Kirkus Reviews calls A Hard Bargain "a welcome respite from the mystery-by-formula crowd," and Publishers Weekly says it "skillfully weaves Laura's dissatisfaction with her own circumstances into the investigation…taking a thought-provoking look at the dangers in relationships that grow too close." It is available at the iTunes store, the Kindle Store, and the Nook Store.   Karen McGuin survived her first grisly suicide attempt. Then her husband started putting a loaded gun in front of her every day—to urge her to choose life, he said. But Karen pulled the trigger instead, and now her family wants him arrested for murder. When they hire a San Francisco law firm to make the case to their small-town D.A., detective Sandy Arkelett treks north to investigate. But what he really wants is to lure his one-time partner, lawyer Laura Di Palma, out of her own hard bargain with a hermit lover.                 A Hard Bargain   By Lia Matera       Copyright 1992 Lia Matera   Electronic Edition 2011 978-1-937697-06-8     This ebook may not be re-sold, reproduced, copied or distributed for commercial or non-commercial use.   First Simon & Schuster Edition 1992 First Ballantine Books Edition 1993   This book has been revised from the print version. The story remains the same but some details have been changed or updated.               A Hard Bargain       Chapter One     The creek was a maze of shallow waterfalls and sudden deep spots, in places unfordable. We dug our toes between wet roots and let the water rush over our rubber boots. We picked our way over horsetailed banks and stream rocks and fallen logs slick with lichen. We sank knee-deep into ooze several shades grayer than the sky. Our conversation shrank to, "This log's rotten, try the rocks," or, "Grab that branch and get back on the bank." To Hal it was ordinary, like the rugged homelessness following his release from the veterans hospital. It was like the last nineteen years, minus three in the posh apartment we'd given up six months ago. I glanced at him. He was muddy and water-flecked in layers of old sweaters. His salt-and-pepper hair looked windblown and hacked. On one side of him rose a cliff of tangled vines and underbrush, on the other a concave of dripping ferns and rootbound mud. He straddled two submerged rocks, water rushing around his booted ankles. The Colossus of Hicksville. I struggled onto the bank, clutching stalks of broad-leafed plants. He watched me with surface disregard. Mornings made him feel vulnerable, made him insist on rough hikes in wild terrain to prove to himself he could do it. He could pretend, later, that his aches and problems were caused by the exertion. He could accept them as part of relaxing by a fire. He could accept needing my company. It had been a long eccentric rehab, but for Hal, it was working. For me? That was an open question. My foot slid, and I clung to the bank like a graceless lizard, waiting for Hal's snide remark. No supportive patter for us. This was no commune. At times, it was an Outward Bound program: Hal insisting that we tramp and scramble, build bonfires in the rain, as if survival of the clan might someday depend on it. Whereas we both knew the real basis of our survival. I'd been a high-paid, even famous litigator for most of my adult life. Six months' severance pay and a healthy savings account were our real survival tools—not the ability to ford fast creeks in the rain. And anyway, we had mixed feelings about our clan. We were cousins—too many degrees of distance for it to matter that we were lovers. But we'd grown up seeing each other too often, and liking each other too little, at family parties. I hadn't missed him when he'd turned eighteen and enlisted. Two years later, I'd fled town. Fourteen years after that, chance had brought us both back there for the first time. We'd reconnected with a passion. That was almost four years ago. We were a cranky damn couple now, living miles from nowhere in a cabin too rustic for me and too fancy for Hal. At least we were avoiding Hal's parents as they writhed through their divorce. I still wasn't sure what had brought us to this place. Fired from my job, panicked over a recurrence of Hal's war injury, I guess I'd equated reclusion with revival. "Laura, look up." Hal interrupted my musing. Just as well. A bad teenage marriage had cured me of constant bone-gnawing reassessment of relationships—until recently. I hadn't put that burden on any of my other post-divorce romances. But I'd had motions to file then, court dates to keep, papers to serve, superiors to appease, clients to protect. And the harrying details of day-to-day life, things I didn't bother with anymore: keeping my wardrobe elegant, my hair tamed, my technology current. "Laura." Hal's tone was sharper