Chapter 57

At the beginning of September, the new school year was underway and I was hoping this would be a better one for Colten. After dropping him off myself for a change, I watched him get swallowed up by a crowd of excitable children and sent up a quiet prayer that he’d use the skills he’d honed this summer to make some friends now that he was back.

So far definitely hadn’t been so good.

I’d tried to talk to him on a few occasions and I’d even encouraged him to invite the chess club over to our place for a pizza night or something to reconnect before school started, but nada. He just wasn’t interested.

At least he was speaking to me again. Sort of. It wasn’t the same as it had been in June Lake, but I took it as a good sign that the silent treatment had worn off.

Blinking myself out of my thoughts, I refocused on the road and backed out of my parking spot. Merging with the traffic, I turned my attention to the day ahead. First up, I had a discovery meeting with a client, the prosecution, and their client.

The man I was defending today had been accused of harassment and stalking. The charges were pretty mild in comparison to some of the other cases I’d tried, but some of the stuff he’d allegedly done was pretty out there.

Apparently, it had started with him brushing up against the complainant at work. The usual stuff. A few accidental touches and brushes here and there, but it had quickly devolved into him supposedly groping the woman and it had culminated in him exposing himself to her in his office one day.

In addition to all that, she was alleging that he had been following her around, showing up at places he had no business being while she was there and sitting in his car outside her house at night. Supposedly, he’d also sent her abusive text messages whenever she’d turned him down, followed by photographs of a sexual nature as he propositioned her again.

As far as I knew, all the texts in question had been deleted shortly after she’d supposedly read them and I’d seen evidence of deleted messages, but there was no way of telling what had been in them. Striding into my office, I headed directly to the conference room and sifted through the paperwork I’d asked my assistant to deliver here for me.

My client, as well as the opposition, would be arriving soon and I had to make sure that I was well versed in every single aspect of this case before they arrived. I’d been working on it for a couple weeks now and I was pretty clued in to the facts, but something was bugging me and I still couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

Outside the conference room, beyond the opaque glass walls, the firm was slowly coming to life. Pretty soon, the hallways would be bustling with people rushing around, their heads buried in their own paperwork and their sixth or so espresso of the day in their hands.

The pace of life in LA had never been as tedious to me as it had been since we’d returned. It had also never been as obvious how wrapped up everyone was in their own lives. Back in June Lake, no one constantly stared at their phones. They walked around with their heads up, greeting the people around them with friendly smiles and stopping for a quick chat.

Even when they were in a rush, they weren’t practically running around, looking like they’d smash right through any barrier that got in their way. As a partner at Adams Incorporated, I knew full well how busy our practice was.

The firm was old and established, the targets for billable hours sky high. No one ever had any time to waste on something as simple as chitchat—unless of course it was office gossip—but since I was the head of the criminal litigation department, that had always been something I’d been proud of.

Having a team who hustled and busted their asses day and night had been a bright and shiny feather in my cap. Now, however, I kept wondering how many years these people were going to live if they didn’t slow down sometimes—and what their quality of life was actually going to be while they were here.

It was downright sad, really, that so many of them didn’t seem to have lives outside of this office. Shaking my head at the direction my thoughts had taken, I looked up just in time to see my client walking in.

A tall man with broad shoulders and the bulging muscles of the amateur bodybuilder he was, Jason Gripp maintained that he was innocent. He grinned when he saw me and I stood up to shake his hand. “Remember what I told you, Jason. Let me do the talking, okay?”

“Sure,” he said as he gave me a firm shake. Then he took the seat next to mine as I waved him into it. “This is bullshit, though. Daph had a thing for me. Everyone knew it. She’s just pissed that I wouldn’t fuck her.”

I suppressed a sigh. I’d explained to him a dozen times that he couldn’t use that as a defense. Just because she might’ve enjoyed his advances at one point in time didn’t mean that he hadn’t harassed her once they’d become unwelcome.

