It's here! The sequel is here!

Unbeta'ed, as always.

Chapter One: Irrefutable Evidence

- o – o -

Dana Faraday hated working in the public defender's office some days. The caseload on her desk never seemed to get shorter, no matter how many she reviewed in a day. The defender had the feeling that she could work on the pile on her desk for a straight month and never get any further than she already had.

The woman groaned and flipped her pen onto the desktop. It was the end of another excruciatingly long day, and she hadn't made a reasonable dent in her caseload. If every other office on the defender's level of the courthouse wasn't buried under the same mountain of paperwork, she would have guessed that Travis was being deliberately cruel.

Dana paused for a moment at the thought of deliberate cruelty. Three weeks ago, she'd met one of Palm City's most notorious (and, according to rumor, psychotic) gangsters. Instead of Dominic Raoul being the delusional mass murderer that most people thought he was, Dana had found him to be a somewhat charming individual. Even if he was a little rough around the edges, she had to admit to herself.

It was true to the form that her life had entered into though—nothing ever seemed to work out like it should have.

Scales had proved to be much calmer than the stories described. He'd taught Trip to play pool, and he'd danced with her. The smuggler had even defended her to that creepy little man from the carnival, when he could have just abandoned her to her own devices.

Dana snorted, realizing just how surreal that evening had been. If Trip hadn't commented on it later that week, she would have brushed the entire evening off as a dream.

She sighed, pushing the call button for the elevator. She had enough trouble with a workload the size of Mount Everest without thinking about a known criminal in favorable terms.

When Dana finally arrived at the parking garage (the elevator was slower than the stairs some days), there was a car idling in the lot just past the elevators. Dana wouldn't have given it a second glance, but for the two men who grabbed her as soon as she stepped out of the elevator.

Dana was about to reach for the can of mace in her purse when the larger man on the left spoke. "Mrs. Faraday?" She nodded warily. He grinned at her. "Sorry about the inconvenience."

Dana gave a mental sigh. Even the criminals were getting surreal these days.

"Our boss wants a word with you," he added, opening the back door of the idling car. "If you would…"

Dana's first instinct was to jab her heel into the man's foot as hard as she could and then make a break for it. That instinct was overruled when she saw the guns that both men were toting. The public defender gave it up as a lost cause and slid in.

Sitting in the back seat was a man she recognized rather well. It was hard not to—there were very few men in Palm City, much less the United States who were a combination of large, imposing, and covered in scales.

Dominic Raoul, better known as Scales to Palm City, was seated in the back of the car. He had a smug look on his face, and it had only gotten more defined as the public defender slid into the seat beside him.

He ignored her as the front door opened and the two men who'd grabbed her got in. "Kazzie, drive around until you're sure we're not bein' followed. I don't want ARK cozzers on our tail."

After twenty minutes, the smuggler appeared to relax a fraction. He opened the folder that had been resting on his lap and pulled a few of the pictures off the pile. "Recognize this berk?" Scales asked, holding one of the photos up.

It was a grainy picture that looked as if it'd been pulled off a security camera. There was no denying who it was, though.

Dana held the picture gingerly, and began blinking back tears. There, staring up at her, was Chess. According to the date stamp in the lower right corner, this had been taken three weeks after the explosion that killed her husband.

The next picture was much clearer. Chess was staring up at the camera, a look of contempt on his face. The date stamp listed it as being a month after her husband's death. Dana was almost afraid to look at the next one (Chess supervising the loading of some cargo), or the one after that (Chess casually shooting a man; taken over a month ago).

After she'd looked at all the pictures in the file, Dana looked up. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered, voice thick with emotion and unshed tears. "Haven't my son and I suffered enough?"

Scales frowned, appearing to contemplate what Dana had said. Finally, he sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose wearily. "By tomorrow morning, every media outlet in the country is goin' ta know about Chess being alive and out. All it takes is one little word and I send the evidence."

He looked up at Dana, a smile on his face. "Consider this a repayment of services rendered, ducky."

It took a moment for what he'd said to click in Dana's mind. Services rendered…? What—three weeks ago, she'd danced with him. Was that why he was doing this? Because she'd danced with him?

(Even taking how odd the man reportedly was into account that theory was a bit of a stretch.)

Scales leaned back against the seat, eyes closed. He appeared to be rather comfortable with just waiting for a response from Dana. And, Dana thought, he probably already knew what she was going to say.

Dana bit her lip, trying to consider all the consequences of her actions. She could say no, and be left with the evidence that Chess was still alive and her husband had been framed. Her son would never know that his father was innocent.

If she said yes, the evidence would go to the press. Her life, the life that she'd rebuilt for Trip, would be torn apart by a media circus; Trip would be subjected to unwanted scrutiny. They'd both know that Vince had been murdered because Fleming believed he was Chess.

And who was the real Chess? Dana bowed her head, eyes closed. After a few minutes quiet contemplation of the consequences of her answer, Dana looked up.

"Yes."

Scales smirked.

- o - o -

So, the first chapter of the sequel is out...finally. Did you like it? Hate it? Apathetic? Drop a line and let me know.