CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“ALLOFTHEevidence presented in this courtroom has proved what I told you that very first day,” Hillary said as she stood before the jury. Then she turned back and pointed toward the defense table. “This man is a bad man.”
And like the first time she’d said it, Stone wasn’t sure if she was referring to him or his client.
“He thinks he is above the law,” she said. “He paid a man to lie and alibi him.”
And now she pointed her finger directly at Stone. “He offered his lawyer a two-million-dollar bonus for getting a not-guilty verdict.”
Stone flinched. And Byron clutched his arm. “Can’t you object?”
“You told her,” Stone murmured. But he should have told her more: the truth.
She turned back to the jury. “I hope you send him the message that your integrity cannot be bought. That nobody is above the law.”
Stone stood to offer his argument. But he had no rabbit to draw out of a hat—nothing like his usual flash and pomp. His client had tied his hands. He did his best.
But it wasn’t enough. He saw it in the disapproving faces of the jury. They thought, like Hillary, that he was just all about the money.
Two million dollars. He didn’t care about the money at all. He cared that Byron Mueller was going to die in prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.
But there was nothing more he could do. To save Byron or himself.
Hillary had shut him out—and not just out of her apartment the other night. She’d shut him out of her life. Maybe he’d crossed a line, but he’d only been trying to get through to her.
But she was too closed off. She’d found a way to protect herself, just like he had all these years. But at least he’d let his friends get close to him. He suspected she’d let no one close.
She didn’t want to need anyone.
He wasn’t too proud to admit he needed his friends—hours later—after the verdict had been returned. Simon patted his back where he sat, slouched at the bar to which they’d dragged him. “It’s too bad, man...”
He wasn’t sure if Simon was commiserating because he’d lost the case or the two-million-dollar bonus. But unlike Hillary, he was willing to give his friend the benefit of the doubt. She hadn’t given that to him or his client.
And neither had the jury.
“How could they not have reasonable doubt?” he asked.
“She presented a strong case,” Trev said, but he’d dropped his voice to a low whisper, as if he didn’t want to be overheard admitting it. “Maybe you should have had Allison go after her harder in the press.”
He could have. He could have gone after her in his closing argument, too. He could have said she was biased against his client because he was a rich billionaire like the father who’d abandoned her after her mother died. But Hillary wasn’t on trial.
And he couldn’t have hurt her like that.
Like she’d hurt him.
Of course, she hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. His client had offered him a hefty bonus. A bribe?
“Do you think, ” Trev continued, “that he could be guilty?”
Stone shook his head. But she’d obviously swayed his partner. “No, it was his kid who killed her. I’m sure of it.”
“Or do you just want that to be the case, because you’d convinced yourself you were representing the good guy?” Ronan asked. That was how, as a divorce lawyer, he broke down his cases. There was a good guy and a bad guy. And he always thought he was representing the good guy. But he’d been fooled recently and had wound up hurting the good guy—or in this case, beautiful woman.
Muriel had forgiven him, though.
He wasn’t sure that Hillary would. But he hadn’t done anything wrong. She was the one who’d sent an innocent man to prison.
Stone shook his head again. “No. I’m sure the kid did it. Byron all but admitted it to me. But he wouldn’t give a statement to Hillary.”
