Once at her desk, Kim immediately dove into Brian’s case. Arguing with the prosecutor’s office helped keep her thoughts from Liam—from the traumatic fight in the warehouse, from the amazing sex afterward.
She worked all day, her businesslike suit and panty hose more confining by the hour. She’d gotten used to loose skirts and sandals far too quickly.
The next day wasn’t any better, though the monotony was interrupted by a call from Silas.
“I talked to Liam,” Silas told her. “He’s agreed to let me interview him for the documentary, and for the feature stories for the newspaper. He’s going to show me around Shiftertown himself.”
“That’s great.” It really was great. Trust Liam to begin his rule of Shiftertown by doing what Fergus would have loathed. But Liam wanted the world to stop fearing Shifters, to move toward freedom. Showing the world what Shifters truly were was a first step.
A few weeks later, Kim’s hard work and persistence finally paid off. With her tip on the jealous ex-boyfriend angle, her investigator had found out Michelle’s ex had been boasting that he’d brought the Shifters to their knees and about his obsessive behavior toward Michelle before her death. He’d started calling her “the f**king Shifter-whore who’d got what she deserved.” That was enough for police to reopen the case and bring the guy in again for further questioning. He’d been reluctant to talk about Michelle at all, until the detective revealed evidence of photos on the young man’s digital camera of Michelle lying strangled on the floor. A vitriolic confession came pouring out. Michelle had betrayed him—with a Shifter. Michelle should die, and the Shifter should be ripped apart. If there were any justice in the world, he’d be given a medal for ridding the world of filth.
After that, it wasn’t too difficult for Kim to get the prosecutors to dismiss the case against Brian, who was released to a surge of publicity. Kim walked with him, under the scrutiny of black camera lenses the day he was freed, to where Sandra waited in her old car. Mother and son had a tearful reunion, but Kim could see Brian’s grief over Michelle. Sandra had confirmed that Brian had been prepared to take Michelle as his mate, and her loss was hard for him. He’d truly loved her.
After seeing Brian off, Kim returned to her office and went to see her boss.
The head of the firm was a large man with graying hair and pictures of his wife and four children on his desk. “Good work, Kim,” he said, a man who rarely praised. “But I doubt we’ll be getting any more Shifter cases. People wanted Shifter blood, and we just made the prosecutor’s office look stupid.”
Kim shrugged, not caring about the damned prosecutor’s office right now. “It doesn’t matter. I came to tender my resignation.”
“What?” His thick brows shot up. “Why? You’ve just won the biggest case of the year.”
“I’m contemplating a business venture of my own. Human advocate and legal liaison to Shifters in the Austin–San Antonio area. Want in?”
Her boss sat there with his mouth open, then moved his nameplate from one side of his desk to the other, which he did when he got nervous. “Are you crazy, Kim? You’re a good attorney. One of my best. You’re on your way to a terrific career. You throw in with Shifters and you’ll be finished.”
“Shifter-human law needs to be reevaluated and changed,” Kim said. “It will be a challenge, something to live for. You could make your mark as a champion of Shifter rights. You love defending people’s rights.”
He glanced at the photos on his desk. “But Shifter-haters can be dangerous, and I wouldn’t be risking just myself.”
Kim nodded, understanding. “Well, I don’t have anyone but myself to risk. I’m tired of living an empty life, so I’m going to fill it doing something crazy like helping Shifters wade through the morass of law. Jeanne’s agreed to go with me. She’s training as a paralegal, and she’s excited about getting a chance for more experience.”
“She’s as crazy as you are.”
“Maybe,” Kim conceded. “But that’s what we want to do. Thanks for taking me on when I was a green law-school graduate.”
“No problem,” her boss said faintly. “Good luck.”
Kim dragged in a breath as she left her boss’s office, the words Good luck ringing in her head. She knew she’d need it.
Kim spent the next weeks cleaning out her office and finding space to rent for her new office, a tiny one with enough room for herself and Jeanne. The others in the firm agreed with the head, that Kim was crazy. Some admired her; some openly castigated her, Abel in particular.
Kim ignored them and bought office furniture. Jeanne was an enthusiastic partner and even helped take Kim’s mind off her sorrows for five minutes now and again.
The first day Kim spent at her new office, Silas e-mailed her some video files for the Shifter documentary he was working on, asking for her feedback.
Kim played the files, her heart aching. There was a lot of footage of Liam smiling his warm smile and speaking in his deep Irish lilt, telling Silas what he wanted the world to know about Shifters. Dylan spoke too, giving the same details but in a different enough way that it didn’t sound as though they’d worked it out beforehand. Kim knew they had. She also knew exactly what they had decided to leave out.
There was footage of how the Shifters lived from day to day, shots of Michael playing in his front yard. Michael was photogenic, and his cuteness radiated from the screen. Silas also showed Connor and his friends kicking a soccer ball around the backyards, Connor talking about his love of “football” and what a fan he was of the Irish national team.
Silas didn’t show only sparkles and smiles, however. He talked to Shifters about the darker side of their lives—the high death rate of Shifter children, which had started to come down only in the last decade, the low fecundity of the females. He talked about how the different Shifter species didn’t get along “in the wild” but had made concessions to live together in harmony. Ellison was particularly eloquent in that segment, looking handsome with his big cowboy hat and wide smile.
A group of Shifters did a Collar “demonstration,” which proved that Collars worked well, and Silas showed a meditation by some Shifter parents for children they’d lost.
Kim viewed the files again and again, pausing on Liam’s smile, his blue eyes assuring the viewers that Shifters were little different from humans.