Conviction of the Heart
Thank you for purchasing this Wild Rose Press publication.
of
the Heart
by
Alana Lorens
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Conviction of the Heart
COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Alana Lorens
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by
Kim Mendoza
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Crimson Rose Edition, 2012
Print ISBN 978-1-61217-251-4
Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-252-1
Published in the United States of America
For the spirit and heart
of all those who empower, counsel and work
with domestic violence survivors…
Keep up the good fight.
Chapter One
Suzanne Taylor eyed her gold link watch. Six o'clock already. She'd be the last one home again.
Guilt swirled through her midsection. Her mother nagged her about leaving the girls home alone so late.
“Too many bad things they can get into out there. Predators! On Dateline last week…”
Suzanne groaned at the thought. If she had to hear about the pervs on
Dateline
one more time, she’d consider moving out of Pittsburgh, away from her parents. Far away.
Annoyed with her life and the solo practice of family law, she grabbed her soft leather briefcase and shoved a handful of files inside. She’d have to finish at home. One file in particular that she wanted, she couldn’t find in the ever-undulating stack of clutter on her heavy wooden desk. The desk she’d inherited from her grandmother's Indiana farmhouse. For the clutter, she could only blame herself.
“Eureka!” she muttered as she finally located the paperwork and put it in the case, buckled it up. Her hand hit the switch, and the book-lined office went dark. She shouldered her purse and headed through the still-lit secretary’s office for the door.
As her hand hit the door handle, it twisted under her fingers, and the solid wooden door came toward her, slamming into her foot. She yelped. A gasp sounded on the other side of the door, and a tear-streaked face poked around the edge.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! Oh, my gosh, are you all right?” the woman asked.
The woman wore no makeup, and her hair was a disheveled mess, but her jacket and skirt were pricey—Suzanne had admired that set at Coldwater Creek a week before.
“I’ll live,” Suzanne replied wryly. “I was just leaving.” She gestured to the clock, which now read six-fifteen.
“No! Please, you can’t!” The slender woman seized her hand, dark eyes wild, like a panicked horse. “I don’t have much time. He’s going to kill me!”
“Who’s going to kill you?”
“My husband. I know it sounds crazy, but I know it. I know it.” The conviction in the woman's voice seeped into Suzanne’s bones. She believed what she was saying. “I know it’s late, but Nick said you’d help me. He said you were the best.”
“Nick?”
“Nick Sansone. He’s a policeman we know from the community center. I called him from a pay phone outside the grocery store, and he said you would help me.”
“Oh, he did?”
Nicholas Sansone had been a witness in one of Suzanne’s cases several months before. She had caught him looking at her with something that might have been attraction. And though it could have been accidental, the detective with the huge dark eyes and shoulders that looked as if they had the benefit of hours at the gym had seemed thereafter to cross her path frequently in the Courthouse corridors. He hadn’t asked her out, but there had been times she thought he was going to, and she’d purposely given him “chilly.” Suzanne didn’t date cops. Cops had a way of landing in trouble. She didn’t need trouble.
But she wouldn’t hold it against this woman in obvious distress. Suzanne stepped back, inviting her in. “What makes you think he’s going to kill you?”
The woman scanned the hallway with a nervous glance, then came in and closed the door behind her. “He went out of town this morning. He took his gun with him, so I couldn't hide it, but I found the number to the funeral home on his dresser. The card had my birth date and social security number.” She leaned back against the door frame, one hand over her heart, breathing rapidly. “He's planning something, and I’m not meant to survive.”
Suzanne glanced at the clock again and sighed. “All right, sit and I’ll grab a pen—”
“No, I can’t. Not now. I’ve got to be home by seven. He’ll call.” Her hand fluttered, fell back onto her chest. “If I don’t answer, he’ll punish me.”
“Punish you?” Suzanne’s brow puckered. As an attorney working in family law, she’d dealt with domestic violence cases before. After fifteen years, there was little that shocked her. Never made it easier to hear, though.
The woman struggled to rephrase what she’d said. “I mean, he’ll be mad. I don’t want to make him mad. Not when he…” Her voice faded and trembles wracked her body. She nearly fell.
“Come on,” Suzanne said, dropping her case. The last thing she needed was a lawsuit if this woman collapsed on her doorstep. She slipped an arm around the woman’s shoulders to guide her to the nearest chair, “I understand what you’re saying. How can I help you?”
“I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday morning. He’ll expect me to be gone for two hours. Can I come back then?”
“He’ll still be gone?”
