[Piper Anderson 01.0] Three Seconds to Rush

by Danielle Stewart

  “Understood,” Reid assured her. “The sooner the better.” It was a good thing he wasn’t under oath right now because the Bible he’d have to lay his hand on would burst into flames.

  “Anything else?” the judge asked, her gavel hovering ominously over the desk. Both Reid and Chelsea replied that there would be nothing more today.

  “You’ll both be notified about motion and plea deadlines as well as expert witness and evidence disclosures. Court adjourned.”

  Chapter 6

  “You didn’t need to pay my bail,” Tara edged out nervously, rocking back and forth on her heels as she tightened her arms and tried to stay warm.

  “Did you want to stay in jail?” Reid asked flatly, and she shook her head no. “Did you have anyone else willing to pay?” For the second time she shook her head no. “Then I had to pay your bail. Now here’s some money for cab fare back to your apartment. They had your car impounded so I’ll make calls tomorrow to get it out.”

  “What do we do next?” she asked, feeling as small as she ever had in her life. Since becoming a mother Tara had learned to fight. She fought the nagging loneliness that came with her isolated life. She fought the exhaustion from nurturing and loving someone more than herself. But at that moment she had no fight left. If Reid smelled the way he had when they were children, that bubble gum and licorice type of sweet, she’d fall into his arms right now. But he didn’t. He was all musk and aftershave. He was altogether different. A stranger.

  “Nothing tonight. But come tomorrow we’ll need some resources. You and I will talk, then we’ll argue and get aggravated and you’ll beg me to stop asking you questions but I won’t. I need to know every detail of your life because at this very moment that prosecutor is out turning over every rock and looking for your secrets.”

  “I have none,” she protested.

  “No more tonight, Tara. I can’t. I’ve heard all I can for one night. We’ll start again tomorrow. Just go home.”

  “It’ll be empty,” she sniffled, bringing a sleeve of her too thin coat up to wipe her freezing nose. They were standing on the stairs of the courthouse and the wind was whipping in their direction. She was desperate to get something from him, some kind of comfort or strength.

  “This should cover the cab.” He slipped a few bills into her hand and walked away. It was too late in the evening, the sun dipping down too low behind the tall buildings for her to be able to see his face as he crossed the street. It was all shadows and emptiness. He was all shadows and emptiness.

  After watching him disappear toward a parking garage she stared at the money in her hand. It was more than enough to grab a cab home, and she was sure he knew that. It would get her dinner and a tank of gas once she had her car back, too. She watched a few yellow cabs roll by and considered raising her hand to flag them down. But she didn’t. Tara wasn’t going home. There would be a thousand little things that would remind her of Wylie. And that ache was so deep she thought it might split her in half if she faced it.

  Her feet began shuffling forward before she formulated an exact destination. But there was a pull, a siren’s song of need inside of her, and she’d follow it. She had to.

  Chapter 7

  “Get in the car,” a sharp voice yelled in Reid’s direction as he walked across the parking garage.

  “Christ, Kay you scared the shit out of me. What do you want?” Reid didn’t make a move to get into Katelin Star’s red Camaro. He hadn’t been in it since he broke things off with her nearly six months ago.

  “Get in, we need to talk.” She leaned across the passenger seat and flung the door open.

  “About what?” he asked, finally sinking down into the seat with a huff. “I’ve had a long shitty day, and I’d like to be in my car on my way home.”

  “Chelsea called me just now,” Kay explained as she shifted the car into gear and took off out of the parking garage.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Chelsea called and told me about the case. What the hell are you doing in there? Are you having a quarter life crisis or something? Did you hit your head?”

  “Chelsea doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about,” Reid attempted, but he knew an astute lawyer like Kay and an articulate woman like Chelsea would have had plenty of time to hash out the details of what was going on and probably have a hundred theories of why.

  “I won’t say anything to her about it. She wasn’t asking me to dig anything up. I honestly think she was a little worried for you or your client. I know for a fact that your plate is full with your firm. They dump everything on you. I know you are sick of all these rich bastards hiring you to defend them for crimes they commit. But have you actually cracked?”

  “I haven’t,” he replied, unsure if that was the truth or not. “I have a client who refused a plea deal and is asserting her innocence. I’m going to defend her. It happens all the time.”

  “Not in these types of cases,” Kay argued, and Reid knew he was too tired and emotionally drained to win.

  “From what I gather she has no money to pay you, you have no time to try the case, and there is no case to be made. I know you like to punish yourself but this is a true lose-lose situation.”

  “How do you figure?” Reid asked, tossing his hands up in defeat as Kay circled around the city aimlessly.

  “If you lose the case she’s likely to go to prison for at least five years. If you win it, and she’s guilty, you’ll free a mother who left her child to die in a shopping cart while she did drugs. After being acquitted she’d be on a pretty expedited path to get her child back. So tell me that one little thing you’re hiding, because it’s written all over your face.”

  “I know her,” he coughed out in annoyance.

  “You dated?” Kay asked, then corrected, “You’re dating now?”

  “No,” Reid huffed. “We knew each other as kids. I haven’t seen her in almost a decade.”

