Leading the Witness Read online

  Catherine Landauer spends her days grilling prosecution witnesses in zealous defense of the accused criminals she represents, but no one knows she was once the victim of a headline-grabbing crime. When the man who kidnapped her resurfaces, Catherine goes from attorney to witness, reluctant to trust anyone, especially the alluring prosecutor assigned to the case.

  Veteran prosecutor Starr Rio has a reputation of doing whatever it takes to win, even if she has to skirt the edge of the law in the pursuit of justice. Now she’s working the case of a lifetime, saddled with an uncooperative witness who is sexy as hell and who thinks she knows more about criminal law than the entire task force assigned to the case. But when Starr and Catherine give in to desire, their hearts, careers, and even their lives are on the line.

  What Reviewers Say About Carsen Taite’s Work

  Practice Makes Perfect

  “This book has two fantastic leads, an attention-grabbing plot and that sizzling chemistry that great authors can make jump off the page. While all of Taite’s books are fantastic, this one is on that next level. This is a damn good book and I cannot wait to see what is next in this series.”—The Romantic Reader

  Pursuit of Happiness

  “I like Taite’s style of writing. She is consistent in terms of quality and always writes strong female characters that are as intelligent as they are beautiful.”—Lesbian Reading Room

  Love’s Verdict

  “Carsen Taite excels at writing legal thrillers with lesbian main characters using her experience as a criminal defense attorney.”—Lez Review Books

  Outside the Law

  “[A] fabulous closing to the Lone Star Law Series. …Tanner and Sydney’s journey back to each other is sweet, sexy and sure to keep you entertained.”—The Romantic Reader Blog

  A More Perfect Union

  “[A More Perfect Union] is a fabulously written tightly woven political/military intrigue with a large helping of romance. I enjoyed every minute and was on the edge of my seat the whole time. This one is a great read! Carsen Taite never disappoints!”—The Romantic Reader Blog

  “Readers looking for a mix of intrigue and romance set against a political backdrop will want to pick up Taite’s latest novel.”—Romantic Times Book Review

  Sidebar

  “Sidebar is a sexy, fun, interesting book that’s sure to delight, whether you’re a longtime fan or this is your first time reading something by Carsen Taite. I definitely recommend it!”—The Lesbian Review

  Letter of the Law

  “Fiery clashes and lots of chemistry, you betcha!”—The Romantic Reader Blog

  Without Justice

  “Another pretty awesome lesbian mystery thriller by Carsen Taite.”—Danielle Kimerer, Librarian, Nevins Memorial Library (MA)

  “All in all a fantastic novel…Unequivocally 5 Stars…”—Les Reveur

  Above the Law

  “…readers who enjoyed the first installment will find this a worthy second act.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Ms Taite delivered and then some, all the while adding more questions, Tease!! I like the mystery and intrigue in this story. It has many ‘sit on the edge of your seat’ scenes of excitement and dread (like watch out kind of thing) and drama…well done indeed!”—Prism Book Alliance

  Reasonable Doubt

  “Another Carsen Taite novel that kept me on the edge of my seat. …[A]n interesting plot with lots of mystery and a bit of thriller as well. The characters were great.”—Danielle Kimerer, Librarian, Reading Public Library

  “Sarah and Ellery are very likeable. Sarah’s conflict between job and happiness is well portrayed. I felt so sorry for Ellery’s total upheaval of her life. …I loved the chase to find the truth while they tried to keep their growing feelings for each other at bay. When they couldn’t, the tale was even better.”—Prism Book Alliance

  Lay Down the Law

  “Recognized for the pithy realism of her characters and settings drawn from a Texas legal milieu, Taite pays homage to the prime-time soap opera Dallas in pairing a cartel-busting U.S. attorney, Peyton Davis, with a charity-minded oil heiress, Lily Gantry.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Suspenseful, intriguingly tense, and with a great developing love story, this book is delightfully solid on all fronts.”—Rainbow Book Reviews

  Courtship

  “Taite (Switchblade) keeps the stakes high as two beautiful and brilliant women fueled by professional ambitions face daunting emotional choices. …As backroom politics, secrets, betrayals, and threats race to be resolved without political damage to the president, the cat-and-mouse relationship game between Addison and Julia has the reader rooting for them. Taite prolongs the fever-pitch tension to the final pages. This pleasant read with intelligent heroines, snappy dialogue, and political suspense will satisfy Taite’s devoted fans and new readers alike.”—Publishers Weekly