now. "Up there." I followed his glance to the redwood-shagged crest of the gorge, a spot not far from where we planned to pull and pant ourselves back to even ground. A spot not far (by country standards) from our cabin. A person stood there, shirt light against the dark woods. Three hundred miles south, in what most people called "Northern" California, a stranger's silhouette wouldn't cause remark. But Hal and I had hiked this gorge at least once a week, rain or shine, and we'd never encountered another soul. We'd tramped the meadows, squelched through brush, picnicked in thickets of redwood and fir, and encountered no one. In six months. I put a drawl into my voice. "Town folk." "It's Sandy." "No way." "You're not expecting him?" Like I wouldn't mention it. Such a close friend, someone I'd worked with almost six years. We'd even been lovers for a while. The figure on the crest waved long arms like semaphores. Because Hal had suggested it, and because I wanted to believe it, I became certain it was Sander Arkelett beckoning. The last time I saw him, he said I was a fool to walk away from my life to be with a fucking depressive who treated me like dirt. I told him to quit casting it as a cheap romance: I'd been fired from my job. I was burnt out. Sick of the work, sick of the lifestyle. And Hal was not the seething man he became around Sandy. With me he was merely armored. Through the gorge a call echoed. "Laura!" I cupped a hand to my mouth and called, "Sandy?" The sound got pulled away by rushing water. "Fuck that. Let's go up." I could hear the irritation in Hal's voice. Partly because he still limped on even ground? He seemed especially conscious of it in front of Sandy. He didn't give himself credit: Eight months ago exacerbation of his war injury screwed up movement on his right side. Six months ago, moving here because no plan seemed better, I wouldn't have believed he'd be hiking wild land on his good days, meadows on his bad. Or that I'd be hiking with him, for that matter.     Chapter Two     By noon we were showered and warm in flannel permeated with the smell of wood fire. A tray full of bagels and cream cheese hardened on the coffee table. Sandy nursed a cup of coffee laced with Southern Comfort. He sat forward, legs apart, elbows on his knees, like some elongated Fred Astaire. Sand-colored hair spilled over his forehead. His blue eyes watched the fire at times, me at times. A handsome cowboy. Gary Cooper in city drag. City clothes—I missed them. Or what I associated with them: being too busy for reflection, demonstrably competent, always accomplishing. I recalled a news photo of myself in a severely straight-lined Armani, black hair styled tamely away from my face, features composed to dampen their Italian drama. In flannel and denim, hair a mess of unconditioned curl, I knew I must look different to Sandy. But he knew me too well to think of me as a wild wench, however I might appear today. We talked a bit, pouring coffee and stoking the fire. Sandy still did investigations for my old law firm. I caught up on the gossip. But nothing real. So when Sandy got down to it, it seemed without preamble. "I'm up here on a case. Find out about a lady who killed herself. With a little help.'' He fumbled in the pocket of a shirt so baggy I'd never have guessed it contained a cassette. He held the tape aloft, glancing at me inquiringly. I rose reluctantly from my cushion, tired in a posthike way that had become familiar. I took the tape from Sandy's hand and crossed to the stereo. I could feel Sandy's eyes on me, maybe on the expensive furniture, somewhat incongruous here in the middle of nowhere. (But it was my stuff, no reason to leave it with the dross of my career. And I'd never appreciated it so much—never had the time, never had so little else to do.) A log cracked into coals, the only sound in the big A-framed room. I snapped the tape into place, hit the play button. "It's her telephone message tape," Sandy told us. My speakers broadcast a woman self-consciously clearing her throat. "Her outgoing message to whoever called." "I'm sorry." The voice was tentative, soft. "I've tried to talk myself through this, find a way to stand being in the middle of it. But I see people look at me, and I remember when they looked at me because my clothes were nice or my hair just got a good cut, and I realize that didn't please me either, even though it's what I thought I wanted. In some ways it felt worse, having people look at me because I was primped up. Or sometimes at a party I'd catch my reflection in something and think, Wow, I look good, when I'm happy I look good. But the pleasure would go away just like that. My face would change in the second I stood there looking at it. Because I knew being happy was just a