Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
There won’t be any fancy legal tricks. I don’t know how to mount a proper defense, and if this goes to trial, I’m totally screwed.
I’m going to have to prove that Nicolas didn’t kill those guys beyond a shadow of a doubt, and I’d better do it soon.
There’s a knock at my door. I sit up straight, and a spike of fear runs into my chest. I keep imagining those killers, picturing at least three or four of them, professional guys in those suits crime scene people wear that don’t leave any prints or fibers or DNA evidence, like killer spacemen. I look through my peephole, heart racing, phone in hand ready to call emergency services—
But Angelo’s face looks back at me. “I hear you breathing,” he says and raises up two coffees. “You’re working. Let me in.”
I step away from the door.
I could ignore this. Pretend like he’s not there. I could tell him to go away and let me do what I need to do.
But he’s got coffee and I’m barely functioning.
“Fine,” I say and unlock the door. When I open it, he breezes past and heads inside. “But you’re not distracting me.”
“Nice place,” he says, looking around. I live in a decent two-bedroom apartment in a nice part of Dallas. There are certain perks to being a lawyer, even a first-year associate, and it helps that my parents paid for my undergrad degree and helped with law school.
I shut the door and lock it. “Be respectful of my personal space, please.”
“I’m nothing but respectful.” He hands me a cup. “Coffee, one cream, one sugar. I didn’t know how you took it.”
“That’s fine.” I take a sip and sigh. “You’re right, okay? I am working. Been working all night.”
“I see that.” He lingers at the edge of my living room and stares at all the books, files, folders, and pictures. “You come up with anything?”
“Nothing.” I sit down in the middle of it all and slump back against the couch. I feel him watching me and I’m suddenly very aware of my thin pajama shorts and the simple black Metallica t-shirt I’m wearing with the big rip near my boobs. I wish I had a bathrobe or something, and I settle for putting up my hair into my customary tight bun and hoping he doesn’t look too closely at my chest. Which is definitely wishful thinking. “Just a few odds and ends but nothing solid.”
“Like what?” He drifts closer and squints down at what I’m studying.
“Like they found fingerprints on the table and that lines up with Nicolas’s story. They have footage of him going into the motel room and coming back out, but the CCTV doesn’t have sound, and allegedly doesn’t show anyone else coming or going. But he was only in there for a brief window, like he claimed.”
“That’s all they have? They’re basing the murder of five guys on that?” Angelo looks appalled. “Fucking prosecutors. Fucking cops.”
“There’s one more thing.” I hesitate to even tell him about this, but he’ll find out eventually. “A witness claims to have heard something. He’s a maintenance guy that was doing work on a room nearby, and he swears he heard violent and angry shouting around the time that Nicolas went into that room. He claims the fighting ended after Nicolas left. He was the one who contacted the cops.”
“A fucking witness,” Angelo says quietly, face hard. “That’s where we start then.”
I hold up a hand. “Actually—”
“It’ll be easy. We find him, break one of his fingers, and he’ll tell us the truth. We get him to recant his story, and boom, it’s all over.”
“Absolutely not,” I say sharply. “That’s called witness tampering and that’ll get us both thrown in jail.”
“So we let the prick do whatever the fuck he wants?”
I shake my head. “No, we don’t, but here’s the thing. If he is lying, that means he’s part of whatever really went down. If we go to him, our enemies will know we’re starting to peel apart their story. We need to look somewhere else, ideally somewhere they’re not looking too.”
He studies me as a small smile breaks across his mouth. “You’re one smart ice queen, you know that?”
“God, you’re the worst.”
“Beautiful, intelligent, and isn’t afraid to crack the whip. I’d say you’re the perfect woman.”
“Get out. Just go.”
“No thanks.” He stretches and sighs. “What now?”
“Now I sit here and drink this coffee and then I read through all these files again. And you leave.”
He stands and crosses the room, which is the opposite of what I wanted. He sinks down onto the couch beside me, sitting way too close, and I’m very aware of his dress shirt rolled up to the elbows and his slim suit pants that hug his muscular thighs to perfection. His eyes skim across the papers before landing on my mouth, and I swear I can hear him thinking right now, or maybe it’s just me, but either way, the image of him kissing me and fucking me slips back into my mind.