His legs were shackled. His arms handcuffed. And his face was as raw as a pound of lean hamburger in the I grocers meat case. He’d been beaten-severely, judging by the swelling and bruising on his face, forearms, and hands. His neck bore choke marks, and his knuckles were scraped and cut, evidence that he’d tried to give as good as he’d gotten. From the gap-necked opening in his prison grays, she glimpsed a thatch of black hair and a purple bruise that muddied his left shoulder. Some ass had spray -painted a four-inch-wide yellow stripe up his back, neck, and over his hair to the crown of his head. That same ass, or another one, had branded a huge black C on his wide forehead with what appeared to be a permanent ink marker.
outrage immobilized her. Her heart thumped erratically. Her blood began a slow, hard boil, fueling its wild beat, and putting a furious tremor in her hand. Damn it, she should have expected this. He’d been charged, formally branded as a coward and traitor. She should have anticipated that the Heavies-or the guards-would beat Adam Burke to within an inch of his life.
And she might have expected it, if she hadn’t been so damn preoccupied worrying about how this case would affect her life instead of thinking about how it would affect his. Damn her for blowing that. This kind of vengeance, Lady Justice didn’t need.
Tracy turned an explain-this-now glare on the guard.
The sergeant shuffled his feet, rested a hand on the butt of his holstered gun, and nodded toward the still-silent Burke. “We, um, found him like this first thing this morning.”
“First thing?” Tracy pointedly looked at her watch. “It’s ten A.M., Sergeant. Has the doctor seen him yet?”
The guard avoided her eyes and skimmed a beefy hand over his stubbly nape, rustling his hair. “Um, no, ma’am. The doc’s been pretty busy.”
Probably sewing up the men that bad left Burke nursing raw knuckles. “I see,” she said from. between her teeth. “Would you tell the unit commander I’d like a word with him, please?”
The guard’s eyes stretched wide. “He’s a bit busy this morning, too, ma’am.”
“Fine.” Tracy slid the guard a chilling look and a saccharine smile. “I wouldn’t want to interrupt. I’ll just route my message to him through Higher Headquarters, with a copy to General Nestler.” Mentioning Laurel’s god should get some action. “What was your name, Sergeant?”
“Maxwell, ma’am,” he said sharply, knowing as well as she that she could read his name badge from where she sat.
His Adam’s apple bobbed hard, twice, and he looked as if he would love to handcuff her to the water tower on the far side of the base to keep her out of his way. “But I’m sure you won’t need to bother the general. Things are calming down. Let me check to see if the commander is free yet.”
“Thank you.” She motioned to Burke, silently swearing that if she hadn’t seen photos of him in his Personnel file, she never would have known him. Why in the name of God didn’t I anticipate and prevent this? She swiveled her focus back to the sergeant. “Could you please remove the shackles and cuffs?”
“No, ma’am,” Maxwell stammered, looking torn. “I mean, yes, ma’am, I could, but I’m not permitted to do it. Burke is Intel, ma’am. High risk. Maximum security.”
Before she could say another word, the sergeant backed out of the room and closed the door. Staring at it, Tracy drew in and then expelled three deep breaths, steeling herself to talk with Burke. “Please sit down, Capt-” She halted abruptly, refusing to address him by a title he no longer deserved. A title she shared, and took pride in. “Please sit down.”
Swaying slightly, he shuffled to a chair, his chains clanking against the tile. When he moved his left arm, she saw a smattering of blood on his shirt, though she didn’t see an open cut. With the number they had done on his face, the blood could have come from there, though getting it past his broad shoulders and full chest to soil his shirt beneath his ribs took a stretch of the imagination. But maybe in the heat of battle … Burke shifted on his seat. From his ginger movements, the man had to be sore from head to toe. “Are you in pain?”
No answer. He just continued to stare at her through those swollen slits of icy gray eyes. They didn’t even vaguely resemble the soft dove-gray she had noted in his photo.
“My name is Tracy Keener,” she said, not at a put off by his silence. He was taller than she had expected. At least six two. “I’ve been assigned to defend you.”
No comment.
Maybe dangling a carrot of courtesy would get him to alter his attitude and open communications. “Do you have any questions you’d like to ask me?”