rush, something that would be gone in a minute or an hour. And then I'd be myself again, looking ugly and thinking everything was ugly. I'd be the same slumped over and dull-face person. It almost seemed dishonest to look good." "This was her outgoing—?" Sandy cut off my question with a wave. An instant later, the message continued, "A lie because I knew I wouldn't stay happy. For the few seconds that I was, I was passing myself off. Letting people think I was something I'm not." A small laugh. "Maybe that's why I… used the ice pick. I was sick of hiding the ugliness, I wanted to open myself up, and let people see it and hate me for it. Like I do, like I deserve.'' The voice abated. I waited a second, listening to the whir of blank tape. Then I said, "So I gather—" This time it was Hal who motioned me to silence. His face was turned away, his shoulders hunched. The voice came back. "Ted drives a hard bargain. He puts this gun in front of me every day when he goes to work. It sits here on the kitchen table, and I stare at it like I'd stare at a mirror, like it's going to show me something new. I stare at it, and all I can think is how naive to believe in choices. Maybe some people have choices. Not me, I've got this thing inside that snatches me up like a hawk snatching a mouse." Another pause. "I'm going to use the gun today. I know what I'm doing, and I know it's the best thing." A bit defiantly: "The best thing. So I'm sorry, Ted. I'm sorry, whoever's calling. There's no point leaving me a message." A high beep signaled the caller to leave that pointless message. I glanced at Sandy, wondering why he'd wanted us to hear the tape. Presumably he'd heard it several times already. "What's the firm's interest?" For a moment Sandy didn't answer. He was staring at Hal, his head tilted, his brows lowered. Hal was ashen, lips parted, totally still. Sandy said, "That's the client's daughter talking. Name of Karen McGuin, age thirty-six. Maiden name Clausen. She was local, went away for a few years, came back. Met this fellow, Ted McGuin, lived together awhile, got married two years ago. Younger guy, thirty now. Lives outside Dungeness." A small community north of my hometown. "Then thirteen months ago she tried to kill herself. Slashed both arms and legs with a razor, hacked her face with an ice pick, hacked off part of her nose, screwed up one eye." To let people see the ugliness inside, she'd said. "A razor's bad enough. But an ice pick?" I didn't even want to imagine it. "Why so ferocious?" Sandy raised his blond brows. "Any theories, Hal?" "Self-hatred," he said, his voice as low as it gets. "Well." Sandy made a show of stretching his lean frame. "Yuh. I'd say that would have to be an element." "She recovered?" I was trying to find a tactful way of asking why he'd brought the tape here now. A wrinkling of the nose. "Looked pretty awful, apparently. But yeah, recovered." "And then decided to finish what she'd started." "Since she got home from the clinics—physical, then mental, then physical—her husband pretty much guaranteed it. That business with the gun. That's how it sounds to me." "So that was literally true? He handed her a gun every morning?" "Her last words," Sandy said. "Sounds like he wanted her to hurry up and finish the job." Because he knew she was unhappy? Because she looked hideous across the breakfast table? "She ended up shooting herself with it?" Hal interrupted. "The family sent you up here to talk to McGuin?" "Yuh." A laser glance at Hal. "To him and about him. Thought I could get some background from you." I don't know which surprised me more, Sandy's statement or Hal's matter-of-fact nod.     Chapter Three     An hour later, the three of us stood at Karen McGuin's grave site. Hal's stubbled cheeks were hollow, his dark brows pressed into a wince. He looked almost as bad as he had six months ago, before putting aside his cane. I watched his face, not quite admitting tears would make me jealous of the dead woman. Jealous. A long time since I'd been stupid enough to measure myself by how much other people loved me. It wasn't practical, not in my line of work. And it certainly wasn't consoling. Not with a taciturn lover like Hal. Maybe it was a function of being just miles from my hometown. I was verging on emotions I thought I'd burned to cinders as a teenage wife with no reason to think well of myself and too much invested in what other people—my then husband—thought of me. I'd been back "home" only twice. Once four years ago. Hal had been here then too, his first visit in sixteen years. He'd booked himself into an abandoned housing project—more than arm's length from his father, the mayor. I'd been too full of myself and my own schemes to wonder what had brought him back. I now knew it was the woman over