Free Sunset Point: A Shelter Bay Novel by Joann Ross Page A

more. When was the last time you took a long, romantic walk along the river? When did you stop to enjoy the feel of the breeze in your hair, the scent of flowers at the Japanese Gardens, a dazzling sunset—”
    “I get the idea,” Tess broke in dryly. “I just can’t tell if you’re describing a shampoo commercial or one for a little blue erectile dysfunction pill. But while we’re on the topic of Matthew, what else does your paragon of a fiancé agree with you about?”
    “We agree most of the time,” Alexis said. “Sometimes it’s almost boring how alike we are. But in this case, we both think that you and Nate would make an ideal couple.”
    Tess sputtered out a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding. The man and I are light-years apart. We have absolutely nothing in common.” Except, admittedly, their choice in restaurants. Which didn’t mean anything. After all, the reason for the restaurant’s longevity was that it was a favorite of lots of Portlanders. That didn’t mean she was destined to marry any of them.
    There was also the fact that Breslin and she did, in a few degrees of separation way, have Captain MacGrath in common, Tess allowed. Enough that he’d somehow also infiltrated her dreams last night. But sometime during the predawn hours, she’d vowed to stop thinking about her errant, long-dead great-great-grandfather.
    “Hey Tess.” Their conversation was interrupted by a tall, sandy-haired man sporting an unfortunate comb-over, who stopped by Tess’s desk on his way to the coffee bar. “I hear Vasilyev’s lawyer’s going after a federal habeas corpus ruling.”
    Grigori “The Viper” Vasilyev was one of Tess’s more successful cases. Since it was also her first case when she’d joined the district attorney’s office, she’d been assigned to Jim Stevens, a veteran prosecutor. Although the Russian mobster had used the U.S. justice system for all it was worth, winning delay after delay, both Jim and Tess had remained adamant that the man should stand trial, and eventually he had, drawing a life-plus-twenty-year sentence for drugs, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, criminal assault, illegal gambling, and human trafficking.
    After having lost his appeal on the judgment of conviction, and two years later another loss on a post-conviction appeal, his last-ditch attempt to claim that his constitutional rights had been violated in the Oregon court system because the infirmary hadn’t had a Russian-speaking doctor on staff when he’d suddenly come down with shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, and chest pain (which had not proven to be a heart attack) didn’t surprise her.
    “He’ll lose again. Just as he always does. Because he’s guilty as sin.”
    And also because she had a witness willing to testify that not only was Vasilyev continuing to run his empire while in prison, he’d purposely injected himself with an overdose of anabolic steroids to cause the symptoms that would land him in the infirmary in the first place. Given that his English was as good as hers, Tess knew he’d gone through all that subterfuge in order to claim federal discrimination for anti-nationality reasons.
    Granted, Vasilyev’s attorney would paint her informant to be a jailhouse snitch, which, indeed, he was. The low-level dealer to the prison gym rats was also hoping to cut a deal that would expunge infractions that had added more time to his sentence.
    Adding yet another dark mark against him, he’d been the one who’d been selling the bulked-up Russian the illegal steroids in the first place.
    But Tess had driven to the penitentiary in Salem herself, and while her work had admittedly made her cynical, she’d believed the informer who’d told her that The Viper was plotting yet another murder while inside those brick walls.
    “Maybe so.” Bill Mitchell snagged a maple-glazed Long John from the bakery box. “But I sure as hell admire your guts. If I had your connections and mucho wine bucks, I’d