Bryce stilled. “No.” The idea chilled him. Had he been the victim of a power play, just a pawn to be disposed of?
“It’s not common knowledge,” Garrison continued. “And we want it to stay in this room. Our FBI sources tell us someone would like to step into Steele’s shoes and they suggest it’s someone inside his organization. Maybe putting his attorney out of commission would assure Steele went to jail.”
“Too indirect,” Bryce argued.
“Not if the rival wanted to be subtle,” Garrison suggested. “It’s death in that organization to announce your opposition openly.”
“Anyone been following you, any strange cars or people?” Pollack quizzed, the blandness absent from his tone.
“No.”
“Ex-wives, ex-girlfriends, ex-lovers?” Garrison asked.
“I recently broke up with Monique Dennison,” Bryce said. “We’d been together a year.”
Garrison’s eyes widened. “She’s the former Miss Michigan.” His look questioned Bryce’s sanity over the break-up.
“She broke it off. We wanted different things.” Bryce had told her he was thinking about giving up his lucrative law practice to become a judge and she’d walked away. He didn’t miss her. He hadn’t thought of her once since he’d woken.
At one point he’d considered marrying her. They’d have a marriage like his parents had had — a successful husband, his wife the perfect social hostess, beautiful and gracious. She’d volunteer for charities and give him a child or two. They’d be comfortable. They’d have the same goals. Bryce’s relationship with Monique had been just as loveless as his parents’ marriage. He shuddered thinking about it now.
“Any other exes?” Pollack prodded.
Bryce shook his head. Sean handed him ice water and he gratefully sipped from the straw, although his hands chilled quickly. He and Sean were the bachelors of their group. He grimaced. Paul Ziko would become one too as soon as his divorce became final.
“Any negativity about the possibility of you running for judge?”
“No.” Bryce had been a media darling after the Ziko affair. He wondered what he was now.
“Any fallout from the Christian Ziko case?”
Bryce shared a glance with Sean as he gave the cup back. “No.” Except the restless certainty that something was wrong with his life.
“Any fan mail, any love letters?”
Bryce shook his head. Then he posed a question of his own. “Ricin is a bio-terrorist agent. Why use it on me?”
Sean cleared his throat. “Actually, Bryce, you can buy castor beans to make ricin over the Internet. The poison is easy to make, so anyone can do it.”
“And you can find instructions on how to make letter bombs on the Internet too,” Garrison agreed.
“So it wasn’t terrorism?” Bryce insisted.
“We don’t know for sure, although no group has claimed responsibility. We’ll need a list of your cases, both open and shut, from the past year. We’ll want to look for suspects there.”
“Confidentiality,” Bryce reminded them.
His early spurt of energy was fading and it was getting harder to breathe again. His gaze clashed with Sean’s, who indicated the oxygen. Bryce shook his head. He wanted to appear strong for the remainder of this interview.
“Mr. Gannon,” Pollack appealed, “Something in one of those cases may have triggered the attack. Your attacker is still out there. Do you want him or her to get a second chance at you?”
My God, Bryce hadn’t thought of that. His heart galloped as the terror he’d felt the day of the poisoning replayed in his mind.
Sean stiffened from his casual pose. “Do you think that’s likely, Agent Pollack?” His tone was sharp, his expression concerned.
The FBI agents exchanged glances and Garrison replied with care, “We don’t know.”
“Then why doesn’t Bryce have police protection?” Sean demanded as his brows beetled in a furious frown.
“We thought he was safe enough in the ICU — ” Pollack began.
Only to have Sean snap, “Where he was unconscious and completely defenseless against a second attack. I saw strangers in the ICU every day. One of them might have been the bomber.”
Although Bryce appreciated his friend’s defense, he hated the picture Sean painted of him as vulnerable. He’d expended a lot of energy to fool these FBI agents about his real condition.
Besides that, Bryce wasn’t sure he wanted cops hovering around him every minute, especially while he worked on Steele’s defense, or pretended to. Steele probably owned people in all levels of law enforcement, which would explain how he’d gotten away with criminal activity for years.
A tremor ran through Bryce as Sean and the Feds argued above him. Bryce already thought most, if not all, his clients, were lying to him. Now he had to wonder who might be on Steele’s payroll, like whom here at the hospital was Steele’s spy. He watched the pulse display as he breathed through his nose and tried to restore his calm.
