Page 3 of Take the Bait
“Yes, I’ve met him,” she replied evenly, praying she wasn’t giving away any of her frustration and confusion over him or his case.
Strange bird, her client. Named Alexei Koronov. Age twenty-two. Recently graduated from medical school after starting college at the age of fourteen. He was obviously brilliant, although it hadn’t been evident from her meeting with him.
He’d been deeply taciturn, unwilling or uninterested in giving her any information about himself or his crime. He’d answered her in monosyllabic grunts when he’d bothered to answer at all.
At one point in their wholly unproductive meeting, she’d suggested he grunt once for yes and twice for no. That had elicited the only hint of a smile out of him in the whole hour she’d spent with him.
When he’d particularly disliked her questions, he’d merely stared silently at her, his gaze oddly…tortured.
It was that strange impression of her client being in some sort of intense emotional pain, perhaps the result of some terrible trauma, that kept her from walking out on him and wishing him good luck with whatever overworked, underpaid public defender the court stuck him with.
It wasn’t that public defenders weren’t good defense attorneys. Most of them were fine lawyers. But they often carried as much as five times the case load that any one person could reasonably keep on top of. Which meant they were frequently exhausted and came into court not fully prepared to represent their clients.
It was the main reason she’d chosen to practice defense law at a private firm and hadn’t gone the public route like the man across the table from her.
Townsend pulled a brown file folder out of his briefcase and opened it on the table between them. “Let’s see. Your boy’s cooling his jets in county lock-up for a spectacular DWI arrest involving blood alcohol three times over the limit when breathalyzed. That was after a high-speed chase involving a half-dozen police cruisers. He was originally clocked on the New York Thruway doing one-hundred-seventy miles per hour in a Porsche 911 S/T—” Townsend whistled. “Expensive toy. Those suckers start around three-hundred-thousand bucks.”
Really? She’d had no idea. She knew Porsche’s were Italian sports cars and 911s looked rather like Volkswagen Bugs on steroids, but that was it. Three-hundred grand? Then why?—
“Why did this kid get assigned pro bono counsel?” Townsend asked, plucking the question right out of her head. “Why isn’t daddy paying your firm a gigantic retainer to get junior off scot-free, and why aren’t a half-dozen of WMP’s finest in here, making my life a living hell?”
She scowled across the table at him. “I assure you, Mr. Townsend. I’m fully capable of making your life a living hell all by myself.”
His eyebrows sailed up and he leaned back in his seat, tilting it onto its back legs, studying her with renewed interest. Eventually, he rocked the chair back down to the floor, commenting, “So. The kitten has claws after all.”
Kitten? He saw her as a kitten? Mortally offended, she glared at him, making no effort to conceal how irritated she was by his comment. She might be a baby lawyer, and this might be her first pro bono case—her first solo case, truth be told—but she’d graduated at the top of her admittedly unimpressive law school class and had killed her bar exams. WMP didn’t hire ambulance chaser hacks, thank you very much.
She would show him her claws, all right. And shred him into tiny little pieces, starting with those gorgeous blue eyes of his and moving on to that annoying smirk?—
He interrupted her internal grocery list of terrible things she was going to do to him with, “Do I have the facts of the arrest straight?”
She nodded stiffly.
“Great. Then we can plea this bad boy out and be done here in two minutes. I have a business event to go to tonight and I still need to grab a shower.”
She inhaled sharply. Which was a mistake. This room smelled strongly of bleach but was unable to hide the reek of urine with an undertone of vomit and a finishing top note of nervous sweat to round out the grossness.
A bailiff told her she and Townsend had been relegated to this piece of shit room because there was some sort of employee sexual harassment training going on in all the building’s conference rooms. She was fuzzy on the details of the scandal that had provoked the training, but apparently, it was badly needed around here.
As for negotiating a plea deal, it had been her strong recommendation to Alex to do exactly that. But he’d shaken his head sharply in the negative at her suggestion and actually spoken two whole words in response. No deal.
She’d asked his permission to at least find out what kind of deal the district attorney’s office was willing to offer before he turned it down out of hand. He’d shrugged and commenced staring at the ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen.
Annoyed at her client’s obstinance, and even more annoyed at the man across the table now, she girded herself to play hard ball.
Tough. Be tough.
Her criminal law professor’s advice rolled through her mind. Demand a lot more than the D.A. is willing to give, settle for more than the D.A. wants to give.
She squared her shoulders, channeled her inner badass, and met her opponent’s gaze head on.
The way he studied her back, obviously measuring her up, was a little unsettling. Okay, a lot unsettling.
You belong here. The law is the law, and all law schools teach the same thing, whether they’re expensive Ivy League schools or cheap night schools. You passed the same bar exam this guy did.
The pep talk helped until she met his piercing blue stare again. Honestly, his eyes reminded her of an ad that was plastered on practically every park bench, billboard, and bus in the city at the moment. She thought maybe it was an advertisement for whiskey. Or maybe a strip club.
Speaking of which, Townsend would be hell on wheels pole dancing in a jock strap and combat boots.
