Attractive Nuisance (Legally in Love Book 1) (8 page)

CHAPTER NINE

Complex Litigation

Another week of paperwork entombment followed. Camilla barely peeked her head from her cubical crypt during daylight hours. She drank so much water from the office water cooler she was about to demand her own jug of Sparkletts at her desk. That way they could save money by letting her just use her Big Gulp cup instead of wasting all the little paper cones on her.

Sheldon backed her up, though. He brought her lunch from the hot dog cart or from Taco Bell. Sometimes his wife packed an extra sandwich in Sheldon’s lunchbox for Camilla. Bless her heart. He reminded her to set an alarm to go home before eleven p.m., and he called her cell to check on her, to make sure she’d left the office by midnight.

“You don’t have to do that, Sheldon.” Camilla told him this over and over, but she secretly appreciated it. “Actually, it doesn’t really matter how many hours I work, I still can’t get it done. So you’re right. I do need to go home.”

“Lydia said to remind you that you need your beauty rest so you can bring a gorgeous hunky date to the office campout this weekend.” Sheldon thumbed through a stack of manila file folders and selected one to take back to his desk. “I think she’s sick of looking at my bald head and wants someone to salivate over.”

“Oh, dear. Do you mind that?”

“No. Not as long as she keeps the home fires burning. It’s just once a year. But she always looks forward to seeing who you’ll bring.”

To her eternal shame, last year Camilla had hired someone to be her date. Not an escort service—not that at all. But she did scope out good looking men at the laundromat for a couple of weeks, and when she found one, offered him $350 to spend the afternoon and evening with her and pretend to be her date.

He’d been horrible at it. He kept flirting with Falcon’s sixteen year-old daughter. It was an unmitigated disaster. Camilla might have lost her job if she hadn’t begged her boss’s forgiveness and sworn to never let it happen again.

How was she supposed to know she’d stumbled across someone they all now referred to as “Statutory Sam” by chance? Her face burned even a year later, thinking of it.

Which was why she’d sworn off the office campout altogether. Forevermore. And why when Zane kept bringing it up, she batted him away like some annoying bumblebee, the big dumb black kind that don’t sting but just buzz really loudly.

In fact, today over lunch, she almost told him the Statutory Sam tale just to get him off her case—but she stopped herself before she let it slip. Why give him more ammo to tease her with? He already seemed to have a never-ending arsenal.

Nothing on earth that could induce her to attend this weekend’s event.

“Oh, and Camilla?” Sheldon’s head popped over the wall dividing their spaces. “Did you remember Falcon asked to see you at three?”

She checked the clock. Great. Three-oh-five. Falcon hated lateness.

She waddled as fast as her pencil skirt and heels would allow all the way to his office. These shoes. She kept buying higher and higher shoes. Pretty soon they’d qualify for training props as a stilts master, and if this law thing didn’t work out, she could get work in the circus.

When she finally tore around the corner and tapped on the door, she found Zane already seated in Falcon’s office. He’d leaned back in the wingback chair and—gasp!—propped his boots up on the edge of Falcon’s desk. Crikey. This was the relationship she was up against for the promotion to deputy county attorney? How could she hope to compete against that? She couldn’t. Period. Her chances were toast.

At least everyone was too busy working on the Veldon Twiss conviction to move forward on the promotion right now. She might still have time to convince Falcon she was the most trustworthy man for the job. Er, woman. Sigh. Camilla would just have to work harder. That’s all there was to it. She’d have to
really
buckle down. But what did buckling down actually mean if you were already putting in ninety hours a week?

Work smarter. She’d have to work smarter. Because, frankly, there was no possible way to work harder. Dark circles under her eyes might become permanent if she attempted anything beyond what she was already pulling.

“Hi. I’m so glad you’re finally here.”

