First Chapter

Line Of Fire

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

She'd torn him apart.

More specifically, she'd ripped his department's case to shreds and maneuvered the release of a dangerous criminal - George Yube. But out here in the hallway of the Courage Bay County Courthouse, waiting for reporters to disperse so he could speak his mind without having his words quoted in the newspaper, he took the time to notice everything about her.

Trying to ignore Faith Lawton had become a hobby for him, particularly after she'd shown up at the police station a few years ago as attorney of record for a perp he'd personally collared. With honey-blond hair that fell in long, soft wisps to her straight, level shoulders, Faith Lawton had arrested his interest at first glance - and he wasn't wrangling for a reprieve anytime soon. Her steel-gray eyes spoke to him, but usually the message ran along the lines of don't mess with me or I'll eat you for lunch.

Luckily for him, Adam brimmed with gristle and bone. She'd have a hard time sinking her teeth through his hide the second time around.

"Ms. Lawton, may I have a word?" He touched her shoulder. Big mistake. Even though her pale yellow suit looked sturdy enough, the delicate rustle of the material against his fingers brought sensual thoughts to mind that Chief of Detectives Adam Guthrie had no business entertaining about intrepid defense attorney Faith Lawton.

She finished her polished answer to a reporter's question, then spared him a glance over her shoulder. "I have no interest in enduring another dressing-down by you outside the courtroom, Detective Guthrie," she answered.

Okay, so he'd lost his temper during her questioning. She'd let him rant for a full minute or so before she'd objected to Judge Craven, who, with a powerless shrug, had sustained the motion. Adam should have known she'd make him look a tad too anxious to do his job - like a vigilante, even. She had a knack for using a person's strengths against them.

"I have no interest in dressing you down, Ms. Lawton. I simply want a word."

With a small grin to the crowd and a whisper to her assistant - who scurried toward the processing area, no doubt to ensure that Yube didn't walk one step into freedom without his legal representative at his side - she motioned toward an unused courtroom on the other side of the hall.

The minute Adam shut the door, she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned cockily against the back of a chair, her weight on one hip. "If you're not going to yell at me for freeing yet another of the alleged criminals your department has arrested, what do you want?"

Her skin gleamed, and not only from anticipation of the pending confrontation, Adam figured. It was obvious that underneath her perfect makeup, the attorney sported a healthy tan. He couldn't resist speculation about her recreational activities. Her sharp mind and devotion to the art of legal defense sent many of his law enforcement colleagues running to cut a deal the minute she took on a case. And worse, when she did go to trial, she won nearly every time.

This particularly didn't sit well with Courage Bay's new chief of detectives. All citizens of the county deserved competent legal defense, but when Faith got someone off, she usually did so by exposing a flaw within the very system Adam had devoted his life to.

Just as she had today. Thanks to Faith Lawton, Dr. George Yube was currently in another part of the building, being processed for release. Never mind that he'd tried to kill Lauren Conway by setting her workplace on fire, tampering with her brakes and, when all else failed, shooting her in the shoulder. Never mind that thirty-two years ago, the former chief of staff at Courage Bay Hospital had drunk too much as a resident moonlighting in the emergency room, botched a difficult delivery that resulted in the death of a baby, then switched several children in their cribs to avoid exposure, not to mention ugly, career-ending lawsuits. The man had spit in the face of his Hippocratic oath, and yet in less than ten minutes, he'd walk out of this courthouse and most likely never face prosecution for his crimes. All thanks to Faith Lawton.

Adam shoved his hands into his pockets. He should be furious with her. He should give her a rerun delivery of his mantra on the importance of maintaining justice in a civilized society. He should tell her the latest "lawyers are carcass-eating vultures" joke.

But instead, he captured her I-dare-you glare with a steady stare of his own.

"You should be a cop."

"Excuse me?"

"Internal affairs. Maybe you could teach a course at the Academy. You have a knack for spotting weaknesses in the chain of evidence."

She blew out a frustrated breath. "Only because your department mishandles evidence on too many cases. Not to mention search warrants, Miranda rights and - what was it that one time? Oh yeah, a coerced confession."

He nodded, unable to disagree. A police department was only as by-the-book as the people who ran the show. Except for this botched arrest with Yube, all of the other breakdowns in procedure had occurred before Adam had taken over as chief. Not that the timing mattered to the courts. Faith had argued two cases recently where the Courage Bay police department had bungled its job. First, with convicted murderer Felix Moody's appeal three months ago, and now with Yube.

God, they'd been good to go! An ironclad case. Two eyewitnesses. A gun. A receipt for the purchase of gasoline used in the arson attempt. Even photographs of a burn Yube had suffered while cutting the brake line on Lauren Conway's car.

Then Faith had discovered a fatal flaw in the chain of evidence - one that Adam, much to his consternation, hadn't known existed. On the same night George Yube had attacked and shot Lauren Conway, Detective Paul Jerado had lost his son to suicide. The boy's body hadn't been found until after Jerado had gathered all the evidence from the crime scene; he'd been en route to deliver the proof to the department when he received the call about his son.

He'd immediately rerouted, as any father would. The entire department had been shocked and grieved by the boy's death. Josh Jerado had been a fixture at the police station, sometimes doing his homework at his father's desk while Paul worked overtime on a case. After the suicide, there had been a thorough investigation to rule out foul play, a vigil, a memorial, a mass, a funeral. At one point or another, every member of the department had spent time with the Jerado family. And without anyone realizing, the evidence had sat in the back of Jerado's car for two days.

Two days. Forty-eight hours of opportunity for the evidence to be tampered with or otherwise compromised. Under Faith's questioning, Jerado admitted that he had logged the evidence in quietly after his son's funeral, and not until today's hearing had anyone, including Adam, known about the mishandling.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from Line Of Fire by Julie Leto Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---