I gripped Jessica’s hand. “What happened?” I asked softly.
She shook her head. It was clearly painful for her to move. Tears sprung into her eyes.
“It was an accident. I wasn’t trying to kill myself. I just wanted to stop thinking. I just wanted to block it all out.”
Her voice was raspy from the tube that had been down her throat.
“The rape?” I probed.
A tear rolled down her cheek. “Yes.”
I squeezed her hand. “Jessica, Seb is facing trial at the moment. Someone else has accused him of rape. One of my bosses is his uncle. He’s representing him.”
Jessica turned her head to me, her bottom lip trembling. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Her voice cracked as she spoke, even her anger not enough to make her voice rise to more than a whisper.
“Galiema said she’d represent you for free, if you want.”
Jessica was already shaking her head. “I already told you, Katie, I don’t want to.”
“Listen,” I said. “With your testimony and the other woman’s, we could have a really solid case against Seb. We could make sure he’s put behind bars where he belongs. Without you, he’s bound to win. John Newland is the best lawyer in DC.”
Jessica pulled her hand away from mine. “Why won’t you listen to me? I’m not standing up there in a court and telling them all the sordid details. I don’t want to relieve it. I don’t want people not believing me.”
It was no use. There was no getting through to her. That meant I’d have to go back to Nick and Seb’s apartment to see if I could find more evidence.
“I wish you’d reconsider,” I said to Jessica. “Galiema is an amazing lawyer. She’s doing this for free.”
“And you want me to be grateful?” Jessica shot back in her raspy whisper. “Well I’m not. The only thing I’m reconsidering, Katie, is you.”
I sat back, stunned. “What?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” Jessica spat at me. “This is all your fault, you know. You were there. You should have stopped it.”
The tears were rolling down her cheeks. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I thought you were having consensual sex,” I countered. “And I was only in that damn apartment because of you! It was what you wanted, not me.”
“Oh right, because I’m such a slut? Go on, Katie, why don’t you say it! Little Miss Chaste. I know it’s what you’re thinking. You think I deserved it.”
I stood, my mind whirling. This wasn’t Jessica. The anger and hatred spewing from her mouth wasn’t something I’d ever expected to hear from my best friend.
“I don’t think that at all,” I said, but I was floundering.
Jessica turned her back to me, hunching her thin hospital sheets up to her chin. “Just fuck off, Katie. Leave me alone.”
I staggered back out through the privacy curtain, completely bewildered. In the hallway, my eyes were so blurred with tears that I collided with Tim and Jonas, carrying a tray with coffees.
“Leaving already?” Tim said.
“Jessica doesn’t want me here,” I stammered.
“Of course she does,” Tim tried to say, but I was shaking my head vigorously.
“She blames me for everything.”
Tim reached for me, but I pushed his hand away. I didn’t want his comfort. My best friend hated me, and there was only one person in the world I wanted to be with right now. And that was Harrison.
Chapter Thirteen
Harrison
I lay in the camp bed, the sheets twisted up around me. Never in my life had I experienced anything as amazing as what I just had with Katie.
I tried to make sense of it. Maybe it was the fear of the trial making me live in the moment. Maybe it was the possibility of never being with a woman again that was making it feel so much more intense. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t had sex—proper sex, not like what I’d had with Shantelle—in so long that my body wanted to gorge on it.
But no matter how many theories I came up with, I kept coming back to one simple fact. Katie. It was her. She was the reason for my screaming orgasms. Her skin, her body, her cunt—it all set me on fire.
Being with her made all my fears disappear. I’d forgotten entirely about the ankle tag, about the possibility of a trial, of possibly losing Brent’s financial funding. It was only in the times that she left me that those fears swamped me, crowding in, threatening to suffocate me. Taking me back to that black, terrible place I’d been on the night I’d fucked Shantelle.
If only I’d met Katie that night instead of Shantelle…
I needed something to distract myself from my thoughts. I began looking through Katie’s case notes. Somehow, amidst all the fucking and coming, Katie had been compiling a thorough narrative to explain what had happened that night with Shantelle. What piqued my interest the most was the dirt she’d dug up on the woman I was charged with killing.
Shantelle was a prostitute—Katie had made the damning revelation to me. The investigator and Newland & Rook had been working tirelessly behind the scenes since my arrest to get statements from her many johns. She was also an exotic dancer and had starred in several pornos. Now her theatrics made more sense, as well as her creativity when it came to things to try in the bedroom.
I thought back to the moment I’d met her. Had she thought I was a client? I certainly hadn’t thought that. There was nothing I could recall to suggest that our liaison was to be paid for, and she’d been demanding in the bedroom, which, from my brief experience with the hookers Brent had sent to my hotel room, wasn’t the way sex workers usually operated. But I also knew that sex workers didn’t usually give it up for free, not for one-night stands, at least. Of course they had partners and had sex within the boundaries of a healthy, loving relationship, but that wasn’t what Shantelle and I had.
Was there another reason why Shantelle had chosen to go back to my apartment that night? The status of it, sure. The ability to brag to people about fucking a famous sports star. But was that really it, or could there have been another reason why she ended up in my bed that night?
