Page 40 of Dissension

Strolling across the room in the buff, he shamelessly starts pulling some clothes on. “Alright. You don’t want to playthattype of game. But wearegoing to play something. We’ll go bowling instead, come on now.” As soon as he’s clothed in that quietly rich but understated way of his, he drags her to the front door.

“Bowling?” Kara splutters in. “Have you lost your mind?” Moments ago, he’d been rubbing up on her naked like some sort of alley cat in heat. Now he wants to bowl?

He grins winningly. “I promise, you’ll have fun.”

It feels like a date, but he’s not wrong.

It turns out to be a great time and Kara doesn’t know what to do with that fact. When Dieter puts his mind to it, he’s the most charming, exciting man she’s ever been around.

…and that’s probably dangerous.

By the time Kara gets home, it’s late. Despite her rather pleasant evening with Dieter, she can’t help but find her mind drawn back to her earlier concerns of the day. The only man who takes such things seriously is Nick it seems.

So, she calls him, because why not? They made a truce, didn’t they? A pact to be cordial? She wants to talk business. “Hey. Sorry about the late hour, but…figured I’d call after I saw the news the other day. About Paxton.”

“Calling to gloat? I find myself not in the mood, Kara.” Nick sounds carefully bored, as if he doesn’t care that she’s called him. He hides his real feelings all too well. “I don’t have much to tell you on the matter either if you’re snooping.”

“Good for you, Prince Charming,” Kara replies, matching his grumpy vibe. “I actually have a lot to say on the matter.” She takes a moment to calm down, to ease up on the sass. Shedoesn’t want to start them off on the wrong foot again. “Look. I called because I have concerns about it. It seems fishy to me.”

“Hm. How novel.”

“You don’t agree?” Kara asks in disbelief. “There’s somethingoff.The witness referred to the Room as the Torture House. That sounded wrong to me. No one involved would call it that. It seems sensationalized.”

“Wait a moment. Are youactuallycalling me to discuss the possible innocence of my client?” Nick laughs here, just a bit, making her heart flip happily. “Miracles do exist after all.”

“Whoa. I never said Brooker was innocent. I just said this new witness seems too good to be true. As if someone is trying to put the lid on this too soon, if you catch my meaning.” Someone is trying to shut the case down- and fast. A scapegoat, if one were to imagine. “When I brought it up to Dieter-”

Nick sucks in air harshly between his teeth. “You didnotbring this up to Dieter.”

Why wouldn’t she? “I did. He’s been a shit about it, go figure. Which is why I’m talkingto you,because you’re the only sensible man I know in all this-”

He groans as if she’s done something utterly stupid. “Listen. You want my professional opinion? You need to back away from this situation. If Dieter doesn’t care about it, leave it be. It’s not your business, not your case, and I’m telling you,you don’t want it to be.”

While Kara has the sense that Nick has always been a lawyer in it for the dough, not the justice, Kara isn’t built that way. “I feel personally invested to see this thing through. It started with the Debra Mills case and now it’s become this ugly mess. I want the real perp to be prosecuted, not freaking Paxton Brooker if he isn’t the man for it. There’s just something that isn’t making sense…”

“When you’ve done this job as long as I have, you’ll learn that a lot of things don’t make sense. You’ll also learn that justice isn’talwaysjust.” Nick says dryly, as if she’s not seeing the whole picture. Maybe she isn’t. There’s something bitter in his tone. “Not all evil will face criminal punishment, Kara. Even though I know you’d love to take every bad man and claw them to bits yourself…”

As he’s speaking, Kara paces past her window, her heart jolting up into her throat. There, in the shadows, isthat man. Looking up at her, something held to his ear, as if listening to-

Anger and unease flash in her chest. This fucking creeper, what is he doing? She’s going to call Ray this time, she’s going to report him.

“Hold on, Nick. There’s a freaking nutjob outside my window again-”

“What nutjob? And what do you mean,again?” Nick’s tone is confused. “What are you talking about?”

“My stalker.” She flicks the man off through the window and says, “I have to call the police, Nick, I’ll call you ba-”

Just then, as soon as the words are out of her mouth, the creep slowly steps backward, melting into the alleyway, vanishing. A lurking menace, there and then gone. Kara swallows thickly, hair prickling on the back of her neck. What just happened? Why did he just leave?

“Kara? Kara, do you need me to come over-”

She’s never had Nicholas Havenwood-Calais over to her home and she’s not about to start now. It’s a boundary she’s never crossed, a lingering sense of danger from what she knows he’s capable of. He once took grievous advantage of her, many months ago, and Kara isn’t about to forget that fact.

He’s capable of dark things…but how dark? She doesn’t know.

“Weird.” Kara frowns at the shadows where the watcher in the night had just been. “He’s gone. As soon as I told you I was going to call the cops. He touched something at his ear.”

There’s a frustrated sound on the other side of the phone. “Are you bugged? Is someonespyingon you?”

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