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Lilly's Law
Dianne Drake


As an ambitious and dedicated law student, Lilly Malloy had been quickly rising before a disastrous affair with equally ambitious reporter Mike Collier short-circuited her career. Now, finally, she's a judge, but she hadn't planned on presiding over a subterranean traffic court, where parking ines tip the scales of justice. All thanks to him.So when two-time offender Collier saunters through her courtroom door, hoping to sweet-talk her out of a ine, Lilly has a chance to even the score. As fast as she can bang the gavel, she sends him to the slammer. Justice is definitely sweet.Or is it? Even if the judge in Lilly wouldn't dream about breaking the law, the woman in her just might need to test the boundaries….







Dear Reader,

Wow! My third book. It’s hard to believe that I’m doing what I always wanted to do—writing for Harlequin.

Before this, I used to give advice to my university students—all aspiring writers. On the first day of class I would tell them to give me a good Elvis snarl, growl, then say, “I can do that!” Surprisingly, I got a lot of resistance, but after a couple of minutes of good, solid growling I explained how that pit bull attitude is the start of achieving anything they want. It’s all about the attitude.

My friend Toni—who was the inspiration for Lilly, the heroine of this story—had that “can do” attitude. An immigrant from Italy, she went after what she wanted. Her dream was to be an attorney and later, a criminal court judge. She snarled, growled and she did it! Just like Lilly does. And you can do that, too. So let me see that snarl, hear that growl and say, “I can do that!”

I’d like to thank my editor, Wanda Ottewell, for letting me do that.

Wishing you love, laughter and a pit bull attitude!

Dianne Drake

P.S. There was only one time Toni didn’t succeed in her “can do” attitude and, sadly, that was in her battle with breast cancer. So, about those monthly breast exams and mammograms—let me hear you say, “I will do that!”




Disorder in the court!


“Do I get to speak candidly here, or are my rights forfeited the minute I step into your courtroom?” Mike Collier glanced around, shook his head in disdain, then added, “Such as it is.”

“By all means, be candid, Mr. Collier. I certainly wouldn’t want you leaving my courtroom—such as it is—feeling like you didn’t receive every opportunity to tell your side of the story before I make my judgment and tack on an extra hundred bucks for that little insult.”

Lilly dropped her gaze to the file containing copies of all nineteen tickets, not to peruse it so much as to stop herself from glaring at him.

Of course, she already knew what he looked like—in vivid detail, right down to the lips tattooed on his derriere. Right side, midcheek. A drunken college escapade. And of course she could conjure up that eye candy in minute detail—along with every other Collier detail—even when she wasn’t looking at him, which she was trying not to do, especially in court.

Jeez, where was an iceberg when you needed one?




Lilly’s Law

Dianne Drake





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


What’s life without a few pets? Dianne Drake and her hubby Joel have seven—four dogs and three cats, all rescued strays. In the few spare minutes her animals grant her, Dianne goes to the Indianapolis Symphony, Indianapolis Colts games and the Indiana Pacers games—can you tell she lives in Indianapolis? And occasionally, she and Joel sneak away and do something really special, like take in a hockey game.




Books by Dianne Drake


HARLEQUIN DUETS

58—THE DOCTOR DILEMMA

106—ISN’T IT ROMANTIC?


To Toni—an extraordinary judge, an extraordinary woman. The world is a little less bright without you.

And as always, to Joel.




Contents


Chapter 1 (#ua3d83959-8d15-5bbe-a392-a8614834e15f)

Chapter 2 (#uca13bf35-47d5-5f16-8e3c-32ef338bcaaa)

Chapter 3 (#ua546bab6-0672-5397-aa4d-a0533f84c1bb)

Chapter 4 (#u577d9a50-ffb4-5883-8efc-f43a04992755)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)




1


Friday morning, and what a way to end the week!

“OH, NO!”

Lilly moaned the words louder than she intended, and his speedy response to what she’d meant to keep under her breath was, “Oh, yes! And I want a change of venue, Your Honor.”

“Change of venue, Mr. Collier? You’re telling me you want a change of venue?” She was struggling to preserve what was left of her judgely comportment. “This is traffic court, sir. We don’t do change of venue here.” Even though she’d like to have changed his venue to an iceberg somewhere way up in the Arctic, and personally paid for his one-way ticket to ride.

“But don’t I have the right to be tried in an impartial court?”

Big iceberg, she decided. Huge, with lots of freezing-his-butt-off jagged edges. “And you’re suggesting, sir, that my court isn’t impartial?” An iceberg at least as cold as her voice.

Mike Collier stepped away from the rickety wooden podium, which was scarred by fifty years’ worth of fist-pounding, pencil-gouging defendants, but he didn’t cross the yellow tape on the floor—the tape designating the one thin line separating the Honorable Judge Lilly Malloy from the accumulation of humanity on trial in her courtroom. The warning sign, posted clearly on the wall directly above her head, read Stay Behind the Yellow Line at All Times. Those Who Cross over the Line My Be Subject to a Fine and/or Arrest. Someone had doodled a happy face with devil horns on it. “What I’m suggesting, Your Honor, is that under the circumstances, I don’t think you’re the right person to hear my case. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Your case, Mr. Collier, is nineteen unpaid parking tickets, pure and simple. And my impartial decision is that you’ll pay them to the tune of fifty dollars apiece, plus throw in an extra couple hundred dollars for the use of this courtroom and all of its fine amenities—you know, the paper we used for your subpoena, the expense of having our diligent sheriff hand-deliver it to your office. All according to the statute, by the way. It seems pretty simple to me, under the circumstances, since you’ve already admitted your guilt.” She scowled across at him. “You did admit your guilt, didn’t you? The statement to the effect that you willfully parked in a posted no-parking zone…that would be a straightforward guilty plea, wouldn’t it, Mr. Collier?”

“Straightforward? You call turning my parking space into a no-parking zone straightforward? I call it extenuating circumstances,” Mike grumbled. “And I don’t believe you’re going to set aside your personal feelings to listen to my version.”

“Your version,” Lilly muttered, shaking her head. She already knew that version—she’d been on the receiving end of one of Mike’s versions a time or two. “Well, I have a version, too, Mr. Collier. You’ve stated for the record that you don’t believe I’m able to be unbiased here—that I’d allow my personal feelings to interfere with the law.” She shot him a caustic smile across her desk—an old, gray, metal office desk hunkering down into the sixty-year-old grooves in the unpolished linoleum floor. Unlike the judges upstairs, who towered above their domains at fine, hand-carved mahogany desks designed for looking down—desks that belonged in a courtroom—Lilly sat level with everyone else. Her official judge desk was plainly a castoff appropriate for her castoff court that convened in a damp, dim corner room in the city hall basement. “So let me tack a little something onto my version for you. Your first insult to the court is a freebie. My gift to you.” Leaning back in her seat, folding her arms across her chest, she continued, “But the next one will cost you, I’m thinking about a hundred bucks an insult, by the book, by the way. Sounds fair, doesn’t it?” She glanced over at her court clerk, Tisha Freeman, an early twenty-something who spent more time in the courtroom making eyes at the men than observing the proceedings. Tisha nodded her approval, not that she knew what she was nodding at, then smiled at the biker type seated in the second row who, with ripped-out shirt-sleeves, was flexing his muscles and tattoos for her.

Give me strength, Lilly thought, looking back at Mike. “And as far as your version, Mr. Collier? Other than the fact that you’ve admitted to parking in the same no-parking zone nineteen times in the past two months, what else is there to say but ‘I’m guilty, Your Honor, and I’ll be happy to pay the fine’?”

“Do I get to speak candidly here or are my rights forfeited the minute I step into your courtroom?” Mike Collier glanced around, shook his head in distinct disdain, then added, “Such as it is.”

“By all means, be candid, Mr. Collier. I certainly wouldn’t want you leaving my courtroom—such as it is—feeling like you didn’t receive every opportunity to tell your side of the story before I make my judgment and tack on an extra hundred bucks for that little insult.” She dropped her gaze to the file containing copies of all nineteen tickets, not to peruse what was in it so much as to stop herself from glaring at him. Of course, she already knew what he looked like—in every vivid detail, right down to the lips tattooed on his derriere. Right side, midcheek. A drunken college escapade—he’d passed out at a frat party and his frat brothers had hauled him to the nearest tattoo parlor. Then voilà! Big red lips, half the size of her fist. And of course, she could conjure up that eye candy in minute detail—along with every other Collier detail—even when she wasn’t looking at him, which she was trying not to do, especially in court. Geez, where’s an iceberg when you need one? And if she could have found a judge pro tem for the morning session, she would have gladly relinquished the helm.

She was the judge pro tem in traffic court, though. A perpetual temporary, because she hadn’t lived in Whittier long enough to qualify for the permanent job. But she would be crowned the regular queen of traffic court after a year there. And she wanted that to happen. Nobody liked the job, nobody wanted it and hardly anybody outside the janitor and a few assorted court employees ever wandered down into the judicial netherworld she called her work space, even though her department brought in a big chunk of the city budget, or so she’d been told when she’d dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s on the contract.

So unless she had two broken legs and amnesia, nobody, but nobody would be sitting in for her, not even for a few minutes. But that was okay because she actually liked her job.

Speeding tickets, parking tickets—everyone had an excuse for doing something wrong.

“Didn’t see the sign, Your Honor.”

“I had to go to the bathroom, Your Honor.”

“Thirty? I thought that was eighty, Your Honor.”

“I only left my car there for two minutes, Your Honor.”

“I wasn’t parked that far up on the sidewalk, Your Honor.”

Which was why Lilly got the traffic court job in the first place—nobody else wanted to hear the same ol’, same ol’ excuses. Low status, low regard, low pay. And literally the lowest room in the courthouse. But it was her low status, her low regard, her low pay and her lowest room in the courthouse. All hers!