whose grave he now squatted. It was a multiple grave site, slabs of cement showing placement of caskets in a concrete bed designed to keep mourners out of Pacific Northcoast mud. In two buckling rows were Karen McGuin's great-grandparents, grandparents, and an uncle killed in Vietnam. A tiny, sodden Memorial Day flag was wedged into a crack beside his grave. There was room for three more graves in that concrete parcel. None, I thought, would be wasted on McGuin's husband. No one kneeling here would want to imagine him putting a loaded gun on the kitchen table every morning when he left for work. Every morning since she'd come home from the hospital, permanently disfigured. The cemetery was atop a hill in Dungeness, a small dairy town five miles inland from the dead woman's home. From where we stood, I saw spruced Victorians and a downtown of false-front former feed stores. They were brightly painted now, stocked with antiques and art galleries. Around it, dairy country, sodden and green, spread toward Highway 101. My hometown, ten miles away, was the nearest "city." Its population had dwindled from thirty to twenty-five thousand after two lumber mills closures and a decade of bad fishing. It had to be passers-through supporting the redwood sculptures and Art Nouveau fribbles I'd seen in the windows. Sandy turned from the grave, shading his eyes from the bright white sky as he scanned the town. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked me, voice low. I shifted closer to him. "Why not here?" "Damn it, Laura." His tone was kinder than his words. "Steve Sayres would rehire you. All you have to do is ask. They brought in two associates don't get half your work done." "Sayres would never give me the latitude Doron did. And he's pissed at me. He'd punish me with a bunch of routine debt collection." Three times I'd insisted on taking high-impact, pro bono criminal cases. Twice Doron White, senior partner of the elegantly corporate White Sayres & Speck, had gotten swept into my adrenaline rush, shielding me from his partners' fiscal outrage. The third time, Doron sided with them, and I got fired. But Sandy was right. With Doron dead of a heart attack, the firm needed rainmakers. It would take me back if I promised to be a good girl and stick to civil practice. "Plenty of other firms in the city would hire you. You know that—they'll be talking about the Wallace Bean case for a hundred years." Wallace Bean, assassin of two United States senators, had been my highest-profile client. Winning his acquittal had made me famous. Unfortunately, Bean had ended up dead in an alley, his freedom an invitation to vigilante justice. Sandy plucked my sleeve. "And here you are playing Walden Pond." "This isn't forever." "It's been half a goddamn year already." He inclined his chin toward the row of former feed stores at the foot of the hill. "This is what you're settling for? What you went to law school for?" "I didn't go to law school to get fired right before I made partner." It still rankled. I changed the subject. "So why are you involved in this case?" Sandy tucked his hands into his anorak pockets, squinting down at me. "D.A. won't bring criminal charges. There's not enough motive evidence, apparently. Not even for manslaughter." "What about accessory? Suicide's a crime, the husband abetted a felony. Or how about conspiracy to commit a felony?" "Problem's proving what he had in mind. Or that putting the gun on the table's what made her kill herself. I assume that's the D.A.'s hang-up." "Bullshit. Isn't there a more aggressive D.A. in that office?" He grinned. An old inside joke: when it came to my cases, no one seemed aggressive enough to me. "They may have Attila the Hun in there, but the lady working on this case says no go. And that sticks in the family's craw. They want me to talk to people who know the husband, try to nail down proof of motive to give the D.A." I felt Hal's hands on my shoulders as he spoke. "He put a loaded gun in front of someone who was just getting over a suicide attempt. Why isn't that proof enough?" "If it were aggressively investigated and argued—" "In and of itself, why isn't it proof?" His tone was clipped, almost hostile. Sandy and I exchanged glances. We were longtime coworkers. He knew how weary it made me, explaining the difference between what's fair and what's legal. It usually made people angry, made them beat me up with how things should be. What difference did it make how things should be? "The elements required to prove criminal conduct are necessarily stringent. Because the sanctions are—" Hal's grip on my shoulders tightened. "Why are you patronizing me?" "I'm not." His hands slid off me. I shivered, missing their warmth. Below us, wet dairyland presented a more pleasing