Wyoming True - Diana Palmer Page 0,85

sentence had been lessened and the penalty also reduced. Now a mutual acquaintance had told Madame that Charles Dupont was planning to demand a retrial due to new evidence. What it was, the acquaintance didn’t know. It was enough to panic Gaby’s grandmother, nevertheless.

Her grandfather’s nephew, Robert Mercer, a business colleague, had also been left out in the cold financially as a consequence of his uncle’s arrest. He was claiming that property given to Gaby in a will from their mutual great-aunt was actually his and he was planning legal action. The property was Gaby’s only real means of support. Well, her grandmother would never have let her starve, of course, but the property was rented to a large corporation, which established an agricultural operation on it, and the profits were enormous.

So the two of them, Gaby’s grandfather and her cousin, posed a danger to Gaby and her grandmother. In fact, Madame Dupont had hired a new bodyguard, a former mercenary named Tanner Everett, just for Gaby. She was that afraid for her. Gaby had insisted that her bodyguard be invisible, especially when she went to see the attorney. She had more trouble than she could handle already. He agreed, but he had that amused smirk that made her want to hit him.

She’d never really liked her grandfather, whose obsession with material things had left her nauseated. Her grandmother, Melissandra Lafitte Dupont, came from titled French aristocrats, although she’d lived in Chicago since she was a girl. When Gaby’s adventurous parents, Jean Dupont and Nicole Dupont, had died while on an archaeological dig in Africa, Gaby had come to live with her grandparents at the age of thirteen. She’d always loved her grandmother. But her grandfather had been a different story. She had more to fear from him now. He was asking for a retrial, charging that the evidence was sketchy at best, and that some of it had been manufactured to convict him. He had an attorney, a small-time one who was just starting out in the business and, therefore, less expensive. But gossip was that he was going to ask Nicholas Chandler’s firm to represent him once more. Since Chandler was the best criminal attorney in the city, Gaby had a great deal to lose if he took the case. But he wasn’t, from reputation, the sort of man who could be approached about a potential client. He was incorruptible, arrogant and afraid of nothing on earth. So Gaby was going to try a soft approach. Perhaps he could be reasoned with by the victim of a client he might be considering.

* * *

GABY WAITED OUTSIDE the apartment after she rang the bell. She hoped that she could get Mr. Chandler to speak to her about his firm’s involvement in her grandfather’s case. She wanted a private chat, hence her trip to his apartment rather than to his office. It took a long time before the door finally opened.

A girl of about fifteen with spiky, purple-dyed hair and piercings everywhere, dressed in a short skirt and slinky blouse with overdone mascara and popping bubble gum, just stared at her.

“Well, what do you want?” the girl asked insolently. She gave Gaby’s gray pantsuit with its pink camisole and her unmade-up face in its frame of upswept thick, red-highlighted brown hair an insulting scrutiny.

Gaby’s pale blue eyes twinkled. “My goodness, I thought an attorney lived here,” she said. “Is it an agency? You know, for call girls?” She added a speaking glance of her own at the girl’s attire.

The younger woman’s eyes almost popped.

“Who’s at the door, Jackie?” a deep, curt voice called.

“I have no idea!” the girl said, dripping sarcasm. “Maybe she’s selling magazines or something.”

“Not likely. I don’t read those sorts of magazines,” Gaby returned pleasantly.

The girl’s indrawn breath was interrupted by the arrival of a big, husky man. He looked like a wrestler. He had wavy black hair with a few threads of silver, a leonine face with deep-set, dark eyes and a sexy, chiseled mouth. He was wearing slacks and a designer shirt in a shade of beige that emphasized his olive complexion.

“You’re late,” he said abruptly and looked at his watch. “I specifically told the agency no later than one p.m.” He glared at her. “Do you want this job or not?”

She was at a loss for words. She’d come to ask him a delicate question and he was apparently offering her a job. Her heart jumped at the unexpected opportunity.

“I thought it was for