So when she’d found out that the Mike Collier on her docket for the day was her Mike Collier—the one man in the whole wide world she never, ever wanted to see again—she’d elected to tough it out instead of going upstairs and panhandling in the halls for another judge since, short of judicial hijacking, no one would do it anyway. Meaning, it was up to her to try Mike, convict him if he was guilty—she hoped he was, boy, did she hope he was—and then sentence him, the fun part! Too bad iceberg exile wasn’t an option. But on the bright side, the law book she was going to throw at him was a big one.

“Like I said, the city put a no-parking zone almost directly in front of my office, Your Honor, and the next closest place for me to park is a block away—in the paid public parking. I’m always coming and going, chasing down stories and whatever, and parking so far away is damn inconvenient. Wastes a lot of my time. Then in any bad weather, rain, snow…No way I’m going to walk that. Plus sixty bucks a month for a parking permit is ridiculous, especially when I had free parking right outside my door until two months ago, when the mayor’s cousin set up a flower shop right next to me and complained, apparently to the right people—or person—as it turned out, that my parking spot obstructed a clear view of her shop. In my opinion, we’re talking conspiracy here, especially since I ran an editorial against the mayor just a couple of weeks before that and I’m sure this no-parking thing is his way of repaying me, since my paper isn’t backing him in the next election. Good old-fashioned political harassment for choosing to exercise my right of free speech, that’s what it is.” Mike took a deep breath and grinned at Lilly. “I rest my case, Your Honor.” Then he winked.

Or did he? She wasn’t sure. She looked up at the ceiling tile, noting the pattern of yellow staining on it, then silently begged, Please don’t let that start again. But it already had—little voices, little gestures, more little voices—all things that happened, or didn’t happen, only when she was around Mike.

Twelve yellowed ceiling tiles later, without a solution to the thing she grudgingly called the thing, Lilly wrenched her attention back to Mike’s case. He was sooo cool…sooo calculated…sooo relaxed about it. Working her. That’s what he was doing. Working her, and she had to give credit where it was due. He did it brilliantly. The way he shoved his hands into his khakis—as though this was a casual meeting between two friends, not a court of law…her court of law. Smiling, grinning, winking…or not. It irritated her. He irritated her, and the only transient panacea was an effigy of Mike swinging a pickax on a rock pile. Good image; she liked it a lot. Suddenly he was shirtless and glistening with sweat—like she needed that distraction. So she made a hasty retreat back to Mike’s iceberg, since in a parka he wasn’t nearly so dangerous. Then…oh, no, not that! The parka was slipping off. Zipper sliding down, sleeve slithering off, and underneath…

Mike cleared his throat. “I said I rest my case, Your Honor.”

He didn’t have anything on under that parka, but thank the gods of the Northern ice cap that his voice dragged her back into the courtroom. “Good old-fashioned political harassment, is that what you said, Mr. Collier? A parking conspiracy? Are you sure you want that particular accusation to go down on the record with your name attached to it? I mean, I know you’ve spent your career chasing down so-called conspiracies, but this seems rather melodramatic even for you, don’t you think?”

“For the record, Your Honor, I shouldn’t have to suffer the unfair, and I might add unjust, consequences of the mayor’s cousin’s inability to attract customers. Nor should I be forced to pay the penalty you’re imposing on me for using one lousy parking space that’s rightfully mine to begin with.”

“Then I’d suggest you take it up with the city, Mr. Collier. My only job is to hear your case—the one about nineteen unpaid parking tickets—and render a guilty verdict…if you’re guilty,” she added hastily. “Which apparently you are, since you’ve admitted to your crime.”

“Crime?” Forgetting the yellow line, Mike crossed over it and started to amble toward her desk. One step, two steps. Taunting…taunting. “Come on, Lilly. Give me a break here.” Three steps, four. Taunting…taunting. “Don’t let a couple of tickets…” Five steps, six steps. Taunting…tempting, er, taunting.

Lilly banged the gavel so hard on its wooden block it woke the old man snoozing in the back corner of the room, who jolted up out of his seat bug-eyed and sputtering, “I didn’t do it!” Then, seeing that it wasn’t his turn in front of the judge, he sank back into his chair and shut his eyes to try and catch the remains of his nap.

“Get back, Mr. Collier,” Lilly ordered, pointing to the line. She watched him take a good, hard look at his thirty-six-inch encroachment into the wrong side of “authorized” turf, then dig his heels in, so to speak. That little act of Michael Collier defiance made her want to dig a little something into him—maybe her heels, maybe a nice sharp jail sentence. “And add another two hundred dollars to the court’s tab while you’re at it,” she stated, raising her eyebrows in distinct nonchalance even though they didn’t show above the black rims of her oversize glasses.

But Mike didn’t budge. Didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. None of that. He simply reached deep into his bag of play-acting pretexts, the ones she’d seen him use so many times before, and came up with a colorful palette of supplication and woe. “Fair’s fair, Your Honor, and what the city’s doing to me isn’t fair. I’m just a hardworking businessman trying to run my business. I’m not asking for special favors or unjustified consideration here—just what’s mine…my right to park in my parking spot. That’s all.” He twisted around, playing to the crowd. “How would these good folk like to go to work one day and find a No Parking sign at their place of employment? Or better yet, in their driveway when they get home? It’s the same thing, Your Honor. I work there, I live there. I just can’t park there.”

As if on cue, a low rumble of agreement ran through the crowd. Solidarity with the masses. He’d claimed the public support, something he was so good at, Lilly recalled. Then he turned back to her, still supplicating and woeful, but with a smidge of martyred-for-the-cause now plastered on his face, and continued, “I’m a busy man, Judge. Making me run half way through town to get my car is a travesty of justice.” Then the cool, calculated grin sneaked back as a nod of agreement rippled through the crowd like the wave at a football game. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

Was he baiting her? she wondered. If anyone knew how to bait, it was Mike Collier. Or maybe he thought she’d simply throw this case out on account of their sleeping together a time or two or ten had earned him the special privileges he claimed he didn’t want. But boy, was he wrong about that one. If anything, her big ol’ blunder in judgment way back when earned him the judge’s fullest contempt. “I said get back, Mr. Collier,” she repeated, still trying to sound professional, not reactionary—which she was, right down to her phalanges, when it came to all matters with Mike Collier. Had been for years, and nothing, not even having him in her courtroom, was going to change that. But he wasn’t going to see it. Neither was the crowd. Amazing what the black robe hid. And didn’t hide, she thought, glaring at him.

“You know it isn’t fair, Your Honor,” Mike continued, unfazed by her warning. “And I’m betting you’d be pretty angry if they took away your parking spot and you had to walk a block to get to work.”

Actually, she did walk a block to work because there were no parking spots left in the municipal lot. The janitors had spots, the cafeteria attendants had spots, but not the traffic court judge, and she was obliged to pay that sixty bucks a month Mike didn’t want to pay, and park in the very same public parking lot Mike was complaining about. “Get back,” she exclaimed, banging her gavel again. “This is the last time I’m warning you, sir. Stand back or face the consequences.” Well, maybe not a cold, hard iceberg, but a big chunk of cold, hard cash.

Mike did quit speaking in that instant, but he held his ground. Folding his arms resolutely across his chest, he stayed on Lilly’s side of the yellow line, still smiling at her. And she knew that smile. Oh, how she knew that smile. It was a cross between something downright pigheaded and a testy I double-dare you. And she’d been on the receiving end of it more than once—never emerging a victor from the war, though. Of course, that was then, and this was today. And today was beginning to feel so good all of a sudden. In fact, this might just turn out to be the best day she’d had in any Mike Collier dealings outside the bedroom…the garage…that one time on the roof.…

Suddenly, the smile was all Lilly’s. “And as of right now, your tally comes to $1,350, Mr. Collier. Payable by cash, check or money order to the court clerk on your way out the door.”

Mike leveled his sparkling blue eyes on Lilly’s jade-greens and shook his head. “Like I said before, it’s a matter of principle, Your Honor. I’m the one who’s been wronged here. Besides, I’m broke. Couldn’t pay the fine even if I wanted to, which I don’t.” To prove his point, he turned his front pants pockets inside out, then shrugged. “See? Nothing there. Not even enough money to plug the meter outside, which means you’ll probably be adding another parking ticket to the official complaint, and I can’t afford to pay that one, either.”

And you think this is a game. Well, Mike, Lilly’s not the same old Lilly you used to know and she’s not backing down. “I’m only the judge here, Mr. Collier. Sworn to do my duty and uphold the law. And I find that you’re guilty of breaking the no-parking law—nineteen times. If you want to challenge that law, then be my guest. Challenge away. But this isn’t the time or place, and you don’t get a free pass out of my court because you think your matter of principle exempts you from anything. It doesn’t, sir. Neither does being broke. The fact remains that the area in front of your office is designated as a no-parking zone and you have continued to park there regardless. You chose to take the risk and you got caught, so you pay. That’s the law as it stands, and my verdict, accordingly. Now, step back or the bailiff will assist you over to the defendant’s podium. Then, as I said before, see the clerk about settling your account with the court. And we do accept weekly payments because—” she cast him a victorious smile “—we aim to please.”

For an instant Mike looked stricken—well, almost. For him it was stricken, and that was the biggest victory. Overall, Lilly was satisfied with the patience she was exercising in his case. God knows, he didn’t deserve it, but she wasn’t about to let him see how much she wanted to just hurl the gavel at him and do some good old cathartic screaming. But that’s what he expected from her, wanted from her, was trying to goad her into. And actually, that’s what she’d done on account of him a time or two, pretty much without reaction from him. But now, that little flinch of chagrin she evoked, the one she saw for just that split second…it was all the reaction she needed. Lilly—one. Mike—zero.

