Thank you for all the reviews!

This may be the last chapter for a while due to me starting a new full time job tomorrow but I will try and update as soon as I can!

Four days later

"You're dreaming if you think I'm going to plead this out at murder two, Stone. You get your feet back in the door and you want to jump up and down and stamp your authority by bringing me this? That's not a plea offer, it's an insult."

I couldn't help but smile thinking how little had really changed in the two and a half years I had been away from the DA's office. Certainly not the defence attorneys and, in particular, not Shambala Green. I had groaned inwardly when Vanessa had returned from the arraignment and advised me as to who Francesca Minetti had retained as her counsel. Although I had a lot of respect for the other woman and for the fact that she was one of Evelyn's friends, dealing with her professionally always gave me a headache. Not to mention this was the first time we had come up against each other since the farcical trial of Isaac Roberts, something that still rankled when I allowed myself to think about it.

Francesca Minetti was a twenty-one year old college student who had, allegedly, innocently returned home one afternoon to find her parents shot dead and wrapped in garbage bags with their hands and feet removed. Through the course of the police investigation, it had become clear that she wasn't as distraught at this discovery as she would have had everyone believe and the evidence, circumstantial as it appeared to be, pointed towards a carefully planned and executed double murder committed by Ms Minetti and her boyfriend, wealthy airline heir Mason Holbrook.

"She planned the murder. She bought the tools required to mutilate the bodies..."

"Come on counsellor, she was coerced by Mr Holbrook into making those purchases and you know it."

"Was she also coerced into shooting her parents six times?" I looked at her. "Her prints were on the gun."

"Circumstantial," Shambala replied. "The gun belonged to her father and she could have had ample other opportunities to handle it. Face it, you're twisting in the wind with this one."

"No, actually, I think we're swinging head on," Vanessa interjected with a pleasant smile that I had come to recognise over the last few weeks was the one she plastered on her face when she really wanted to scream with frustration. "And I don't think for one minute that Mr Holbrook is going to take the fall for this all by himself. His attorney has already called requesting a sit down."

Shambala's gaze flitted between us both and I could see the cogs grinding inside her head. Whatever I thought about her, she wasn't a fool. "Manslaughter two."

"Murder two," I repeated.

"This is ridiculous," she folded her arms across her chest. "Mr Holbrook comes from a privileged background which, I might add, allowed him to make bail and you want to pin this entire case on my client?"

"If she gives us Mr Holbrook then we might consider manslaughter one," Vanessa said before I could reply.

"Consider it all you want, you're not getting it." Shambala lifted her coat from the table. "Thanks for the chat. There's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back." Without so much as a backward glance, she swept out of my office, letting the door slam shut behind her.

"She's nothing if not dramatic," Vanessa commented, crossing her legs and leaning back in her chair. "Not to mention deluded."

"She certainly comes out to bat for her clients," I replied, looking again at the papers in front of me. "I suppose we can't blame her for that."

"Oh please!"

"What?"

"Come on Ben, you can be honest with me. You've crossed swords with her on more than one occasion, not to mention she ran that ridiculous defence in the Roberts case. She's more interested in creating headlines than the right and wrongs of the criminal justice system. I'm not convinced that she should be lauded as the angel she purports to be."

I looked at her over my glasses, somewhat surprised by the sharpness of her attack. Vanessa Hart was a woman that I truly didn't believe I had the full measure of. When I had interviewed her almost three years earlier I had been harsh with her, still bruised at the time by Evelyn's decision to leave me, but had had to admit that she was the best candidate for the assistant's job. Events, of course, had then taken a different turn, but through my occasional conversations with Adam, I had learned that she had been assigned to Frank Lake and was considered a good, solid worker and a fine attorney. Now that Frank had moved to the US Attorneys' office, it had seemed natural for her to become my assistant, but I couldn't help but find her hard to read.

Of my recent assistants, Paul had been the most straightforward to work with. His views had, more or less, aligned with my own and on the few occasions when we had disagreed, each of us had been able to see the other's point of view. Claire had been inexperienced enough to essentially follow where I led her and Evelyn, of course, had been in a category all of her own. As for Vanessa, I couldn't help but feel as though she had her own agenda and I wasn't convinced it included remaining my assistant for very long.

