Holidays at Crescent Cove Read Free Page A

going to punch Jake. Smart guys don’t punch other people. We were just fooling around.”
    Connor bit his lip and frowned.
    â€œNick’s right,” Jake said. “No punching. So what exactly did Margaux say?” He pointed a finger at Connor. “And no telling Margaux I asked.”
    Connor looked at Nick.
    â€œIt’s a guy thing. Not a secret.”
    Jake sighed, tossed his napkin on the table. “Women stuff, kid stuff. It’s just too complicated. I never know where I am with either.”
    â€œYou, from the largest family on the east side of Crescent Cove?”
    â€œYou forget I was the youngest. The, um, surprise baby.” He saw Connor straighten up. Please don’t let him ask what a surprise baby was . “Anyway,” he hurried on. “They all were socially acclimated by the time they left home. My next sister left home when I was nine. Then there was just me and dad and my mother, and dad pretty much had his hands full taking care of both of us.”
    â€œOkay so what you didn’t learn about women at home, you made up for in high school. What’s the problem?”
    â€œThere is no problem. Could we just forget it?”
    â€œSure, whatever you say.”
    â€œAnd don’t tell Margaux we talked about any of this.”
    Nick shook his head.
    â€œAnd Connor, don’t you tell either.”
    Connor glanced at Nick then shook his head solemnly.
    Nick grinned. “At least he didn’t ask us to pinky swear.” He burst out laughing.
    Jake threw his napkin at him and reached for the check.
    G RACE DIDN’T EVEN sit down when she reached her apartment, but spread the Hartford Courier out on her dining table. She stood, hands propping her weight, and read the article in full.
    Then she read it again.
    A 24-year-old pregnant woman was killed as she left her doctor’s office on Friday around 5:30 P.M.
    Beth Curtis was pronounced dead at the scene. Eyewitnesses said that two cars ran a red light at high speeds. The first car slammed into Ms. Curtis, throwing her into the air, as her husband watched . . .
    Grace forced herself to skim down the page to the part she saw first and dreaded most.
    The hit and run vehicle is registered to Harrison “Sonny” Cavanaugh, son of a prominent local businessman.
    When officers arrived at the Cavanaugh residence, the family attorney, Vincent Holcombe, of the law firm Holcombe, Lacey, Danforth and Estes, was already in attendance.
    Cavanaugh was taken into custody and released on $500,000 bail pending arraignment.
    There was no mistake. Her father’s firm was representing that scumbag again. What was wrong with them? Harrison “Sonny” Cavanaugh was guilty of every crime he’d ever been arraigned for and gotten off. Because he got off every time. Thanks to Holcombe, Lacey, Danforth and Estes. And the first time because of her.
    That case had catapulted Grace from daughter of one of the partners to legal wunderkind in the span of a few days. She, the youngest member of the team, had picked out a loophole, an arcane piece of historical jurisprudence flummery that no one else had thought about. It got the sleaze bag off, when they should have helped put him behind bars.
    At least in jail he would not have been available for the joyride and robbery that left a convenience store clerk, a husband and the father of five, dead from gunshot wounds.
    They had expected her to be on his defense team again. There was talk about her being leading defense counsel. She’d refused. Her father gave her an ultimatum.
    She refused again. And then she quit. She’d grabbed a few things from her desk, left her briefs and law books behind, and walked out the door, her father’s words echoing down the hallway behind her.
    â€œYou walk out that door, I’ll make sure you won’t practice in this state again.” An empty threat. “I wash my hands of you.”
    Then the coup