Ugh. The word “finally.” Falcon had noticed her lateness, despite his casual-looking conversation with Zane. Dang it. Another strike against her.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Torres—”

But he hushed her and motioned for her to take a seat. There was a folding chair in the corner. She opened it and sat down—the unwelcome guest. Nice.

“Look. We’ve got a couple of things on the agenda for this little pow wow.” Per his usual, Falcon launched into business. “One, the Veldon Twiss case. Not the case, per se. That’s being handled competently so far as I can tell. Good work, men.”

He thought of her as one of his men. Maybe that was good. She was in the barracks as one of Falcon’s trusted soldiers. Good. Good. Keep her there.

“Instead, I want to talk about the upshot of this.”

“The upshot, sir?” She had to help him out. It was a trendy term. Falcon often assimilated trendy terms into his vernacular without quite getting the meaning right. “Won’t the upshot of a win be a bigger victory for you in your reelection next fall, and a long sentence in prison for Veldon Twiss, and safer property everywhere for luxury car owners?” There. That might have been enough examples to help him through the meaning.

“Nope. I mean the upshot—as in who will be my MVP for this, and thereby prove him- or herself indispensable to the Yavapai County Attorney’s team.”

The deputy job. He was talking about the promotion right now.

Falcon steepled his fingers and tapped them at his chin. “I’ve seen the two of you dig in and tackle this case. You’ve put aside your natural differences. You’ve prioritized it. Frankly, I’m rather proud of both of you.”

A glow kindled in Camilla’s heart. Over the years at certain points (like when Statutory Sam accosted Falcon’s daughter), she’d been scared her job was on life support. But today? To hear this? It warmed her through.

“However,” Falcon growled, pushing those fuzzy brows together, “there’s only one post as my deputy in this county, so I’m choosing only one of you.”

Oh, had he already chosen? And this was to break the bad news? Camilla’s mouth parched. She wrung her hands together and didn’t dare shoot even a microsecond of a glance at Zane. If he had a gloating look, she could potentially start to cry—and that wouldn’t be any good at all.

Zane put his boots on the ground. “Are you saying, that the choice is between the two of us?”

“Precisely.”

Zane sat forward. “If you’d like, I can make my argument for why you should choose me right now.”

Camilla’s insides scrambled like eggs in a bowl. She blurted. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Holyoake. I think Mr. Torres knows his own mind, and he’s basing his decision on who has served him loyally over the years.” Oh, get real. No matter how much she protested, she knew Falcon had brought in Zane to groom him for the position. Her heart turned to lead and squished down in her ribcage.

Falcon pushed himself up from his desk and walked to his low book case, where he sat down and fiddled with one of his Western Bar Association awards. “I love both of your enthusiasm. The eagerness to get down to work is what landed you here in this meeting in the first place. But no. I haven’t chosen yet. That’s the thing. I just wanted to let you know, I’m watching.”

Of course he was watching. Falcon watched like a hawk. Why didn’t his parents name him after that bird instead?

“Watching?” Zane echoed.

“Right. And the one of you who best prepares the arguments for this case against Twiss will be my choice—based on my sole discretion—for deputy county attorney.”

The air sucked out of Camilla’s lungs. She’d have to go head to head against her fellow prosecutor? This made no sense. Falcon pitting them against each other was the worst idea in the world. Didn’t he want them to work together to create a solid case?

“I’m sorry, sir. But what about unity?” If she could clap a hand over her mouth and prevent that question from coming out, she would have. But it was too late. Her protest had already escaped. Geez. Why did she have to antagonize her boss?

“Oh, you mean the unity of the arguments? Or the unity of the staff?”

What else could she say? Neither, never mind? No. “Both, sir.” Her insides stirred and splatted. He wasn’t being smart. This was definitely not the best way to get good results. She needed to keep Falcon’s authority uppermost, though, so she couldn’t argue with him any further.

“I’ve thought that through. The two of you, while working parallel on this case, are of course allowed to share findings. Not that I think you will. So instead, to keep unity, I’m going to request of you, Miss Sweeten, that you agree to what I’ve already gotten a commitment from Mr. Holyoake to do.”

