Bad Bitch (13 page)

I made it back, showered, and crashed into my bed. I thought of Evan as I drifted off to sleep. I imagined her fresh out of law school, doing pro bono work, doing her best to help those in need. One day I’d figure out what changed, what happened to her to cut off that bright future and give her this one instead.

The next day was more of the same work with experts, chasing down facts and figures. My phone pinged, reminding me of the hearing with Evan. I hadn’t forgotten it, just let the time get away from me. I took the courthouse steps two a time, not wanting to bring down Judge Crane’s wrath by rolling up in her courtroom too terribly late.

I smoothed my suit and fastened my top two buttons before pushing through the wooden doors. The courtroom gallery was empty; no one came to see run-of-the-mill hearings like this. Nothing doing, really.

Evan sat at the counsel table to the left, a man next to her.

He was familiar. Too familiar. My mouth went dry.

I reached the balustrade and pushed through.

He turned. “Linc.”

“Wash. What are you—”

“Now that Mr. Granade has decided to make his appearance, are we ready to proceed?” Judge Crane’s sharp voice cut through my surprise.

I glared from Wash to Evan. She kept her eyes forward, wouldn’t look at me.

“Yes, Your Honor, I’d like to move for the admittance of Washington Granade. He is—”

“Granade?” Judge Crane peered over her spectacles. “Any relation?”

Washington gave an easy smile. “Yes, ma’am. Lincoln’s my brother.”

“Well, isn’t this an interesting turn of events?” Judge Crane looked at me and back to Washington. “I can certainly see the resemblance.”

Washington was only an inch or two shorter than me. His eyes were blue, and he had lighter brown hair. He had dimples and had always been a charmer. Given the way Judge Crane looked at him, the charm was already hard at work.

“Go on, Ms. Pallida. You were saying?”

“Yes, Judge. Mr. Granade is admitted to the practice of law in good standing in the State of Louisiana. He meets all the standards and fitness criteria to be admitted
pro
hac
vice
in the Southern District of the State of New York. I’ll have my secretary file his bar license and other paperwork.”

“I see. Well, Mr. Granade—hmm. I suppose I’ll have to start referring to you two by your first names to tell you apart. Lincoln, do you have any objection to her motion for
pro
hac
status for Washington?”

I had a multitude of objections, but none of them were grounds to disqualify Wash’s admittance to the case. It was like I’d been hit with a haymaker, blindsided.

“No, Your Honor.”

“In that case, I will conditionally grant the motion pending the receipt of Washington’s paperwork. Counsel is dismissed.” Judge Crane exited through the chambers door.

“What the fuck do you two think you are doing?” I kept my voice low. The walls had ears. But I wasn’t going to let Evan waltz out of here without an explanation.

Wash smirked. “I got a call from a lady in distress.” He looked at Evan and then back to me. “I always come running when I get a call like that. You know a few things about butting in where you don’t belong. Remember, Linc? I’m just taking a page out of your book.”

My emotions were changing by the second. Guilt over what I’d done to Wash mixed with the anger of him ambushing me like this.

Evan still didn’t look me in the eye. The bad bitch was having the last laugh.

I’d thought I was making progress, getting her to open up to me. I even believed her vulnerable act. Was anything she told me about her past, her family, even true? She’d asked me that night at my apartment if I’d been telling her the truth. Maybe I should have asked her the same thing.

“Evan?” I put a lot in the question.

“This is just business. Just work.” She snapped her briefcase closed and pushed through the balustrade, never giving me even a sideways glance.

Had she been working me the whole time? Was she really the bad bitch like they all said? I didn’t want to believe it. But anyone who would take advantage of bad blood and turn his own brother against him wasn’t someone to be trusted, to be loved. I thought she was something different, someone who was strong enough to fight her demons. I realized that she didn’t fight them. She gave in to them. She let them run free. She was ruled by them the way I had been.

Wash followed her. He wasn’t gloating, exactly, but I could tell he was pleased with himself. She set a brisk pace, almost running from me though I was standing still, not giving chase.

“Evan,” I said again, not a question this time.

She halted her flight.

“Everything they say about you is true.”

Then she was gone, Wash following in her wake.

Evan

Wash and Jonesy set up a huddle in the largest conference room. Drew flitted in and out, bringing additional bits of information and case prep. I retreated to my office, slamming my door behind me. Do not disturb was implied.

I sank down on my couch and kicked off my heels. I rested my head in my hands. The look on Lincoln’s face when he’d seen Wash haunted me. Confusion first, then shock, then betrayal—a parade of horribles that I had laid before him.

“Shit!” I kicked the coffee table away and lay back, stretching out and draping my arm across my eyes. I didn’t want to see anything. Just darkness, blackness, what I looked like on the inside.

I was a coward. Now Lincoln knew it. The tears ran down and dripped into my ears. I let them fall. I didn’t deserve to cry. After all, I was the one who’d done wrong. But I wasn’t crying out of self-pity so much as I was crying for what I’d destroyed, what I’d lost.

