“I can’t go to jail.”
Sophie turned her head and met the worried stare of her client. Julianna Patrice McNall-Smith’s face was carefully made up, but her fear was breaking up that mask. Causing the makeup to appear too thick. Her lips too red. Her eyes too stark.
“I didn’t kill my husband,” Julianna said as her fingers fluttered nervously. “I don’t care what my stepdaughter is saying. I’m innocent. I didn’t do this!”
She patted Julianna’s hand. “Relax. This is all preliminary stuff. When the actual trial starts, we’ll—”
“Prove my innocence?” Julianna pleaded, voice breaking.
“No.” Sophie kept her voice quiet. Most folks had already left the courtroom, but a few people—including the prosecuting assistant district attorney—were still here. “I just need to cast doubt that you’re the guilty one. Enough doubt to sway just one person on that jury.”
Her words didn’t seem to be reassuring Julianna.
“Don’t worry,” Sophie told her. “We’ll show the jurors all of your husband’s enemies. We’ll get them to see just what kind of man he truly was.”
A sadistic, controlling bastard. A bastard with too much money and too much power.
But money and power hadn’t stopped his death.
“I didn’t do it,” Julianna whispered. “I-I don’t know what happened. I woke up, and blood was everywhere and—”
And the ADA was closing in. Sophie touched Julianna’s shoulder. “We’ll talk again later.”
Julianna blanched.
“Hello, ADA,” Sophie said, raising her voice.
Julianna was still walking around in some sort of dazed shock. Sophie had seen it before. The shock that came when your world collapsed. When you were suddenly faced with losing your freedom. When your friends and family turned their backs on you and the whole world seemed to have gone mad.
Been there, done that, too many times.
Julianna hadn’t even noticed the ADA sidling closer.
Sophie had.
The ADA, a handsome, brown-haired man with a grin that flashed his dimples, closed in on her. Only he didn’t flash his dimples. Sophie knew that Clark Eastbridge saved his dimples for important people—like juries.
“She got your bail, not real surprising, is it?” Clark murmured. “Sophie is the best.”
She smiled at him. Okay, she bared her teeth. She and Clark spent far too much time as opponents. She’d heard he was a decent guy, but since he was usually trying to toss her clients into some dank, dark cell someplace, she’d never actually seen the decent side of him.
Guilty until proven innocent. She figured that was his motto.
“You took my client’s passport. You insisted on a two-million-dollar bond…” She kept her grim smile in place. “Don’t you think that was excessive?”
The faint lines near his eyes—a blue that was darker than Sophie’s own—tightened a bit. “I think stabbing a man thirteen times is excessive.” His voice—smooth and deep—rolled over her. Clark shrugged. “But that’s just me.”
Julianna whimpered. No other word for it. A full-on whimper. “I didn’t! I-I don’t know what happened—”
Oh, hell. Time to stop the client from saying anything else. If they were going for an insanity defense, Sophie would deal with that whole not-remembering bit later.
“We’re done.” She patted Sophie on the shoulder. Hard. “My associate, Kurt, will take care of you. You’ll be out on bail before you can blink.”
Julianna was blinking at her—blinking away tears. “Thank you. You believe me when no one else does.”
It actually wasn’t her job to believe her clients. It was just her job to defend them. But when Julianna came in for a hug, Sophie embraced the other woman. She even heard herself reassuringly say, “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” That was so crazy. She never made vows to her clients like that.
It was just that—in spite of all her money and the power that Julianna had once wielded—she seemed so broken to Sophie.
Sophie glanced over Julianna’s shoulder. Sophie’s assistant, Kurt Blayne, was already on his feet. He’d been second chair for her that day, and the guy knew his stuff. He was an up-and-coming defense lawyer at her firm, and she knew Kurt would go far. His good looks would work wonders for jurors and his sharp intellect—it would definitely help his client.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Kurt told Julianna, using a soft, reassuring voice. “Don’t worry. Sophie handles the judges, and I make sure the clients get home safe.”
He also had orders to stay close to Julianna—to make sure she didn’t talk to the press or any little…visitors…that a sneaky ADA might send her way.
Sophie didn’t speak again until Julianna and Kurt were gone. Then she lifted her right eyebrow—a trick she liked to use on difficult witnesses, a look that she knew totally called bullshit—and she said, “You honestly believe that woman took a knife and stabbed her husband again and again? A man who outweighed her by sixty pounds? A man who was nearly a foot taller? A man who—”
“I think I don’t buy her innocent act. And I think you’re too smart to do it, too.”
“I’m smart enough to recognize a victim when I see one.” She started gathering her things together, shoving her notebook back into her briefcase, snapping up her tablet, and—
He touched her hand. “She isn’t you. None of the people you defend—they aren’t you.”
Sophie swallowed, hating the burn of shame that filled her. She and Clark hadn’t attended the same college and definitely not the same law school. They sure as hell hadn’t grown up in the same neighborhood. He was Ivy League, a rich boy from day one. Born to wealth and privilege.
She wasn’t.
But Clark would have access to all her records. Everyone at the DA’s office would. So that meant plenty of people in this town knew about her painful past.
She stiffened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Rumors and whispers had followed her for years. She’d never let anyone see that those rumors and whispers cut her like knives. “I never said she was me. If it had been me…” Now she locked her gaze on him. “I would have fought back after the first beating. She didn’t. She let him hurt her again and again. And I’ll prove in court that he was the aggressor, not my client.”
Clark whistled. “Li
ke that, is it? Going for the old battered spouse story?”
“It’s not a story.” That jerk would know nothing about abuse. “I’m going to for my client’s freedom. That’s all.” He was still touching her. She didn’t like it. His touch didn’t make her warm, not the way Lex’s did. In fact, he was nothing at all like Lex.
Or like the men she dated. She needed men with an edge. Men with a darkness that clung to them.
Not men who only saw the world in narrow terms of black and white. Innocent and guilty.
Sometimes, the innocent could be guilty.
And the guilty could be innocent.
“Get your hand off me,” Sophie said, not even bothering to be polite about it. As if she had a reputation for politeness in justice circles. She knew good and well that most thought she was a hard-ass, and she liked that. Folks in her business didn’t respect someone who could be easily pushed around.
So, no, politeness wasn’t her concern then. She just didn’t want him touching her.
He’s not Lex.
That thought shot through her head and made her uncomfortable.
He immediately removed his hand. “I’m sorry, I…” Clark exhaled. “Look, how about we go someplace and talk? I sure didn’t mean to piss you off, okay?”
Now she eyed him with suspicion. “Why the nice act?”
His gaze slid away.
“Clark…”
“I might have heard about your break-in last night. I just—I wanted to see if you were all right.”
There was no might in the equation. The ADA had been sharing gossip again. If her spine got any straighter, Sophie feared it would snap. “Did your cop buddies try to tell you that I imagined the whole thing? Because I didn’t.”
He reached out toward her, then stopped, his hand clenching into a fist. “Of course you didn’t. I know you. You aren’t a woman given to fantasy—”
Actually, on that, he was wrong. She fantasized plenty. Mostly about Lex.
“If there’s something I can do to help you, I will. I’ll send more cops to patrol your neighborhood tonight. I can make sure you’re safe while you’re there and—”
A strong, male voice said, “She won’t be there tonight, Eastbridge, but thanks.”