The Prosecutor
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Nichole Severn
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15,3K
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HarlequinChapter One
Jury benches had the potential to hide a lot of things.
Old wood protested under his knee as Deputy United States Marshal Jonah Watson crouched to slide his hand under the first bench before the judge and court personnel would take their seats in as little as fifteen minutes. The courthouse was made up of over thirty-nine courtrooms, and he and the other four marshals on his team would search and clear every single one of them.
After seven years of new construction due to age and seismic instability of the old courthouse, the new Multnomah County Central Courthouse had become the nerve center for the Rip City Bomber to meet justice. After triggering four bombs set throughout Portland and murdering thirty-two innocent civilians over the course of the past year, Rosalind Eyler was scheduled to face a jury of her peers to answer for the blood she’d spilled. For the lives she’d destroyed. The sick frenzy of the largest case Oregon District Court had ever seen had already begun. Protestors lined the courthouse perimeter calling for their idol to be found innocent, the media digging for details police had yet to release for the next big story in time for the six o’clock news. There were too many variables in a case like this, too many potential threats.
“I didn’t realize you’d be part of the team assigned to clear the courtroom today.” And in the center of it all, the all-too-enticing—and all-too-frustrating—senior deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, Madison Gray. Sleek black hair waved down around her shoulders as Jonah pushed to his feet. Her dark green blazer and knee-length skirt accentuated the darker undertones in her skin and highlighted the caramel swirls in her eyes. Sharp features and even sharper heels contributed to her controlling nature and bluntness, but it was the large, soft roundness of her midsection that’d claimed his attention now. Six months pregnant. With his baby. “I specifically requested a special assignment of the east Washington district US marshals to lend us deputies for judicial security.”
“Now, why would the district attorney agree to that when he has a former FBI bomb squad technician right here in Portland at his disposal?” He hadn’t worked as a unit chief in the hazardous devices school for the Bureau for more than half a decade, but the two years of hands-on training in the middle of a combat zone in Afghanistan had given him all the experience he’d need for the rest of his career. Military ordnance, hand grenades, homemade bombs, thermite. He had the knowledge and the attention to detail required to analyze, investigate and re-create any explosive—improvised or not—he’d come into contact with before joining the marshals service.
The only one he hadn’t known how to deal with was the explosion of fire in Madison’s gaze when he’d suggested they raise their baby together after she’d told him she was pregnant.
At the time, he’d brushed off her rejection and distance as their one night together all those months ago had turned into something neither of them could walk away from, but five months had gone by, and here she stood, just as adamant. No matter how many times he’d reached out, she’d declined his calls, avoided him in the courthouse hallways and ignored his effort to do the right thing. She wanted to raise this baby on her own and expected him to sign away any rights that came with his role as sperm donor when their baby was born.
She lowered her voice. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
Jonah crouched to search the next section of the jury bench. The preliminary hearing would start in less than ten minutes, and he hadn’t gotten a chance to clear the tables where the deputy prosecutor and the defendant with her counsel would be seated. “What’s the matter, Maddi? Afraid the media will see us in the same room together and magically figure out I’m the one who got you pregnant?”
“Why don’t you say that a little louder? I wasn’t sure the judge heard you in his chambers.” Manicured fingernails with a metallic gold polish dug into the freshly stained wood edge of the jury box. “This is the biggest case of my career, Jonah. I can’t make any more mistakes. Do you understand?”
A mistake. So that was what she was calling that night they’d been together. Well, it beat not knowing anything at all, he supposed. This conversation had already beaten the record for their longest by two full minutes in the past five months. Jonah couldn’t help but revel in the fact that despite all the self-confidence and control she kept in place when she prosecuted a case, he was still able to get a rise out of her. He swept his hand under the last section of the bench and climbed to his feet before dropping out of the jury box. At six foot three, he towered over her small frame, but she held her ground as he closed the distance between them. “Don’t worry, Counselor. You just do your job, and I’ll do mine. Speaking of which, I need to make sure nothing except my good looks are going to put you and the rest of the people in this courtroom at risk.”
Her attention broke as a door off to the left of the judge’s bench swung open. Fury slipped from Madison’s expression, stiffness entering her neck and jaw, and Jonah turned to face the woman at the center of the Rip City Bomber trial. The defendant herself: Rosalind Eyler. Two sheriff’s deputies flanked her on either side, the brightness of her red Multnomah County Corrections uniform stark against their dark green. Equally red hair blended into the fabric around her collar and draped down her back as the steel links between her wrist and ankle restraints rattled with each step toward the defendant’s table.
Battle-ready tension thickened the muscles down his spine as Rosalind and her escort shuffled closer. Madison had made it clear the night they’d spent together—the night that’d resulted in new life forged between them—was nothing more than a mistake she’d happily avoid if given a second chance, but that wouldn’t stop him from keeping a psychopath out of her orbit.