Lincoln’s green eyes emerged from the soot of my mind. He was looking at me with his mix of mischief and curiosity. He’d wanted to know about me, the real me. Was there even a real me anymore? I’d been the bad bitch for so long that I’d become it. Did this fall into “be careful what you wish for” or “fake it until you make it” territory? No, it was in “you’ve fucked it all up” land.

I’d wanted to knock Lincoln off his game, to take the fight out of him so I’d have an easier time courting reasonable doubt. I’d accomplished my goal. I didn’t realize how much it would hurt to see him wounded. How much I would regret it. How hard it would be to walk away from him after he’d called my name.

Everything they say about you is true.
His words reverberated through my mind, an indictment. All the counts against me were accurate. I was the worst of the worst, far nastier than any of my clients. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, thought I was better than I seemed. When I was with him, in his arms, I’d started to think maybe I was better, too. He was wrong. We both were.

I continued sinking into my pit of self-loathing, soaking in it until I dozed off.

I woke up the next morning, sun streaming through my windows. The office coffeemaker had clicked on automatically, brewing the first pot of the morning. It was six thirty. I freshened up in my private powder room, trying to make it seem like I hadn’t spent the night crying in my office.

Lincoln zipped through my thoughts. I blocked him out. I imagined building a wall between us, separating us brick by brick. I’d already done it in real life; adding one in my imagination couldn’t fuck things up any worse. I had to erase him from my mind as best I could. Otherwise, I would never be able to function. I’d caused him pain he didn’t deserve. Used his secrets against him, betrayed him to save myself.

I had reasons, I reminded myself. Big reasons. Death. Dismemberment.

Besides, it was done. It could never be undone. I served myself a cup of coffee, black and bitter, and started my day.

Castille’s case took up the lion’s share of our time for the next two weeks. We tracked down witnesses, arranged experts, and drafted preliminary motions. Wash proved invaluable for finding information in New Orleans. After he’d made his dramatic appearance, I’d sent him back south to be boots on the ground. In reality, he’d served his purpose for the time being. I’d bring him back out for trial, parade him around in front of Lincoln like a garish show pony.

Wash had agreed to serving as co-counsel for me, but he didn’t seem to enjoy it the way I’d suspected he would. He never discussed Lincoln at all. I got the feeling that he’d thought the whole thing would be more gratifying than it actually was. Maybe time did heal the wound, after all? If it did, I went in with a jagged knife and did my best to open it right back up again by adding Wash to the case.
Pallida
& Associates, turning brother against brother in the name of survival
—
maybe I could get some new pens with that slogan.

Vinnie and I worked long days and nights. The other associates scurried away from me in fear, practically running for cover whenever they saw me coming down the hall. Word was that I’d somehow gotten worse. Whispers in the break room and frightened glances never bothered me. After all, I
was
the bad bitch. I had no time or inclination to try to be anything different. I’d destroyed any chance my associates had of getting out from under my iron fist when I first dialed Washington’s number. So, as far as I was concerned, they could continue to scurry and plot about how to avoid my ire. Be a-fucking-fraid.

As the case wore on, we had a smattering of hearings over small things, like exhibit lists and witness orders. I didn’t file anything that would hold up progress.

I got sick before every hearing. My lunch was never safe when I knew that afternoon held a run-in with Lincoln. I wasn’t scared, and I certainly didn’t fear him; it was something else. Shame, maybe? Shame that when he saw me now, he
really
saw me—all the ugliness and pettiness that had been hidden by my manipulation now out on display.

Every time I caught a glimpse of him, it was like someone had punched me in the solar plexus. The wind went out of me, and I couldn’t focus for a moment. Then I would fight the feeling away and pretend like everything was fine.

The tables had turned. Lincoln never met my eye. It was as if I no longer existed to him, as if I were beneath his notice, not good enough. Some of that may have been projecting, but the fact remained that he couldn’t stand to look at me. I couldn’t blame him for it. I deserved his censure or worse.

When the hearings were over, he would walk out, never looking back. I would let him go. I had to. There was nothing I could say, nothing I
would
say. I made my choice. Wrongly or rightly, my path was laid out ahead of me, leading ever onward, though definitely not upward.

After long nights at the office, I would get takeout and go home, tired, beaten, and solitary. I would drink lonely, not alone. I never set foot in the Docket Call. I missed Jonesy and Wood, but I didn’t have the balls to set foot on their turf. I wondered if Lincoln talked about me to them now, wondered if they shared tales about how the bad bitch burned them every chance she got. How she couldn’t be trusted, no matter what she did or said. How every word out of her mouth was a lie.

The trial date moved ever closer, 120 days gone in a flash. The week before jury selection was to begin, we argued our evidentiary motions. Wash was back in town, though his job was to sit at the counsel table and look pretty more than anything else.

“Ms. Pallida, what motions do you have for the Government?”

