Billion Dollar Mistake by K.C. Crowne

Chapter 3

JOLENE

The next morning, I was totally in the zone when a call from my mom came in, the noise loud and jarring enough to snap me out of focus away from the case folder in front of me. I grabbed the phone, picked it up, and noticed that I had placed it on a small pile of loose change, the jangling of metal from the phone vibration accounting for the crazy loud noise.

Phone in hand, I stood up and answered.

“Morning, Jojo!”

I smiled – I had given up long ago the hope of mom no longer calling me the same nickname she had since I was a little girl.

“Morning, Mom. What’s up?”

I stepped around my small metal desk and into the center of my office. The room was simple, to put it nicely. It was small, with enough space for the desk and a couple of chairs in front of it, a pair of tall, steel file cabinets, and a tiny shelf near the door where I could put my keys and purse. The single, tiny window looked out onto the parking lot. Not exactly the most glamorous office in the world, but it didn’t matter – my real offices were the courtroom and the examination room downstairs.

“Here’s the deal. I’m going to be in town today, and I want to get some lunch with my daughter. What do you say to taking an hour out of your corpse carving schedule?”

“Corpse carving?” I asked, unable to hold back a laugh of surprise. “That’s certainly a graphic way of describing my work.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist the alliteration. So, what do you say?”

“What are you doing in town anyway?” I asked.

After Joanne and I both had gone off to college, Mom sold the house and bought a condo in some trendy neighborhood in Denver. I hadn’t been crazy about the decision at the time, but the older I became, the more OK with it I was. Mom had taken care of two girls, being a full-time mom and full-time employee after our deadbeat dad walked out on us when my sister and I were kids.

Just thinking about Dad, if he even deserved to be called that, was enough to get me steamed. He’d left before Joanne and I had even gotten to double-digit years. He never said why, either. All I’d heard from Mom on the subject the one time I’d been bold enough to ask was that he simply “didn’t want to be involved.” He’d sent us monthly checks, though, making sure we’d never be without – another detail I’d learned when I was older.

But that was almost more insulting than simply leaving. The idea that Dad had treated fatherhood like some bill to pay, like a service that he had to budget for like we were a freaking Netflix subscription, it infuriated me. But money or no, Mom did what she had to do, working full-time during the day, and picking up a second job at a florist on the weekends.

If she wanted a condo in the city where she could enjoy her empty-nest years, I figured she was more than entitled. More than that, she was only about thirty minutes away, and it wasn’t like Joanne or I had kids that grandma needed to be around for, which was a fact that Mom never let either of us hear the end of.

“Oh, doing a little shopping.” Her voice trailed off in the way it often did when I knew there was more to the story.

“Shopping? What, you get tired of all the boutiques in Denver?”

“Well, I need some clothes for a date with a new beau this weekend, and I haven’t seen my darling oldest daughter in a few weeks. Not to mention Whitepeak has some seriously underrated local clothes stores. Seriously – a few of the places there I don’t even tell my friends about because I don’t want the secret to get out.”

It was the little detail about her new beau, one of mom’s trademark old-time turns of phrase, that really caught my ear.

“A new guy?” I asked. “Like, how new are we talking here?”

“Ah this will be date number two,” she said. “And oh my God, he’s just sublime. His name is Owen, and he’s a retired small business owner who founded a landscaping company that he sold off for millions last year.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “But what happened to Mark? Or the one before that, um, what was his name?”

“Oh, you mean the dentist?”

“No, not him – the one after him, the lawyer.”

“Oh, Richard? Please, he was such a bore. And he was cheap. I don’t need men to lavish me, of course, but the third time he took his calculator out when the check came to make sure he didn’t tip a single cent over fifteen percent…not attractive.”

I laughed. “I swear, Mom. I might not be dating, but you’re sure as hell making up for it.”

She laughed right back. “What can I say? I’m making up for all the dates I didn’t go on back when I was raising you two – not that seeing my little angels grow up wasn’t the most wonderful thing in the world.”

Mom’s extremely active love life was something else I was more than OK with. She was right - between two jobs and two little girls, Mom had barely kept her head above water for a decade and a half. As far as I was concerned, she could date as many men as she wanted – and she did.

“But that raises another question,” she said. “Why on earth is your senior citizen mother going on more dates than her lovely, brilliant daughter? I swear, you should have half of Whitepeak lining up for a chance to beg for a date with you. What’s the deal?”

Part of me wanted to talk about the awful date I’d had the other day – it was surprising, really, that Joanne hadn’t already spilled the beans about it to her. However, I knew that would be far too long of a conversation to have over the phone when there was work to be done.

“No time,” I said. “And if I want to work at the State Coroner’s Office, I need to make such a name for myself that everyone in the department knows who I am.” After I said the words, I anticipated another comment from Mom, so I jumped in ahead of it. “Speaking of work, I’ve got a case that I need to finish reading up on before court in an hour. How about you tell me all about this new beau over lunch?”