"I'm not sure that's entirely fair," I said, after a moment's consideration.

"Ok," she held up her hands. "I suppose you know her better than I do. Frank only had to deal with her a couple of times when I worked with him. I'll give her benefit of the doubt if you insist."

"She has a point about the prints," I remarked, keen to bring the conversation back around to the case before us rather than any personal feelings I might have about Shambala. "She could have handled the gun at any point, not just the night of the shooting."

"Well, we're still waiting on her bank records so maybe they'll throw something up." Vanessa got to her feet and stretched slightly. "You know, my shoulder is still killing me. I swear to God those painkillers the doctor prescribed me are doing absolutely jack shit. My kids are going to be the death of me. Speaking of which...how is Pamela's enforced house arrest going?"

I sighed and shook my head, "Well she's purposefully not talking to me but at least she's coming straight home after school, or so my neighbour tells me. Though I suppose she could be bribing her." It seemed ridiculous, but the only apparent way of ensuring that Pamela stuck to the punishment she had been given had been to involve Mrs Watson at number 12. Every afternoon at four-thirty if we weren't home she would knock on our door and Pamela had to answer.

"That is so humiliating!" she had wailed when I had revealed the plan to her. "I'm sixteen not six!"

"I wish to God you were six," I had replied. "Then this would never have happened!" Stony silence had then ensued and persisted to the present day.

"Well I guess there's only so much that you can do," Vanessa nodded. "Although..."

"Although what?"

"Well, if she's determined to sleep with him then there's other places they could do it."

I shuddered slightly at her words, knowing that what she was suggesting was correct, but preferring not to think about it. I had made a point of calling the school every day this week to ensure that Pamela had been there for all of her classes, but I wasn't naive enough to think that I could enforce a blanket ban on her behaviour. "I know," I nodded. "But at least it's not happening under my roof."

"Yeah..." Vanessa turned for the door and then paused. "But at least if it was happening under your roof then you wouldn't need to worry about it happening anywhere else."

"I don't want it happening at all!"

"I get that Ben, but she is sixteen and..."

"Vanessa..." I held up my hand. "I have a wife at home to debate this with so I really don't need you weighing in on it too."

"Sorry," she smiled ruefully. "Just nosey by nature I guess. I'll go and call Trevor Langan see if he's serious about a sit down with Holbrook."

When the door closed behind her, I took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes, feeling the exhaustion that a night of broken sleep had led to starting to creep up on me. Kate was teething and she had woken multiple times during the night, her cheeks red, her little hands stuffed into her mouth in a seemingly desperate attempt to discover what was making her feel the way she was feeling. Evelyn had sat up with her most of the time but given that we both worked, I felt as though I couldn't take the moral high ground of needing the most sleep and had willingly taken my turn. But I had to admit that dealing with a baby through the night took a far greater toll now than it had done nearly twenty years ago. Plus, the situation with Pamela was affecting me more than I cared to admit. I could deal with her not talking to me, it was more the fact that my innocent little girl now seemed lost forever, no matter how ridiculous a thought it seemed. Evelyn shared Vanessa's viewpoint that at least if things happened under our roof then they hopefully wouldn't happen elsewhere and she had suggested that we invite Andrew over for dinner one night. But the father, not to mention the prosecutor, in me couldn't see past the legal rights and wrongs and the discussion had simply descended into an argument.

The phone on my desk rang suddenly, jolting me back into the present moment, and I lifted it to hear the pleasant tones of Adam's secretary asking if I could go to his office. He had been on vacation and so, this was the first chance we had had to catch up since the holidays. When he asked me how the family were, I found myself telling him about Pamela and, to my surprise, he laughed.

"I can imagine the look on your face," he shook his head. "Can't deny that she's an adult now."

"Yes I can," I insisted. "She's sixteen, Adam and the boyfriend's nineteen. I should have called the local precinct and had him charged."

"To what end? You'd ruin your relationship with Pamela, perhaps forever. Not to mention the fact that I doubt anyone in this office, besides you, would have been interested in prosecuting."

"So I should just let him get away with it?" I replied, feeling irritated that I appeared to be on my own with my views here and at home.

