Shooting Starr by Kathleen Creighton

First thing is, she’s still not talking. Neither one of ’em is—the mother, either. So they’re both back in the pokey, and it looks like they might be there for a while. Judge Calhoun seems determined to keep ’em where they are until they give up the little girl.” She paused.
    â€œAnd?” C.J. prompted. He kept his hands easy on the wheel, but a pulse was tapping hard against his belt buckle.
    â€œShe doesn’t want any help, C.J.—at least, not from you.”
    â€œDid she say that?” He squinted at the ribbon of interstate rolling out ahead of him, though there wasn’t a speck of glare. “You got that straight from her? Not some other lawyer? You talked to her?”
    He heard the gust of an exhalation. “In a word, C.J., yeah. What she actually said was that you’d done enough.” There was a long pause before Charly added gently, “She’s right, you know. Give it up, honey. It’s not your trouble, so don’t go spendin’ any more time stewin’ about it. You got other things to worry about—which reminds me, how’s that law degree comin’? When are you plannin’ on tackin’ up your shingle here with Troy and me?”
    C.J. managed a grin, his first in quite a while. “Why would I want to do that? I’d have to live in Atlanta. Hell, might as well just shoot me now.”
    Charly laughed. “Wait’ll you pass the bar, and then we’ll see about that. Atlanta’s where the action is, sugar.”
    â€œYeah, yeah—just don’t hold your breath.” His grin lasted about a second longer than it took him to disconnect. Then he took in air and huffed it out, waggled his shoulders like somebody’d just relieved him of a burdensome load.
    Charly was right; it wasn’t any of his affair. He had aload to deliver, an exam to take. A semester to finish. A final to pass. A law degree to earn. A life to get on with.
    As for a hijacker with a fairy-tale face and unforgettable eyes…well, he’d find a way to forget her. Somehow.
    Â 
    During the next five months or so C.J. concentrated hard on doing that, which, if nothing else, had a beneficial effect on his study habits. He got his law degree in June and spent the summer cramming for the bar exams, which he was scheduled to take the last week in September and as a matter of principle was determined to pass on the first try. He still had a lot to prove, mainly to himself.
    What he mostly learned during that long, hot summer, in addition to a whole lot of law stuff, was that it was one thing to try to forget somebody and another to actually succeed.
    His task wasn’t helped any by the fact that hardly a day went by he didn’t hear the name Caitlyn Brown or see her face on the nightly news—that same file footage of a handcuffed prisoner in a hooded sweatshirt being hustled into a police cruiser. It seemed to be one of those stories the media had sunk its teeth into and wouldn’t let go, and why not? It had everything: a mysterious billionaire, his ex-stripper wife, a beautiful young woman with connections to one of the most famous families on the planet, and, of course, a missing child.
    Everyone with any connection at all to the case, no matter how dubious, had been interviewed over and over and over again, on the network morning shows and the primetime news magazines as well as the major network and cable news. Biography had done a two-hour piece on the former president, featuring his entire family and making a big deal of their Iowa farm beginnings. The tabloids trumpeted wild and improbable theories from their racks beside the grocery store checkout lines.
    And night after night reporters stood in front of file photos of the red brick courthouse in South Carolina, faced the cameras and told the same story: Caitlyn Brown still wasn’t talking. The Today Show reported that office pools had sprung up around the