“Do you think he suspects something?”
“Yeah! I’m kind of freaked out. First, he believes it was an accident. Then he doctored the video. Now he orchestratesthings to have her released? It doesn’t make sense. What if he was playing us this whole time?”
There was no answer.
“Hello? Hello?”
The line went dead.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was always like that. The question was, what was I supposed to do now?
CHAPTER 12
MADISON
Oh my god, what had I done?
I faced Finkle. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I don’t know what came over me. I panicked.”
Turning his back on me, Finkle opened his battered briefcase and shoved a pile of file folders inside.
Uncaring about the various pieces of paper which fell out and scattered about the floor around us or his usual crushed peanut butter sandwich.
He snapped the lid down, crushing the files. When it wouldn’t close properly, he scooped the whole mess into his arms and hugged it to his chest like a shield. “You’re on your own now. I can’t help you.”
He turned to leave.
I snatched at his wrinkled suit jacket. “Wait! You can’t leave me! You’re my attorney.”
He shrugged me off. “Not anymore!”
Before I could grab him again and plead with him to stay, there was an angry shout from the judge.
I spun to see him raise his arm and launch his gavel at me.
I ducked, and it sailed past my head.
A creepy guy who had been leering at me during the whole trial cried out. “Ow! My nose!”
Thick red blood gushed from his nose to soak the grimy Big Johnson T-shirt he wore.
If it had been a nice person and not someone who’d offered his “services” for one last fuck before I was carted off to prison, I might have cared.
My so-called attorney vanished into the unruly crowd.
Looking over the heads of the various reporters who were shouting into their phones, I found Pierce across the room.
Leaning nonchalantly against the wall with his arms crossed. The bastard actually checked his watch. Then winked at me.
Two guards clasped their hands around my elbows and dragged me backward.
My friends called out from somewhere in the crowd, desperate to reach me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Pierce.
Bile burned the back of my throat. What if the jury had been about to find me not guilty?
The great Pierce Worthington would not have tolerated that insult.
I had played right into his hands.