Mike hadn’t changed, she thought, waiting for him to actually step back, which he wasn’t doing with any great haste. Hadn’t changed in attitude, or in physical appearance, either. Tall, nice muscles, over-the-collar sandy-brown hair, a little shaggy and mussed…Her mind drifted to the tattoo and she shook her head to clear away the image. How long had it been? A year since the last time they’d met? Five years since the first time? And look at him now. Just standing there, holding his ground as if he owns the court, as if there hasn’t been a lot of water under our bridge. A positive deluge! Stifling an impatient sigh, Lilly toughened her stare. She didn’t need another go-round with Mike Collier. The first time should have been enough to teach her to stay away, and the second time absolutely did. And now, today—right here—she wasn’t going to be affected by him, not in the least. Cold, leery, impervious…she was counting the ways she’d promised herself she’d greet Mike should they ever cross paths again. In addition, every single one of those resolutions bottom lined at no way, no how, and the sooner she got him out of her courtroom, the sooner no way, no how could get back on track, because it sure as hell was fighting to slip.

So keeping with her own personal decree, Lilly lowered her glasses, then frowned over the top of them at him. No mistaking her frown, she thought. Even Mike wouldn’t misconstrue the meaning. “Get out of here now, Mr. Collier. Last warning. You’re wasting the court’s time.” Her time, too. But it was so good to hide behind the power of the court.

“Like I said, I won’t pay it,” he said, shrugging indifferently. “And I want to appeal your decision.”

“Appeal a parking ticket? Nobody appeals parking tickets, especially after they’ve already admitted guilt,” she remarked, tilting her head down just a little farther so her stare over the top of her glasses was even more pronounced. She didn’t need them, not even for reading. Clear glass all the way. She sure liked their effect, though. Thought they gave her a bit of an austere look—black glasses, black robe, black gavel…red hair. And that was the problem. Hair red and wild—barely tameable even when pulled into a knot at the back of her neck—plus that splash of freckles across her nose…Definitely not the image of a judge, at least not the image she had of one, so she did what she could to achieve the stern judicial look, including the monster-size glasses.

“So let’s get this straight, Your Honor. You’re denying me my legal rights?” Mike raised his head and looked down his nose at her. “Is that what you’re doing? Taking away my inalienable rights?”

“Inalienable rights, Mr. Collier, have nothing to do with your parking tickets.” Lilly took her eyes off Mike long enough to nod at her bailiff, Pete Walker, a small, near-retirement-age man who was simply serving out his last year of employment in an easy, low-profile job. Leaning on the wall under the exit sign, Pete moved his hand immediately to his gun holster, unsnapping it. Seeing that he was ready, Lilly continued her ocular duel with Mike, her over-the-rim glare meeting his down-the-nose stare. “There are other people here, waiting their turn to be heard, you know. Plus, you’re getting on my nerves. So I’m giving you thirty seconds to comply.” She raised her arm, looked at her wristwatch and started counting down the seconds. “Which I believe is generous, under the circumstances.” Better than you deserve.

“Thirty seconds, then what, Your Honor?”

She smiled at him—a practiced, patient smile that gave away nothing. Then she glanced at her watch again. “Twenty seconds.”

Mike merely stared back.

“Ten seconds, Mr. Collier.”

And he kept on staring.

“Five.”

Then he started to tap his right foot…a slow, meticulous rhythm that didn’t break its meter by a fraction.

Finally, bingo! “Pete…” Lilly said, waving him over.

Lilly’s call to her bailiff hushed the crowd, and Pete Walker snapped to attention, pulling the handcuffs from his belt. He studied them for a second since, in his nine months as bailiff, this was the first time they’d ever been off his belt. When he was satisfied that he remembered how to use them, he marched straight to Mike, each and every one of his footsteps clicking in sharp military precision on the floor. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said on approach.

“Lilly, you’ve got to be kidding,” Mike exclaimed, seeming genuinely surprised. “You’re not really going to do this to me, are you?”

“This is Friday, Mr. Collier. Consider yourself a guest of the city jail until Monday morning at nine, at which time we’ll resume this conversation. And maybe by then you’ll be persuaded to see it my way. Not that you really have a choice, because it is my way in my courtroom—such as it is. And that fine…let’s say we make it an even two thousand just on account of—” Lilly removed her glasses and looked directly at him “—I can.” Then she put them back on.

“Honest to God, I really think you’d do it, wouldn’t you?” Mike exclaimed. “You’d really throw me in jail. Over parking tickets. Come on, Lilly, give me a break here.”

“Please turn around and hold your hands behind your back, Mr. Collier,” Pete instructed, his voice on the verge of quivering, since this was, after all, the first time he’d ever arrested anyone. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney and if you can’t afford one…” Mike, at six foot three inches, towered over Pete by a head and a half as he submitted to the man’s cuffs. And Pete, whose hands were shaking, fumbled with the latch until the cuffs slipped from his grip and hit the floor. A congenial-looking seventyish woman, decked in floral capri pants and a white straw hat, picked up the cuffs and winked when she handed them back to Pete.

“You do know that I own the newspaper, don’t you?” Mike asked, spinning back around to face Lilly. His hands still behind him, he inched forward to allow Pete sufficient room to continue the protracted cuffing ordeal.

“Boy, do I know,” she snapped. “And I certainly hope that’s not intended as a threat, because if it is…if you intend to use the power of the press to—”

“A news item, Your Honor,” Mike interrupted, a thin edge of anger finally sounding in his voice. “Not a threat.”

It never was a threat, she recalled. Her last year of law school, she had been at the top of her class with some great career prospects lining up for her future. Mike was working on his postgraduate degree at the time, teaching at the university and overseeing the campus paper. And she’d made that ominous mistake of kicking their relationship up a few notches. A whopper, in retrospect, and she really had liked him back then. Maybe even a little more than like…and after one great week of their relationship kicking into even newer and better notches every single day, he’d gone and written an article proclaiming a campus plagiarism epidemic. Names were named. Hers was at the top of the list—Mike’s list.

Sure, she had purchased a plagiarized paper, but she was writing a thesis on how easy the process was, with an emphasis on the legal implications. But Mike Collier, superjournalist in his own bent estimation, hadn’t asked her any questions about it. He’d simply snooped for his scoop in her research notes because, of all the dumb things, she’d trusted him! Meaning she didn’t bother hiding her research from him before they adjourned to the boudoir, silly Lilly. And that on the day they’d achieved the most unbelievable notch ever. Of course, Mike’s discovery netted him a front page splash, not only in the school paper, but the real newspaper as well. The result—she was expelled from law school. One tidy, speedy, out the door and don’t come back.

But she did go back, a full semester later, after a whole string of appeals and some utterly pitiful begging. To his credit, Mike did make an appearance on her behalf, thankfully leaving out the part that he’d done his snooping on his way to the kitchen to satisfy some after-sex munchies while she was still in bed basking in the afterglow. No matter, because the damage to her reputation was already done, leaving her in the bottom slot of her class ranking instead of the top, where she’d been before Mike. Years to build a reputation, minutes to destroy it—Lilly was placed on probation until she graduated, constantly the object of watchful, if not distrustful, speculation by the powers that were. Not an auspicious ending to her school days, even though she was absolved of the charges. But after that, the jobs weren’t forthcoming. The ones already offered backed out. No more pick and choose. Instead, she was forced to take whatever she could get, and pickings were slim. All because of Mike Collier’s little snoop after sex.

Consequentially, Lilly was uniquely aware of what one of Mike’s “news items” could do, and had done to her. And she was also aware of how he procured those news items. “Monday morning, Mr. Collier. Have a nice weekend.”

Lilly banged her gavel and Pete led Mike out of the room. At the edge of the door though, Mike turned back around to face her briefly and he…

Lilly blinked. Was that another wink?




2


No Friday afternoon get-out-of-jail-free cards allowed

MIKE DUMPED HIS wristwatch and car keys into the plastic box bearing his official prisoner number, then absently searched his empty pockets for change. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me keep my cell phone, will you?” he asked, pulling it off his belt, which he was also forced to surrender.

Juanita Lane, a humorless, sixty-something jail matron who had to look up to see a full five feet tall, didn’t even glance over from the property list she was dutifully recording when she boomed, “No cell phone, no personal property. Hand over your shoelaces, please.” Dripping wet she might have weighed ninety pounds, and with spiked, champagne-colored hair and big purple-rimmed glasses clashing with her khaki-colored uniform blouse, she wasn’t the typical image of cop that came to Mike’s mind. But when she glared at him through those glasses, patted the pistol on her hip and barked, “Do it now, please!” he knew that the weapon was there for more than show. So he promptly gave up the phone and bent to unlace his rip-off Nikes. When he’d complied with every item on Juanita’s official confiscation list, he automatically put his hands behind his back to be recuffed for the fifty-foot walk into the next room, where he would be uncuffed again, stripped, disinfected, showered and garbed in the very trendy, bright orange jail jumpsuit.

“So when do I get a phone call?” he asked, as Juanita handed him off to Cal Gekas, a Humpty-Dumpty-ish burly man with abundant hair growing in thick patches everywhere except on his head.

“You’re the one who’s here from traffic court, aren’t you?” Cal asked, handing Mike a plastic bag for his clothing. “That’s a new one. Parking tickets.” He chuckled. “And I thought I’d about seen it all. Just goes to show ya, doesn’t it?”

Mike was waiting to hear what it was that went to show him, but when Cal didn’t continue, he simply nodded. “Cal, old buddy. Think you could you do me a favor here and turn around while I undress?”

Cal shook his head. “Gotta watch. Department policy.”

“Then I’m hoping you’re a married man, Cal.”

“Twenty years, three kids.” He grinned. “And if you’re uncomfortable, you can turn around so you don’t have to watch me watching you.”

“Good idea.” Mike shook his head, spun around and dropped his khakis. “Can I keep the shorts?”

“After the shower.”

“This isn’t negotiable? I mean, it’s a damn parking ticket, Cal. I didn’t rob a convenience store or mug a little old lady for her social security check.”

Cal shrugged. “Hey, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on the cavity search, but that’s all I can do for you.” He paused, then chuckled again. “Damn. A parking ticket. Not even speeding. I heard that new judge was a tough one, but don’t this just beat all.”

