Unholy Alliance is book 2 in the Donahue Cousins Series.
Tori sat up straight, a determined expression blossoming over her
breathtakingly beautiful face. Grady
recalled her cousin’s look of Jessica Rabbit, voluptuous, blonde and blue-eyed.
Tori’s fair complexion contrasted with dark brown hair. Something elusive moved
behind her amber eyes.
"Where is your office?" she asked.
“Not far from the Maersk Railyard and Union Pacific." His
leased property was a two-story California Craftsman built in 1930,
commercially zoned, that sparkled with yellow paint and had a front porch. Open
and welcoming, it contrasted with the daunting courtrooms, institutional
waiting rooms, and prison walls that defined his clients' family members.
She fixed her eyes on him. "If I get out, my truck will be
within smelling distance. Will you stop by?"
“For a heart attack?” He chuckled.
“Sunflower oil doesn’t clog arteries. It’s healthy.”
“Tell me about your childhood." In spite of her family’s
obscene amounts of money, mob parents shaped children. She'd witnessed death, destruction,
and evil on a regular basis.
Tori shrugged, took a beat to compose. "Our families lived
apart from society. No normal parents invited us to play dates. Our parents sent us to boarding school,
Stevenson's Academy at Pebble Beach."
He'd heard of it, a place to adopt social graces of the elite
society. “Stevenson’s has a sailing
club. Did you sail?"
She nodded. “Viv and I raced a Rhodes Nineteen.”
“Nineteen feet long with a deep keel. Any other hobbies?"
Why the hell did he care? If he allowed himself to get emotional, vulnerability
oozed in and ensured defeat of the lawyer-mind.
"We collected Beanie Babies." In addition to sounding
normal, she didn’t have fingerprints in the system, meaning she had no criminal
record.
"Well,” he said, “I had Squealer the Pig." The pink
piggy that grabbed headlines of collectors’ magazines didn’t come close to the
headline of Tori's murder case.
"Squealer? Viv loved that one." She placed a hand on
her heart. "Something happened to her. She's just gone." She
tightened her jaw.
"Tell me what happened on the night you were accused."
"Viv and I were having dinner on the Long Beach waterfront.
Rhubarb and Ginger, we went there a lot. Seamus McGinn and Timothy Noonan must
have tailed us. They’re from Cobh, County Cork."
"For once Ireland was lucky. Lucky to be rid of them.” Besides random
assassinations, McGinn specialized in government-agro kidnappings. Recovered
victims had broken collarbones, fractured limbs, cigarette burns, stab wounds,
shattered eye sockets and facial bones, accomplished with a blunt instrument.
Dead ones had been alive at the time of beatings, with a foreign object jammed
down throats, and teeth were found in the stomach. "So you saw McGinn and
Noonan?"
"Correct," she said. “A half-dozen more stormed in.
Carried automatics, ripped through the place. Found the owner, dragged her out."
"The owner refused to pay them—“
“—for protection." She leaned down and rubbed her forehead.
“Same old deal, upping the ante. And?"
"Viv ran out the back. I was arrested."
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