“He’s at some national conference in St. Louis, not due back till Saturday afternoon. But he set people to watch me.” That panicked look again. “He’s very important.”
Suzanne snorted. “Importance doesn’t give anyone the right to terrorize their wife.” She reached for a yellow pad off her secretary’s perfectly organized desk. “Are there children?”
“Yes. A boy and a girl.”
“Has he been violent toward them?”
A long hesitation. The woman’s tongue flicked out to wet her lips before she spoke. “He broke Katie’s wrist last year.”
Suzanne caught her breath and made a note. “We can get you a protection order that would make him leave the house, if you want to stay there, or we can get you to a safe place with your kids. Do you want to file for divorce?”
“I…I…don’t know.” Those long-fingered hands fluttered again, settled in her lap, twisting against each other for comfort.
Suzanne never understood why a woman stayed with a man who had injured her child. She believed in the right of a woman to be autonomous, independent, and never forced to depend on a man for anything.
But the world didn’t always work that way.
As a chunk of auburn bangs fell into her eyes, Suzanne tucked her hair behind her ear with irritation. She was due for a haircut. Somehow, she’d have to make the time. She rattled off a quick list of documents she wanted to see.
“Bring those to me Friday morning. Come as soon as you can. We’ll be quick.”
“God bless you,” the woman said, breaking into tears of relief. She took Suzanne’s hand again, and for a moment, Suzanne thought she’d actually kiss it, but she got herself under control. “God bless you!”
“What’s your name?” Suzanne asked, leaning backward over Donna’s desk for her calendar.
“Maddie. Madeleine Morgan.” The woman took a handful of tissues from a box on the nearby table and dabbed at her face.
“Maddie Morgan?” Suzanne nearly dropped the planner. Everyone in Pittsburgh knew that name. “You mean your husband’s Gregory Morgan? The city councilman?”
The woman bit her lip.
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound that way.” Suzanne backtracked as fast as she could. Disbelief had flooded her voice, she was sure. The Morgan name was in the papers at least once a week, usually more. She’d met Councilman Morgan half a dozen times at charity or city events. He’d always seemed so…nice.
Experience had shown, however, often those were the ones worth watching out for. Violence could lurk, well-concealed, behind a charming façade. Especially one with money and position.
The clock chimed six-thirty, and Maddie jumped to her feet with a little shriek. “I’ve got to go, now! He’ll be calling.”
“All right, all right. Friday morning. I’ll be here by eight-thirty.”
“Thank you, Miss Taylor. Thank you so much. Thank you!”
Her fervent words following her out the door, Madeleine Morgan was gone, light footsteps tapping down the hall to the stairs to take her down one flight to Carson Street.
Suzanne picked up her case and her purse again. This woman’s story, even the brief part she’d shared so far, resonated with others in Suzanne’s memory. Some of her brethren might have pooh-poohed the woman’s fears, but not Suzanne. Not anymore. A cold wave of nausea washed over her. She’d lost one client to a psychotic husband already. The murder might have been three years before, but Suzanne hadn’t forgotten one detail. She hadn’t believed that man was serious. He’d proved her wrong.
She wouldn’t make that mistake again. She wouldn’t lose another one.
She’d lay everything on the line to protect Maddie Morgan.
Chapter Two
There he was again.
Nick Sansone.
Waiting for her, in ambush, like a guerilla assault team, when she approached the elevator in Pittsburgh’s City-County Building. Since she practiced family law, and he was a police detective, they weren't often in the same building. The criminal courts took place in the old red granite “castle” next to the stone former jail building. City-County was the home of the civil courts. No reason for him to be here.
But here the lanky detective stood, in the busy first floor lobby. His suit was dark gray, his tie a conservative print with maroon diamonds, and his shoes were spit-polished to a perfect shine.
“Counselor,” he said with an easy grin. “Starting early today, I see.”
Put him off. Don’t let him engage.
“Tough job being a homewrecker, but someone’s got to do it,” she said.
It might be corny, but it was better than the usual jokes about lawyers and sharks. Or lawyers and bottom feeders. Or lawyers and…about anything one could think of that was disgusting. Cops seemed to know them all.
“Now, I’ve seen you in action, Ms. Taylor. I know that’s not your
modus operandi
at all.”
Her cheeks flamed. “Don’t try to flatter me with your fine command of Latin phrases, Detective.”
“Not flattery at all! Spoken with true admiration, I assure you. I’ve observed enough of my colleagues raked over the coals to know a shark when I see one. And you’re not.”