Mike nodded. “It sure does.” And he stepped out of his briefs and into the footbath of disinfectant, then on into the shower. “You don’t happen to have any soap-on-a-rope handy, do you?”

Ten minutes later, showered and dressed, Mike was escorted through fingerprinting, then lined up in front of a camera to have that very stylish rendition of him captured for posterity—orange clothes, washed-out face, glazed eyes, black numbers on a strip of cardboard held up to midchest for proud display. “Think I could get a copy of that for my Christmas cards?” he asked, following Cal through a long gray hall filled, predominantly, with empty cells. At the end they met up with the jailer du jour, Roger Jackson, who, as it turned out, also worked as a crime-beat stringer on Mike’s very own Journal. He’d taken pity on Mike and assigned him to a cell for one, far, far away from the madding jail population, which today was poor old Bert Ford, who’d had one too many drinks the night before and selected Mrs. Clooney’s prize-winning rose garden as the place to relieve his bladder on his stagger home from the pub, and made the mistake of losing his balance in the process, pants down. Which was where Mrs. Clooney had found him this morning. The rest was a matter of public record, including a few thorny scratches in all the wrong places. And poor Bert was still sleeping it off, Mike noted as he walked by him. Sleeping, and probably oblivious to the fact that his brief encounter with the great red American Beauty would be his last dalliance with public intoxication, or Mrs. Clooney’s roses, for quite a while.

And so at two in the afternoon, on a hot, humid August Friday, Mike rolled the thin mattress issued to him onto the creaky metal coils of his cot, tossed his single pillow on top and plopped down in his cell for the weekend. “I still didn’t get to make my call,” he shouted to Roger, who was busy writing up the story of Mike’s arrest for the morning edition.

“Okay, as soon as I finish this. I’m on deadline.” His hearty laugh clanged through the empty jail. Roger was a friendly cop, always ready with a smile. With a great marriage, great family, Roger had stability, something Mike had never found a place for in his life, but something he was beginning to envy. And he could almost see himself having that with Lilly.…Well, almost, since Lilly would have a say in that and he knew exactly what her “say” would be—I’d rather be staked to an anthill.

“Got a tough boss,” Roger continued. “But fair. So fair, in fact, that after he reads this headliner he won’t demote me to obituaries. Might even give me a raise.” Half an hour later, after Roger hit the Send button and his first-ever front-page piece was winging its way through cyberspace to the newspaper office two blocks away, he finally took Mike down the hall to the public phone. “Use your call wisely. We’re pretty strict on jail regulations around here and you might not get another one.” He laughed, heading into the break room, leaving Mike uncuffed and unattended. “And don’t escape,” he called back. “Care for some coffee?”

The number Mike meant to call was burned into his brain, even though he’d never used it before. As he waited for the first ring, he wondered why he was even bothering. She’d hang up when she heard his voice. Or tack another couple of days on to his sentence for some kind of trumped-up harassment. But he owed her this one. Make the call, then be done with it, and her.

Yeah, like he could ever be done with Lilly Malloy.

“Hello,” a voice said from the other end.

“Lilly?” Mike asked.

“You’ve reached the voice mail of Judge Lillianne Malloy. Please leave your name, phone number and a brief message, and I’ll return the call as soon as I can. Have a nice day.” Beep.

“Have a nice day like hell.…Look, Lilly. I need to see you. I can’t go into it on the phone…you know where I am, where I’ll be until Monday morning. And it’s important. Hell, this was a stupid idea. I should have called my attorney instead of you. Lilly, I know that the situation between us isn’t the best, but—”

Beep.

“Hell.”

“Arms behind your back, Mike,” Roger said, setting the coffee on the desk, then taking his handcuffs off his belt. “Sorry, but it’s the rules. You like it black, no sugar, right?”

“You’re not going to make me strip again, are you?” Mike growled, turning around and gritting his teeth when the cuffs went on. They didn’t hurt, but he sure didn’t like the thought of what they signified. Tried, convicted, sentenced. Prisoner. As a journalist, going to jail on principle such as not revealing a source or being in the wrong place at the wrong time to get the right story, now, that was honorable. It made a statement about ethics and principles and high moral integrity. But being nabbed for parking in the wrong place? The only statement coming from that was dud, flop, washout, bomb, a big bust. “No sugar, but some whiskey would be good. In fact, skip the coffee. Just bring on the whiskey.”

“Sure wish I could Mike, but…”

“I know. You’ve got rules.” When he’d learned he was going to Lilly’s court, he’d hoped that after all this time she was over the bad history between them. Bad, bad history! Forgive and forget, or just forget. Yeah, and wasn’t that just being pointless and optimistic after what he’d done to her? Thank God parking tickets weren’t a hanging offense.

First time with Lilly he’d been canned over the mix-up, and sure, he’d deserved it. One slight error in judgment and his job was out the door along with his postgrad degree. But she did have that damned bought-and-paid-for paper sitting right out on her desk for anybody to see who cared to look.

Second time…well, he shook his head over that one. What were the odds she’d turn up on the receiving end of another of his investigations? She’d been innocent that time, too. In fact, he’d never even connected her to that story—probably because she wasn’t connected, not directly, anyway. But her law firm epitomized that notoriously fictitious Dewey, Cheatham and Howe. They’d done some book cooking, trust-fund skimming, creative billing, so on and so on. And even though Lilly was only a contract employee, not a real member of the firm—meaning she’d never gotten near the trusts, never did any billing, hardly ever got out of the research library—she’d been swept into the sting along with everybody else. Swept, cuffed and locked up tight.

And he’d never forget the look on her face that day when they shoved her, handcuffed and horrified, through the lobby, in front of friends and co-workers. On her way out of the building she still hadn’t known who was responsible for the bust, but as the police hustled her past him and their eyes met briefly, she’d realized who’d done that to her. That look of betrayal in her eyes had punched him in the gut, and the heart, because he knew she’d trusted him—she’d put everything else behind her and trusted him.

If ever there was a defining moment in a life, that was his.

Lilly had been released hours later, thanks to one of the partners, who’d mustered enough integrity to unimplicate her. Afterward, Mike had sent her flowers, written a dozen contrite e-apologies and printed the damned retraction she’d demanded in place of suing him. Granted, it ran on page seven, when the picture of her being arrested was a first-page classic. But apparently that make-good hadn’t done the trick. Problem was, he wasn’t sure even sending him up the river now, if only for a weekend, would be enough to satisfy her yet. Lilly was clearly holding on to some surplus rage after all this time. And she deserved to. But he’d sure been hoping it wouldn’t trickle into this little matter. “So should I drop my drawers again, Mike?” he asked, his voice on the verge of acceptance, since there was no other choice but to accept his fate for the next three days. If there was one thing he knew for sure about Lilly, she wouldn’t give in. Once she’d made up her mind, nothing changed it.

Smiling, Roger shook his head. “Nope, not another strip search, unless you insist. But if you want, I’ll call Jimmy and let him know where you are. Maybe he can figure out what to do—how to get you out of here or something.” Roger chuckled as he led Mike down the gray hall to his home-away-from-home for the next few days. “Or at least he can bring you a pizza for supper. He’s good for that much, I’ll bet.” Jimmy Farrell, the Journal’s lawyer on retainer, had finally passed his bar exam six months earlier, after four tries. And he was really cheap to hire, which was the cardinal circumstance surrounding Jimmy’s status at the newspaper. No one in Whittier particularly embraced Jimmy for their legal affairs, since he’d grown up there and had a reputation for off-centered intelligence and out-on-a-limb common sense. But he’d muddled through law school somehow, surprised everyone when he finally passed the bar exam, and optimistically hung out his shingle to practice. So far, his clients were only court-appointed, those who couldn’t afford their own attorney, and he represented them adequately. No one complained too much, because no one had great expectations of Jimmy.

The day he’d approached Mike to represent the Journal, the offer had been so ridiculous Mike didn’t have the heart to turn him down. “Fifty dollars a month, Mike, will keep me on retainer for the paper.” Mike knew it would also pay the electric bill in Jimmy’s office slash apartment. “Most reputable papers keep a lawyer on retainer, and this is your chance.”

More out of charity than anything else, Mike had agreed, and from that day on, three months now, the Journal had been duly, if not well, represented. And today’s pizza delivery would mark Jimmy’s first official appearance on the paper’s behalf. “Lilly’s not letting me out of here, Roger. No way in hell. So tell Jimmy I like pepperoni and sausage. Hold the onions.”

“Lilly?” Roger interrupted. “You mean Judge Malloy? That Lilly?”

Mike cringed. Her Honor Judge Lillianne Malloy wasn’t the image of the Lilly Malloy that was in his mind when he’d discovered she’d been hired for traffic court in Whittier. That Lilly was still the one he’d…well, suffice it to say there had been some nice dreams of her from time to time. Gorgeous, responsive, just a little unsure. Always eager. But when he’d sneaked into the back of the courtroom a couple of times to watch her work, the Lilly he observed was so much more than he ever expected from her. Still gorgeous beyond reason, tall, round in all the right places, soft—even though her sexier-than-hell hair was pulled severely back and half of her face was covered by ridiculously large glasses—she now possessed confidence—self-assurance like he’d never before seen in her. And it showed in her movements, in her voice, and especially in that tangy smile she’d used on him earlier—the one meant to castigate him, but which had the opposite effect. All in all, Lilly wore her judicial robe well, and in spite of everything, he was happy for her. But she should have done so much better than that moldering little traffic court in a dark basement corner, and Mike knew he owned a big part of the responsibility for that lesser destiny—lesser than she deserved. “Yeah, Judge Lillianne Malloy. We go back a ways and she’s not going to go easy on me for old times’ sake. Not in this lifetime, anyway.”

“Bad history, I’m guessing?”

Mike winced. “Defining it as bad is pretty damn optimistic. The list of how I’ve done that lady wrong…well, it fills up both sides of the page in small print, that’s how bad it is.”

