The Jonah Complex

SHE OWED DE’KEN STONE SEVEN YEARS OF HIS LIFE.

SHE DIDN’T OWE HIM SEVEN YEARS OF HERS.

Bai was freefalling. Terror mocked her deliberate plans, and she knew she wouldn’t get a second chance. Contain the chaos, Donovan. Analyze the dissonance. The staccato of her boot heels echoed through the parking garage as she hurried toward her BMW. Rewrite your fear belief. Become the new narrative. Despite the self-directed therapy session, Bai sensed panic would prove both mindless and illiterate.

Shortly after her move to Chicago, Bai had sat on a jury that sentenced De’Ken Stone to death for the murder and mutilation of a city alderman. According to the morning papers, the state crime lab had uncovered backlogged DNA samples that cleared Stone of the 2006 crime and implicated a man executed three months ago in Texas. Twenty-oh-six. How would Stone feel, waking as a free man for the first time in seven years? What would he do first?

Payback. It was hard to imagine him doing anything else. De’Ken Stone was a volatile hulk of society gone awry. An angry man with impulse control as limited as his vocabulary, he’d come unglued after the verdict. Three burly guards had physically restrained and dragged Stone from the courtroom as he screamed threats at the judge, jury, and wife of two years—a timid woman who refused to corroborate his weak alibi. He swore he’d kill them all if he got the chance.

Could the headlines be wrong? She was practically engaged to the DA. Wouldn’t the police or Peter’s office have notified her of Stone’s release? Bai hated ambiguity nearly as much as the dread buffeting her composure. Flight smacked of weakness but seemed her best recourse until she had time to think, to neutralize the threat. Despite her father’s wealth, Bai wasn’t sure there was enough money in the world to appease Stone’s rage. She threw her overnight bag into the trunk and gasped as a strong hand closed around her wrist.

“Going somewhere, Miss Donovan?”

Bai palmed the canister attached to her key fob and hit the alarm. As the horn erupted in the confined space, Bai wrenched back, hoping to use the distraction to break free of the man’s grasp. She stumbled when he unexpectedly released his hold. Her face flushed as she processed that her attacker was not a massive black man but an amused blond in a cheap suit.

Chase Winters. Bai’s jaw tightened as she silenced the alarm and slipped the canister into her purse. Winters was the homicide detective who had testified about Stone’s priors.

“Hope that’s not pepper spray,” he said. “It’s illegal to discharge in an enclosed space anywhere in the city.”

It was Mace, but Bai held his gaze. “If you’re here to warn me about Stone, Detective, you’re woefully late.”

“You might want to lay low. There’s a pack of reporters on the ramp and a film crew out front clamoring for a statement.”

“Paparazzi are the least of my concerns.”

Winters stuck a cigarette in his mouth. His lips moved slightly. “Stone’s got you spooked.”

Bai slid on oversized sunglasses. She hated that she’d let a man—this man—see her fear.

His grin broadened. “Relax, Miss Donovan.”

“Easy for you to say.” She willed her voice to remain steady. A measure of anxiety was normal, but the hysteria threatening to devour her reason was completely unacceptable. “Stone was a drive-by waiting to happen. I doubt death row improved his disposition.”

“No one’s going to hurt you, Bai.” Winters’ voice was cashmere. “You have my word.”

She swayed toward the unexpected gentleness. At the last second, Bai stiffened, appalled she’d nearly collapsed into his arms simply because he’d used her first name. Winters always called her Miss Donovan in a wry tone— an attitude and title, she suspected, chosen specifically to annoy.

“Gee. I feel safer already.”

His gaze sliced through her sarcasm. “You weren’t the only juror.”

“No, I was the only heiress.” The only one skewered the following year in a thinly veiled novella implying Bai had used her money and professional expertise to influence the verdict.

“You might be the center of your own universe, Miss Donovan, but I doubt Designer Justice made the reading list at Statesville.”

Bai’s cheeks warmed. With Stone safely incarcerated, the provocative but poorly written book—the first in a crime series by Racey Delaney—made a loud, local splash before fading to relative obscurity. With the unpredictable man back in the headlines, the novel would likely resurface, thrusting her into the spotlight of media speculation and Stone’s understandable bitterness.

“Besides, De’Ken claims he found religion in the pen.” Winters flipped out a silver lighter. “Says he’s changed.”

Into what? Fatalism wafted toward her like burning tobacco.