Plus, for a guy who said he was innocent, he sure did have a lot of vulgar things to say about the woman. A woman who walked in with the prosecutor not long after Jason had sat down and shut up at the look I gave him.

She was quiet and slight, and to my surprise, I saw a lot of Jewel in Daphne Sinclair. She had blonde hair with kind brown eyes and smile lines around her eyes and lips, but it didn’t look like she’d been smiling lately. As she sat down across the table, she wrung her hands, looking everywhere but at me or my client.

My stomach hardened into a rock. It was at that moment I knew what had been bugging me about this case. Jason kept telling me he hadn’t done what she alleged he had, but I suddenly knew that she was telling the truth.

Despite having just been told to shut up and let me do the talking, Jason started mouthing off almost as soon as they sat down. “Why are you being such a bitch, Daph? I don’t deserve this. Everything I ever did, you wanted. You?—”

“Shut. Up,” I seethed quietly to him. “Let me just finish reading this statement, then we’ll get started.”

Snorting obnoxiously, he shrugged and slammed his back into the chair, but a few seconds later, he spoke up again. “You know I didn’t do any of the shit you’re accusing me of. I never?—”

Finally unable to take it anymore, I got to my feet abruptly and braced myself against the table. Glaring at my client, I shuffled all the paperwork into one neat pile and straightened up. “You’re a foul fucking excuse of a man who deserves to be slapped with these harassment charges and, at the very least, a restraining order. I’m done. I quit. You’re going to have to find yourself another lawyer.”

Jason was pissed, his head rearing back as he leaped to his feet. “You can’t do that, asshole. I’ve already paid your?—”

“I don’t give a damn,” I said as I gathered my things and glanced at the prosecutor. Both he and Daphne were watching me with wide, disbelieving eyes. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to postpone this while Jason secures alternative legal representation.”

Jim, the prosecutor, jerked his chin in a nod, but he looked dazed, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Frankly, I couldn’t believe it either, but this meeting had brought with it a huge reality check for me. I also suddenly had a certain clarity for the first time ever.

I didn’t want to do this anymore, defending assholes from what they deserved just because I was trying to uphold a system that had been flawed for a very long time. While I knew I was exceptional at my job, that just made this worse.

My exceptionalism had stood between countless victims and the justice they deserved. I couldn’t do that anymore and I knew exactly why—Jewel.

I saw her in that young woman across the table who was currently staring at me like I’d sprouted a second head. I knew I couldn’t put her in harm’s way just because I was “doing my job.” Someone else could do it.

“I’m sorry you’ve had to come all this way and sit across from this asshole for nothing today,” I said to her as I snapped my briefcase shut. “You’re in good hands with Jim. He’s a fantastic lawyer and he’s going to get you the justice you deserve.”

As she nodded, I gave her a reassuring smile and then turned back to Jason one last time. “I suggest you get your shit together because if I ever run into you on the street, I will not be acting as your attorney. I’ll give you justice myself.”

I leaned in a little closer, knowing that I was breaking every ethical and professional rule in the book, but I just really didn’t give a shit. “And you won’t like it if that happens.”

Having said my piece, I stormed out of the conference room and strode directly to the receptionist, not bothering to keep my voice down as I made my announcement. “Anne, would you be so kind as to tell Bruce and the others that I quit? They can call me if they have any questions or concerns. I’ll make sure that my office is packed up and vacated before the end of the week. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. You’ve been great.”

Around me, colleagues, clients, and delivery people alike came to a standstill, but I didn’t give a flying fuck. I’d been so uncertain for so long now, feeling like shit sometimes about what I did for a living but clinging to those few souls I’d actually helped who really had been innocent.

Today, for the first time ever, I’d realized that this job—no job—was worth my soul and that was what it was costing me. So I was done. I refused to compromise my humanity and my sense of justice for anyone.

No matter how much they paid me or how many opportunities I might just get to defend one or two more innocent people who came across my path coincidentally along the way, I was done—and I’d never been happier about anything.