Roger let out a low whistle while closing the cell door behind Mike. “Well, with your current run of parking tickets, I’d say you’re in for some real big trouble, my friend. And that judge—your friend Lilly—she has a tough reputation, if you know what I mean. She’s strictly by the book and nobody gets the soft end of her gavel. I understand she’s sentencing them right and left in her court.” He slipped a copy of his Mike Gets Busted story through the bars to his boss, then stepped back. “I really hate leaving you here like this, but, well…” He shrugged. “Anything I can get you before I go home?”

Mike shook his head, dropped down on his cot and resigned himself to the lumps and bumps. The only good thing that could be said for the long weekend ahead was that he’d be able to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Tight money at the Journal these days meant he had a staff too small to run the paper, which meant he wore lots of hats, which meant he worked lots of hours. And all that meant he never got away from his job, not even here, in jail. So maybe this imposed furlough was a good thing. Sleep, perchance to…to what? Dream of Lilly? Not a chance in hell.

Not a chance in hell on the sleep, either, he discovered almost immediately. Sure, he shut his eyes and tried to clear his head, but his to-do list replaced the mental void he’d hoped to achieve, with all the to-dos that wouldn’t be getting done for the next two days trying to pound their way to the forefront of his mind lest he might forget about them. Which he never did. Edit the piece about the new thrill ride inspection regulations at the county fair; cover the high school preseason football game and get a statement from the coach; interview Mayor Lowell Tannenbaum for whatever Mayor Tannentwit wanted to be interviewed about this week. Certainly not the type-A assignments Mike had gone after in Indianapolis, not even close. But he’d been a different kind of journalist back then. And not the kind he’d set out to be at the beginning. That realization had hit him the day he’d watched the cops handcuff Lilly and cart her off to jail.

Two weeks after that awful day he’d given up journalism as he’d come to know and practice it, and had bought his struggling hometown newspaper. And after that, life was good…poorer than dirt, but good. Sure, he missed some of the big-city excitement. Missed a lot of it, actually. There was no substitute for the adrenaline buzz that came when he broke a huge story or saw his byline tacked on to a red-letter article. But that was then, and now he owned a small daily paper where the biggest story this week would be about its owner sitting in jail over a few stupid unpaid parking tickets.

Them’s the breaks, he thought, resigning himself to his short-term fate. Mike shut his eyes once again and tried to tackle that mental to-do list, but thoughts of Lilly crowded it out. Lilly in her robe, out of her robe, hair up, hair down, with glasses, without glasses, with clothes, without clothes…without clothes…without clothes.…

Dear God, what was he going to do about Lilly, anyway?

What a miserable way to end a perfectly bad Friday!

“NO, I DIDN’T KNOW he owned the newspaper here. Do you think I would have accepted the job if I’d known there was a chance I’d run into him?” Lilly paced barefooted across the black-and-white-checkered linoleum floor in the circa 1935 kitchen, scrunching her cell phone to her ear and shaking a bottle of apple juice. “Sure, I saw the name on my docket, but it’s a pretty common name, you’ll have to admit, so I didn’t think much about it. I mean, who would have ever guessed that Mike Collier—the Mike Collier…my Mike Collier—would end up at a newspaper here in Whittier? The town’s what? Fifty thousand people, tops? The Mike I’ve known and despised would have never settled in a place like this. Not enough people here to railroad, not enough action or sensationalism, which is what he thrives on.”

“So are you gonna stay?” Rachel Perkins asked. “Even with Mike there?” Rachel was Lilly’s best friend, the one she’d met on the first day of first grade and spent some part of almost every day with, in one way or another, ever since. “And if you do stay, am I gonna have to come to Whittier to make sure you don’t you-know-what again with Mike? Because you know how you are about him.” She laughed. “And I know how you are about him even if you won’t admit it, which you won’t. And I’m betting doing you-know-what with you-know-who has been on your mind a time or two already. Hasn’t it?”

“No,” Lilly snapped. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bowl of last night’s leftover tuna noodle casserole and sniffed it just to be sure. “How I used to be isn’t how I am now. The first time between Mike and me was, well…” She popped the casserole in the microwave oven and set the timer for a minute. “Lust,” she admitted. “I was twenty-two and stupid, and he was twenty-four and convincing.”

“Convincing, Lil? You mean drop-dead, don’t you? ’Cause he was, and you almost did drop dead every time he looked at you. Remember? And I’m betting he still is drop-dead, maybe even more than he used to be. Is he?”

“Well, he was pretty cute, and I suppose you could say he still is, in an older sort of way,” Lilly admitted grudgingly. Pretty cute, pretty sexy—actually the sexiest thing she’d ever met in her life. Then and now. And back then all he’d had to do was crook his finger and she’d gone running. Good thing she’d taken off those track shoes the second time they’d…Yeah, yeah. Another big mistake, second time around. But the shoes were off now for sure.

“Pretty cute?” Rachel asked. “It’s pheromones, Lil. He emits them and you can’t control yourself. You just sniff them right in, you know that. And if you ask me, you always liked sniffing them in,” she said. “And yeah, I know it wasn’t love, at least that’s what you told me a billion times. But if it wasn’t love, it was certainly something like it, and I voted for love back then. Still do.”

The microwave dinged and Lilly popped open the door. Her leftovers were steamy, so she let them sit while she trudged over to the fridge for…She opened the door, looked for and found the rest of a salad left over from the night before. If it wasn’t wilted beyond recognition, it would suffice as the remainder of her dinner. If it was wilted, she’d eat crackers. “It was a mistake, okay? A mistake and I learned my lesson, especially the second time. I mean, we had a couple of drinks and yes, I suppose I was still attracted to him—then, not now. But that was a long time ago.”

“And you’ve gone out with how many men since a long time ago?”

Lilly plunked the salad down on the kitchen table and returned to the microwave for her tuna noodle. “Dozens,” she lied. “I just forgot to tell you.”

“Well, girlfriend, you don’t lie about that any better than you lie to yourself about Mike. And I’m betting you’re already getting that same old tingly thing for him like you used to.”

“Am not.”

“Sweetie, tell yourself anything you want. But I know the truth and I say go for it. Most people don’t get a third chance.”

“The only thing I’m going for is my tuna casserole, which is getting cold.”

Rachel issued a deliberate huff of futility into the phone, one meant to be heard across the fifty miles between them, and one Lilly knew well. Then she did it a second time for effect.

“Knock it off, Rach,” Lilly grumbled. “I’m fine, dandy. Impervious.”

“School doesn’t start for a couple weeks, Lil. I’ve got all my lesson plans together for the first semester, so I’m free to come chaperon you two, or nag or keep you out of the line of his pheromones, if that’s what you intend on doing.”

“I don’t need you to chaperon, or nag,” Lilly stated flatly. “I’m fine.”

“I’d give you my opinion of what you really are, but you’d hang up. So I’m going to shut up and let you go eat. Just watch out for the pheromones, if that’s what you really want, and those are my last words on the subject of Mike Collier. Now I’m going to sit in a dark corner and wonder why I don’t have somebody in my life who’s as crazy about me as he is about you.” Before Lilly had a chance at a comeback, Rachel had clicked off.

Lilly’s casserole was barely warm by the time she got around to it, and as she speared a chunk of celery, she punched into her voice mail. “This is your mother—” as if she didn’t recognize her mother’s voice “—calling to remind you not to forget to send something for Aunt Mary’s birthday next week. Kisses, sweetie.” Beep. “If you’re in the market for replacement windows, call—” Beep. “Lilly, how about stopping by Saturday evening for drinks and hors d’oeuvres. I’m having a few people over around seven.” That from Ezra Kessler, her former law school professor and the person who’d recommended her for the pro tem job. Beep. Then a message from…no, not Mike! “Look, Lilly. I need to see you…need to see you…need to see you.…” She listened to it, then listened again. And the third time she listened her appetite quit, so she sat the bowl of casserole down on the floor for Sherlock, her basset hound.

In spite of the doughy lump of dread shaping in her stomach, Lilly’s heart skipped a beat. Headache time…need an aspirin and…She hit the redial button on her phone. “Rach, help!




3


Just when she was finally dozing off from Friday night—Saturday morning!

IT WAS BRIGHT AND EARLY Saturday morning, just a little after seven, when Lilly, still bleary-eyed and fuzzy-brained, stumbled to the front door and threw it open, only to be greeted by Mayor Lowell Tannenbaum waving a newspaper at her. He was tapping his left size-thirteen frantically on the concrete, holding the headlines straight out in front of him so she couldn’t see his face. But she knew it was him from the overall testy disposition circling around him like a swarm of hungry mosquitoes. “I think we could have a real problem here, Judge Malloy,” he screeched from behind the newspaper.

He could have started off with a friendly little hello, Lilly thought, or “Excuse me for barging in at this ungodly hour.” Or “I’ve brought you a cup of Starbucks to drink as we go over a serious problem.” That one would have been her choice. But no. He was straight to the point, snarling and snapping like a churlish Chihuahua. On the bright side, that did clear the fuzz right out of her brain.

“Just look at the headlines about—” his whole body shook in rumbling fury “—about what you’ve done.”

Lilly did look, not surprised about what she saw. Journalist Jailed For Illegal Parking. “So I made the headlines.” She yawned. She’d expected to. She was dealing with Mike Collier, after all. This was his norm. Not making headlines would have been the unexpected. “What’s the problem?” Other than the fact that she wasn’t ardently engaged in her every Saturday morning Starbucks fix.

“Read on,” the mayor snapped, shaking the paper.

Lilly snatched it out of his hand, pushed her hair out of her eyes and glanced at the first paragraph.

In a turn of events that shocked the entire city to its very core, Journal owner and investigative reporter, Mike Collier, was jailed Friday for failure to pay the fine for several parking tickets.

“Several?” she exclaimed. “Hello…try nineteen.”

“Just read,” Mayor Tannenbaum hissed.

“‘It’s a travesty of justice all the way around,’ Collier stated in an exclusive interview.”

