Chapter One

The cube was glazed over. Inside sat a leggy Latina with long, dark hair. Immaculately dressed and wearing an expression that would make any man break into a cold sweat. But not Cal. He surveyed her with a blank look, not saying anything.

Outside Loker, Torres and Foster stared at the monitor.

"What's he waiting for?" Torres asked impatiently shifting her weight where she stood behind Loker.

"Shhh…" Gillian waved her to silence as on the monitor, Cal stood up.

"He's going in for it now," Loker said as he watched intently.

"Well now this was a bloody waste of time then, wasn't it?" Cal asked to no-one in particular. Leggy Latina gave him a million dollar smirk.

"And that right there," he said as he rounded on her, pointing to her face. "That right there cost you a fortune, didn't it?"

"Excuse me?" she responded, affronted.

"No, no, I don't mean you've had any work done. No, I can see your mother in that face of yours." Her look of scorn immediately softened as Cal continued.

"No, what I meant was – you get everything you want, don't you?" Again that sultry smile snuck onto her perfect face.

"And I mean everything. You're an attractive woman. Stop me if I'm wrong but your looks got you out of high school straight into an illustrious modeling career, the face of whatever shampoo makes your hair do that thing it does and of course, the doozie, married to one of the most affluent bachelors this side of the equator."

"I didn't kill my husband," she responded evenly.

"Yeah I know. But not because you seduced me into thinking that way. I know because you're simply not smart enough."

A frown furrowed her perfect brow for a micro second – not unseen by Cal – and then she resumed her composure.

"Oh, shall I explain?" He didn't wait for a response.

"See, pretty girls like you, they live their whole lives on a fluffy little cloud where people serve up to you because, of course, you're gorgeous, and they want to make the gorgeous chica happy. In the end, you're so used to using your looks, you forget about that thing inside that pretty little head of yours. And if you're finding it hard to follow, I'm talking about your brain, love."

He got a blatant eye roll from her and smiled.

"Yeah, because if you had been smart, you wouldn't have been so quick to trust your husband's attorney with your money."

She straightened in her seat.

"If you were smart you would've spent less time looking in the mirror and more time in those quarterly financials where your dearly beloved was instructing his right hand man to siphon your funds into an offshore bank account. So to speak."

"What does this have to do with the case?" she asked, exasperated.

"What would've been an admissible motive is now null. You only found out about it this morning, right?" She didn't respond but her face gave him what he wanted.

"Yeah, not too bright." Cal made his way to the door. He turned, one hand on the doorknob, "And that," he motioned to her face, "that's not going to last for much longer. You might want to get some reading going on. Exercise those dusty neurons." And with that, he strode from the cube.

"Was that really necessary?" asked a bemused Gillian. She was only too aware of Cal's weakness for beautiful women and his blatant steamrolling of the leggy Latina satisfied her. Although she would never admit that to him.

"Tart was starting to irritate me," he snipped. "Torres, could you finish up with her?"

Ria nodded and made her way into the cube where the shampoo model still sat.

Loker stood up to face Cal. "She's Mexican, you know."

"Is this the start of yet another one of your pointless musings? Because I'll take this time to swiftly leave the room," Cal chided.

"Don't you have a thing for Mexican women?" Loker persisted. "I've seen you do this a hundred times and it always ends in drinks or dinner. Never in you walking out on her."

Gillian watched Cal's face intently, not sure what she was looking for but certain about what she did not want to see.

"Yeah well I've set my sights a lot higher," Cal replied matter-of-factly.

"You get higher than that?" Gillian asked, a slight head-nod toward the cube.

Cal gave her a quick once over, licked his lips and said, "Look in the mirror lately?"

He strode from the room, not waiting for a response and leaving a stunned Gillian in his wake.