reality. Cows gave milk or they didn't, without moral ambiguity. Sandy said, "Laura, a favor? Come talk to the husband with me?" "Why?" "Make sure I don't miss some legal nuance." Old times. "I'm out of lawyer mode, Sandy." "We're talking about an hour of your time." He didn't look at me, continued squinting at the farms. "Unless you've got some pressing engagement." "You don't need me. Look at me." Toe to toe. "Look at me, Sandy. What's this about? Really." I prepared anger, expecting a call to take up legal cudgels again. To my annoyance, Sandy grinned. "I miss you like hell, you know that?" I heard Hal, still behind me, turn and walk away. Sandy spared him a glance before continuing. "If the D.A. won't prosecute, the family might sue—civil case, wrongful death or something. So two things I'd like to get out of the husband today. What was his wife depressed about last year, and was she depressed about the same thing this year? Independent of husband putting the gun out there." "You don't need me." "We're a good team. I'd like your input. I'd like to know what you think of the husband. If you think he's being honest." "Want me to introduce you to him?" Hal had rematerialized behind me. Sandy's head jerked back. "Didn't know you knew him. What I heard was you knew her." "Him too." I turned, expecting Hal to say more. He looked down at me. That's all. Trust Hal to leave it at that.     Chapter Four     Ted McGuin's looks were almost shocking in our lily-white backwoods. His broad face was paper bag brown, his eyes were almond-shaped and moss green, his hair was dark chocolate, cut close, very curly. The stubble on his face was sprinkled with blond and red hairs that further testified to a mixed heritage. He was powerfully built, might have been intimidating if he hadn't been short, an inch taller than me, if that. But the most striking thing about him was a wide smile that put deep lines around his eyes. That trick of facial muscles either reflected or gave the illusion of warmth and genuineness. I'd tell Sandy to warn his clients. The man had a smile to warm cold jurors. I reminded myself that he'd placed a loaded gun in front of his suicidal wife day after day until she blew away what was left of her face. He was standing in the yard of a tiny house with a huge view of rocky coast. He was encased in a black wet suit, outer jacket unzipped, about to hoist a scuba tank onto his back. He was smiling at a kitten that batted his hand as he reached for the gear. "Silly-ass cat." A very soft voice. "Don't bite anything you can't eat, don't you know that?" The kitten furiously gnawed his finger. I caught Sandy's eye. Sandy grinned. The man certainly looked like a wife killer. Hal stepped forward. "Ted." McGuin took a startled step backward, thigh muscles bunching visibly in their neoprene sheath. "Youch!" he cried, pulling the kitten off his now raised hand. "You remember me?" "Hal. Hi." His brows sank. "I guess you heard." He set the kitten down, looking first at me then at Sandy. "This is Sandy Arkelett. He's a detective working for Karen's family. He wants to talk to you about what happened." Ted McGuin sighed, his upper body curling slightly. He peeled off the jacket of his wet suit, hanging it inside out over his scuba tank. Hal continued. "And this is… this is Laura. She's with me." McGuin glanced at me, folding his bare arms over his chest. The remaining neoprene was cut like an overall, skintight and glossy over wet skin. Sandy said, "I'd appreciate a short chat. The family'd like some details. You know how it is." "The family," McGuin said carefully, "knows my phone number." "You know how it is," Sandy repeated. I felt a surge of affection for Sandy. I'd always liked the way he worked, addressing concerns with empty phrases designed to keep the conversation flowing while revealing nothing. For a minute I missed my work, missed the gamesmanship. "Right.'' McGuin's voice became a shade less friendly. "They don't want to be talking to black people if they can help it. Even relatives by marriage." "Really?" Sandy appeared surprised, perhaps even genuinely. "I don't get that impression from them." A glimpse of McGuin's smile. "Why would you?" "Fair point," Sandy said. "Nice piece of land." Beyond the weedy yard, the terrain dropped, showing a path beaten through lush scrub to a cove flanked by rocks. The morning drizzle had burned off and it was almost warm out. The ocean swells were high and opaque, without whitecaps. The Hillsdale Union-Messenger called this a "Mediterranean" July—weather in the low sixties and calm seas. I wondered what it looked like under the surface, what McGuin envisioned when he looked at the water. My mind's eye saw a swirling broth of sand and plankton, rocks padded with flat purple anemones and