Lilly shook her head. “The only travesty here is that it took nineteen tickets to get him into court. He should have been hauled in at five or six.”

“Keep reading.”

“According to Collier, ‘It’s a political move. I was robbed of my rightful parking space, then jailed because I had the courage to stand up for my convictions as well as my place to park.”’

“Poor baby,” Lilly laughed. “The courage to stand up for his convictions? I threw him in jail because he and his convictions were in contempt of court.” He’d refused to pay and he’d stepped over her yellow line.

“Keep going.”

In pair of green Grinch boxers and a gray T-shirt, covered up by a decade-old pink chenille bathrobe her mother had fashioned from an old bedspread, Lilly wasn’t in the attire, or the mood, for the mayor, or anything else this early. And she didn’t want to keep going. “Couldn’t this wait until later?” she asked. “Say, till I’m up and dressed? After I’ve had my coffee?” Caramel macchiato—drink of the gods.

“You threw him in jail for parking tickets,” he shrieked. “Parking tickets! And all hell’s going to break loose over this, mark my words!”

All hell? Not hardly. Just a ninny mayor going over the top. “Contempt, Mayor Tannenbaum, not tickets,” she corrected, keeping her eyes glued to the ground—not to the size thirteens that were way bigger than a man of his meager stature needed—but to the cement, because if she looked him in the face, her eyes automatically went to the oversize, way-off-color cap he sported on his front tooth…the cap he’d gotten from the local dentist who proudly boasted the slogan More Teeth, Less Money. And the mayor’s front one was a bright and shiny testimony to that! “Had he paid his fine he wouldn’t be in jail, but he refused. That’s contempt and I didn’t have a choice. And what I do in my courtroom isn’t any of your business, by the way.”

Tannenbaum yanked the newspaper out of her hand and waved it in her face again. “Just read it.”

“According to witnesses, Collier breached the yellow line separating Judge Lillianne Malloy from spectators in her courtroom, a move that cost Collier an additional two hundred dollars plus three nights in jail. This is the first time in the history of Whittier that anyone has been jailed for a failure to pay parking tickets.”

“Which is exactly what happened,” she said. “Actually, that’s pretty good reporting. Bet Mike Collier didn’t write it.”

The mayor merely sniffed at the comment, then took over the reading.

“When asked why he believes such a sentence was handed to him, Collier declined to comment other than to say he believes it’s a conspiracy. ‘First my parking place, then jail. What else could it be?”’

“Maybe just his disagreeable personality,” Lilly retorted. “That, and…oh, let’s see…nineteen unpaid tickets, tickets he has no intention of paying even after this publicity.”

Tannenbaum continued.

“Asked if Collier has any details on the conspiracy he claims to be the center of, he says the matter bears further investigation, which he vows to do. But he did warn, ‘Judge Malloy may have been within her legal right to sentence me to jail, but all I can say to the good citizens of Whittier is, better not cross over her line or you may end up here, too.”’

“Traffic court doesn’t make headlines, Miss Malloy,” Mayor Tannenbaum barked. “It’s there to make money and keep quiet. No controversies, no attention.”

“Make money and keep quiet,” she repeated. “Nothing about upholding the law? Funny, I always thought that part was incumbent upon a judge. Silly me.”

The mayor folded the paper and tucked it under his arm. “You’ve got to go down to the jail right now and spring him before he says something else, and I don’t care how you do it. Just get him out of there no matter what it takes.”

“Spring him?” Lilly finally let her fiery greens make contact with Lowell’s watery hazels, but not before they paused ever-so-briefly on the tooth. “I’m going to do you a favor here, Mayor, and shut the door and pretend we never had this conversation. Okay? Because if we did have it, and if you happened to tell me to release Mr. Collier in the course of that conversation, to get him out of there no matter what it takes, I might be forced to lock you up with him for trying to influence a judge, because as the town mayor, you don’t have the right to interfere with my court, which is what you’d be doing if you were here. Which you aren’t.”

Mayor Lowell Tannenbaum, a twitchy man, average height, mostly bald on top with a few mousy-brown strands arranged in a sparse comb-over, always concealed a sneer in his smile, if not in actuality, then in implication. And as soon as Lilly quit speaking, the smile, and the sneer, appeared. “I wasn’t trying to interfere with your court, Miss Malloy…just looking out for the best interests of Whittier, since Mike Collier can be pretty mean in print. And if you thought I was doing anything other than that, I’d suppose you were mistaken.”

“Maybe I am.” Not a chance! “But in any case he stays until Monday unless he pays up,” she said firmly. “And if you don’t want to provoke his wrath in print any further, I’d suggest giving him back his parking space and telling your cousin to find another way to advertise her flower shop.” That way Mike won’t be back in my court with another pile of tickets. “A few feet of pavement in exchange for the Journal’s goodwill. That seems like a fair trade-off to me, especially with the election coming up.” Before Lowell Tannenbaum could sputter out an answer or excuse, Lilly shut the door on him. He was way out of line, and apart from that, she never conducted judicial business in the remains of her childhood bedspread.

With the mayor gone now, and the house to herself once again, going back to bed for another couple hours was an option, but not one Lilly took seriously because in her normal day, when she was up she was up. No going back to bed, back to sleep. That wasn’t the way her body worked. So thank you very much, Lowell Tannenbaum, for robbing me of two more hours of sleep, two hours she needed and deserved. And she groused about it all the way through her morning rituals. Tame the hair, brush the teeth so she didn’t end up with a More Teeth, Less Money special, then head down to Star-bucks and grab that caramel macchiato, the only thing that would set the rest of her day straight.

Once there, the impulse to buy Mike a regular coffee, black—he wouldn’t try anything else—overcame her and she did it, regretting the impetuous deed before she was even out of the shop. Was she getting soft? Absolutely no way. Not about Mike, anyhow. Making nice with him was the last thing she wanted to do. So the plain black coffee went down the plain chrome drain in the ladies’ room, and minutes later, when Lilly entered city hall carrying her caramel ambrosia—something that good really couldn’t be called coffee—she was signed in by the guard, who was drinking his coffee in a white cup, poured from a plain red-and-silver thermos.

“What brings you in on a weekend, Your Honor?” he asked, taking Lilly’s purse and coffee as she walked through the metal detector. “Don’t recall you coming in here on Saturday too often, especially this early in the day.” He chuckled. “I read the paper this morning. I’m betting things are shook up around here pretty good and your being here has something to do with sending Mike Collier to jail.”

“Understatement,” she muttered. “Big time.”

“Well, good for you anyway, Your Honor, for doing what you had to do regardless of who you had to do it to. Folks may talk for a while—they always do around here when something different happens—but I admire a person who takes her job seriously.” He scanned the contents of her purse and paper cup, then handed them back to her, laughing. “Tossing someone in jail for parking tickets…glad I’m taking the bus these days.” Howard McCray shook his head in friendly disbelief. “Well, we do what we gotta do, don’t we?”

Lilly nodded, smiling. At least he wasn’t a critic.

“You go on and have a good day now,” Howard said, signaling her through.

Heading to the basement, to her office, Lilly told herself her only purpose for being there was to shuffle through the top layer of her ever-growing mountain of paperwork. At least that’s what she kept telling herself on her way down the escalator and through the usually dim hall, which was even dimmer—almost to the point of dark—on the weekend. Tannenbaum pinching a few pennies, she guessed. But as she passed by the connecting tunnel that veered off from her dank hole in the ground and ran under the street straight to the jail—the jail where she had no intention of looking in on Mike Collier—she veered off, too, following the enamel gray walls until they emerged into a dull green room with a decades-old black-and-white sign directing her up to the first floor…that is, if her intention was to visit the jail. Which it was not! She was merely…merely…Nope, nothing came to mind. No explanation, no excuse. So she simply wandered onto an elevator, sang along with Barry Manilow on the Muzak and eventually came to the jail entrance, then the cell block. Flashing her credentials to the guard on duty, one who wasn’t as friendly as Howard McCray, she found the wave of police blue parting for her as she entered, still with no intention of actually hunting down anyone in particular, and still with no particular reason for being there, either. Which was what she kept telling herself while she followed a cop named Roger, who, of all things, actually led her straight to Mike’s cell without even asking her where she wanted to go or who she wanted to see.

When she got there, pretty much the whole cell block was empty except for a couple of Friday night overindulgers up at the front. And Mike, of course, who was all the way in the back, isolated from everything and everyone…everyone except a delicate looking, well made-up, bleached-white-blond man with tight, black leather pants and a white silk shirt opened halfway down to his belly button revealing…well, nothing particularly interesting. He was endeavoring some painfully slow, click by click typing on a laptop computer and humming a tune from Cats. The bronze nameplate on his desk read Fritz.

She envied Fritz his fashion flair if not his actual outfit. “Excuse me,” Lilly said. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Collier…alone.”

“Do you have an appointment, sweetie?” he asked, barely looking up at her.

“An appointment?” Glancing sideways into the cell, Lilly noticed that Mike had his Starbucks, all right, plus a plate of steamy hot breakfast muffins—blueberry, she guessed. He always liked blueberry the best.

“Yep, sweetie. An appointment. Mike’s a pretty busy boy right now, and he’s not seeing anybody today unless they have an appointment.” His attention was sidetracked when Roger Jackson walked down the hall, his eyes taking in Roger’s every movement and flex until Roger was out of sight. Then his attention snapped back to Lilly. “So do you?” he asked.

“Mike…” Lilly grumbled.

“Should I have someone kick her out, Mikey?” Fritz asked.

“She’s okay,” Mike said, grinning at Lilly through the bars.

“Well, okeydokey, then.” With no further interest in Mike’s guest, Fritz, the pseudosecretary, went back to work, switching his repertoire to Phantom of the Opera.

“Why am I not surprised?” Lilly snapped, stepping up to the bars. “Why am I not surprised that even in jail you find a way to take advantage of the system?”