  “Carsen Taite throws the reader head on into the murky world of the political system where there are no rights or wrongs, just players attempting to broker the best deals regardless of who gets hurt in the process. The book is extremely well written and makes compelling reading. With twist and turns throughout, the reader doesn’t know how the story will end.”—Lesbian Reading Room

  Switchblade

  “Dallas’s intrepid female bounty hunter, Luca Bennett, is back in another adventure. Fantastic! Between her many friends and lovers, her interesting family, her fly by the seat of her pants lifestyle, and a whole host of detractors there is rarely a dull moment.”—Rainbow Book Reviews

  Beyond Innocence

  “Taite keeps you guessing with delicious delay until the very last minute…Taite’s time in the courtroom lends Beyond Innocence, a terrific verisimilitude someone not in the profession couldn’t impart. And damned if she doesn’t make practicing law interesting.”—Out in Print

  The Best Defense

  “Real Life defense attorney Carsen Taite polishes her fifth work of lesbian fiction, The Best Defense, with the realism she daily encounters in the office and in the courts. And that polish is something that makes The Best Defense shine as an excellent read.”—Out & About Newspaper

  Nothing but the Truth

  Author Taite is really a Dallas defense attorney herself, and it’s obvious her viewpoint adds considerable realism to her story, making it especially riveting as a mystery. I give it four stars out of five.”—Bob Lind, Echo Magazine

  Do Not Disturb

  “Taite’s tale of sexual tension is entertaining in itself, but a number of secondary characters…add substantial color to romantic inevitability”—Richard Labonte, Book Marks

  It Should be a Crime—Lammy Finalist

  “Taite, a criminal defense attorney herself, has given her readers a behind the scenes look at what goes on during the days before a trial. Her descriptions of lawyer/client talks, investigations, police procedures, etc. are fascinating. Taite keeps the action moving, her characters clear, and never allows her story to get bogged down in paperwork. It Should Be a Crime has a fast-moving plot and some extraordinarily hot sex.”—Just About Write

  Leading the Witness

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Leading the Witness

  © 2019 By Carsen Taite. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-540-0

  This Electronic Original Is Published By

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185
r />   First Edition: October 2019

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Jeanine Henning

  By the Author

  Truelesbianlove.com

  It Should be a Crime

  Do Not Disturb

  Nothing but the Truth

  The Best Defense

  Beyond Innocence

  Rush

  Courtship

  Reasonable Doubt

  Without Justice

  Sidebar

  A More Perfect Union

  Love’s Verdict

  Pursuit of Happiness

  Leading the Witness

  The Luca Bennett Mystery Series:

  Slingshot

  Battle Axe

  Switchblade

  Bow and Arrow (novella in Girls with Guns)

  Lone Star Law Series:

  Lay Down the Law

  Above the Law

  Letter of the Law

  Outside the Law

  Legal Affairs Romances:

  Practice Makes Perfect

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks always to Rad and Sandy for making this publishing house a home. To my intrepid editor Cindy Cresap—thanks for all the work you do behind the scenes to make my work shine.

  Georgia, thanks for our daily word count check-ins and for always offering an encouraging word when I’m struggling with the process.

  Ruth and Paula, thanks for being my literary lawyer pals, always available to strategize. And, Paula, special thanks to you for reading drafts of this story right up until the moment I turned it in. You’re a top-notch pal and I treasure our friendship.

  Thanks to my wife, Lainey, for always believing in my dreams even when they involve sacrificing our time together. That you are always available to brainstorm book ideas and plot points is a total bonus. I couldn’t do this without you and I wouldn’t want to.

  And to my loyal readership, thank you, thank you, thank you. Every time you purchase one of my stories, you give me the gift of allowing me to make a living doing what I love. Thanks for taking this journey with me.

  Dedication

  To Lainey. I’ll follow where you lead.

  Chapter One

  The moment Detective Reese shifted in his seat, Catherine knew she’d won. The move was subtle, and she doubted the jury in their post-lunch haze even noticed it, but she saw it for what it was, and knew exactly how to expose his discomfort at having to lie to prove up the case against her client.

  Catherine stood for effect but remained at the defense counsel table and made a show of picking up a heavy file and flipping through pages. “Please pick up the binder next to you,” she instructed him, keeping her voice polite and even, “and turn to State’s exhibit D7.”

  While he flipped the pages, she risked a quick glance at the prosecution table. Starr Rio, chief prosecutor for the felony courts in Travis County, was the lead attorney for the state. Her usual role was supervising the felony trial prosecutors under her command, but she had a habit of keeping the headline-grabbing cases. Rumor had it Starr was planning to announce a run for district attorney in the upcoming election, and every win she racked up between now and the start of her campaign was money in the bank. Money that Catherine intended to rob from her.