streamered with kelp. A scene from some old Cousteau special, I supposed. I glanced at McGuin and found him watching me. I had the disconcerting feeling he'd put that picture in my head, slipped a frame of his consciousness into mine. "It's amazing under there," he said. Then he blinked, looking a little nonplussed himself. "Well, you guys are welcome to come in. I don't know what the family wants to know, but I'll talk to you." He led us across the yard, his movements a little stiff from the neoprene. We walked through the open back door and into a tidy old-fashioned kitchen of linoleum squares and flecked Formica. A round wood table, scarred but oiled, dominated the room. He'd placed a loaded gun there every morning. McGuin stood in the middle of the room, staring at the table, buffing his curls. I heard a long sigh from Hal. "So what happened?" Sandy's voice was sympathetic. "It started out occasional depression." He stood frozen, still staring at the table. "And it took over. More and more." "Not related to anything that was happening to your wife at the time?'' Sandy managed to sound a little skeptical while maintaining a generally friendly tone. "Have you ever dived?" He looked up at Sandy, his eyes suddenly bright. "No." "It's like being in a huge pot of soup. You have to accept you're going to bob around, get buffeted around." He demonstrated, taking a few quick steps left, a couple right, his arms raised slightly. "If you're going this way and you get swept left a bit, you cut back over later. There's no path down there, you just keep pointing in the right direction. After a while, you learn to like the feeling. Of being part of the soup. If you can look at it that way…" He frowned at the tabletop. Hal was rubbing a spot on it. I felt a prickle of irritation and knew Sandy shared it. You have to be careful when people are talking, careful not to dam their flow. To bob in the conversational soup. McGuin said, "You heard about her message tape? About the gun?" Hal said, "Yes." Sandy tried to recover the thread. "So your wife didn't like to go with the flow? Or how you put it." "I tried to teach her to dive. I didn't get all, 'Let me tell you about the soup, Grasshopper.' I just thought if she went in with me... It changes how you think about control. I mean, you have to be so careful—your equipment, your gauges, all that. But then you have be okay with— Well, but she hated it. Got flustered when the water changed her course. She'd either fight it like hell or not compensate at all and get pulled way off. She was dangerous to go out with." Sandy was about to encourage him to elaborate on the anecdote. We'd found, over the years, that a few more questions might show they didn't play out as expected. But Hal interjected, "Why did you—?" "Who are you exactly?" McGuin was scrutinizing Sandy, his wide eyes narrowed. "Are you like a detective friend of the family? They didn't hire you to… I don't know." Damn. Sandy could have deferred this moment. The question was inevitable, but I'd seen Sandy string things out so skillfully it didn't come up till he was ready to leave. He was far better at initial questioning than I was. I was too blunt. If I wasn't careful, people felt threatened. Sandy had a lighter touch, an easier manner. On the other hand, I was the better adversary. With Sandy's finessed secrets, I was hell in depositions. I felt a sentimental surge—not usually typical of me until about my fourth vodka. Half a year away from Sandy. From the game. "You mind if we sit down?" Sandy wanted things relaxed—as relaxed as possible, considering the news he was about to break. McGuin gestured his assent. Stood for a moment after we sat. Sandy waited for him to join us. Then he said, "The way her suicide came down..." A friendly shrug. "You can understand how it sounds to the family." "Yeah, well, things aren't always how they sound." "That's all," Sandy said. "They just need to understand." Here it got tricky. As a lawyer—a long time since I'd thought of myself that way—I'd feel obligated to mention that the family might sue. A clean, trick-free record. But that was why I'd often let Sandy do the initial questioning for me. (With clients, as opposed to witnesses, I did my own questioning so I could cut them off, cue them by shading some facts before I heard them the "wrong" way.) "So are you a friend of the family? Doing them a favor?" McGuin looked solemn, even in neoprene long johns. Sandy glanced at me. I wondered if he'd lie to McGuin if I weren't here. I'd seen him cross that boundary of professionalism. The very last time we'd worked together, I'd seen him commit assault to get what he wanted, in fact. The legacy of a six-year stint with the Los Angeles police. "I work for a fellow, lawyer name of Sayres," Sandy