“Counselor?” the judge asked her.

She stood. “I have no further witnesses, your honor.”

The judge issued his ruling. “In light of the testimony I’ve heard today, along with the detailed FBI affidavit the government submitted with its complaint, I find there is probable cause to bind this matter over for trial. Trial is set for December fifteenth at ten A.M.”

They wrapped up the few remaining housekeeping items, then everyone rose as the judge exited the courtroom. The defense attorney whispered something to the defendant before making his way over to Cameron’s table.

“We’d like to talk about a plea bargain,” the attorney said.

Cameron was not surprised, but also not interested. “Sorry, Dan. It’s not going to happen.”

“There were several other Cook County Sheriff’s officers doing the exact same thing. My client can give you names.”

“I’ve already got names from Alvarez,” she said, referring to another man the FBI had arrested, a civilian, who had provided additional backup “security” for several of the fake drug deals.

“But Alvarez wasn’t at the meeting on June fourth,” Dan argued.

Cameron packed up her briefcase. “If I cared that much about the meeting on June fourth, I would’ve come to you with the deal instead of Alvarez’s lawyers.”

Dan lowered his voice. “Come on, Cameron—give me something I can tell my client. Anything.”

“Okay. Tell him I don’t make deals with dirty cops.”

Dan called her a bitch and walked off, taking his client with him.

Cameron shrugged and watched him leave.

Ah . . . it was great being back in court.


WHEN SHE GOT back to her office later that afternoon, Cameron spent a couple hours returning phone calls and kidding herself that she’d somehow squeeze in the time to work on an appellate brief she had due the following week. At six thirty, she gave in and wrapped things up. Never enough hours in the day, particularly not this one.

After clearing it with Officers Phelps and Kamin, she was set that night for her date with Max-the-investment-banker-I-met-on-the-Bloomingdale’s-escalator. They’d seemed to get a kick out of the story—a few weeks ago she’d been doing some shoe shopping on her lunch break and was on her way back to the office, on the down escalator, when her phone vibrated, indicating she had a new message. She saw it was a notification from the court on a ruling she’d been waiting for, so she’d gotten off at the landing to read the decision. When she’d finished, she forgot where she was and stepped right into the path of a man getting off the escalator. They’d collided, and her purse and shopping bag went flying.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry,” Cameron said as she stumbled, then righted herself. “I wasn’t looking.”

She caught sight of the tall drink of water standing before her. Not just tall, but also blond, bronzed, and gorgeous. She was looking now, all right.

She smiled demurely. “Oh. Hello.”

He spoke. “I think you dropped some things.”

He bent down to scoop up her purse and shopping bag and Cameron practically felt the breeze coming off her eyelashes as they fluttered. Such a gentleman. And he looked great in his navy suit—an expensive one, judging from the cut.

The shoe box had spilled open and one of her new four-inch silver strappy Miu Miu heels peeked out.

“Nice shoes,” the bronzed god said approvingly, handing over the bag and her purse. He raised an eyebrow. “For a special occasion?”

“My best friend’s wedding,” Cameron said. “I’m the maid of honor. She said we could wear any silver shoes we want, but now I’m not so sure. I hope she approves.”

The bronzed god grinned. “Well, I don’t know about the bride, but I think your date will definitely approve of them.”

“My date, right . . . I’m still working on that part,” Cameron said.

The bronzed god stuck out his hand. “In that case, my name’s Max.”

Five minutes later, he walked away with her cell phone number.

“And what would his name have been if you’d already had a date to the wedding?” Collin teased when she called him later that evening.

She hung up and called Amy.

“Four-inch heels? Are you sure you’re going to be able to walk down the aisle in those?” she wanted to know.

“You guys are missing the point of this story,” Cameron told her.

“Are you bringing him to the wedding?”

“You know, in the all of six minutes we spoke, I somehow forgot to ask.”

“Right, of course.” There was a pause on Amy’s end of the line. “But hypothetically speaking, in case you do bring him to the wedding, do you think he looked like a steak or a salmon kind of guy? Because I’m kind of supposed to give the caterer a count by Friday.”