  “Yet you feel obligated to represent her?”

  “I owe her,” he spat out but then immediately remembered he had no intention of sharing that information with anyone. It was their secret. His burden. “We were very good friends for many years until she moved away. She’s in a jam, and I want to help her.”

  “Convincing her to take the plea deal was helping her.”

  “I tried.”

  “You have more time. Try again. You can still motion to change her plea. I know Chelsea would be open to it.”

  “She won’t,” he said, shaking his head. “She says she’s innocent. She’s convinced of it.”

  “Are you convinced?” Kay asked in a very small voice as she pulled the car over, knocking the rim against the curb as she did.

  “I don’t need to believe her to defend her. You know that about my job. It’s basically the only rule.”

  “It’s the part you hate the most. It’s the part that had you staring at the ceiling when I’d wake up in the middle of the night and look at you. That one little rule is crushing you.”

  “I’m not crushed,” he scoffed with a shrug. “I’m right here and I’m fine.”

  “You could leave the firm and come over to the DA’s office. It’s a cut in pay at first but you can work your way up.”

  “This is the same argument we had once a week for the majority of our relationship. Do you really want to have it again?”

  “No,” she admitted, “but there are a lot of things I wish didn’t have to happen again. There’s this dark place you go, this island in yourself that you’d row your boat toward and then throw the oars away. It scared me when you headed that way. You deserve happiness.” A familiar defeated droop fell over Kay’s face, and he remembered instantly why they were not together.

  “I really am fine,” he lied as he patted her shoulder as formally as possible, considering their history. This post-breakup arguing had twice before turned into a kiss. That turned into another night together. But it had to be done now. For her sake.

  “I don’t believe
you but if I keep you here much longer, I think it turns into a hostage situation,” she said through a little forced laugh as she shifted in gear again and sped down the road toward the courthouse. “Just promise me you’ll be careful and call if you need me. I don’t have to agree with you to help you.”

  “Thanks, Kay,” he said, averting his eyes from her warmth, feeling repelled by her kindness, so polar opposite it pushed him away like the flip side of a magnet. As the world moved by him, like the shutter of a camera clicking over the city, there was a flash of Tara. The pinned up hair, the same outfit she’d had on in court today. There she was, not in the cab he’d told her to catch. Instead walking down the street toward the seedy road leading to the old factory affectionately known as pill palace. “Damn,” he murmured before he could stop himself.

  “What is it?” Kay asked in that way she always did when he started to falter. It happened more frequently than he liked to admit.

  “I forgot I have a meeting in the morning with Fisher about a case we’re wrapping up. I overbooked myself,” he covered quickly. “Guess I better get my shit together.”

  “Why start now?” She giggled lightly as they rounded the corner and pulled into the parking garage. “Don’t forget to call me,” Kay purred, smiling up at him as he lifted himself from the car and turned his back.

  Watching her cherry red car pull away reminded him of the day he’d finally broken things off. He could have married Kay. No, he should have married her. She was the kind of woman who fought to make sure he was happy.

  Plans were always made for him so he could have some kind of social life. She kept him fed and fit and well rested. Kay cared. She meant it. He’d be happier now if he’d stayed with her. But the same could not be said for Kay, and that was the point. For every improvement she brought to his life, he diminished hers in some way. Not maliciously. Not intentionally. But that didn’t change the reality. It took a lot of work to keep a man like Reid happy. Because his natural state was anything but. It was a job. And the only way to save Kay from that burden was to emotionally fire her. Tonight, listening as she laid her help at his feet once again, he knew he’d done the right thing.

  The long car ride home was calling his name. Blaring music, an energy drink, and a power bar for dinner. The winding road would be just what he needed right now. Even if he had the urge to chase Tara down and stop her from using his cab fare to buy her next fix. It wouldn’t matter. Not right now. She’d have to be clean for the trial. But tonight he could hardly blame her. That was the thing about addicts, they were nothing if not consistent.

  Chapter 8

  Twelve years earlier

  “Tara, you are such an idiot.” Thomas Dorrady laughed as his beer spilled out of his red Solo cup onto her dress. It was the first time she’d worn it and her prepubescent body wasn’t filling it out the right way. “What kind of party did you think this was?”

  “I’m going,” she said, trying to push past him but blocked under his grip on her shoulder. “Just let me go.” Her voice was as small and ineffectual as her fists would have been against Thomas’s ruddy pocked face.

  “You’re here now, might as well party.” Thomas pushed the red cup into her face, but she slapped it away, sending it flying and landing with a splash to the ground. A fire brewed in his eyes, but it wasn’t anger. It was some type of twisted pleasure in her fighting back. As if her acting out would warrant and excuse whatever he wanted to do next.

  “What the hell? Do you know how hard it was to get that beer? You owe me now. How you going to pay up?” His grip was crushing as he backed her to the closest wall of his parent’s basement and tipped her head up with his free hand. She focused her eyes away from him, not giving him the satisfaction of her attention. Instead, blinking through the threat of tears, she stared at the knots in the old wood paneling. Some looked like faces, crying out for help. Others looked like angry monsters.

