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they do. My grades were top-notch. I was recruited by plenty of top-ranked law firms. I could have gotten this internship on my own if I’d chosen to apply. Which I hadn’t. It’s not as if I want to work here. I already have a job. Come September I’ll be working as an assistant prosecutor for the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office in Arlington County, Virginia, putting criminals behind bars, something that’s been my goal since my parents were killed. So I’m not competing for a job at the firm.
    In the meantime, I’ll be learning from Trenton Steele, one of the best criminal law attorneys in the country. Surely I can make the internship work. The problem is last night I sensed something between us, some undercurrent that is not the least businesslike. The look he directed at me during the cocktail party, not to mention the highly inappropriate remark he made, tells me he’s attracted to me. How did he know he could say such a thing to me? We’d only met that day. And yet he trusted me not to go running to my grandfather.
    Did I signal that I’m attracted to him? No idea why I am. He’s not at all like the men I dated in college. All of whom were young and clean-cut, with a patina of wealth and breeding. Trenton Steele, on the other hand, is thirty-seven. Early gray peppers his hair. There’s no family money. He grew up poor, which explains his rough edges. Maybe it’s his brilliance as a lawyer I’m attracted to and not him per se. He’s never lost a case. How many attorneys can boast that? Maybe that’s all it is. I hope so, because I can’t afford to be sidetracked by him.
    Just as I’m propping up a picture of Madison and me on my desk, Gramps appears at the door. “May I come in?”
    “Of course. Please do.”
    He waves his hand around the space. “Do you like your office? If it’s too small—?”
    “It’s perfect. I love it.” Just as I say that, one of the interns walks by the open door and screws up her face.
    “Good.” He clasps his hands behind his back, an old habit of his that tells me he’s about to say something important. “You know we pride ourselves on our pro bono work.”
    “Of course.” The firm represents clients who can’t afford legal fees, handling child custody disputes and landlord–tenant issues. In the last couple of years, they’ve taken on appeals of criminal cases as well.
    “Steele’s handling a pro bono appeal on a death row inmate. He needs to travel to North Carolina to interview our client.”
    “Oh?” I think I know where this is headed, and I’m pretty sure it’s not a good idea.
    “I asked him to take you along.”
    “But—”
    He holds up his hand. “Before you object, this case hinges on a confession our client made.”
    “So what’s the problem?”
    “It was made before his Miranda rights were read to him.”
    My stomach lurches. An inmate whose appeal revolves around violations of his Fifth Amendment rights. The same circumstances as those criminals who murdered my parents, except in that case their trial attorney successfully proved their rights had been violated. A conversation with that inmate might provide an avenue to follow to get to the truth of their deaths. “But if he voluntarily offered exculpatory evidence—”
    “He should have been read his rights immediately after the cops took him in. They didn’t.”
    Tempted as I am by the circumstances surrounding this case, I can’t help but hesitate. “Do you think this is a good idea, Gramps?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Some of the interns already think I’m given preferential treatment because I’m your granddaughter. A trip to visit a prisoner on death row with the head of the criminal law practice group will set tongues wagging.”
    “If anybody dares to criticize—” His face turns a sick, ruddy color, and he goes off into a coughing fit, signs I’ve been warned to watch out for.
    I shake my head. “Never mind, Gramps. Of course I’ll do it.”
    “Good