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“And turned the police attention to me.”
She tries to slap me again, but one of my co-counsels obviously got guards, because they grab her. “Do you want to press charges, Mr. Summer?”
“No charges,” I say. “Just get her out of here.”
They drag her out of the room. “You’re fired,” Nelson growls.
I arch a brow. “You want to deliver your own closing statement? Are you sure about that? Because this trial is ending with or without me.” I don’t tell him the judge won’t let him fire me this far into this thing. I want him to fear being lost and lonely in that courtroom.
“You’re fired.”
I smile. “Well. Good luck.” I turn and walk toward the door.
“Wait. Fuck.”
I face him. “Did you want pointers?”
“Since when does an attorney ignore his client’s wishes?”
“You told me to get you off at all costs. The cost was what just happened in that courtroom.”
“If they come after her, will you defend her?”
“No. Because I don’t defend killers unless they had a justified reason for their actions, namely survival. Is she worth becoming a play toy in jail?” I ask. “Because you will be. The pretty boy who gets everyone off. Literally. And I’m not sure the guards will provide Vaseline.”
He covers his face with his hands, and he’s trembling. “I love her.”
I walk to the conference table and press my hands to it, angry now. “A woman and her unborn child are dead. Do you really love a woman who would kill them?”
He opens his eyes. “I don’t know that she did it.”
“Don’t you? And you know what? If you let her get away with it, you are just as evil as she is. In fact, I’m not sure I can even do the closing. Maybe I should hand it to my co-counsel.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Do you have proof that she killed Jennifer?” I press.
“No. Yes. Maybe. I found something last week.”
“What?”
“In her purse. There was a necklace that Jennifer always wore. I saw it in her purse, but it doesn’t mean she killed her.”
“Tell the police.”
“I will,” he assures me and he sounds like he means it.
“And get the fuck away from her before you end up dead, too.” I push off the desk and exit the room, entering the one across the hall. I don’t rehearse my closing that I’ve beaten to death. I call Cat.
Chapter twenty-nine
Cat
The short break is over at eleven, and I swear I’m so nervous for Reese that I feel like I’m the one about to deliver a closing. I have to force myself to sit, and when Reese finds his way to his table and his eyes meet mine, that connection between us is more powerful than ever. He lets me see the nerves that no one else in this room can see, and I watch them transform into hard determination. Somehow, in that brief moment, a million words pass between us without one spoken.
The court is called to order, and Dan takes center stage. His closing is a short twenty minutes, but despite this conciseness, at its conclusion, I can say that it is far better than I expected. He uses words like “dead baby” and “young woman kept from motherhood.” He talks about the brutal hit to her head as she was pushed to her death. And the real kicker that he plays on over and over: A rich, powerful man who didn’t want his business and his life destroyed by a pregnant mistress. A rich, powerful man that didn’t know the baby wasn’t his.
I’m feeling pretty worried until Reese stands up. He speaks for forty minutes exactly in what is a powerful, intelligent delivery of the critical points. He recaps the key points about no evidence and details the only evidence in the crime: Fingerprints on a door that could have been left at any time.