A sly smile tugged at Rosalind’s thin lips, accentuating the heavy-handed spread of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Green eyes, almost the same color as Madison’s blazer, brightened. Deep smile lines forged a path from the middle of her face outward. If it weren’t for the fact the woman had been caught dead to rights with the components used to build her devices, Rosalind Eyler would’ve been just another pretty face.
“Madison, how lovely to see you again. I see you’ve been busy since the last time we spoke.” That destructively humorous gaze dipped to Madison’s baby bump, and every cell in Jonah’s body caught fire with protective fury. Rosalind turned those deceptive eyes on him, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He’d met plenty of mass killers—terrorists—in his line of work, but none of them could compare to the woman sizing him up right then. No remorse. No guilt. Only pure pleasure. “Congratulations.”
Jonah fought the urge to look at Madison for confirmation. There was no way in hell the Rip City Bomber knew he was the father of Madison’s child. “Excuse me?”
“Thank you.” The deputy district attorney smoothed her hands over the bump, cradling the underside of where their child rested as another man strolled through the door Rosalind had entered the courtroom through and took position at her side.
Pristine suit, lean muscle, slicked hair with a predatory expression cemented in place. Defense attorney. “Ms. Gray, I do hope you’re not speaking with my client before today’s proceedings. You know as well as I do any communication between the district attorney’s office and my client needs to come straight through me.”
“Relax, Harvey.” Rosalind’s attention threatened to burn a hole straight through Jonah’s head, refusing to let up before she redirected her half smile toward Madison. “I was congratulating Madison on her pregnancy and giving her my best. I’ve heard the delivery can be one of the most traumatic events of a woman’s life. I do hope she makes it to the finish line in one piece.”
Jonah curled his hands into the center of his palms to counter the pressure building in his chest. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
A wave of growing voices echoed throughout the room as bailiffs led families, media and law enforcement personnel through the large wooden doors at the back of the courtroom and into the gallery.
“That’s my cue.” Rosalind stepped carefully in the direction her police escort led her. “Nice to finally meet you, Marshal Watson.”
Sheriff’s deputies led the bomber to her chair behind the defendant’s table and helped her sit down. Rosalind’s attorney took the seat beside his client as Madison straightened her shoulders, gave Jonah nothing more than an irritated glance and headed for the prosecution’s table.
Court was about to proceed.
Rosalind watched him every step of the way as Jonah headed for the gallery. That casual smile of hers worked to pierce through the wall he’d built to ignore any distraction that’d keep him from his duty, but the Rip City Bomber couldn’t get inside his head. Madison was already taking up too much space in that regard. Taking his seat directly behind the prosecution’s table, Jonah automatically stood as the judge entered the courtroom, eyes forward. He’d cleared the courtroom in time for Rosalind Eyler to answer for her crimes, but the fact Madison had taken the case—putting herself and their baby on the front line of defense against a mass murderer—sent a warning straight to his gut.
“You may be seated,” the judge said from the raised bench. Four large television screens installed above the grilled sections of wall where air and heat entered came to life as he took his own seat. “The People versus Rosalind Eyler on charges of bombing of public spaces, thirty-two counts of first-degree murder, use of explosives and malicious destruction of property resulting in—”
A cell phone rang off to Jonah’s left, near the two television screens taking up the east wall of the courtroom. Slightly muted, probably stuffed down at the bottom of the purse of one of the women toward the end of the pew. Someone hadn’t gotten the message to silence their device.
“Whoever brought a phone into my courtroom had better have a damn good reason.” The judge stared out over the gallery in expectation.
Seconds passed, the ringing continued, but no one in the gallery moved to silence the device. Low murmurs swept through the gallery. Three hard strikes of the judge’s gavel against solid wood echoed through the spacious room. Jonah craned his head back to get a better sense of where the ringing originated and stood, instincts on high alert. He’d cleared every inch of this courtroom, but something told him nobody in the gallery was moving because the owner of the cell phone wasn’t present.
The ringing wasn’t coming from someone’s bag.
“Order!” The judge struck wood with the gavel again, but Jonah could focus only on the sound seemingly bleeding through the wall.
No. The slight electric echo placed it behind the grilled section of a new HVAC unit crews had installed during the new construction. Understanding hit, and Jonah twisted around. He lunged over the partition of wood separating him from Madison. “Everybody get down!”
A burst of fire and debris thrust him straight into the prosecution’s table and knocked the oxygen from his lungs. Blazing heat and pain licked across his neck, the back of his skull and arms as the explosion spread fast and took down anyone in its path. Screams echoed throughout the courtroom. Jonah hit the floor beside the table where Madison had been seconds before.