Chapter Fourteen
Katie
By the time I got back to Newland & Rook I was an absolute mess. Even the cab driver asked me if he could do anything, since I was sobbing so hard.
I raced up the stairs to my office.
“Harrison?” I cried. “Where are you?”
I saw him moving in my office, standing from the chair at my desk. He strode towards the door, and I fell into his arms at the threshold.
“Katie,” he soothed, whispering into the crown of my head. “My God, what’s happened?”
“Jessica blames me for everything,” I whimpered.
Harrison took me in his arms, holding me tightly. I felt so comfortable there. When he released me he took my hand in his and led me into the kitchen. Despite everything we had done to each other’s bodies, there was something about holding his hand that was the most intimate of all.
Harrison prepared the coffee machine. “You know, if we were in England I’d be making you a nice cup of tea,” he said. “But I guess we’ll have to make do with coffee.”
I smiled, appreciating his attempts to lighten the mood.
As the coffee brewed, I managed to calm down. I wiped the tears from my cheeks. I couldn’t believe that I’d cried in front of Harrison like that. He must have been thinking I was crazy.
Once the coffee was ready, he handed me a cup and sat in the seat opposite. I could hardly look at him. I was embarrassed by the way I’d flown in here like a damsel in distress. I cupped my hands around the mug, letting the hot porcelain sting my skin.
Harrison reached over and touched my arm lightly.
“You know I’m here for you,” he said. “If you need to talk.”
I blew the steam from the top of my cup. “Why?”
“Why?” he repeated as though confused.
Finally I looked at him. Even now, after all we’d been through, t
he sight of his pale green eyes disarmed me.
“I mean, why me?” I said precisely. “Why do you care? I’m just your lawyer.”
Harrison shook his head jovially. “You’re not, Katie Scott. You’re not just my lawyer.”
I didn’t understand what was happening between us. It made sense that twenty-six-year-old sex-starved me would fall head over heels for insanely gorgeous, super strong, famous athlete Harrison, but what the hell did he see in me?
He gripped both my hands in his.
“You know Catherine wasn’t the only woman I was with. I had girlfriends. A lot. I played the field when I was a young man, went round the block a few times. There were Shantelles before Catherine, a thousand of them—women I’d meet in bars, women who’d throw themselves at my feet.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I laughed.
“Because of all those women I’ve been with there are precisely two who have gotten into my head and under my skin. And the first one I made my wife.”
My eyes darted up. My heart was slamming against my ribcage. Was Harrison insinuating that he…?
No, I couldn’t dare let myself think it.
“Katie,” Harrison said slowly, deliberately. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
***
We spent the rest of Sunday alternating between working on his case and giving one another orgasms. One minute I’d be typing notes, and the next, Harrison’s hand would be inside my skirt, bringing me to climax. Then he’d be reading through a report and I would take it from his hands and get on my knees, blowing him until he screamed out with pleasure.
Harrison’s stamina amazed me. My own ability to let go of everything in my mind and enjoy the pleasure he was offering was also startling. I was grateful, at last, that I’d made the mad decision to give the Newland & Rook offices as the location of his ankle bracelet. How different my life would have been if I’d let him go off to Brent Johnson’s that day, or one of his other teammates’ places. I would probably have lived my entire life not knowing what it felt like to experience such mind-shattering orgasms.
But as the evening drew on, a dark shadow loomed over both of us. Tomorrow would be our first negotiation with the DA’s office, and our first chance to make sure Harrison’s case never made it to court. I knew we had some strong counter-evidence that might ruffle a few feathers, but there was always the chance they’d offer the sort of plea bargain we’d be unable to accept, essentially forcing us before a jury and all the media speculation that would come with it.
The other shadow looming over us was the fact that I couldn’t stay with him that night. If I slept over at Newland & Rook’s, someone was bound to find us together on Monday morning when the office was back to its usual routine. There was always some early bird working on a case who’d swoop in at 7 a.m. It was too risky. Though DC had no specific clause forbidding client-lawyer liaisons, it was frowned upon, and likely something that I’d be disbarred for.
Knowing the hurdles that awaited us the following morning, Harrison and I decided to have one last, mind-blowing sex session in his temporary camper bed. Afterwards, I lay in his arms, feeling his searing flesh against mine.
“When you get me off of these charges,” Harrison said, “I’m going to take you all over the world.”
“You are?” I murmured dreamily.
“Yes. And I’m going to buy you dinners out and as many pairs of shoes as you want.”
I laughed. “I don’t want shoes.”
“You don’t want shoes?” he scoffed. “I thought shoes were meant be every woman’s true love.”
I rested my hand on his chest.
“I only have one true love, Harrison,” I said. “And that’s you.”
Chapter Fifteen
Katie
It was just my luck that the prosecutor assigned to Harrison’s case was Mark, a guy I’d briefly dated many years ago. We’d come up against each other in several cases, but this one especially grated on me. The last thing I wanted to see was his smarmy face and greasy black hair. It was guaranteed to irk me, and since I’d gotten so close to Harrison, the chances of me losing my cool were pretty high.