“I’m not taking advantage,” he protested. “Just trying to get by the best I can.”

“When I went to jail I sure wasn’t offered anything like this just to get by.” Lilly said.

Fritz gasped. “Oh my God! Did they make you wear orange with your red hair?”

Ignoring Fritz, Lilly continued, “Remember that jail cell, Mike—the one I shared with a prostitute, a shoplifter and an ax murderer? One toilet, one sink, two bunk beds and no blueberry muffins.”

Mike grinned, holding out a muffin through the bars. “She was a husband beater, not an ax murderer. And if I recall, you were there…what? Two hours?”

“Three. Three hours longer than I should have been. And get that muffin out of my face before I add the charge of bribing a judge.”

Pulling it back, Mike took a bite, then strolled casually over to his cot and sat. “So what brings you to my neck of the cell block, Lilly? Feeling guilty about something…like throwing an innocent man in jail?”

“Yeah,” Fritz said. “You bully!”

She glanced over at Fritz and gave him her best bully frown, which browbeat him back to his work. “Shouldn’t that be your department, Mike? Feeling guilty? Especially after what you did to me?”

“You too, sweetie?” Fritz chimed in again. “Want to know what he did to me? He dragged me out of the middle of the best date I’ve had since 1997, and just when we were…” He stopped in the nick of time, biting his quivering lower lip.

Trying to force a little bit of sweetness into her smile, Lilly gestured to Juanita Lane, who was stationed down the hall at a desk, her feet propped up on a plastic step. She was reading the morning paper, drinking a Starbucks, munching on a fresh blueberry muffin. “Could you get someone to remove this stuff from the hallway, please?” she asked, pointing first to the desk, then Fritz.

“And you would be who?” Juanita asked in a blasé tone, in between bites.

“I would be the judge who put Mr. Collier here, and I would be the judge who prefers to see my prisoners treated like prisoners, not houseguests.”

Juanita gave her a lackadaisical once-over. “Most of the judges who come in here are dressed like judges,” she said. “Guess I didn’t take you to be one, not in…” She didn’t finish the sentence. It was implied. Not in jeans, a T-shirt and all that untethered red hair. “Give me a couple of minutes, Your Honor. I’ll see what I can do.” Grumbling, Juanita picked up her coffee instead of the phone.

“You’re taking away my secretary, Lilly?” Mike said, shaking his head, sighing even though the sparkle in his eyes betrayed the tease. “You would rob me of my only tie to civilization? My only means of making a living?”

“Should I take a break, Mike?” Fritz asked, glaring at Lilly. “Come back later, when she’s gone?”

“You do that, sweetie,” Lilly said, spinning around to shut the lid of the laptop. “Take a break, but don’t come back. Mike’s office is closed for the weekend.”

“Is that okay, Mike? Can she do that?”

“She’s the law in these parts, Fritz. Guess she can do pretty much what she wants.”

“What I want?” Lilly sputtered, watching Mike fall back into a pile of pillows on his cot. One pillow was issued per jail cot, but he had at least ten. “Looks to me like you’re the one who’s getting to do pretty much what you want.”

“What I wanted was to spend today getting out the Sunday edition,” he commented, kicking off his shoes. “So far we have two stories—one about a trash fire over on Elm Street that spread to a pile of tires. Probably my lead, since the story about the scanner at Gilroy’s Market going wacky and charging Mrs. Patterson $790 for a can of cling peaches doesn’t have quite as much edge to it…unless you’re Mrs. Patterson.”

Waiting until Fritz had gathered his belongings—name-plate, picture of his poodle and a bud vase with a single rosebud—and trotted away, Lilly finally pulled Fritz’s office chair up to the bars and sat. “I’m not even going to ask what happened to you, Mike—why you ended up doing stories on cling peaches—because frankly, I don’t care. And I don’t care that you can’t park your car outside your office, or that your Sunday edition won’t get out. But what I do care about is the way you’re mocking not only me, but the whole judicial system here in Whittier. And that’s so like you… ‘Judge Malloy may have been within her legal right to sentence me to jail, but all I can say to the good citizens of Whittier is, better not cross over her line or you may end up here, too.”’

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? For crossing your line?”

“You crossed over my line years ago, Mike. Problem was I couldn’t do anything about it back then.” She grinned wickedly. “Times sure have changed, haven’t they?”

“And you’re really liking the feel of all that power, aren’t you?” He gave her a lazy grin. “Didn’t expect it from you, Lilly. But all that power sure makes you hot and sexy.”

“What?” she sputtered, caught off guard until she realized the voice was back. Like she really needed that and Mike Collier at the same time—those disobedient little innuendos, naughty little suggestions, popping in and out in all the wrong places. Another one of those Mike Collier consequences.

“I said I didn’t expect it from you.”

Shutting her eyes, taking in a deep breath, she opened them again slowly, then said, “You may not have expected it from me, Mike, but that’s the way I am now. Older and a whole lot wiser.”

“With perky breasts.”

She gulped. “Huh?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Drawing in another deep breath, she continued. “The thing with you, Mike, is that you take advantage because you can. Just look at this place—the desk, Bambi the boy secretary—”

“Fritz,” he corrected.

“Fritz and blueberry muffins. You always get away with it. Always have and you expect that you always will. Well, it’s my turf this time, and no more getting away with it.”

“So what you’re giving me here is the this-town-ain’t-big-enough-for-the-both-of-us speech?” Mike crossed one leg over the other and cupped his hands behind his head. “Get outta town or else.…”

“Indianapolis has three-quarters of a million people and it’s not big enough for the both of us,” she quipped. “I’ve got a good start here and you’re already messing it up. I own a nice little house, have a good job, and I’m trying to find some roots.”

“At least you have a house. I’m sleeping underneath my printing press. And I have a boy secretary named Bambi—”

“Fritz.”

“Think they’ll mind if I take some of these pillows home with me?”

“See how you are?” She huffed out an impatient sigh. “Always trying to avoid the subject.”

“You were talking about your house…I just asked about pillows. Thought it sort of fit into the flow of conversation.…”

A challenge flickered into his eyes and she saw it. Didn’t want to see it, but it was there, glimmering right at her, beckoning her, like a manly Siren, to come crash on the rocks…one more time. “Shut up, Mike! Just shut up. I came here to have a serious talk with you, but if you don’t want to talk—”

“Want to talk? I called you, Lilly. Told you I wanted to talk, after, I might add, you threw me in jail over a couple of lousy parking tickets. And you know that was overreacting. Admit it. You blew a gasket and threw me in the dungeon. Payback, right? And you’ve just been waiting for your chance.”

Lowering her voice so that Juanita, at the other end of the hall struggling to hear, couldn’t, Lilly whispered, “And it feels so good to be on the giving end for a change. Better than I could have ever imagined.”

“I knew it!” Mike exclaimed, jumping up. Moving closer to the cell bars, just inches away from Lilly, he smiled down at her—an irascibly patient smile, an imperious smile. “So Lilly’s got some fangs now.”

Standing to meet him eye-to-eye, but still a respectful distance from the bars, Lilly gave him that same smile right back. “No, not fangs. Just the law on my side.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “And the knowledge of how to use it.”

“And you really do intend to keep me here until Monday, don’t you?”

She nodded. “But I did leave instructions that if you pay the fine in full they can let you out.”

“So want to loan me a couple of grand?” he asked.

“Sell the Porsche.”

“Did that.”

“And the stock portfolio.”

“Ditto.”

She shrugged. “Well, I suppose it looks like we’ll be keeping you here for a while longer, doesn’t it? And I should think that a man with your, shall we say, paltry pecuniary resources would appreciate a few days of free upkeep.”

“Cruel, Lilly. Really cruel.” He laughed, then lowered his voice as Juanita scooted her chair even closer so she could hear more. “But on you cruel is good. So do you ever let your hair down, figuratively speaking, or are you all judge, all the time now?”

Instinctively, Lilly reached to her hair and finger-brushed the wild strands around her face. “All judge, Mr. Collier. A judge who came to give you fair warning that she won’t be messed with. You mess with me or my court again, you go to jail again. And that’s the way it’s going to be. And no, this town ain’t big enough for the two of us, but unless you intend to get out, seems like we’re going to have to coexist.”

“It’s my town, Lilly. Born and raised here and the people know me.”

She smiled. “If they know you, that makes it all the easier for me.”

“You really do hate me, don’t you?”

Stepping aside for the maintenance man to take away the chair, Lilly walked over to the bars, raised her hands and took hold, then pressed her face to the cold metal. “Hate is such a strong word, Mike. The first time I hated you, then I forgave you. Stupid move, I know. But I did forgive you. Then the second time I hated you again, but that time I didn’t forgive you. And now…it’s not hate, really. Just a need to see you in your proper place.”

Moving to the bars also, Mike pressed himself to them so their faces were almost touching. She could feel his breath, his heat—smell the scent of him mingling with the oxygen she took into her lungs. And for a moment she lost everything—her senses, her bearings—and the only thing that occupied the scant space between them was the memory of how good they’d been together back then. God, they’d been so good…so perfect…their fit, their touch, their rhythm…his hands…his lips…his lips on her breasts…

Pheromones, Lilly! Look out it’s the pheromones.

“What?” Lilly yelped, jumping back from the bars as if they’d taken a bite out of her.

“I said I need a phone…to call my office. Let them know I won’t be getting out, since you intend to keep me in my proper place until Monday, and I used my one call yesterday to call you.”

Flushed, a bit shaken by the encounter, and looking over her shoulder to see who had shouted pheromones—or was that the pheromones themselves shouting a warning?—Lilly breathed in a deep breath, reached into her purse and handed him her cell phone. Easier to do that than argue with him, since her knees were shaking, which meant her voice was probably shaking, too, and no way was she going to let him hear that.

“Hi, Jimmy…” Mike looked at Lilly, then said, “Jimmy’s my lawyer.” He spoke into the phone again. “I’ve been thinking it over and I’ve decided to go with Chinese for lunch.”