Then it was quiet.
NOBODY SHOULD’VE KNOWN.
The ringing in her ears momentarily drowned out the panicked rush of movement all around her. A groan escaped her lips as she lifted her head. Senior Deputy District Attorney Madison Gray pressed her palms into the hardwood floor. Fragments of concrete and splintered wood bit into the overheated skin of her hands as time seemed to stretch in a distorted, hazy fluid.
The pristine courtroom where she’d been prepared to present evidence against Rosalind Eyler, the Rip City Bomber, had been replaced by fire, pain and blood. She forced herself to focus on the defendant’s table as bystanders struggled to escape the massive space. The sheriff’s deputies who’d escorted Rosalind into court hauled their charge from the floor and headed for the holding cells in the room adjacent to the judge’s bench. Protocol. They couldn’t risk the defendant escaping, but even through the haze of trauma, Madison caught the recognizable smile deepening the bomber’s laugh lines on either side of her mouth as Rosalind looked back.
Madison collapsed back to the floor as the strength in her arms gave out. She rolled onto her back, her legs twisted one way, her upper body another. The fire alarm screeched louder each time the back doors swung open into the main corridor of the eighth floor. Frantic movements in her lower abdominals kept her conscious. Her baby. She had to check her baby. The explosion—the bomb—had detonated close enough there was a chance she’d sustained internal bleeding without realizing it. The assignment for this courtroom hadn’t been released until this morning. Nobody should’ve known this would be the location of the Rip City Bomber’s preliminary hearing. Nobody should’ve been able to place an explosive device without the US marshals knowing.
“Jonah.” His name strained in her throat. He’d been the closest to the blast. The deputy had lunged over the bar in an attempt to protect her from injury. Only he hadn’t been fast enough. He had to be here. He had to be alive. Madison battled to get to all fours. The ringing in her ears ceded, but in its place came a wash of terror and panic. The gallery had been demolished, sobs echoing off the paneled walls. Black scorch marks and flames climbed the bench where the judge had been sitting mere seconds ago. She swiped at a line of warm liquid running down the side of her face, hand shaking. Blood.
And there on the other side of the table, the father of her child. Unconscious.
Madison licked dust-covered lips as she stretched one hand forward, then brought her knee up to follow. On hands and knees, she crawled around the prosecution’s table until she could slide her fingers into his palm. “Jonah, get up.”
He jerked into consciousness, his hand clasping hard around hers. Black-singed ends of hair curled at the base of his neck and around his full beard of light brown thickness. Alarm flashed in iridescent blue eyes at the sight of the aftermath still unfolding around them. Thick ropes of muscle hardened as he pushed upright. “Madison.”
“I’m here.” Relief coursed through her. He was alive. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t been too injured. She tugged her hand from his, falling back onto one hip, and held on to the solid curve of her baby bump. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Someone had triggered an explosion inside the very same courtroom where Rosalind Eyler was scheduled to answer for what she’d done, but Madison didn’t have time to investigate why, how or when. “I... The baby.”
His gaze immediately dropped to her lower abdominals. He reached for her in the same moment and, without hesitation or consideration for any injuries he might’ve sustained from the explosion, scooped her into his arms. It didn’t matter what’d happened between them, how many times she’d declined his calls or how often she’d gone out of her way to avoid him in their professional interactions. Past experience and his case history said she could count on him to care about this baby. Debris crunched under his boots as he maneuvered around the unrecognizable bench he’d been sitting on before the blast. “I’m going to get you out of here. Hang on to me.”
Reality sped into focus as the fire alarm shrieked in her ears. Heels clicked on polished tile behind them as Jonah pushed through the damaged courtroom doors and into the corridor. Courthouse security shouted from the bank of elevators and directed them toward the stairs. The elevators had gone into automatic lockdown. Rubble slid across the floor and slammed into the baseboards as victims of the explosion stumbled from the courtroom. The dark green color of her skirt-suit had turned an ash gray, tiny holes pockmarking the hem on one side. This was supposed to be her big case, the one that’d put her in line for the district attorney. This was the case that would’ve proved she’d risen above her past, but now her chance was gone. Disintegrated in the leftover ashes of that tinderbox.
Emergency personnel raced toward them from the stairs.
“Issue an evacuation of this building! I want all the top floors cleared as fast as possible. That bomb could’ve damaged the structural integrity of the entire courthouse.” Jonah gave orders without slowing. The command in his voice neutralized the panic clawing up her throat. This was what he did for a living. This was what the FBI had trained Jonah for domestically and in Afghanistan for two years. When the entire world threatened to collapse around her, he’d fallen directly into his element to be the voice of calm and reason, and she couldn’t help but latch onto that strength and try to take some it for herself. “I counted twenty-six injured, eight dead and no sign of the judge or the bailiff.”
