Bailed Out (The Anna Albertini Files #2) - Rebecca Zanetti Page 0,2

honor. The state requests a postponement and a week to prepare for a preliminary hearing.”

Clark glanced my way, surprise in his eyes. “We could plea this out.”

Glass sharp eyes narrowed on mine as Danny stood in faded jeans and a tan shirt decorated with a dragon spitting fire. “I plead not guilty, your honor. Regardless.”

The judge gave me a look that clearly said this was my last favor. “It appears we’re not ready for a plea. This time. Very well, Ms. Albertini. One week to amend charges.” She stood, we all jumped to our feet, and the judge strode gracefully out of the courtroom.

Clark turned toward me. “You okay?”

“Yes.” I grabbed the files off my table and ignored his client. My afternoon was swamped, and I had to get through it and fast. I had to find Tessa.

Once I got back to the office, I tried to call but went to her voicemail. Then my first witness arrived to prepare for an upcoming trial, and I had to get down to trying to fix the mess the office had become.

I worked diligently until quitting time and all but ran out the door at five o’clock. Nick hadn’t returned from court, and right now, I didn’t care.

After an afternoon where my red shoes made me feel like anything but a badass, I swung through Margo’s Tai Palace for buckets of calories to take to my sister Tessa’s place. I had tried her phone a couple more times through the afternoon, but she must’ve been working. This was better news given in person…with wine. I’d already picked up several bottles before hitting Margo’s.

It was finally summer, and I drove my Fiat with the top down, trying to suck in fresh air and lose the worry. Timber City had about forty-nine thousand citizens, which was the big city to a girl from Silverville. Most of my family still lived in my hometown, fifty miles east through a mountain pass. Tessa lived here, right off the main drag in town in an apartment above Smiley’s Diner, where she worked as a waitress.

A lot of people, locals and tourists, strolled along the brick sidewalks in the warm weather now that the workday was finished.

I parked at the curb, grabbed the food and wine, and then walked past the diner entrance to a doorway just around the corner. Using my hip, I nudged it open and walked up the cement steps and through another doorway that led to an alcove with two apartment doors.

Tess’s door was the one to the right, and it was ajar.

I stilled. Tessa never left her door open. Panic tried to grab me, but I had to stay smart. Had Danny already found her? No. Maybe she was just putting groceries away or something. As quietly as I could, I set dinner against the wall. Then I walked on my toes across the hard cement to the blue steel door, careful not to let my heels make any noise. My heart pounded, and my lungs tightened painfully.

The massive lump in my throat didn’t allow me to swallow. Okay. Tess had to be okay. I reached her door and gingerly pushed it open, listening for any sound.

“Freeze!” A male voice bellowed from behind me.

I yelped and fell against the door, going down to the soft rug inside and coming up fast. Wincing at the pain in my hip, I threw my head back and put my shoulders against the wall.

Then I just stopped thinking as my brain tried to interpret too much information at once.

Tessa stood near the head of a bloody and beaten body, a silver gun in her hand and her eyes wild. At the feet of the unmoving guy stood my pseudo-boyfriend, Aiden Devlin, a man I hadn’t seen in two weeks. His beard rivaled that of the bailiff’s earlier, but his piercing blue eyes were in a category of their own.

A hard shoulder shoved me, and then Detective Grant Pierce was between me and everybody else, his gun out and pointed at my sister. “Drop the gun.”

Tessa, her face whiter than any ghost, gently set the gun down.

I gulped and peered around Pierce to see the body. “Please tell me that isn’t Danny Pucci,” I whispered, my voice shaking. But I didn’t need an answer.

The bloody guy on the floor was definitely Danny Pucci. I looked closer, trying not to vomit. Danny stared back at me, his green eyes unblinking, a hole through the center of his forehead. It