“That would be wonderful,” she replied. “Where do you want to meet, my dear?”

“There’s this deli called Sanford’s over by the courthouse. How about there at noon?”

She agreed, and after our goodbyes I set my phone back onto my desk, turned it to silent, and dropped into my chair. After a sip of coffee to get my head right, I opened my MacBook Air and clicked around until I had the file for the appointment open in front of me.

The case was a doozy. The wife of a dead man in suburban Denver claimed her husband had committed suicide. And at first glance, that had appeared to be the situation. He’d been found in his garage with the door closed, the car on, and a length of tube leading from the exhaust to the cracked open driver’s side door.

More than that, it’d come out that he’d lost some major money doing illegal gambling on Rockies games. He’d drained the bank account, hadn’t told his wife, and decided that the big sleep would be preferable to telling his wife and facing up to the wreck he’d made of his life.

When I’d been given the chance to look over the body, I’d found evidence of blunt force trauma to the back of the head, right at the base of the skull. An injury that would be more than enough to knock someone out cold, if not kill them outright. There was a strange stain on the man’s shirt that ended up being coffee and cream, and some slight superficial burns on his skin underneath. However, after a full examination, I’d determined the cause of death to be carbon monoxide poisoning, which would be consistent with a suicide by exhaust.

I’d passed along the information to the local PD. They took it and ran, interrogating the wife and eventually getting the truth out of her. Apparently, the husband had come clean to his wife about what had happened, how he’d lost their savings in reckless bets.

She hadn’t taken it so well. When she’d learned that their decades of savings had been wiped out over some stupid baseball wagers, she’d lost it. The wife waited for her husband to turn his back, taking a sip of coffee. She’d grabbed a nearby lamp and made her move, slamming him in the back of the head hard enough to knock him out, the coffee spilling over his shirt in the process and giving him some minor burns.

Had the wife been smart, not to mention a decent human being, she would’ve cut her losses, called 911, and told them what had happened.

She hadn’t.

Instead, she’d dragged his body to the car and posed everything so the car exhaust would finish the job. It did, and when the cops showed up, she’d pretended like she’d just walked into the garage and was confronted with a nightmarish scene of her dead husband.

With the help of my examination, the cops managed to get a confession out of her, making the trial nothing more than a formality. But my testimony as the local expert was necessary, nonetheless. And because the victim was from my area and hadn’t switched over his residency, the case was still technically under the jurisdiction of the local PD.

However, there’d been a little snafu. After confessing, the wife had a moment of clarity and panicked, calling her lawyer. The confession hadn’t been in writing, and her lawyer advised her to go back on what she’d said. But with my testimony, I was confident we had a case solid enough to get her locked up.

After finishing up with the case files, I threw back the last sip of my coffee and checked myself out in the full-length mirror that I kept at the office for the express purpose of making sure my pre-courtroom outfits looked professional. For that appearance, I’d gone with a dove-gray pantsuit, white blouse underneath, and simple black pumps. My auburn hair was pulled up into a neat bun, a few tendrils draping down and framing my face. I had on just enough makeup to look courtroom suitable. Makeup wasn’t usually my thing – not like the dead cared what I looked like.

When I was ready, I smiled at my reflection and headed out.

* * *

I stepped out of the courtroom and breathed a sigh of relief as soon as I was back in the fresh air. The day had warmed up, bright and sunny without a cloud in the sky, just a trace of Rocky Mountain briskness on the wind. I checked my watch, seeing that it was a little after eleven – plenty of time to swing back to the office before meeting Mom for lunch.

“Jolene!” I turned where I stood, spotting James Cooper, the prosecuting attorney I’d worked with on this case, not to mention several other cases before. He was in his fifties and handsome, with a slender build, sharp suit, and just enough graying around the temples to make him look distinguished.

“Hey!” I said, matching his smile with one of my own. “What’s the verdict? Uh, so to speak.”

He chuckled and smiled. “The verdict on your testimony is that it was perfect – detailed enough to get the information across, but concise enough to keep the jurors’ attention. As far as the more literal verdict, I’m thinking it’s all looking good. We established motive, and you helped establish how it happened. After lunch, they’re having the wife take the stand, and that’s never a good idea.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Just glad to see justice done.”

“Same here. But I wanted to come over and thank you for your hard work. I’ve lost count of how many cases we’ve worked together on, and you always bring it.”

“Aw, James,” I said. “That’s so nice of you.”

He shook his head. “Not trying to be nice – just have a personal policy of not letting good work go unrecognized.”

“Well, I hope we have more chances to team up in the future,” I said, feeling a touch overwhelmed by the compliment.

“Same here.” He sighed, glancing up at the perfect blue sky. “Man, hell of a day to spend in the courtroom. You get out there and enjoy it for the both of us, OK?”

“I’ll do my best.”

He gave me a nod and a smile before turning around and heading back up the tall stone staircase to the courthouse doors.

