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“He went to get us coffee and forgot his phone. I listened to his messages. There’s one from a Riley Smith at the DA’s office. I sent it to myself and I’ll send it to you.”
“And?” Reese asks.
“He’s plotting with them to turn on me on the stand.”
“Play the message,” Reese says.
She grabs her phone and I don’t miss the trembling of her hands. She hits the “play” button. “This is Riley Smith. We’re pleased you’re on board. We need a list of gotcha questions, things that will make Dana look guilty.”
“What does he have on you?” Reese asks.
“I can leave,” I offer.
“No,” Dana says. “Your column fired me up to fight back. I want you here.” She looks at Reese. “He knows I hate my father. He knows I wanted to walk away from the money. He kept me from doing it. He told me that was insane. There’s nothing else.”
“Then we have to assume he’ll make things up,” Reese says. “But we’ll be ready for that.”
“What do you think he’ll say?” she asks.
“What do you think he’ll say?” Reese asks, leading her to reveal something, I’m certain.
“That I killed my father. He’ll say I wanted to kill my father.”
“Did you?” Reese asks. I don’t believe that she’s a killer, and yet, I’m holding my breath, anticipating. I wait for her answer, afraid my relief was premature. Afraid Dana killed her father and that Reese will have Debbie and a guilty client on his hands.
Not to mention a baby on the way he doesn’t know about yet.
Chapter seventy-one
Cat
Reese and I are both staring at Dana, the window in our front living area now her backdrop as we wait for her to answer Reese’s question: Did you? Meaning, of course, did she kill her father. I don’t have to hold my breath long for her answer.
“I did not kill my father,” she hisses vehemently. “You’re doubting me though. You’re doubting me or you wouldn’t have asked. God.” She shoves fingers through her hair. “I can’t even believe this. I thought you believed in me. Why are you defending me if you don’t believe in me?”
Reese lets her finish her rant. “Dana,” he says calmly, “that’s the question every jury member is asking over and over during the trial. I need to ask it with them. I need to find the holes that make people believe you’re guilty and seal them.”
“Reese doesn’t defend people he believes are guilty,” I interject. “If he did, I wouldn’t be with him.”
“Do you believe I’m innocent?” she asks me.
“Yes,” I say. “I do.”
She looks at Reese. “And you?”
“Yes, Dana. I believe you’re innocent. But what I need from you, is not for you to convince me that you’re innocent. We’re past that. I need you to give me not your best, but the worst of you, because that’s what I have to defend. What can your boyfriend say that will convince the jury that you’re guilty?”
“I’ve been with him two years and my father and I had so many fights in that time,” she says. “I said that I hated him many times. I said that I wish I never had to see him again many times.”
Reese takes that in without so much as a blink. “What I need you to do is go home and type up details on any conversation with him about your father that you remember. I need this tonight because Reginald is flipping, he could end up on the prosecution’s witness list, far too easily and quickly. I need to be ready.”
“Yes. Okay. What about him? Do I still have to play nice with him?”
“I can’t tell you how to run your personal life,” Reese says, “but he’s already betraying you. Be careful. However, I can say this: I’m going to ask him if he had sex with you on the very day he agreed to turn on you. I’m going to use the way he’s treating you to create an impression of a monster protecting himself.”
“Then I’ll be nice to him,” she says. “You know, if you can make him pay for putting me through this, for killing my father, who I might have hated, but was still my father, the only living relative I have, then I’ll keep fucking his brains out. Is someone here to take me home?”
“I’ll call and get someone up here to escort you down,” Reese says, snagging his phone from his pocket.