“No cops,” Bryce finally interrupted the argument.
“Bryce, he or she might try again,” Sean argued.
“No cops, Sean.”
Bryce would have enough strangers and interruptions in his life for the next few weeks, enough people dictating what he could and couldn’t do. He wouldn’t let anyone else confine him.
Sean’s face set mulishly.
With a spurt of guilt, Bryce ignored his friend and addressed the Feds. “I’ll give you restricted access to my client files. I’ll call my office manager tomorrow to clear you. I won’t let you take files out of my office.” His voice slowly dropped in volume.
Now Garrison and Pollack looked mulish. Bryce didn’t care. On this he would stand firm. He’d built a reputation of clients being able to trust their lives in his hands. They trusted him with confidential facts as well. He wouldn’t lose that.
The Feds left and Bryce allowed Sean to badger him back into the oxygen. Sean lowered the bed’s head so Bryce could lie down. As he relaxed into the not quite comfortable mattress, Sean pulled up a chair to discuss the doctors’ diagnosis and what it meant to Bryce in brutally frank terms.
But even with Sean, Bryce didn’t feel comfortable enough to let his fear and despair show.
The next morning the sound of a footstep tore Bryce’s attention from the Steele case file in his hands. A beautiful woman stood in his hospital room doorway. She was very tall and toned, athletic if he had to guess, but not a runner. A quick frown pulled her sleek black brows together, but it smoothed as she caught him staring.
“Mr. Gannon, you’re working.” Her voice was a pleasant contralto with a hint of accent.
She had the advantage over him. He closed the file. “Can I help you?” His voice was still hoarse today.
“I’m Ciara Alafita. Your office manager told me to bring you some reference books.”
He must have looked blank, because she continued, “I’m your new legal assistant.”
Legal assistant his ass. She was a model, maybe a reporter. That black knit top and black A-line skirt hinted at subtle feminine curves. He’d guess she was at least five foot ten. Her riotously curly black hair was pulled back from her face and most of it confined behind her head, exposing a bone structure women paid plastic surgeons to get. But he was certain this woman had been born with it. The bright red lips were made for kissing. Her name, dark brown eyes, and genetically tanned skin proclaimed her Latina.
Ruthlessly Bryce squelched his male interest. “You don’t work for me.”
She strode forward with confidence and a slight lift of her chin. “I was hired yesterday. As low man — or in my case, woman — on the totem pole, I get to do your legal research.”
Yesterday he’d talked to Steele, who’d said he’d keep an eye on the case. Today Bryce had a beautiful new legal assistant. His belly went cold and his muscles tightened, making his chest ache.
“What’s your background?” he asked.
“I worked in the Attorney General’s office, but I missed my family, so I moved back to the Detroit area to be closer to them. I graduated second in my law class from the University of Michigan and I passed the bar exam. Lately I’ve been with the Opinions and Municipal Affairs Division at the AG.”
My God, Steele had reach. The AG’s office. Bryce’s pounding heart made him feel sick. Steele had given her a poignant story — homesickness — but Bryce didn’t believe it for a minute. People didn’t abandon good jobs like that for the reason she’d stated. She was lying.
“I didn’t know my office was hiring.”
“They weren’t. But I’m obviously overqualified and willing to work for less money, so they snapped me up.” All said very coolly.
“One wonders why you’d do that?” he mused.
“I told you. My family — ”
Bryce interrupted with a wave of his hand. “Why
my
office?”
“Your success rate is extraordinary. Why would I work for a less successful attorney?”
Why indeed? Again he sensed the lie. If her family had lived here all along, why miss them now? She’d been out of law school for some time. There was no such thing as coincidence.
“Would you step out of the room for a few minutes please,” he ordered.
That rocked her composure. “Why?” The word quavered.
“I’m confined to bed. I need the nurse for personal reasons. You understand.” He used the veiled crudeness on purpose.
She actually blushed. It was quaint. He quickly hardened himself against reacting to her.
As soon as she left, Bryce buzzed for the nurse. That would allay Ciara’s suspicions. Then he called his office and asked for his office manager.
“It’s Bryce. Did you hire someone?”
“You gave me hiring discretion,” Sharron answered. “I take it she’s there?”