I wasn’t in the field I was in for compliments or accolades, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to pretend that it didn’t feel damn good to hear some kind words from a colleague. A big smile on my face, I trotted down the steps, deciding that a little reward was in order. Instead of heading back to the office, I’d grab my guiltiest of guilty pleasures, an iced caramel macchiato, from Claptrap Coffee down the block. I’d have my drink, do a little paperwork on my MacBook, then head over to the deli for lunch with Mom.

Sounded pretty damn perfect to me.

I headed down the block, throwing on my sunglasses as I soaked up the spring sun. Last winter had been brutal in true Colorado fashion, so I was determined to enjoy all the good weather and sunshine the spring threw my way. Downtown was bustling, with dozens of people making their way up and down the sidewalks, Mansford Park in the center of town full of families.

I passed the El Ranchito, the place where I’d had the ill-fated date the other night, but even that managed to bring a smile to my face. After the date, Joanne and I had thrown back some margaritas, dished about her dating life, and overall made the most of a potentially crummy evening. Who needed dating, anyway? I had my career, my family, and a town I loved to call home.

I approached Claptrap, stepping into the hip interior, and eyeing an open table on the patio that would be perfect for a little relaxing. The place was surprisingly busy, about half full with what appeared to be students from the local college. My mind already on the macchiato, I strode through the front of the café and headed toward the line.

I was feeling so good, in fact, so confident and on top of the world, that I didn’t even notice one of the other patrons step away from the pickup area and start in my direction. Everything happened in the kind of slow motion that you’re helpless to affect. My eyes flicked up just in time to notice that the man was tall and dressed in a suit that made James’ look like a hand-me-down. He glanced down at me, his dark, thick eyebrows rising as he realized a collision was unavoidable.

The impact felt like slamming into a brick wall. The two to-go iced coffees flew up and out of his hands, landing on the floor with a crash and spilling light brown liquid everywhere. I watched in horror as the puddle spread, the coffee pooling around what had to be the nicest pair of walnut-colored Oxford dress shoes I’d seen in my life.

“Oh my God.” Without a moment’s hesitation, I began lowering myself down to do…something, anything to help with the mess.

But before I could get even halfway down, a huge hand swooped in and slipped under my arm. I glanced up to look into the eyes of the same man I had just collided with. And when I did, I noticed two things – first, he was about the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. And two, he was familiar.

“You don’t need to do that,” he said in a low, sensual voice.

Whoever he was, he was so hot that I could hardly think straight. He was easily around six-and-a-half-feet, with long limbs and big shoulders, his hair dark, almost black, his eyes a shimmering green. His features were strong, his nose slim and his lips insanely kissable. His chin had a cleft, and his jaw was wide. The man was so freaking handsome that I couldn’t even think straight.

And on top if it all, the sensation of his powerful hand on my bare skin turned me on so much that I was almost as soaked as the floor below.

I had to say something, anything.

“No, it’s alright,” I said, glancing at his shoes. “You definitelydon’t want to ruin those.”

He furrowed his brow, as if slightly confused.

“Oh,” he replied, realizing what I meant. “Don’t worry about them. Here.” He guided me away from the puddle, rising and grabbing a handful of napkins from the creamer area nearby.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, watching him dab up the mess with the napkins. “I was in such a rush and —”

“Don’t even worry about it,” he stated, not a trace of irritation to his voice. “Just glad the mess was on the floor and not you.”

I watched him dab up the coffee, one of the baristas coming over with a mop to take care of the rest. Feeling like I needed to do something, I grabbed some napkins of my own and leaned down to dab the coffee that I’d spilled onto his shoes.

He chuckled as he realized what I was doing. “Totally not necessary,” he said, stepping away just a bit.

“No, it is necessary. These are full grain leather – last thing you want is coffee ruining them.”

I reached over and dabbed the last bit of ice coffee off his shoes. When I was done, I stood up and found myself right in his personal bubble, close enough for me to notice nothing but his impossibly handsome face.

But he didn’t move. Instead, he cocked his head slightly.

“OK, do I know you from somewhere?”

“Jolene!”

I glanced over my shoulder to see James at the door to the café. He hurried over to me, a purposeful look on his face.

“Listen, I know I just told you to get out and enjoy the day, but Judge O’Keefe wanted to ask you a quick question about your testimony.”

“Testimony?” the familiar man raised an eyebrow.

“She said it’d just be a minute,” James assured. “That work for you?”

I nodded, then turned back to the man. “Let me buy you a replacement coffee before I —”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “No need to grind the wheels of justice to a halt on my behalf.” He smiled slightly, his mouth curling up on one side.

That smile – there was something familiar about it, too.

He nodded, indicating for me to get moving.

“Sorry again,” I mumbled.

Then I turned and headed out of there with James.

The moment I stepped through the door, it hit me just who he was.

That had been none other than Sawyer Williams, someone who I’d gone to high school with.

And more than that, he was someone who’d made the most awkward years of my life a living hell!