Courting Trouble

“Thank you so much, Bennie.” Anne went around the table to give her another hug, then went back toward the door and opened it. “I’ll stop by your office after I’m finished.”

“You do that,” Bennie was saying, as the door closed. Anne hurried though the reception area to conference room D and opened the door. There, looking very small, at the end of the table, sat her mother.

Her fake black hair had been pulled back and she wore a simple blue dress with only a discreet brush of neutral lipstick. She squirmed slightly in her chair, resting a manicured hand on the table’s surface, and her eyelids fluttered as if she were ashamed.

You should be ashamed, Anne thought. She was too surprised to say anything.

“I came here this morning, to see you,” her mother said. Her voice was halting, and her British accent had disappeared. “But your boss, Bennie, she asked me to wait in here. She said if she spoke to you first, maybe you would see me. She’s very kind.”

“You don’t know her.” Anne wanted to wring Bennie’s neck, until she remembered her words. Don’t judge, just listen.

“I was hoping maybe I could speak with you, before I went back to L.A. I don’t expect anything of you. I was just hoping we could speak to each other, one last time. And you should know, I’ve been clean and sober for five months and ten days now. I even have a job at the center. A real job, that pays.”

Clients come to us, and we don’t have the luxury of choosing them. They’re like family that way.

“If you want me to, I will leave now,” she continued. “I have a ticket on the next flight. It’s at three this afternoon.”

You couldn’t have handled this case before, but you can now.

“I just didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye. And, hello.”

Anne felt something come free deep within her chest. Something she had been withholding, but wasn’t ready to acknowledge. She remembered Mrs. Brown, alone with her crosswords, and Mrs. DiNunzio, surrounded by her family and food. Anne knew there was a connection, but was too shaken to puzzle it out right now. She found herself sinking into a chair and automatically setting the legal pad down on the conference table in front of her, as she would in a meeting with any new client.

“So we can talk awhile?” her mother asked.

“Yes,” Anne answered. She eased back in the chair, ready to listen. After all, she was trying to start over starting over. Maybe this was a good place to start. Over. “Please, begin at the beginning,” she said.

And so, they began.

A

CKNOWLEDGMENTS

There are no rules about writing acknowledgments, and my personal survey says that every author does them differently. Because I think of acknowledgments as a special thank-you, in the past I have thanked my readers here. But I’ve come to think that it’s my readers who should get the ultimate thank-you—the dedication. And now they have. Courting Trouble is dedicated to my readers, for giving me their support and loyalty, for coming to book signings when there are so many other demands on their time, and for sending me notes and e-mail offering thoughts, encouragement, and even, occasionally, criticism. Books connect us, and my reader is always in my mind when I write each sentence, each word. My readers know that, and return it a thousandfold. So my deepest thanks go to you, dear reader. For your dedication, I offer mine. On page one, and every page thereafter.

Thanks to the wonderful gang at HarperCollins—to the great Jane Friedman, expert in both style and substance, and to Michael Morrison, Cathy Hemming, and now, Susan Weinberg. A huge and very emotional hug to my beloved editor Carolyn Marino, and another hug to galpals Tara Brown and Virginia Stanley. Thanks, too, to Jennifer Civiletto, for all her help.

Heartfelt thanks go, as always, to the lovely Molly Friedrich and amazing Paul Cirone of the Aaron Priest Agency, for their enormous help and guidance in improving this and every manuscript. And love to Laura Leonard, who keeps me laughing every day and works so hard on my behalf.

Thanks to the many experts who helped with Courting Trouble; their advice was critical, and anything I did with it was my mistake. Thank you to my dear friend Jerome Hoffman, Esq., of Dechert, for his legal expertise and creative imagination, and to Allen J. Gross, Esq., for all of the above. Thanks to Art Mee, my genius detective-by-the-sea, and to Glenn Gilman, Esq., of the Public Defenders Office of Philadelphia.

Thank you to the kind people who have generously contributed to some very important charities, in return for having their names used as characters in this novel. I could never have made them villains, for they are too kind: Lore Yao (The Free Library of Philadelphia), Marge Derrick (Thorncroft Therapeutic Riding), Cheryl Snyder (Pony Club), Crawford, Wilson, & Ryan (Chester County Bar Association), Rodger Talbott & Sharon Arkin (scholarship program at California State University, Fullerton), and Bob Dodds, for the Miami Valley, Ohio, Literacy Council, via book maven Sharon Kelley Roth of Books & Co.

For research concerning erotomania and forms of obsessive love, I am indebted to therapist Fayne Landes, and these fine books: I Know You Really Love Me: A Psychiatrist’s Account of Stalking and Obsessive Love, by Doreen R. Orion (1998) and The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin DeBecker.

Thanks and love to my husband and family, and to Franca Palumbo, Rachel Kull, Sandy Steingard, Judith Hill, Carolyn Romano, Paula Menghetti, and Nan Demchur, et al. You prove how important girlfriends are. And thanks to my brother, who lent his good humor and his gayness to a scene herein, and to my mother, who can get rid of the evil eye over the telephone. You think I make this stuff up?

A final thank-you to Lucille Ball, to Lucy fans everywhere, and to my own personal Lucy fan, who reminds me that role models come in many shapes, sizes, and haircolors. Even, and perhaps especially, red.

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ITTLE

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BOUT

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ISA

Lisa Scottoline

Lisa has written nine legal thrillers, including Courting Trouble. Lisa has been recognized by universities and organizations alike and is the recipient of both the “paving the way” award from Women in Business, and the “Distinguished Author Award” from the University of Scranton. All of Lisa’s books draw on her experience as a trial lawyer as well as her judicial clerkships in the state and federal justice systems.

School

Lisa graduated magna cum laude (in three years, no less) from the University of Pennsylvania. Her B.A. degree was in English, with a concentration in the contemporary American novel, and she was taught writing by professors such as National Book Award Winner Philip Roth. Lisa attended the University of Pennsylvania Law School, graduating cum laude in 1981, and clerked for a state appellate judge in Pennsylvania.

The Law

After the clerkship, she was a litigator at the prestigious law firm of Dechert, Price & Rhoads in (where else?) Philadelphia. With the birth of a baby coinciding with the end of her marriage (the proverbial good news and bad news), Lisa decided to give up the law to raise her new daughter.

Thereafter

Broke anyway and with a living financed by five VISA cards, Lisa decided it was do-or-die-trying-time to