New anxiety rippled through Ashe’s stomach. “There must be some mistake.” She’d paid a fortune to retain this shark, an expert in both supernatural matters and family disputes. He’d damned well better see her.
“That must be the case. No one else has booked the time. I’m sure Mr. Bannerman is available.”
Ashe nodded. With a brisk air, the receptionist picked up the phone and relayed the your-client-is-here message. Ashe looked around, noting that the landscape art on the walls was original, not prints. This was the twilight world of settlements and affidavits. No flamethrowers, submachine guns, or missiles allowed.
I’m so screwed.
“You can go right in.” The receptionist gestured to an interior door, graceful as a game- show demonstrator. And behind door number one . . .
A death grip on her useless clutch purse, Ashe entered the lawyer’s office, pumps silent on the plush carpet. She tried to take a deep breath, but her ribs just wouldn’t relax.
Lawrence Bannerman was waiting beside his desk. He gave her the once-over, his eyes sticking here and there. Ashe was tall, blond, and slender, but more Amazon than bikini babe. When his gaze reached her face, she saw the flicker of judgment. She wasn’t a dewy twenty-two anymore, either.
Well, screw you. I can kick Godzilla’s ass.
“Ms. Carver,” he said in a friendly-friendly voice.
“Mr. Bannerman,” Ashe replied, remembering to shake his hand like a woman instead of a wrestling champ.
“Please make yourself comfortable.”
She sat in the client chair in front of the lawyer’s desk, the leather upholstery sighing as she sank into it. She glanced around, assessing what the man’s territory said about him. Bright summer sunlight streamed in through the wide windows of the corner office, showing off the clean lines of the Japanese-inspired furnishings. Expensive. Tasteful. Sterile. Even the bonsai on the coffee table looked buffed. Stepford bonsai. Goddess save me.
Bannerman shuffled some folders together, propping them in an upright holder to his left, which was angled just enough for Ashe to see the color-coded labels. The file in front read Book Burrow on the tab.
The lawyer turned his full attention to her. “You have a most interesting case.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” She started to cross her long, tanned legs, then remembered she was wearing a short skirt and stopped herself. Now was the time for discretion, self- restraint, and all the other civilized qualities she so utterly lacked.
Part of her still wanted to flash him out of sheer perversity.
Bannerman pulled another file out of the upright holder and opened it. In his mid- forties, with chestnut hair just graying at the temples, he looked every bit as polished as the silver frame around the family photo on his desk.
“All right,” he said. “We spoke on the phone, but I’d like to review the basic facts, just to get started. Eden is your only child, correct?”
“That’s right. She’s ten now.”
“And you were legally married to her father, Roberto de Larrocha?”
“Yes. I went back to my own name after he died four and a half years ago.”
“And you put your daughter into boarding school. . . .”
Ashe was tired of explaining all this. “When she was eight. At the time, it was necessary. After Roberto died, I’d started doing missing persons work rather than relying on my in- laws for support. Eventually, that led to hunting supernatural killers, and the local vamp clans began to threaten us.”
“So you put Eden in school?”
“Saint Florentina’s Academy is designed for security against supernatural threats. It also provides a first- class English-language education.”
Bannerman gave a slight smile. “You sound like an advertisement.”
Ashe shrugged. “Saint Flo’s gave her safety and a future. It cost every penny I had, but it was the best thing I could do at the time.” It had cost everything she’d earned along the way, too. The creme de la creme of schools didn’t come cheap, and now, after Bannerman’s fee, she would be almost broke.
“Why didn’t you just stop hunting vampires?”
“They were killing people at the rate of three and four a night.”
“You felt it was your duty?”
“Yeah. And that kind of work is addictive. There’s always one more monster to take out before you’re done. Then you look up and you realize the hunting has eaten away your life.”
Bannerman gave her a long look. Ashe felt her scalp prickle, sensing the courtroom predator beneath the lawyer’s smooth surface. She could feel the adrenaline in her blood responding to that gaze.
He turned his pen over and over, rubbing its brushed-gold metal between his fingers. “Apparently you’re good at death. The Internet is full of stories about the powerful magic of the Carver sisters and your exploits as a monster slayer.”
As she’d told Reynard, Ashe didn’t have magical powers to speak of, but she found the badass-witch reputation gave her a psychological advantage, so she’d let the tales spread. “The witchcraft is more my sister’s thing.”
“Don’t be modest. The Carver bloodline is famous. You’ve taken jobs all over the world. You’re sure it was just monsters you were killing?”
“Completely. I stayed within the law.”
Bannerman regarded her as if reconsidering his assessment of her beauty. Ashe knew what he was thinking, had heard the line a nauseating number of times before—there was something sexy about a lethal woman. Men are so weird.
Ashe cut to the chase. “I’ve pulled myself together. I’m done saving the world. Now I just want to raise my daughter in the loving home she deserves, surrounded by her family. If I have to rethink my life to give her that, I will do it.”
Without taking his eyes from her, Bannerman riffled the pages of a thick document, “Your in- laws have recounted at great length all the reasons they believe you’re an unfit mother. Since you have removed Eden from school, and from Spain, they feel compelled to seek custody.”
Ashe felt her face freeze. He wasn’t saying anything new, but the words still tore like the jaws of a hellbeast. “What’s the law around international custody cases?”
“Not relevant. Your husband’s father is from here, so any trial would likely be in our own courts. On the good side, that’s less complicated than it could be.”
“Papa de Larrocha always disliked me. So does Mama, maybe even more.”
“Why?”
“I was born a witch. They consider that a taint. They think if they can keep Eden away from her witch heritage, she’ll grow up completely human.”
Ashe wanted Eden to grow up proud of everything she was. A child of warriors.
“Is that possible?”
“No. She’s at the age when her magic will start to manifest.” That had been the final push for Ashe to bring her back to Fairview, where Eden could be around other witches. That first flush of power was a delicate time for a child.
Bannerman tapped his pen on the pile of legal papers. “Given your family’s heritage, arguing to retain custody isn’t going to be an easy sell to a judge.”
Ashe met his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Every similar judgment to date has weighed against the supernatural.”
Ashe swore, dropping the civilized act. “That’s a rights violation.”
Bannerman narrowed his shark eyes. “Perhaps, but human rights are the only ones enshrined in law. Technically, you’re not human. But I’m a very, very good lawyer.”
Ashe let out a shaky breath. “Good to hear it.”
“You’ve got to demonstrate that you can live a life that even a prohuman judge will find faultless. There are a few things you should do.”
“Name them.”