  “Back off, Tommy,” Reid’s voice demanded as he closed in on them. Relief flooded Tara’s body at the sight of him. Their friendship had changed after the summer pulled them both in different directions. She was twelve and Reid was fourteen; it had a way of dividing them like the shifts of tectonic plates. They’d smash together and pull apart. But he still cared for her, and he wasn’t going to let some jerk hurt her. She knew that.

  “Mind your business, Reid; she spilled my beer.” He never took his eyes off Tara, looking at her body in the way most boys did lately. His tongue ran over his lips like Tara was an appetizer.

  “I’ll spill your brains all over this floor if you don’t let her go,” Reid threatened, moving in closer, and although Tommy didn’t look back at him, she felt his grip start to loosen. The glint in his eyes, the mischievous one that terrified her, melted away.

  “Come on, Tara, I’ll walk you home.” Reid reached his hand out and she took it quickly, sliding out from under Tommy’s arm. She saw Tommy open his mouth to protest and his hand came up to grab back at her, but Reid’s stiff arm slammed into his chest. “I’m serious, man,” Reid said in a low voice. “I’ll destroy you right here in front of all your buddies and embarrass the hell out of you in the process.”

  “Why do you give a shit about this poor little piece of trash? She’s a freak.”

  “If I see you touch her again you won’t even hear me coming for you,” Reid said. “I’m talking about ever. At school, on the street, wherever, you don’t go near her again,” he hissed as they walked up the basement stairs, his hand on her back.

  It was impossible for a little girl not to fall in love with a guy like Reid. He was a sweetheart who had been wrapped in the muscle of a newly changing body. He towered over most of the other boys, and his shoulders had started to broaden well before theirs. It meant he was on every sports team, on every girl’s list, and yet he didn’t seem to take notice of anyone or anything in particular. To her he was still the little fat kid she’d met at the park years ago who couldn’t seem to keep his balance or stay out of the bully’s way. And maybe that’s why he was still loyal to her, because she’d stood by him when no one else cared to.

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Reid scolded as they headed down the street to her house.

  “I didn’t know it was that kind of party,” she argued. “I just thought it was like, you know, a birthday party or something.” Her cheeks blazed with embarrassment, knowing now how stupid she sounded.

  “I don’t know how you’re going to make it through this life the way you are,” Reid said, his face softening as he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes and crammed his hands into his pockets, slumping his shoulders forward.

  “What do you mean?” she asked, feeling even more self-conscious of his assessment. The age gap had never really meant much between them until he began to change. There was a time they were about the same height, and she could hardly picture that now.

  “You are too sweet, Tara. That’s not a compliment. You have to be stronger than this, smarter. Someone is going to hurt you someday. What did you think Tommy was going to do to you if I hadn’t come in? Seriously. I want to know if you know.”

  She shrugged. “Push me around or something?” She had an idea of what a guy like Tommy would want with her, but she wouldn’t know the right thing to say. And she was getting so tired of saying all the wrong things to Reid.

  “Guys only want one thing from girls, Tara. You can’t put yourself in a position where you’re alone with someone like that. Especially if he’s drinking. He’ll hurt you. You’ll understand it someday, but until you do you just have to trust me. Because, like I said, I don’t know how you’re going to make it if you keep being so sweet.”

  “I know how,” she smiled with half her mouth as she looked at him. “I’ll have you.” She nudged at his side with her bony elbow, but he didn’t laugh.

  “You might not always have me,” he said, a frightening worry washing over him. From a guy who never seemed to get worked up about anything, this was freaking her out
. “You need to learn to take care of yourself. Promise me.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked, taking a few large steps and diving in front of him so he had to look her in the eye. “You know you can’t leave, right? I’ve got no one else. You know my parents; you know what they do.”

  “Forget it,” Reid said, glancing away. “Just promise me you’ll be more careful. Don’t trust anyone. You can’t.”

  “Can’t I trust you?” she asked, walking again with him, tucking her hands in her pockets too.

  “Yeah,” he sighed, “you can trust me. You can always trust me. But no one else.”

  “Okay,” she nodded, her short bobbed hair dancing back and forth. “And you can trust me, Reid. You know that, right? I swear it. I know there isn’t a ton of stuff I can do for you, but you can trust me.”

  “I know, kid,” he said with a laugh as he patted her head affectionately. “I can trust you.”

  Chapter 9

  “Thanks for getting my car out,” Tara chirped as she lowered herself into the chair across from Reid. “Your office is really nice.” It was a large space with windows behind him that looked out over a quiet row of trees. The desk was a rich cherry wood with fancy notches carved into the edges. Warm beige walls were adorned with paintings, but nothing hinted at his personal life. Just some framed degrees and art that looked specifically designed for a professional space.

  His eyes were on her, scrutinizing with a hint of anger. “Thanks,” he finally edged out, looking more tense than he had during their time together in court.

  “Are you all right?” Tara asked, leaning back and folding her arms across her chest self-consciously. She’d taken a shower, brushed her hair out, and put on her only decent outfit. But the look in his eyes was making her feel like a heap of garbage.