“Would I get any of Casey’s money if she died?”

Ashley watched Jerry carefully as she asked the question. He hesitated. She thought he looked uncomfortable.

“Am I an heir, Jerry?”

“You’re her only surviving issue and Coleman isn’t your father. Under the statutes, you’d be entitled to one half of her estate.”

Ashley stared at Jerry. “That’s twenty million dollars.”

“Somewhere in there.”

“And Coleman gets it all if I’m dead?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God.” Ashley stood up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” he answered nervously. “I guess the point was to keep Casey alive-that’s why Henry hired me-so I didn’t think about telling you what would happen if she died.”

“You shouldn’t have kept this from me. It changes everything. Everyone will think I’m after her money. That’s what the newspaper said, that I was battling for the forty million dollars.”

“You’re battling to keep your mother alive.”

“It’s too much responsibility. I can’t do this.”

Jerry walked around the table until they were standing inches apart. He put his hands on her shoulders.

“You have to, Ashley. Miles and Coleman will do everything in their power to take Casey off life support.”

Suddenly, Ashley was angry. “What makes you think I don’t want her dead, now that I know how much I’ll inherit? Is that why you didn’t tell me about the money?”

Jerry looked directly into Ashley’s eyes while he answered.

“I believe that you are a good, moral person. If I thought that you would let Casey Van Meter die so you could inherit her money I wouldn’t have agreed to find you.”

Ashley looked down. She was embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’ve always been so good to me.”

“You’ve been through hell. You deserve to be treated with respect.”

Ashley looked at Jerry and he held her gaze. He was so decent. He’d been a rock for her. Before Jerry could say anything, she kissed him. He tensed. Then he tried to say something.

“No,” she said and she kissed him again, holding him tight, like a survivor clinging to a life raft. Jerry took her in his arms and held her just as tight.

“This isn’t right,” he said, though everything he’d just done contradicted his words. “I’m your attorney. You’re vulnerable.”

“I’m twenty-two, Jerry. I’m a virgin.” The admission embarrassed Philips but Ashley’s voice was strong. “I’ve been so afraid all these years that I haven’t let myself get close to anyone. Now I want to start being human again.”

“I’m the wrong person, Ashley. You’ve come to depend on me. That’s not love.”

“Are you telling me that you don’t want me?”

He looked down and swallowed. “It doesn’t matter how I feel. I’m your attorney.”

“The way you feel matters to me. You tell me you don’t care about me and we’ll stop now.”

“I do care for you. You’re strong and smart, you’re a good person, and you’re beautiful. But that doesn’t matter. There are ethics rules that prohibit a lawyer from…from taking advantage of…”

“You’re not taking advantage of me, and if the ethics rules are worrying you, I have a simple solution. You’re fired.”

Jerry looked at her wide-eyed. “What?”

“You heard me.”

Jerry laughed and shook his head. “You’re something.”

“What’s it going to be?”

“I’ve been fired before, but never because my client wanted to sleep with me.”

“I don’t want you to sleep with me. I want you to make love to me.”

Jerry was gentle and tender, but it was still painful when he entered her the first time. The second time she was tense, because she expected more pain, and she was relieved when all she felt was pleasure. The third time was wonderful. After they climaxed, they held each other for a while. Then Jerry kissed her forehead and lay beside her, breathing deeply.

Ashley was slick with sweat and exhausted, but she felt completely at peace. Jerry laced his fingers with hers. She turned her head and watched his chest rise and fall in the pale light that filtered through the bedroom blinds. It was smooth-not fat but not muscular, either. Not at all like the male model bodies in the fashion magazines. She decided that having muscles wasn’t all that important when you were making love.

Cool air touched her skin, reminding her that she was nude, lying next to a naked man. She wasn’t uncomfortable or embarrassed. She felt free, unburdened. She smiled. So this was what sex felt like. She wondered if it would be different with someone she didn’t love.

The word stopped her dead. Love was a big word, a very serious word. Did she really love Jerry or was she just a vulnerable girl who’d latched on to a man who had been nice to her? No, that wasn’t right. Jerry had been more than nice to her. He cared for her. She could tell when they kissed the first time. The kisses of Todd Franklin, her high school boyfriend, had been greedy and hungry. He said he loved her because he hoped that she would sleep with him. Ashley knew in her heart that Jerry would have been satisfied just to hold her, and that the sex was not as important as being together.

She was so happy, and she hadn’t been happy in a long time. Maybe Jerry was right. Maybe her nightmare was over. Maybe Joshua Maxfield would never bother her again.

Thinking about Joshua Maxfield brought unwanted memories of the attack in the parking lot. Ashley stopped smiling. Jerry must have sensed something because he turned toward her.

“Are you okay?”

She squeezed his hand. “I’m great, Jerry. Thank you.”

“My pleasure. And I mean that.”

“Was I okay?” Ashley asked, nervous that the sex had not been as good for him as it had been for her.

“You are definitely a hot piece of ass.”

“And you are a pig,” Ashley answered, slapping him playfully.

“A pig who has to pee real bad.”

Jerry pecked her on the cheek and got out of bed. She watched him walk to the bathroom. The door closed. Against her will, she started thinking about the attack in the parking lot. The only logical conclusion a rational person could draw was that Joshua Maxfield had tried to kill her, and Randy Coleman had saved her life, but something was still nagging at her.

Coleman was supposed to be a small-time crook who had married Casey Van Meter for her money. Would someone like that risk his life to save her from an attacker? But he must have. No other explanation made sense. If Coleman attacked her, then Maxfield had rescued her. Coleman had a twenty-million-dollar motive to kill her, but what possible motive could Joshua Maxfield have to save her?

An absurd thought occurred to Ashley. What if Maxfield wasn’t the man who killed her parents and tried to murder her in the dorm? What if Coleman was the killer? No, that made no sense. The attacks on her and the murders of her mother and father had to be linked, which meant that the killer had a motive to murder everyone in her family. Coleman didn’t know that she was Casey’s daughter and heir until the hearing, five years after her parents were murdered.

And there was the boathouse. There was no guesswork there. She had heard the screams. She had seen the bodies. It wasn’t Coleman standing in the dark holding that knife, it was Joshua Maxfield.

Jerry stepped out of the bathroom and walked over to the bed.

“I’m going to my apartment to shower and change. Then I am taking you to the restaurant of your choice to celebrate Joshua Maxfield’s arrest and the loss of your virginity. How does that sound?”

Ashley rolled on her side and touched his thigh. “Are you sure you want to leave?”

Jerry laughed. “God, you’re a pervert. Is sex all you think about?”

Ashley was about to answer when the phone rang. She was going to ignore it until she remembered that very few people had her number. One of them was Larry Birch and she worried that he was calling to tell her that Maxfield had escaped. She rolled to the other side of the bed and picked up the receiver.