  “I found it.”

  At the sound of the witness’s voice, Starr looked up from her notepad and locked eyes with Catherine, who did her best to hide her own discomfort at the scrutiny. She took her time turning back to the witness, unwilling to let Starr see her unease. “Detective, please describe to the jury what you see in this photograph.”

  He narrowed his eyes, likely surprised at the open-ended question and assuming it was a trap. It was, but not the kind he could escape while he was seated in full view of the jury. She looked back down at the file in her hand while he fumbled to answer.

  “This is a photo of the crime scene.”

  She waited, allowing her silence to push him to say more.

  “It’s the living room of Angela Knoll’s house, taken from the entry to the kitchen.” He held it up and pointed to the left of the photo. “You can see here,” he pointed, “the coffee table is turned over and several items are scattered around the room which led us to believe there had been a physical altercation.”

  “Tell us what else you see, Detective. I’d like you to cover everything you think is important to your case.”

  With that lead, Reese launched into a long explanation of the angles of Angela Knoll’s dead body, the knife wounds, the defensive wounds, and a half dozen other clues he deemed important to the conclusions he’d drawn about how her client’s ex-wife had died. She let him drone on, certain the jury was being lulled deeper and deeper into their already comatose state, and she flipped through the pages in her file to signal she was barely listening.

  Reese was still talking when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She glanced to her left, almost surprised to find her client, Peter Knoll, sitting beside her, wearing an anxious expression. He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head and pointed at the legal pad in front of him. She’d been meticulous in her instructions prior to the start of trial. No talking in the presence of the jury. If he had something important to say he was supposed to write her a note on the pad and pass it to her. She would be the final arbiter about what to do with the information. She watched him pick up a pen and furiously scribble on the pad. She turned her attention back to her file, but the scratching of the pen against the paper was an unwelcome distraction, and she willed him to finish quickly.

  Ask him about the rope. It wasn’t in the room. NOT MINE!

  The last two words were underlined with bold, deep strokes of emphasis. Tiresome. Clients who chose to go to trial almost always professed their innocence with fervor. She didn’t really blame them. Either they were full of the indignation that came with actually being innocent, or projecting the appearance of innocence was their only refuge against the court of public opinion. She really didn’t care either way as long as they could pay her exorbitant fee. Cases like this, where she suspected law enforcement had made missteps in investigating their case, were a bonus for her.

  Knoll jabbed the pen against the paper again, and she deftly snatched it from his hand and wrote two words underneath his. My rules. She didn’t capitalize the words, underline them, or over-punctuate, but she did give him a withering look, her head carefully turned away from the jury box. Satisfied he was under control, she returned her attention back to the witness.

  “Thank you, Detective. It sounds as if your investigation was extremely thorough. Certainly, you and your colleagues combed every inch of the crime scene as well as my client’s apartment as part of your work.”

  Detective Reese shifted in his seat again, while he tried to decide if the compliment was a trap. “We do our best.”

  She reached into the file box under the table and pulled out an oversized envelope. “Permission to approach the witness, Your Honor,” she said, not waiting for the judge to respond before she was in motion. By the time the judge agreed, she was standing next to the detective, dangling the envelope like a tempting treat. She could see Starr inch to the edge of her seat, waiting to pounce. She knew she should’ve shared what was in the envelope with her before showing it to her witness, but then she’d lose the effect of the reveal. Besides, she was certain there was plenty about this case that Starr had not shared with her and this was her way of drawing that to the attention of everyone in the room. She tore off the top of the envelope instead of merely unfastening the clasp, and slowly withdrew a thick cord of rope,
letting it dangle from her hand, the end moving back and forth in front of Detective Reese’s face like a pendulum of portent. She barely resisted smiling as the blood drained from his face.

  “Do you recognize this?” she asked.

  He cast a furtive glance at Starr, but Catherine knew Starr would know better than to coach him now. She let a few beats of silence pass before she eased the pressure. “Let me help you out. This is a piece of rope that I brought with me to court today. There’s no reason you should know this particular piece of rope, but I do believe that it’s extremely similar to another piece of rope that you claim to have come across in the course of your investigation. Isn’t. That. Right?” she asked in slow staccato.

  She turned and walked back to counsel table as she asked the question so that her back was to him as he muttered his response. She waited until she’d returned to her seat and was once again facing the front of the courtroom before speaking. “I’m not sure the jury heard you. Would you repeat what you just said or should I have the court reporter read it back?”