Eight dead? So many lives destroyed. How could this have happened? Why?
The answer burned on the tip of her tongue as Jonah ran toward the stairs. The Rip City Bomber. Rosalind Eyler was connected somehow, and Madison would prove it. As soon as the EMTs cleared her and the baby’s health, she’d get in touch with the district attorney. She’d get the bomb squad to analyze the scene and bring new charges against the defendant to make sure Rosalind never saw the outside of a prison cell for the rest of her life. The same sentence Madison’s father should’ve met all those years ago.
New determination chased back the terror that’d taken control.
“Put me down.” Madison pressed her palm into Jonah’s chest, the fast-paced pounding of his heart in rhythm with hers. She had enough strength to get herself downstairs and checked by one of the arriving EMTs. He needed to be here. He needed to help as many people as he could, and she could take care of herself. “I can walk from here.”
“That bomb detonated less than fifteen feet from where you were sitting, Maddi.” He easily kept pace down seven floors of courthouse stairs with her added weight. The scent of smoke and something she couldn’t identify clung to the deep brown corduroy of his jacket. Nothing like the rich cinnamon spice she’d missed these past few months. “There’s no way in hell I’m giving you the chance to run before I make sure you and my baby are okay for myself.”
My baby. Those two words sunk like a rock in her stomach. Despite the fact he was indeed the father of the life growing inside her, she’d committed to raising this child on her own after the birth—physically, financially and emotionally. Just because they’d made a baby together didn’t mean she needed to rely on him for help or security. But because he’d defended his argument to carry her with the safety of her and the baby in mind, she couldn’t offer a rebuttal without throwing her priorities into question. She cared about this baby. There was no argument to be had, but his concern worked under her skin and scratched at her independence. She’d gotten this far on her own, and she sure as hell wasn’t one of his damsels in distress to be saved.
Cold Portland air shocked every inch of her exposed skin as Jonah kicked open the lobby doors and maneuvered her through. Fire and police vehicles condensed onto the scene as panicked civilians crowded the perimeter the Portland Police Bureau had established and pointed up the side of the building. Madison followed their gazes. Dread pooled at the base of her spine where Jonah’s hand supported her. Black smoke and bright flames escaped what she could see of the massive hole the bomb had created, and air crushed from her lungs.
Fifteen feet. She’d been only fifteen feet away from the blast and somehow survived an explosion that’d ripped an entire hole in the side of the Multnomah County Central Courthouse building. Gravity increased its hold on her body as the reality of that thought bled into focus. This didn’t make sense. If the bomb had been strong enough and positioned well enough to blow a hole through several feet of concrete and steel, how had she walked away and eight others hadn’t?
Jonah’s grip strengthened around her back and alongside her thigh as he rushed her to the closest ambulance. “I have a survivor. Deputy District Attorney Madison Gray, age thirty-three, multiple head lacerations, possible internal bleeding and six months pregnant. You need to make sure she and the baby are okay.”
Red and blue patrol lights blurred in her vision as he hauled her into the back of the ambulance. Within seconds, emergency staff had a blood pressure cuff strapped around her arm and an oxygen mask in place. Her breathing echoed back to her through the mask. Her heart rate spiked as the facts of the explosion lined up in her head, but the heaviness of Jonah’s gaze anchored her enough to drown the uncertainty clawing up her throat.
“You’re going to be okay. I promise.” Jonah wrapped a calloused hand in hers at the side of the gurney. Instant warmth shot through her at that single touch, the same warmth that’d led to her getting pregnant by him in the first place, and the world tilted on its axis. From the added oxygen or from him, she didn’t know. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Static interrupted the sense of peace his confidence instilled deep in her bones. A female voice penetrated the small bubble he’d somehow created between them and the violent chaos outside the ambulance walls. “Deputy Watson, I need you to meet me on channel two.”
Extracting his hand from hers, Jonah peeled the radio strapped to his Kevlar vest from his chest and turned the dial. Compelling blue eyes shifted out the back of the ambulance, and in an instant, the spell was broken. The one that had the ability to convince her to let him get past her guard again, that she could trust his intentions. “Glad to hear you survived, Chief. What do you have?”
Remington Barton, Jonah’s deputy chief. Madison had met the woman only a couple of times during judicial security assignments and testimony proceedings, but each encounter had been ingrained in Madison’s memory. The former New Castle County sheriff held her own in a job dominated by the opposite sex and rarely backed down without a fight. For her deputies, for her witnesses and anyone else lucky enough to be brought under her protection. “An anonymous source has just taken credit for the bombing.”
Jonah compressed the push-to-talk button. “And?”
The deputy chief didn’t miss a beat. “The call confirmed Deputy District Attorney Madison Gray as the bomber’s target.”