He shook my hand cordially. “Miss Scott.”
I forced a smile onto my face. “Mr. Pickering.”
After Mark and Galiema had shaken hands, we all settled down, ready to begin negotiations.
“We have a plea deal for you,” Mark said, like some kind of used car salesman about to make a dodgy deal. “Fifteen years, chance of parole.”
I scoffed. “Absolutely not.”
Galiema rested her hand on my arm in warning—one that told me we weren’t in as good a position as I may have thought.
I tried to calm my emotions. “We have character witnesses for Shantelle who will argue away every single one of the points you have. Every wound, every scratch, can be accounted for and attributed to innocent causes. We can call on witnesses; we have a list as long as your arm, and they’re all more than happy to get their fifteen minutes in the spotlight.”
A thin smile appeared on Mark’s lips. “Except you really don’t want this to go to court, do you? If Mr. Wrexler goes through the courts, he’ll never work again.”
“If he takes your fifteen years he won’t, either,” I countered. “At least the jury will give him a chance.”
“You’re right,” Mark said, clearly enjoying riling me up. “Maybe I’ve been too generous. Twenty. And you can forget about the parole. Final offer.”
“You’ve increased it!” I cried. “Are you losing your mind or something?”
It was Galiema’s turn to interject. She could see this was getting out of hand.
“Can you please explain your rationale for such a heavy sentence?” she asked diplomatically.
Mark raised an eyebrow. “It’s hardly heavy. Any sane judge would give the creep life. He should count his lucky stars he didn’t murder that woman while he was in Texas, or he’d be facing the death penalty.”
“Harrison didn’t murder anyone,” I shot back, slamming my fist onto the table.
Galiema was looking worried beside me, clearly not understanding what the cause of my emotional outburst was.
“We’re quite aware of the different punishments of the states,” Galiema said, “so there’s no need to threaten us with that. What we need to know is what you think you have in here,” she tapped the file on the table, “that would warrant such a measly deal.”
Mark was practically grinning from ear to ear. “How about this?” he said, offering up a folder.
“What is it?” I asked as Galiema leafed through it.
“A toxicology report,” she said. “Where did you get this? It wasn’t part of the autopsy findings.”
“You’re right, Ms. Rook, it wasn’t. We had another expert examine Miss Leeson. We had reason to believe the initial autopsy wasn’t thorough enough. There are some drugs that a common autopsy wouldn’t reveal, drugs our investigators thought it imperative to look for.”
“What is he talking about?” I said, panic fluttering in my chest. “What drugs?”
All the usual illegal substances would show up during routine testing. It was true that some were harder to detect than others, particularly if the body had processed them before death, but I couldn’t think of what Mark was getting at.
“All I can see here are harmless prescription drugs,” Galiema said. “How does Miss Leeson’s use of SSRIs and benzodiazepines affect your case in any way?”
All at once, everything around me went cold. The colors of the office seemed blur, turning to the same muted gray. My memory was dredging up something Harrison had told me about Catherine, about how she’d died of a prescription drug overdose. SSRIs were used to treat depression, benzodiazepines for antianxiety.
“What else is in there?” I demanded, ripping the notes from Galiema’s hands.
I scanned the page quickly, desperate not to see the name of the drug I was fearing I may read. But there
it was, stark black against the white of the paper, printed as clear as day for all to see. Zolpidem. A sedative for insomnia. Shantelle had died with the same drug combination in her system as the one that had killed Catherine.
My hands trembled as I placed the paper back on the table.
“Well?” Galiema was saying, completely oblivious as to what this concoction of drugs in Shantelle’s system actually meant for Harrison.
“Well,” Mark said calmly. “The thing is, Mr. Wrexler was previously implicated in the death of his wife. The coroner ruled an accidental death caused by a prescription drug overdose, and the charges against Mr. Wrexler were dropped and swiftly swept under the carpet. But the combination of drugs that killed his late wife were benzodiazepines, SSRIs, and zolpidem.” He paused for effect before adding, “Just like Miss Leeson.”
Galiema sat back, stunned by the revelation. But no one was as stunned as me. I knew Harrison Wrexler intimately, thoroughly. He wasn’t capable of murder. Not Shantelle’s, and not Catherine’s. Certainly not Catherine’s. He’d loved her with every fiber of his being. That much was evident in the way he spoke about her. This was pure coincidence. But I was going to have a hell of a job proving it.
“Those are three of the most common drugs prescribed to people with mental health difficulties and insomnia,” I said to Mark. “Are you really insinuating our client drugged this woman?”
“I’m not insinuating it,” Mark said. “I’m downright stating it. Miss Leeson wasn’t on prescription drugs, Katie. She didn’t have any mental health difficulties or sleeping problems at all. The only thing her doctor told us that made even the smallest blemish on her health records was her binge drinking tendency.”
“Where’s your evidence?” I asked, knowing Mark well enough to know he would say absolutely anything to wrangle me.
“Right here,” he replied, slamming another pile of documents on the table.
How had we missed this? We’d sent investigators out to dig up the dirt on Shantelle’s past. It hadn’t occurred to us to look into her medical history.
DEFENSE Page 11