Chinese? Lilly heard the word, but she wasn’t recovered enough from her close encounter—thank heaven for the bars—to let it sink in all the way.

“Wong’s—a number three, with two egg rolls, spicy mustard, and have him throw in an order of fried rice, too. Shrimp fried.” To Lilly he added, “Want anything? The chow mein’s great. So’s the sweet and sour pork.”

That snapped her out of it—lifted her right up and out of his spell and dropped her back down into the jailhouse. “Hang up,” she demanded, holding out her hand for her phone.

“Would you rather have Italian?” he asked, backing far enough away from her that she couldn’t reach through the bars and snatch it away from him. “Or Mexican? Jimmy can go anyplace you want. You’ll pay for your own, won’t you? ’Cause lately I’ve been of paltry pecuniary resources.”

“Hand me the phone, Mike.”

“I guess she doesn’t want anything, Jimmy. So get me an almond cookie with that and tell Wong we’ll do a make good—another ad.” To Lilly he quipped, “I’m the guy you see on the street corner with the cardboard sign—Will Trade Ad Space for Food.”

“The phone, right now!” It wasn’t funny. Not him, not her reaction to him, and geez, she knew he’d felt it. How could he not, with the heat they were giving off together—a real blast furnace of lust or pheromones or whatever it was called.

Want to go to bed with me, Lilly?

“What?” she shrieked.

“I said what happens Monday morning when I’m back in court?” He handed the phone through the bars and she took it being careful not to come into contact with his skin.

She was sweating now. No hiding, no denying. “I, uh…” She didn’t know. Didn’t know the question, didn’t know the answer. “I’ve got to go,” she whispered, her voice infused with the hoarseness that comes in the aftermath of good sex. Oh no! Not that voice. He knew that voice.

“And was it good for you, Lilly?”

She didn’t hear that! He didn’t say it; she didn’t hear it.

“Lilly? Don’t you want to know?”

“Know what?” she choked out.

“What I just asked.”

“No,” she panted, having no clue what that was.

“You don’t want to know why I called you last night?”

She ventured a look into the cell to see if he was smoking a cigarette—the relaxing smoke that capped off awesome sex—but he was finishing the last of his blueberry muffin. “So tell me and make it fast,” she snapped.

He shrugged. “In the last couple of weeks I’ve been involved in this little investigation and…”

That she heard loud and clear, and it was all she wanted to hear. “Another investigation? Fool me three times, Mike? Is that it? Well, not a chance.” And she spun around and left.

Then just before she reached the guard desk…“Hey, Lilly. Are you wearing underwear?”




4


Empty shopping bags; a Saturday afternoon horror story

WHO WOULD HAVE BELIEVED there wasn’t a simple black dress in her size in town? Lilly didn’t after the first store, and even after the second. But at store number three and counting, the trend was becoming pretty clear. No dress for the judge who’d done that terrible thing to poor Mike Collier. No shoes either, unless the size fives Mrs. Milhouse tried to force onto Lilly’s size sevens counted. “Wasn’t that a bit harsh, throwing Mikey in jail?” Mrs. Milhouse asked, practically bending back Lilly’s big toe to wedge a pair of black pumps on her foot. “Oh dear, did I pinch your toes?”

Then there was the ice cream cone, plain vanilla, something that should have been a nice treat in the middle of a futile shopping spree. The scoops right before hers were generous, overflowing the cone. Her scoops, though, were so dinky she thought about asking for a magnifying glass to find them in the cracked cone, one that dripped out the bottom.

In spite of the clogs in her shopping expedition and the ice cream stains down the front of her shirt, Lilly did find her dress and shoes—thank you, Big Bob’s Discount Mart. It was a clearance special, where everything must go: heaps and heaps of clothes on tables, more heaps of shoes in piles of boxes. After some elbow-to-elbow excavating among a bunch of frantic shoppers who were whipped into a dress-tugging, shoe-flying frenzy, Lilly managed to escape without bruises, carrying a dress that was a little too slinky and short for Ezra’s party, and a pair of shoes way too platform and clunky for anything other than a high school dance. But they were black, and that’s all that mattered.

On her way home from Big Bob’s, Lilly detoured over to the jail. It was only a couple of blocks out of the way, and she’d overhead some Big Bob’s chitchat about the protestors at the jail. Professional curiosity, she told herself, regretting her decision the instant she turned the corner. The first sign she saw read Loony Judge Lilly. People were actually marching in a circle with them. And along with Loony Judge Lilly, there was an abundance of Free Mike Collier signs. The group was shouting at cars passing by, telling them to honk if they were in favor of freeing Mike Collier. Naturally, everybody was honking…everybody, that is, except Lilly, who, stalled in a Mike Collier traffic jam, couldn’t take her eyes off a steadily growing line of compassionate and, most likely, husband-hunting women lining up at the jailhouse door, armed with home-baked cakes probably concealing metal files for sawing through iron bars, and notes of hopeful marriage proposals. Something about a man behind bars that got the ol’ hormones flowing, she guessed, putting on a pair of sunglasses as though people wouldn’t recognize her in them.

And they did recognize her. Halfway through the traffic snarl, and just when she thought she just might make it all the way past, one fervent Mike fan recognized her and shouted the war cry to the rest of the protestors. “It’s the judge,” he yelled, and everybody ran to the curb. Lilly expected rotten tomatoes or something similar to the riot she’d survived in Big Bob’s, but the group of people merely frowned at her. One old lady did shake a mean index finger at her, and one brave vigilante held his Loony Judge Lilly sign a little higher than the rest of them.

It took Lilly five whole minutes to inch her way through the gauntlet, one scowl at a time. And by the time she turned off the block, she’d decided she’d take a good wrestling match at Big Bob’s over this any day. At least at Big Bob’s she’d walked away with a battle trophy. Here at the jail, she was the battle trophy.

Saturday night and the perfect potted palm

LILLY MANAGED TO GET out of town, though not looking quite as polished as she would have preferred, and an hour later than she wanted. Consequentially, when she arrived at Ezra’s she was frazzled, her hair frizzled, and overall she wasn’t in tip-top form. Then she discovered that Ezra’s “few people” turned out to be a veritable jackpot of notoriety in the judicial world—her first time invited into such hallowed ranks and she was looking like a dowdy interloper in her Big Bob’s special, while they were looking austere and accomplished in their distinguished, well-cut grays and charcoals. A federal judge, several superior court judges, a supreme court judge, dean of the law school…Lilly almost turned around and ran before she was all the way inside. “Don’t you think I’m a bit out of my league here?” she whispered at Ezra as she exchanged her Big Bob’s five-dollar mark-down shawl for a manhattan, the ingredients of which probably cost more than her entire outfit.

Ezra, now retired from teaching at the law school, hobnobbed with all the big judicial names. He could have been one of those names, and probably should have been, but his love was in the classroom, where he could teach the pure elegance of the law. Over the years he’d had offers from prestigious firms and yes, even a judgeship. But he was a permanent fixture in the classroom, and now, after his retirement, he still taught from time to time, just not as much. “You’re out of your league only if you want to be, my dear,” he replied. “And if you don’t dazzle them with your legal repartee tonight, that dress will go a long ways.” Soft and round, with abundant white hair not a whole lot less wild than her own, and sagacious thick eyebrows over bright brown eyes, Ezra Kessler was her mentor, her friend, her substitute grandfather. So many important roles in her life all wrapped up in one person, and she loved him dearly, in spite of the fact that since he’d retired from teaching, he’d been spending a little of that free time meddling. Like tonight, tossing her in the mix with all the heavy hitters—for her own good, he’d tell her. It was and he was right. That was Ezra, who, no matter what, had always been in her corner. “And your little exploits down in Whittier made the paper here, by the way, so I’m guessing a few of my friends will be eager to hear the particulars. It’s not every day a judge gets to send a member of the press to jail, you know. Even though I think that’s every judge’s secret fantasy.” He chuckled. “And for parking tickets. I’ve got to hand it to you, Lilly, what you did takes courage. Makes an old teacher proud.”

“It made the paper here in Indy?” she choked out. “No way.”

Ezra nodded. “On television, too. Good picture of you, I might add. The robe looks a little big though, but it suits you.”

“A judicial hand-me-down. The guy before me was a line-backer in college or something, and a robe in my size isn’t in the city budget until next year. Tight money or something. The mayor’s always harping on city funds.” Shaking her head, she tossed back the manhattan in a couple of gulps to brace herself for the onslaught, ridicule…whatever her esteemed colleagues might throw at her. “You might have had the decency to warn me about this, Ezra,” she said, sidestepping her way over to his hulking potted palm in the corner. Sanctuary in any form…an evening communing behind nature. Better than an evening communing with critics. “And I didn’t throw him in jail because he’s a member of the press. He broke the law.”

Ezra nodded. “Parking tickets,” he chuckled. “The pretty judge packs a pretty big punch. I always knew you would be good.” Snagging a shrimp puff off a passing tray, Ezra handed it to her. “And I’m assuming you had legal ground to do what you did.…” He frowned, then lowered his voice. “You did, didn’t you? I mean, it was Mike Collier, after all. With the history between you two…”

Lilly choked on her shrimp. Ezra knew about the plagiarism incident, and he was the one who’d championed her back into law school. He was also the one who came to her rescue when she was arrested, but he didn’t know that she and Mike…that they had…No, he didn’t, couldn’t, know that. That was a little piece of history she wished even she didn’t know about.

“Are you okay, dear?” Ezra asked, handing her a napkin.

She arched her eyebrows as she grabbed a glass of sparkling water from a passing waiter to wash down the rest of the puff, which seemed to be sticking in the back of her throat, sticking there like Mike Collier seemed to be sticking in her life. “Fine,” she finally sputtered, picking up her pace to the palm. “Just fine.

“Well, as I was saying, with the history between you two I certainly hope you’re on good legal footing with this.” He followed her, stopping just short of his plant. “Especially since it’s drawing some attention now.”




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