“Describe her.”
“Ciara Alafita, Hispanic, aged thirty-two, very tall, dark hair and eyes, she came from the AG’s office. She’s passed the bar. Is there a problem, Bryce? I know she’s overqualified for the job.”
“Why did you send her here?”
Sharron sighed. “Bryce, you nearly died. It’s way too soon for you to be working. I know I can’t stop you from overexerting, but I thought I’d send you the highest qualified person we have to help you prepare for the Steele case. At the moment, that’s her.”
So Steele had investigated the skill level in Bryce’s office and sent someone better. Now the question was should Bryce send Ciara away? If he did, would Steele send someone else and take Ciara’s dismissal as a negative sign?
“Bryce?” Sharron prompted.
An old adage came to Bryce’s mind. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. “I’ll see how she works out, but for the time being I approve any hiring decisions and you ask me before you send a stranger to me.”
Sharron sucked in her breath. “Bryce. Omigod, Bryce, she’s not the bomber. She can’t be. She came from the AG’s office. I verified her references. I spoke to her former supervisor myself. He praised her work and was sorry to lose her.”
Bryce felt like a paranoid fool, but better a paranoid fool than a dead one. “I’m just being careful, Sharron. Whoever attacked me is still out there.”
“You’d be safer with police protection,” she retorted.
“Thanks for your concern. I’ll call you later.”
“Bryce,” Sharron nearly shrieked.
“Yes?”
“Are you feeling better today? You sound better than last night.”
In the four years she’d worked for him, he’d never gotten personal with Sharron. Of course, a near-fatal accident tended to change things.
“It’s a little easier to breathe today, and they’ve still got me on oxygen.” Although he wasn’t wearing it at the moment and could tell. He shifted in bed, uncomfortable crossing the boss-employee line he’d set. To his intense relief, the nurse’s appearance in his room gave him an out.
“The nurse is here. I have to go, Sharron.”
When the nurse finished with him, he suffered through all the vital checks and she glared as she put his nasal cannula back on. He lay quietly through her lecture about how he was not to remove the oxygen.
As soon as she left, Ciara returned to the room. His heart speeded up again at her dark beauty, which led to yet another thought about Steele’s shrewdness. Steele believed a beautiful woman could deceive Bryce. He was wrong. Bryce had just spent a year with an incredibly beautiful woman and had never once lost his head. He wouldn’t become some lovestruck fool over Ciara.
• • •
Ciara watched the male appreciation in Bryce’s blue eyes cool to ice. For a moment his approval had warmed her. She got that if men looked at her face first. If they looked at her chest, she saw their disappointment. But she’d never been frozen out. She pressed her lips together. She wasn’t here to win Gannon’s heart. She was here to do a job.
Bryce Gannon was known for his icy detachment, his cool exterior, and his iron control over his emotions. She’d spent the past few days learning all she could about him and studying his trials that had been filmed. Right now he was wearing his courtroom face.
She hadn’t expected a warm welcome, not while he was so ill, but she hadn’t expected his initial suspicion either. Although if some unknown person had tried to kill her, she might be suspicious of strangers too.
Ciara certainly hadn’t expected Bryce to be dressed in sweats and sitting upright with case files on his hospital bed. Two days ago, he’d looked like a corpse. This was only his second day awake. He should be recuperating and resting in this private room.
A pang of guilt shot through her that she was aiding and abetting his flagrant disregard of the reason he was here. It pulsed with the other guilt about lying to him. She tried to dismiss her feelings, but was only partially successful. The sooner she completed her assignment, the sooner she could go back to the AG’s office, and the sooner she could stop lying. Her assignment required Bryce working and interacting with Steele.
“Where do you want the books I brought?” Ciara walked towards the bed, noticing that he now wore a thin oxygen tube. His jacket zipper had been lowered and she could see the golden blonde chest hair beneath. It was lighter than the hair on his head, which was probably dulled from lack of washing.
Her heartbeat sped with excitement and her face warmed. She covered her heated reaction to ogling his body by stooping to her briefcase and reaching inside. In the few moments it took to retrieve the books, she had control of her face and body once more. She’d already seen Bryce naked from the waist up in the ICU, so why it was more intimate to glimpse his body under his clothes defied logic.