"He's nineteen, not twenty nine. Then you might have had a point. But this...?" he waved his hand. "Let it go. It'll not be the last battle you have to fight with her."

"Thanks for your support. It's a good thing you have a son and no daughters."

"Well ask yourself this...if it was Peter that had been caught in bed with a sixteen year old girl would you have been so quick to get the police involved?" I looked away, not wanting to answer. "Exactly. This is the nineteen nineties. The demand for sexual equality is on the rise."

"Alright fine," I replied churlishly. "I'll just let it go, invite the boy over, supply the condoms, leave them to get on with it and then pick up the pieces afterwards, would that make you happy?"

"It's not about making me happy. It's about trying to ensure that you don't end up living in a warzone for the next few years until she decides to leave home." He paused. "What did her mother say?"

"I haven't told her."

"Why not?"

I shook my head, "Because I can just imagine how the conversation would go. Somehow it would all end up being my fault."

"I thought you were on good terms?"

"For the most part we are and, quite frankly, I don't really want to rock the boat."

"I'm sure Pamela's relieved."

"Oh I don't know...I wouldn't put it past Laura to give her a pat on the back and welcome her to womanhood. Anyway...I'm guessing you didn't want to see me to talk about my wayward teenager."

"No I didn't." He got to his feet and wandered over to his desk. "What's happening with the Minetti case?"

"Oh, Shambala Green's doing her usual song and dance routine about the girl being coerced by the boyfriend. She wants manslaughter two and I want murder two," I shrugged. "It's the classic stalemate at the moment."

"I've had three messages this morning already from Carter Holbrook."

"The boy's father?"

Adam nodded. "He wants to know where you're intending to take the case."

"I'm intending on taking it to trial unless his son wants to agree a plea."

"That's what I told him. Needless to say, he didn't take the news well."

"What does he expect? There was enough evidence for an indictment and, once we finish all avenues of investigation, I'm pretty confident we'll have enough to convince a jury to send his son away for a long time."

"His wife, Meredith."

"What about her?"

"You know that she's very active in the community. She sits on the board of at least four major charities..."

"So?"

"So...one of them happens to be Women In Need."

I paused, "I see."

"A mother, worried about her son's future and who feels she has some influence over the prosecutor's wife..."

"What are you suggesting? That she's going to lobby Evelyn to try to talk me into dropping the charges? It's not going to happen, Adam. Two people are dead! I don't care who the Holbrooks think they are."

"I'm not suggesting that she's going to lobby her, I'm suggesting that she might try to make things difficult for her, professionally speaking."

"Evelyn knows the score," I replied hurriedly. "She's not stupid and she's certainly not a pushover. There's no way that she would allow anyone, let alone Meredith Holbrook, abuse her position like that, mother or no mother. She's as appalled by this case as I am."

"Alright, fine," Adam said. "Don't shoot the messenger. It might be prudent of you to warn Evelyn in advance though before Mrs Holbrook tries anything. She's doing a good job at that charity from what I've read and I'd hate to see her work, not to mention her reputation, affected by this case."

"I will. Thank you for the heads up."

As I made my way back along the corridor towards my office, I thought about what Adam had said. The Holbrooks were well known in the city, both for their wealth and their philanthropic work, and though their reputation was good, I had to agree with Adam's sentiment that faced with their son going to prison either, or both, could attempt to pressurise the office. I was determined that that wasn't going to happen. This was the first case I was scheduled to try since the death of Ann Madsen and I knew that there were many people keenly interested in how it was going to play out.

I would need to talk to Evelyn and make sure we were on the same page, not that I doubted for a minute that she wouldn't agree with me.

"Mr Stone!"

I groaned inwardly as Celia came hurrying down the corridor towards me. When I had returned to the office, she had gleefully approached me and declared that she had been reassigned to me. Whilst I had to accept that having someone who knew how I worked was an advantage, there was a small part of me that wasn't convinced she hadn't deliberately slipped the letter from the British Embassy regarding Evelyn's visa application into my mail. Although I had never confronted her about it, I wasn't sure whether I should thank her or despise her.

"Yes?"

"I'm so sorry," she gasped, her expression slightly panicked. "Your wife just called. She asked if you could meet her down at St Matthews. Your daughter's been taken ill."