As if Cameron already hadn’t been feeling enough pressure to find a date, now her single-hood threatened to throw the finely tuned inner workings of The Most Perfect Wedding Ever into utter chaos.

“Can I get back to you on that, Ame?” she’d asked.

But nearly three weeks later, she still hadn’t given Amy an answer. And not just on the steak vs. salmon issue. Despite the fact that they’d been on a few dates, she hadn’t even made a decision on whether she wanted to ask Max to go with her to the wedding. If it had been in Chicago it would be a no-brainer. But she was on the fence about whether she wanted to spend the entire weekend with him in Michigan, sharing a hotel room. Sure, he would look oh-so-fine on her arm at the wedding—a factor not to be entirely discounted—but personality-wise, he was turning out to be not what she had expected from their initial meeting.

At first she’d thought Max had gotten her phone number so quickly because he was confident. Now she realized he moved that fast because he had to. The man was a workaholic—he ate, slept, and breathed his job. Cameron understood being committed to one’s career—she’d put herself in that same category—but in the three weeks they’d been seeing each other, Max had already needed to reschedule two of their dates. He’d apologized, but still, it was a warning sign.

So tonight she would decide. She was a single woman in her thirties, she didn’t have time to play around with these things. Max was either in or out.

Calling it a day, Cameron powered down her computer and packed up her briefcase. She had just gathered her coat and was on her way out when her phone rang. She saw it was Silas calling and momentarily thought about not answering. But seeing how he had the corner office down the hall, he undoubtedly knew she was in.

Cameron grabbed the phone. “Hi, Silas—another minute and you would’ve missed me. I was just heading out.”

“Great. Stop by on your way.” He hung up.

Cameron looked at the receiver. She and Silas always did have the nicest chats.

Some of that could be her fault, she supposed. She’d never gotten past the fact that Silas sold her out on the Martino case. And from what she’d seen with the other assistant U.S. attorneys, that wasn’t the first time he’d pulled a stunt like that, or the last. Over the last three years, she’d watched several times as Silas let his assistant prosecutors take the heat for any criticism directed at their office but stole the limelight from them whenever there was a significant victory.

Many of the other AUSAs accepted this as part of office politics, and to some extent, Cameron understood why. Several of her coworkers, like her, had been associates at large law firms prior to coming to the U.S. attorney’s office and understood that this was simply how things often worked: the lawyers at the top of the food chain got all the glory, while the grunts at the bottom did all the work, waiting for the day when they would rise to the top and inevitably do the very same thing to the grunts working for them. The lawyer circle of life.

Additionally, there wasn’t much they could do about Silas, anyway. Aligning himself with powerful people was the thing Silas did best (since he certainly didn’t try cases anymore); it was how he’d risen to his position in the first place. And because U.S. attorneys were appointed by the president himself, barring some unforeseen circumstance, Cameron and everyone else in the Northern District of Illinois was stuck with Silas at a minimum until the next election.

That wasn’t to say that Cameron simply took all his crap—far from it. A lot had changed in their relationship over the last three years. She wasn’t a junior prosecutor anymore; in fact, she had the highest caseload in her office and managed nearly seventy-five cases at any given time, some charged, some in the investigation stage. She also had the best trial record among the nearly 130 prosecutors in the criminal division of the Northern District of Illinois—a fact that made her pretty darn indispensable and gave her a lot more leverage. Because of that, a sort of unspoken agreement existed between her and Silas: as long as her courtroom victories continued to reflect well upon and bring praise to his office, he basically stayed out of her way. In this, they’d developed at least a tolerable work relationship.

But it was a tricky relationship, no doubt. Silas demanded loyalty—or at least the appearance of it—from his assistant U.S. attorneys, and Cameron continually felt as though she had to keep her guard up around him. Although she’d taken the fall for the Martino case, Silas knew she hadn’t liked it and had watched her closely ever since.

Which was why she could never let him find out how she’d stepped in to help Jack three years ago.

Silas had raised holy hell with the Department of Justice, demanding that Jack be fired for inappropriate conduct because of his comments. Cameron suspected this had less to do with Silas being offended on her behalf, and more to do with keeping everyone’s focus on something other than the real issue: his decision to not file charges against Roberto Martino.