admitted. "Your wife's family asked him to get this information for them." Sandy's quiet concern was undercut by an annoyed glance at Hal. He obviously hadn't wanted to bring Sayres into it, hadn't wanted McGuin to get the right impression. But he'd done what he could with it. "A lawyer name of Sayres" made Steve sound like a country boy, a sole practitioner. Not the senior partner in a big San Francisco firm. Not the shark in fine worsted that he was. "Steve Sayres, he asked me to come have this talk. See if we could put the family's minds at rest," Sandy concluded. "That's all." McGuin frowned, polishing the tabletop with his knuckles. "No way you're going to do that—I know them. As well as they let me. And from what Karen told me. From how they treated her." "How did they treat her?" There was an urgency I didn't understand in Hal's question. "They just want to know." Sandy tried to steer the conversation back. I could feel his desire to muzzle Hal. "No, they don't want to know." McGuin's lips pinched. "They're trying to get me arrested, aren't they?" "No, no." Sandy held up a reassuring hand. "Steve's not a criminal lawyer." "Then what? They're suing me? Trying to take the house away? What?" "At this stage, they're looking for information. Hell, their daughter died. And you got to admit… The way it'd look to somebody's folks? This thing with the gun? They want to know why." "Bullshit. They want to sue my ass." McGuin stood, leaning forward so that his fingertips touched the table. "Tell them they can go ahead. And they can think whatever narrow-minded—" He leaned heavily on the fingertips, his breathing ragged and audible. "I don't give a fuck how it looks. If they wanted to understand—" "I want to understand." Hal's voice was steely. The corners of McGuin's mouth tightened. He kept his eyes fixed as they filled with tears. "Let's just mellow things a little bit here. Tough subject." Sandy's voice was soothing. "Di Palma," he said to Hal, "maybe if you wouldn't mind, outside for a few?" Hal sat immobile. I reached across the table, sliding my hand over his forearm. "Five minutes, Hal." He jerked his arm away. Stood angrily. Looked at me for a stony second before leaving. I'd done it again.       To read the rest of A Hard Bargain, please go to the iTunes store, the Kindle store, or the Nook Store.               Praise for Lia Matera's Laura Di Palma Series     "Di Palma is one of the smartest, most open-minded sleuths in the lawyering trade... [Matera] writes with intelligence and feeling about issues that still hurt and people who still care." New York Times "Compelling... Matera writes with passion about debts to old lovers and old causes." New York Daily News "Sharply written, brilliantly observed." John Leonard, NPR's "Fresh Air" "Absorbing... A fine, intelligent story." USA Today "Laura Di Palma is one of the most compelling characters in recent mystery fiction… Ms. Matera deserves the high accolades for this extraordinary, thought-provoking book." Baltimore Sun "Tight plotting, good characterizations, and page-turning suspense... make Matera one of the best contemporary mystery novelists... Highly recommended... Matera is too good to miss." Booklist "Reading a Lia Matera novel is a lot like drinking a superb brandy: velvety, mellow, a bit dizzying and with a bite that stays with you a long time... She leaps to the forefront of the remarkable vanguard of women...who have redefined the modern mystery." Cleveland Plain Dealer "A complex and very likable detective." Newsday "Di Palma certainly belongs in the same league as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone and Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski when it comes to brains, determination, and guts. A sure winner." Booklist "A welcome respite from the mystery-by-formula crowd." Kirkus Reviews "Lia Matera…is often compared with Sue Grafton and Sarah Paretsky. However, Matera has her own distinctive voice. Her off-beat plots, quirky style and hard-to-pin-down characters make for a novel both unique and entertaining." San Diego Union "More proof that some of the leanest, most tough-minded prose is coming from women... With emotional zingers throughout and no easy answers." Kirkus Reviews "Lia Matera just keeps getting better…telling a story of heroes who will never receive medals or popular glory. Matera tells this tale with passion and integrity." Sarah Paretsky           Books by Lia Matera   Laura Di Palma Novels   The Smart Money The Good Fight A Hard Bargain Face Value Designer Crimes   Willa Jansson Novels   Where Lawyers Fear To Tread A Radical Departure Hidden Agenda Prior Convictions Last Chants Star Witness Havana Twist   Short Story Anthologies   Counsel for the Defense and Other Stories Irreconcilable Differences