never said anybody was with me. Nobody can prove it, just like nobody can prove I took more than what I had in my hands when the cop took me.”

Rachel leaned forward. It was a subtle move, but one that had Nick’s eyes locking on hers. “I’m your lawyer, LeBeck, and the one thing you’re not going to do is lie to me. You do, and I’ll leave you twisting in the wind, just like your buddies did last night.” Her voice was flat, passionless, but he heard the anger simmering beneath. He had to fight to keep from squirming in his chair. “You don’t want to cut a deal,” she continued, “that’s your choice. So you’ll serve three to five instead of the six months in and two years probation I can get you. Either way, I’ll do my job. But don’t sit there and insult me by saying you pulled this alone. You’re penny-ante, LeBeck.” It pleased her to see the anger back in his face. The fear had begun to soften her. “Con games and sticky fingers. This is the big leagues. What you tell me stays with me unless you want it different. But you play it straight with me, or I walk.”

“You can’t walk. You were assigned.”

“And I can get reassigned. Then you’ll go through this with somebody else.” She began to pile papers back in her briefcase. “That would be your loss. Because I’m good. I’m real good.”

“If you’re so good, how come you’re working for the PD’s office?”

“Let’s just say I’m paying off a debt.” She snapped her briefcase closed. “So what’s it going to be?”

Indecision flickered over his face for just a moment, making him look young and vulnerable, before he shook his head. “I’m not going to turn in my friends. No deal.”

She let out a short, impatient breath. “You were wearing a Cobra jacket when you were collared.”

They’d taken that when they booked him—just as they’d taken his wallet, his belt, and the handful of change in his pocket. “So what?”

“They’re going to go looking for your friends, those same friends who are standing back and letting you take the heat all alone. The DA can push this to burglary and hang a twenty-thousand-dollar theft over your head.”

“No names,” he said again. “No deal.”

“Your loyalty’s admirable, and misplaced. I’ll do what I can to have the charges reduced and have bail set. I don’t think it’ll be less than fifty thousand. Can you scrape ten percent together?”

Not a chance in hell, he thought, but he shrugged. “I can call in some debts.”

“All right, then, I’ll get back to you.” She rose, then slipped a card out of her pocket. “If you need me before the hearing, or if you change your mind about the deal, give me a call.”

She rapped on the door, then swung through when it opened. An arm curled around her waist. She braced instinctively, then let out a little hiss of breath when she looked up and saw her brother grinning at her.

“Rachel, long time no see.”

“Yeah, it must be a day and a half.”

“Grumpy.” His grin widened as he pulled her out of the corridor and into the squad room. “Good sign.” His gaze skimmed over her shoulder and locked briefly on LeBeck. “So, they tied you up with that one. Tough break, sweetheart.”

She gave him a sisterly elbow in the ribs. “Stop gloating and get me a decent cup of coffee.” Resting a hip against the corner of his desk, she rapped her fingertips against her briefcase. Nearby a short, round man was holding a bandanna to his temple and moaning slightly as he gave a statement to another cop. Someone was talking in loud and rapid Spanish. A woman with a bruise on her cheek was weeping and rocking a fat toddler.

The squad room smelled of all of it—the despair, the anger, the boredom. Rachel had always thought that if your senses were very keen you could just barely scent the justice beneath it all. It was very much the same in her offices, a few blocks away.

For a moment, Rachel pictured her sister, Natasha, having breakfast with her family in her pretty kitchen in the big, lovely house in West Virginia. Or opening her colorful toy shop for the day. The image made her smile a bit, just as it did to imagine her brother Mikhail carving something passionate or fanciful out of wood in his sun-washed new studio, perhaps having a hasty cup of coffee with his gorgeous wife before she hurried off to her midtown office.

And here she was, waiting for a cup of what would certainly be very bad coffee in a downtown precinct house filled with the sight and smells and sounds of misery.

Alex handed her the coffee, then eased down on the desk beside her.

“Thanks.” She sipped, winced, and watched a couple of hookers strut out of the holding cells. A tall, bleary-eyed man with a night’s worth of stubble shifted around them and followed a uniform through the door that led down to the cells. Rachel gave a little sigh.

“What’s wrong with us, Alexi?”

He grinned again and slipped an arm around her. “What? Just because we like slogging through the dregs for a living, for little pay and less gratitude? Nothing. Not a thing.”

She chuckled and fueled her system with the motor oil disguised as coffee. “At least you just got a promotion. Detective Stanislaski.”

“Can’t help it if I’m good. You, on the other hand, are spinning your wheels putting criminals back on the streets I’m risking life and limb to keep clean.”

She snorted, scowling at him over the brim of the paper cup. “Most of the people I represent aren’t doing anything more than trying to survive.”

“Sure—by stealing, cheating, and assaulting.”

Her temper began to heat. “I went to court this morning to represent an old man who’d copped some disposable razors. A real desperate case, that one. I guess they should have locked him up and thrown away the key.”

“So it’s okay to steal as long as what you take isn’t particularly valuable?”

“He needed help, not a jail sentence.”

“Like that creep you got off last month who terrorized two old shop keepers, wrecked their store and stole the pitiful six hundred in the till?”

She’d hated that one, truly hated it. But the law was clear, and had been made for a reason. “Look, you guys blew that one. The arresting officer didn’t read him his rights in his native language or arrange for a translator. My client barely understood a dozen words of English.” She shook her head before Alex could jump into one of his more passionate arguments. “I don’t have time to debate the law with you. I need to ask you about Nicholas LeBeck.”

“What about him? You got the report.”

“You were the arresting officer.”

“Yeah—so? I was on my way home, and I happened to see the broken window and the light inside. When I went to investigate, I saw the perpetrator coming through the window carrying a sackful of electronics. I read him his rights and brought him in.”

“What about the others?”

Alex shrugged and finished off the last couple of swallows of Rachel’s coffee. “Nobody around but LeBeck.”

“Come on, Alex, twice as much was taken from the store as what my client allegedly had in his bag.”

“I figure he had help, but I didn’t see anyone else. And your client exercised his right to remain silent. He has a healthy list of priors.”

“Kid stuff.”

Alex sneered. “You could say he didn’t spend his childhood in the Boy Scouts.”

“He’s a Cobra.”

“He had the jacket,” Alex agreed. “And the attitude.”

“He’s a scared kid.”