She paused, but Burke didn’t utter a sound, so she again changed tactics. Glancing at a checklist, she had to resist an urge to rub her locket. The facility certainly hadn’t wasted any time in seeing to the paperwork on this case. Personnel had been notified of Burke’s change in duty status, and they had acknowledged receipt of -a copy of the confinement order. “Most of the forms required have already been filed.”
She looked up. “You have no dependents.” That could present a challenge or two. Nothing major, but inconvenient. “What about your household goods? Your car?”
She didn’t bother to wait for a response she knew she wouldn’t be getting. “Do you have someone you can give a power of attorney to take care of them?”
Not so much as a head shake. Now why didn’t that surprise her?
Raking her lower lip with her teeth, she hid a grimace. “The government won’t ship your household goods or store them,” she warned him, trying to elicit a response.
“And they’ve already stopped your entitlements and processed a grade reduction.”
That bit of news had his eyes glittering, but it didn’t have his tongue moving. A mean streak surfaced in her, but she squelched it, and explained. “As you haven’t yet been adjudged, the grade reduction won’t be effective until fourteen days after your courtmartial.”
Scanning the listing, she noted his date of separation was listed as “Indefinite.” That was expected, and convenient. Otherwise it too would have, if necessary, been extended to a date beyond his courtmartial proceedings. The government couldn’t muck up jurisdiction by having a military member legally separate from the Air Force in the middle of his courtmartial.
“These matters of your personal property have to be dealt with.” Tracy laced her hands atop the checklist. “It’s a safe bet that your sentence will be longer than five years. You do understand that the prosecutor is going for the death penalty, correct?” Burke watched her draw every breath, but said nothing.
Okay, whatever. She damn well couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t so much as speak to her. “Leavenworth is definitely a part of your future. So think about those powers of attorney. Otherwise, your household goods will be lost with the house, and the mortgage company will dispose of them. Your car will be impounded and sold at auction. You won’t get the money from any of this, and if your home is financed with a VA loan, it won’t be reinstated so you can use it again later.” Later? He’ll never need another home loan. He’ll never again see the light of day free from prison walls.
Nothing she said gleaned a reaction from him, much less a response. She opted to press on. “I’d like to hear your rendition of the events leading up to your arrest.”
Again, no answer.
Urged to fill the uncomfortable silence, Tracy forced herself to be still and just wait. Sooner or later the man had to say something.
Five minutes passed. Then three more. Her nerves were stretched razor-wire tight, and she glared at him. “Did the beating affect your hearing?”
“Burke, Adam B.,” he said through puffy lips. “Captain, U.S. Air Force. Serial number five-two-one, three-eight, two-seven-five-nine.”
Name, rank, and serial number. Fantastic. She withheld a groan and leaned an elbow on the table between them. Wobbly, it rocked. “In case no one has told you, you’re not a prisoner of war, Burke. But you are in an enormous amount of trouble. Would you kindly cut the antics and elaborate on the event that led to your arrest and tell me who beat you?
Was it the Heavies, or the guards?” She hated the thought, but-Burke was a coward and traitor so it could have been either group. Her money was on the Heavies.
“Burke, Adam B. Captain, U.S. Air Force. Serial number five-two-one, three-eight, two-seven-five-nine.”
Tracy grimaced, her patience shot. “Look, it’s obvious you don’t want me here. Well, I don’t want to be here, either. The truth is, I was drafted to defend you. I have no choice, and you have no choice. Live with it.
“We both know you’re guilty. But maybe we can convince the jury you made a bad judgment call or you had faulty navigational equipment. We’ll find an honest angle and work for a sentence reduction to life in prison-if you’ll help me by answering my damn questions.”
“You’re a real piece of work, counselor. You know only the charges, my name, rank, and serial number, and you have me serving life.” He motioned toward the door with his cuffed hands. “Get the hell out of here. I need an attorney, not a piece of fluff posing as one.”
Her lips tightened to a thin line. “I am an attorney, Burke. A damn good one.”
“I need a damn good one who does her homework. You don’t.” He scowled, stood up, spun his chair around, and then straddled it, straining his shackles until the chains snapped tight. “Hell, I know more about you than you’ve bothered to learn about me.”
“I sincerely doubt it.” She tilted her crooked nose upward.
