Dance With Me - By Hayden Braeburn Page 0,11
I wanted them, much less bricks of it.”
Detective Davis leaned across the table. “Let's say I believe you, and let's say we dust for fingerprints and check the locks and the windows and whatnot.”
Kat nodded. This was sounding good.
“And let's say we do all that and find nothing but your prints. Then what?”
“Then someone wore gloves,” Carter interjected. “You can question her all day, Detective, but you won't get the answers you're looking for here, Ms. Nemecek doesn't have them. She is a victim in all of this, and you have a drug trafficker out there, or at the very least someone trying to set Katerina up.”
“And why would someone set your client up? Her mother is a resident of Fluvanna prison, and her studio was headed to foreclosure until this morning. Where did that money come from, I wonder? Not from dancing.”
Carter knew where the Detective was going with this, and knew he was fully aware of the source of the money. “Her fiance, Mason Everett, paid the mortgage on the studio. Her mother is immaterial here.”
Davis stood up, leaning over the table even more. “Mila Nemecek is a convicted felon, yet you say she is immaterial.” Turning his attention to Kat, he asked, “Why would you sell drugs if you got yourself a sugar-daddy?” He looked her up and down, sizing her up. “You are a mighty beautiful woman, too. Surely you could work off your debt.”
Carter stood up then, inserting himself between his client—his friend's fiancee—and the detective. “This interview is over, Detective. We will wait for the judge to hear our bail request.”
“Suit yourself.”
~*~
“Bail is set for five hundred thousand.”
“A half million dollars is excessive, Your Honor. Katerina Nemecek has been nothing short of an upstanding citizen, and poses no flight risk.”
“I am told the estimated street value of the drugs recovered from your client's place of business is in excess of five hundred thousand, Mr. Jamieson.”
“True.”
“It is also the understanding of this court that your client is engaged to be married to Mason Everett, a man from a very influential and affluent family. Bail stands.”
Kat sat quietly through Carter's exchange with Judge King. A half million dollars? If Law & Order was to be trusted, that would mean Mason would have to ante up fifty-thousand to bring her home. After buying her a gorgeous diamond, paying off her overdue mortgage, and now posting her bail, she would be twice as expensive as his house! She held back a laugh. She should be paying attention to Carter and the judge, and here she was tallying up Mason's expenditures.
“So, now what?” Kat asked Carter and Mason as they sat in a booth at O'Dell's Bar & Grill. “I mean, I get that we have to prove this wasn't me, but how?”
“I have great investigators on my team, Kat. We'll find what we need.”
“What if there's nothing to find?” Mason asked. At Kat's sharp intake of breath, he elaborated, “What if Priscilla hired a professional and there's nothing to find?”
Carter adjusted his glasses before answering, “We won't know until they look, will we?”
“The police won't help.” Kat shook her head. “Longwood is disgusting, and at first I thought Davis was better, but he's not.”
Mason pinned her with his chocolate gaze. “What happened?”
“We handled it,” Carter answered.
“What happened?” Mason asked again, never taking his eyes off Kat.
“He insinuated you were my sugar-daddy and I didn't need to sell drugs for money when I could sell myself instead.”
“Bastard,” Mason muttered.
“He was trying to shake her up.”
It had worked. Kat was quiet for long minutes before breaking the silence with a revelation. “How the hell does locking me up for drugs make you fall in love with her? What kind of delusional bitch is she?”
“The rich kind.” The thought made him shudder. What else might Priscilla do? “God, I'm so sorry about this. I never thought...” He trailed off, unable to find the right words. If he'd had any idea Priscilla would stoop to this, he would have confronted her years ago. He knew she was possessive, he knew she put something in Melanie's drink a couple years back. He couldn't prove it, and he hadn't pursued it. He and Melanie had parted on amicable terms—truth told, they had been better friends than lovers, and Priscilla had just brought that to light. Breaking things off with Melanie had been easy, but he couldn't live without Kat.
She took his hands in hers. “It's not your fault.”
Carter had been quiet through the whole