‘Yeah, but she said only one.’
‘So she’s a lightweight. Or can’t count.’
Ethan shook his head. ‘I reckon she’s on cherry, man. Tara, one more chance: did you take something with the Bundy?’
Tara stroked Ethan’s head, tugging at his dreads. ‘I like this,’ she slurred. Then she shivered. ‘Cold.’
Hamish shrugged his incomprehension. ‘Cherry?’
‘Cherry meth.’
‘Meth?’ The thought chilled his blood. ‘What the hell?’
Ethan took the bucket and spoon and turned away. Within seconds, Tara retched violently. ‘Okay, still got a gag reflex. Definitely cherry meth.’
‘Why the hell would she do that?’
‘Cherry meth is GHB, man.’ Ethan glanced at Hamish, then sighed at his blank expression. ‘I reckon she may have been roofied,’ he clarified. ‘Looks like it was a starter dose, though, seeing as she’s not completely out of it. We’ll keep her warm and let her sleep it off.’
Though Ethan’s casual confidence made it obvious he’d lived too much on the wild side, Hamish was already digging in his back pocket for his phone. Surely they needed an ambulance, the cops, something. Someone. ‘She can’t have been roofied,’ he said, clinging to a glimmer of hope. Booze was one thing; at some stage, every kid in Settlers was going to get trashed. But drugs? There was a bit of weed floating around, but he’d never heard of anyone dealing the hard stuff. Not here. ‘She was already wasted when she came into the pub, and Lynn wouldn’t have let her leave the Overland like this.’
‘I’m aware,’ Ethan said, his tone suddenly grim.
13
Jemma
Jemma took a breath, forcing herself to speak slowly. ‘Rohan, there’s still information missing from the file, from the meeting with Wilkins you took by yourself. I’ve left you a dozen messages and Tien has been trying to contact you for days too.’
‘I was ill.’ Rohan’s aggrieved expression made it clear he expected sympathy. ‘In any case, all you need to know is that I’m angling for the best outcome for all of us. If Wilkins is generous enough to Celine, she recants, there’s no criminal trial and that leaves only the divorce settlement to nut out.’
‘Gerard would rather we went to trial on the domestic violence charge.’ And so would Jemma; not only was that where the real money lay, but it was her portfolio. Suddenly Rohan’s choice to take on Wilkins’s divorce rather than the criminal case made sense. ‘White-anting me was your ploy all along. You’ve taken it upon yourself to advise Wilkins on how to proceed in regard to the criminal defence, despite the fact that I’m his barrister.’
‘Weare his lawyers, Jemma,’ Rohan corrected. ‘Teamwork, remember? I’m simply lightening your workload by providing Wilkins with a viable alternative to going through court. You’d have reached the same conclusion and provided the same advice, given that we’re obliged to advance and protect our client’s best interests.’
He made it sound so reasonable, but her gut instinct, always reliable, was that he was screwing her over. Yet what did he stand to gain, other than moving a step ahead of her on the corporate ladder? With the exception of Tien, any lawyer worth their salt would fight for the partnership: but not like this.
‘Wouldn’t our client’s best interests be served by understanding that his prenup won’t protect his assets? I noticed you glossed over that little matter.’
‘We were focused on how best to avoid a criminal trial for our client.’
‘No, I was focused on amassing the information I required to decide where we stand in regards to going to trial.’
Rohan waved a magnanimous hand. ‘Something you no longer need to be concerned about, right?’
‘No, I won’t endorse encouraging our client to coerce or bribe his way out of the charges.’
Rohan covered his eyes with one hand. Then he sat forward. ‘Jemma, Wilkins is not an idiot. But he is a very dangerous man.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think you fully understand what you’re playing with here. Wilkins doesn’t like lawyers, doesn’t like that he has to pay us to defend him when there are more … physical ways he’d rather deal with the matter. I gave you the opportunity to move those goods for him because that would have been your chance to ingratiate yourself, to earn his trust while I found the best way to turn the case around. You chose not to do it.’ He shruggedhis disappointment. ‘So now, if you risk taking his case to trial on the spurious notion that you’ll win—and you won’t, Jemma, not because of any failing of your own, but because the court will be out to make an example of a middle-aged, wealthy white man accused of domestic violence—you’ll have made yourself a very grave enemy.’
Her chest tightened. There was surprisingly little satisfaction in having her suspicion of Wilkins’s involvement in the threats confirmed.
‘Wilkins has the kind of money that gives him the expectation of being invulnerable,’ Rohan continued. ‘You don’t want to be the one to shake his belief in his untouchability. The best course of action—the safest—is to financially encourage his wife to retract her statement. We get that sorted, then we move on to the division of assets.’
‘Did he hit her?’ she blurted.
Rohan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Why?’
She shook her head. It wasn’t something she needed to know. She was paid to defend the client, not to decide his culpability. Although, as she’d told Hamish, she did form judgements about people, she couldn’t allow them to impact her work, at least not while she was employed by GB&A. Things would have been different if she’d moved into her own chambers. ‘I think perhaps he’s—’ She broke off. What was there to gain by informing Rohan about the threats? ‘I still think it’s incumbent on us to make him understand the flaws in his prenup.’ She hated that it sounded as though she was asking Rohan’s advice.