He hooked his arms over the back of his chair, his grim expression dark and dangerous. “You’re the widow of Matthew Keener, one of two heirs to the Keener Chemical fortune. You worked your way through law school and married the youngest heir, Matthew, in your junior year. In your senior year, you and Matthew were in a car accident. His blood alcohol level was 2.5, well above the legal limit. You were five months pregnant at the time. Matthew was killed and you were seriously injured. You delivered a daughter, Abby. Four months premature was just too much, and she died within minutes of being born.
That hurt. He knew it, and was taking pleasure in it. The smartass probably thought she’d asked for it, coming in here with preconceived notions about his guilt.
“The senior heir to the family fortune, your domineering brother-in-law, Paul, handled the funerals, which you couldn’t attend because you were still hospitalized. Correct so far, counselor?”
She sent him a cold glare and a warning. “That’s enough, Burke.”
“But hardly the whole story.” He plowed on, tapping his fingers against the back of the folding chair. The metal pinged against his blunt nails. “After losing Matthew and Abby-and probably to stop Paul’s interference in your life-you joined the Air Force, intending to make it a career. You’re now up for promotion to major-Board meets in about a month, right?-and you’re up for Career Status selection. By the way, that’s a bit harder to get these days than it once was. You get one shot at it.”
He slid her an icy smile. “Knowing your distaste for research, I thought you might be interested in that piece of information.”
She held her silence, and her glare.
Adam cocked his head. “What I don’t know for fact and I seriously doubt you’ve considered-is, if everyone but God thinks I’m guilty, then why would Command insist on assigning such a high-profile, volatile case to a junior Staff JAG like you?”
A dam paused a beat, and the question swelled in her mind. By all rights and logic, senior officers should be prosecuting and defending him to protect the military, as best they could, against bad publicity. That they had assigned a mediaattractive woman might help them with the press, but it wouldn’t do them a damn bit of good in official circles.
Another oddity was his being held over for trial here, in Mississippi. Why had Command held him at this base rather than taking the more typical route and transferring him to Higher Headquarters for trial? It was the convening group’s call, true, but considering the nature of the case, and the timing-fiscal year-end was staring into the whites of their eyes-that decision didn’t make sense to her.
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “But I suspect I was assigned your case because I’m pretty new to the office and I don’t yet have a full caseload.” She dropped her lids to halfmast. “Or maybe Command figured that with its mountain of evidence against you, any lawyer could get a conviction.”
Burke grunted. “Looks and claws, and she’s decided to bare them. Problem is, counselor, your answers are as fluff as the rest of you.”
“Define ‘fluff.’ “
“No substance,” he explained, his eyes keen and assessing. “Or are you being deliberately evasive to conceal the truth?”
“What’s your supposition?” She slid Adam a hooded glare. “Why do you think I was assigned?”
He sent her a steely look that could curdle blood. “I suspect you came into the office with a full caseload staff JAGS are always overworked. And I also suspect you were assigned to my case because the honchos too know your distaste for research. They want me convicted, and with you representing me, they feel certain I will be convicted.”
Tracy flinched, angry because she hadn’t considered that possibility, hadn’t wondered why a junior Staff JAG had been assigned to this high-profile case. Angry because she hadn’t done her homework and learned all there was to know about Adam B. Burke and his case before coming to see him today. And she was most angry because Burke could be right. She could have been assigned to assure his conviction. God and Command, and likely Higher Headquarters, had known from the onset that she considered Burke guilty.
That bit of honesty turned her tone acidic. “Look, Burke. You don’t have to like me, and I certainly don’t like you.” She hated him for bringing up her past. For invading her privacy, and dredging up old hurts that brought her fresh pain. For committing the godawful crimes he’d committed, and screwing up all their lives. “But I am your lawyer. I’m all you’ve got, and you’d best get used to it.”
“Captain Burke,” he said through clenched teeth. “I’ve worked my ass off for seven years to earn my rank. I’ve put my life in jeopardy more times than you’ve put on a uniform, and though everyone in the world thinks otherwise, I’ve done nothing-nothing-to dishonor it. All I’ve gotten since this nightmare started is humiliation and degradation. I deserve better. You either prove me guilty, or you acknowledge my rank, Captain.”