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Chapter One

She never should have been there Normally Jennifer Parker would have waited for the smoke to clear for a call for her services as a pro bono lawyer She’d already acquired a s with the poor and disenfranchised, and a cargo ship with seventy-three women and children bound for the sex trade would require her help sooner or later

She had the perfect excuse to show up She would have gotten a phone call from the DA’s office, or the Red Cross, or any of a nuanizations in need of her expertise, and if anyone questioned her presence, she could siht be needed The police and the FBI and their ilk were doing an excellent job clearing the ship, but these victi with a sy police force

But that wasn’t her real reason for driving her ancient Toyota down to the docks and ferreting her way past the police barricades and news crews and gawkers

“Do you want to be responsible for your brother’s death?” Her father had thundered at her from the end of the phone line, the father she hadn’t spoken to in three years “I know you have no fa when it comes to most of us, but this is Billy, your baby brother! What would your mother have said if she knew you let hi to save him?”

“He got hiuilt “If he’s been , then he deserves whatever he gets”

“A bullet between the eyes? Ioff the New Orleans police but there are other agencies involved in this, including soanization or the Committee They won’t hesitate to blow his brains out”

“There’s nothing I can do that you can’t,” she said stubbornly

“I can’t do anything He’s not answering his cell phone, and if I or any of my men show up at the docks, they’ll think we’re a part of this mess”

“Aren’t you?”

“Don’t be disrespectful! I know better than to get involved in a half-assed scheme that crumbles so easily Why else do you think I’ve prospered for so long?”

“Because you pay off the police?” she suggested brightly

The silence at the other end told her she’d gone too far, but there was nothing left of her relationship with her father to sa