Page 20 of Take the Bait
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you a former mobster? Mob affiliated but not an actual member? Mobster adjacent enough that you can ask for someone to tamper with a juror in your trial?”
He stared at her stubbornly, back to his usual stubborn, uncommunicative, uncooperative self.
“Keeping in mind that anything you say to me has absolute privilege,” she added gently.
He shook his head in the negative. Whether that was a no, I’m not a former mobster or a no, I’m not going to elaborate, she couldn’t tell.
She sighed. “I need to know what I’m up against if I’m going to win, Alex. Withholding information from me like this is hamstringing all my efforts to defend you and get you the best outcome possible.”
“Good,” he bit out.
She stared at him in shock. He didn’t want her to defend him to the best of her ability?
“We’re finished here,” he announced. “No deal. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear,” she snapped, so frustrated she could scream.
What the hell wasn’t he telling her about this case? There was definitely a reason for his completely unreasonable behavior. He was just refusing to share it with her.
A prison guard opened the door in response to the buzzer Alex pushed beside the door.
“I’ll find out, you know!” she called after him as he stepped into the hall. “I always do!”
Alex paused. Looked back over his shoulder at her. And said a single word. “Don’t.”
The door closed leaving her alone in the smelly little room. Why the hell shouldn’t she dig until she found out what he was hiding? She was legally bound not to use it against him. Her job was to defend him, not to bury him.
A cold, ugly blade of fear lodged in her chest.
It was Cameron Townsend’s job to bury her client, and he was very good at his job. What if Cam found out Alex’s secret and ambushed her and her client with it, and she was totally unprepared for the attack? Cam would not only bury her client in jail for years to come, but he would bury her, too.
WMP was definitely going to be looking for a reason to fire her after her behavior with Mr. Whitney this morning. If she lost badly enough to Cam, that would be just the excuse they needed, not only to dump her but to get away with it, too.
8
One thing she knew for sure about this case. No way was she putting Alex on the stand and letting Cam Townsend get a shot at cross-examining her client. Particularly if she thought Cam had discovered Alex’s big secret and she hadn’t. It would be legal malfeasance to set up her client to get attacked like that. Also, depending on how bad the secret was, Alex could end up in jail for a very long time.
She really was worried someone would try to threaten or buy off a juror on his behalf. It was a lot harder to do and get away with than TV shows made it seem. Judges were perceptive and watched their juries like hawks, and most people weren’t any good at maintaining a decent poker face for long. Dishonest jurors always gave themselves away sooner or later.
Leon Whitney would have a coronary if his firm was caught even in the vicinity of a client who’d tried to tamper with a jury. While the upstanding attorney within her was horrified, the deeply offended woman beneath the lawyer was secretly amused at the idea of watching WMP’s sterling reputation getting dragged through a load of mud.
Unfortunately, she really did want to help Alex. Or at least stop him from throwing away the rest of his life. Which he was trying like hell to do. Thing was, in his early twenties he might not get how much, later in life, he would deeply regret being allowed to act on his worst impulses now.
Whether this was a fit of depression or rebellion or something else altogether, she was confident that, in a few years, he would miss getting to build a nice, profitable medical practice, having a great social life, maybe getting married and having a few kids.
Whatever was motivating him right now, it was her job to protect him from himself. Problem was, she was also charged with protecting him from the legal system. And she wasn’t sure she could do both.
She tossed and turned most of the night. When she wasn’t fretting about Alex, she fretted about what to do about WMP’s unwritten policy of pimping young, female associates. And when she wasn’t fretting about that, her mind kept wandering to what it would be like to do more than just kiss Cam.
When her alarm jangled, bright and early the next morning, she dragged herself out of bed, not feeling a whole lot better than she had yesterday morning with her martini hangover. Thankfully, a hot shower and taking time to scramble two eggs and to microwave a couple slices of bacon made her feel a lot better. A large coffee from the shop just down the street completed her resurrection.
She turned out of the coffee shop toward the bus stop to head for the office, but on an impulse, stuck her hand out to hail a cab instead. She got one before too long and gave the driver the address of the country jail.
No matter how hard she had to badger him, she had to get Alex to tell her what his big secret was and why he was so determined not to tell her why he’d tried so deliberately on that highway to get himself arrested and thrown in jail.
Or—
