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“An interview with you and an interview with your client,” she adds.
“Now you’re pushing your luck.”
“You get nothing you don’t ask for,” she says.
“Do you think he’s guilty?” I ask, sizing her up to decide what I will, or will not, grant her.
“What I know,” she says, “is that you’re winning so far.”
“Let’s hope the jury agrees with you.”
“Because he’s innocent?” she asks.
“Yes. He is. And yes, you can quote me on that, and on this: If he wasn’t innocent, I wouldn’t be defending him.” My cellphone rings in my pocket. “That would be the end of our time together. At least for now.”
“What about my interviews?”
“Give me your business card.”
She reaches into the side pocket of her purse and hands a card to me. I accept it, my hand sliding over hers in the process, that touch between us is electric, and I stare down at her, assessing her. My phone stops ringing and then starts back up again, my gaze flickering over her lips and returning to her beautiful green eyes. I believe her. She didn’t know who I was when we met. And in hindsight, of course she did not. We fought, and I wanted to have make-up sex with a woman I didn’t even know at that point.
“I’ll call you,” I say, heading toward the door, pausing to look at her. “I won’t be your job for long.”
Cat
The rest of the afternoon, I watch Reese work the courtroom, and he is no longer a stranger. He’s the man who just had a conversation with me in the bathroom of this very courthouse. He is the man who touched me on the hand, just the hand, and made me feel it everywhere, inside and out. I really felt that touch, probably because those blue eyes of his were burning into me when it happened.
All that aside, he is still the lead counsel on this case, whom I need to interview to do my job properly, but at least I’ve set the stage to get past our initial encounter, by being upfront about that request. The air is clear. I’ve been honest and professional. Well, honest. I’m not sure telling him that he’s an asshole that can’t be fixed can be called professional any more than me telling him that I considered getting naked with him, even if that tidbit was mostly implied. But as far as I’m concerned, the questionable professionalism of those confessions should be cancelled out by him following me into the women’s bathroom. After that encounter, I’m not convinced he’s the nice guy he and Lauren claim him to be, but I am convinced he’s trouble.
By the time the courtroom closes for the day, I’m also convinced that he’s one hell of an attorney who hasn’t earned his perfect track record of all wins and no losses by luck. He’s picked his clients wisely and defended them just as wisely. By the time I’ve left the day behind, and I’m back home in my PJs, with Chinese food and my MacBook both in bed with me, I’m convinced that nothing he said in that bathroom was accidental. I replay the conversation and focus on four significant words from our exchange: “You can quote me,” he’d said. Was that a test? To see what I would or would not write? I frown and decide that even if it wasn’t a test, it’s a message that he wants delivered.
With that in mind, I start working on my column, writing up my detailed outline of my day in court and then using my closing statement to deliver his message and summarize mine: With more horror-show antics that lacked evidence, once again the prosecution came up short and the defense made their case by simply pointing out the weakness in every witness that took the stand. I expected physical evidence, which hasn’t been presented. But tomorrow the medical examiner takes the stand, and that will be the real test of guilt or innocence in the eyes of the courtroom, at least from where I sit, which is admittedly pretty far back. As for where that will leave the defense once the torch is passed to them and they take the floor is yet to be seen, but I find Reese Summer competent and convincing.
On a side note, I’ve been told by those who know Summer that he won’t defend anyone he doesn’t believe to be innocent. In a short, unexpected encounter with him, that is exactly what he told me. He believes in his client’s innocence. I’m not suggesting that means that he’s right and the prosecution is wrong, but in our court system, you are innocent until proven guilty, and thus far the prosecution has not shown guilt. Will tomorrow prove a different story? We shall see. Finished, I sign off with: Until then, —Cat.
I reread and edit my work and then send it off to my editor before I close my computer. It’s done. I’m done. I’ve delivered a message to the general masses and the prosecution for Reese Summer, and I’ve sent a message to Reese Summer: He can trust me enough to grant me those interviews. The question is, can I trust him? With that question in my mind, I plop down on my back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling, replaying my encounter with him in the bathroom, and damn it, I am remembering how good he’d smelled: Spicy and woodsy. How good he’d looked up close and personal. He’s still an arrogant asshole, but he’s also dirty, sexy trouble that I can’t escape as long as this trial is a live media charge. In other words, I have to be willing to play whatever game he plays with me, and games are how you get burned.
Chapter five
Cat
Day 3: The Trial of the Century
Iwake to my phone ringing, and a dark room, with a quick look at my clock that reads 6:30 a.m. I answer without even looking at the number. “Who died?
“You quoted me.”
My eyes go wide. “Reese Summer?”
“You know my voice.”
“Don’t let that go to your head,” I say, scooting up to lean on my headboard. “Even if I hadn’t been listening to you talk for two days now, which I have, you’re the only person I quoted. And before this goes any further. You said, ‘You can quote me on that,’ twice, and so I quoted you.”
“Yes. I did. I liked your insights.”
“Because I said you were winning.”
“Admittedly, that did help.”