Oh, what was that? No egging each other’s cars? No hiding each other’s files, prankster style?

“I’m sure whatever you ask I’ll be capable of committing to, if Zane can commit.” High-mindedness must prevail, even in life-altering competitions.

“Great. That’s perfect. Then I’ll expect to see the two of you together at the office campout on Friday night.”

Camilla’s voice box swelled suddenly to the size of a Honeycrisp apple. She couldn’t speak. She envisioned the line from Mary Poppins, “Michael, we are not a codfish,” with her mouth hanging open, so she snapped it shut. Was this Falcon’s gleeful revenge for what happened last year against his precious daughter? It had to be some kind of cruel torture.

“And there will be no excuses from either of you that there’s some breakthrough in the case and you can’t attend. You, Sweeten, of all people recall that this event is mandatory. And since Zane here hasn’t attended before, he needs someone to show him the ropes, and make sure he can find our campsite. It’s not like we want to leave anyone in our staff family hanging. We take care of our own.”

The term “take care of”—it was also used by the mafia to imply a hit order, wasn’t it? “I’ll take care of Cousin Vito, Uncle Vinny. You can count on me.” And then someone wearing cement boots takes a swim in the East River.

Falcon had taken care of Camilla, all right.

***

“What’s the road like up to the campout?” Zane came ’round Camilla’s desk for the umpteenth time that afternoon. “Because if it’s more of an off-road experience, we can take my truck.”

Oh, no. Not his truck. She hated his truck, for one. Riding through town in it would be bad enough, with its crazy sparkle paint, but arriving at the annual staff party in it, with everyone outside to see (and hear) them pull up? Too much. She’d end up offending Zane by asking him to park a mile down the road and having them walk the rest of the way in.

“I have been promising to take you digging.”

Threatening was more like it.

But she also didn’t trust herself around his truck. The diesel fumes. She might let them go to her head. She might get confused and forget the fact that Zane Holyoake was the enemy of all her future plans.

“That’s another thing I’d like to discuss, Zane.” She’d been calling him Mr. Holyoake during their sparring discussions about the Veldon Twiss case, but when it came to the date, she had to switch to a first name basis. “Camping.”

“What about it? Do you not have any camping equipment? Because I’ve got loads.” Of course he did. “Cooking equipment, sleeping bags, an ax in case we need firewood, canteens, you name it.”

Her concern wasn’t about the camping equipment. It was about the camping. For one thing, no. She didn’t have the equipment for it—physical, mental, or emotional. Bears. They could attack campers in the night, inside their zipped tents, even. A bear attack happened just last month in the very mountains where the annual party was scheduled, and Camilla might as well smear her body with bacon grease and say
come and get me, Fozzie,
because her statistical likelihood of getting eaten wouldn’t increase. She knew, just
knew
, a bear would find her first.

For another, even if by some miracle she survived the onslaught of hungry beasts, camping—where would she sleep? It wasn’t as if she was emotionally capable of sleeping alone in a tent, not with the bears out there. She’d be panicking every time a twig snapped or a bird chirped. But on the other hand, it wasn’t like she could exactly hunker down in a tent with good old Zane Holyoake for the night. Oh, there were a lot of reasons for that—not the least of which, she wasn’t that kind of a girl. She’d seen through years of personal (and professional) observation that the old fashioned standards were the best way to guarantee a good, long marriage, and she ignored all the dubious advice on the front of magazines in the grocery store checkout line.

So she couldn’t sleep with him (obviously) and she couldn’t sleep without him, because she wouldn’t sleep and she might die of panic. Double edged sword.

Why, oh why, did Falcon require this of her?

She could fake illness.

Falcon would know she was lying.

She could go and stay just for the cookout and then leave. She could drive up separately from Zane and then make her escape after dinner.