I strode up to the podium in the center of the well. Lincoln took his now-customary place against the jury box, arms crossed over his chest. I meant to glance and look away, but something on his face caught my eye—a neat row of small bandages running along his nose. I stared harder, noticing the shadow along his jaw and the dark discoloration under his left eye. He’d been fighting. I had driven him back to the darkest time in his life and left him there. I swallowed my self-loathing. There was no turning back now. Not anymore.

Still, he didn’t look at me.

“Yes, Judge, I would first like to move to disqualify the accounting expert proffered by the Government. Mr. Rains does not have a PhD and has never served as an expert witness in any case. His methods are suspect at best. Because he has no qualifications to actually testify as an expert, case law is clear that he should not be qualified as such.”

“Mr. Granade, well, Lincoln.” Judge Crane glanced to Wash and back to me. “Response?”

“Mr. Rains does not have a formal PhD, no. However, he’s worked as an accountant for the past decade. He has an undergraduate degree in accounting, and his reports were done in accordance with GAAP principles. The fact that he’s never testified as an expert witness before is, I think, a good thing. He’s not a professional witness who will spin his story according to however counsel, like Ms. Pallida, tells him to spin it. His reports are solid.”

“First, Judge Crane, I take issue with Mr. Granade’s implication—”

“It wasn’t implied.” Lincoln finally looked at me. What I saw in his eyes was rage, the anger he’d told me about while he held me in his arms. He kept it controlled, for now. Even his words, though they stung, were delivered in a monotone. He was right about his past, how he’d changed. He controlled the rage. It didn’t control him.

“Judge, I can’t allow him to stand here and impugn my character like this. We have proffered experts with advanced degrees and myriad experience in testifying about the facts of cases. They have the experience and ability to properly perform forensic accounting in accordance with the generally accepted accounting—”

Judge Crane waved her hand. “I get it, Ms. Pallida. I see nothing amiss with either set of your experts. Motions to disqualify on both sides are denied. Move on.”

Though Lincoln kept his anger at bay, he was still clearly suffering from Wash’s presence. His arguments were mechanical, almost stilted, and injected with venom. I looked back at Vinnie, sitting in the front pew. He winked. The strategy was working according to plan.

We continued sparring, having some motions granted, most denied. His anger grew with each back-and-forth between us. I could sense it, though he controlled it well enough to fool Judge Crane. He was a powder keg. I’d lit the fuse. It had been slowly burning ever since Lincoln had first seen Wash, when he’d truly realized what I was capable of. Closer and closer it burned. I wondered what would happen when the flame met the powder. I knew I deserved whatever vengeance Lincoln decided to mete out.

Our arguments rose and fell, each one building on the last. I won disqualification of one of Lincoln’s witnesses. I played dirty, bringing up the witness’s divorce papers, which called his veracity into question. It was a long time ago and had no real bearing on the case. I plunged ahead, destroying any shred of credibility the witness had. I was all in; no need to start playing fair now.

Vinnie and I spent the weekend prepping Castille. I played bad cop, always bad cop, while Vinnie did his best to defend Castille from my blistering questions. Castille held up fairly well for a slimy son of a bitch. The contacts went a long way toward making him more relatable, his gaze not so ratlike. He’d learned not to talk out of turn or say more than was asked. His practiced good-guy routine tightened up the more we worked with him. It would be more than enough to fool the jury.

We hadn’t decided yet whether we would call him to the stand. It depended on the Government’s evidence, and whether I felt like reasonable doubt was smiling on me. If she was, Castille would ride the pine. He was good, but I didn’t want to put him under Lincoln’s spotlight. I knew Castille would cave eventually, even after the intense prep sessions where I’d drilled him mercilessly and he’d held fast. Lincoln would be far worse because he had righteousness on his side. It would give him an edge that I couldn’t even begin to lay claim to. So I had to guard against it at all costs.

Vinnie and I had prepped, plotted, and done everything in our power short of sacrificing a virgin to woo reasonable doubt to our side. The night before trial, I sent everyone home for a good night’s sleep. Vinnie was keyed up, too excited about sitting third chair to rest.

“Vin, if you don’t go home and shut your eyes, at least for a while, you’re going to look like hell tomorrow. I don’t want a jury seeing you like that. So clear the fuck out.”

“Fine, fine.” He collected some papers and outlines of witness questions. I’d told him he could question our experts. I’d handle Lincoln’s witnesses. Cross-examination was a specialty of mine. “But I’ll be back here at five a.m.”

“Bring doughnuts or you’re dead to me.”

“Will do, boss.”

I went over my opening statement one more time, practicing my gestures and tone. My cell rang.

I checked the number and stopped dead in my tracks. DiSalvo. I didn’t need this right now. Not even a little bit.

“Leon,” I answered.

“Fuck you doing, Evangeline?” His voice crackled, like dead leaves crunching under shoes in winter.

“What?”

“I said, what the fuck do you think you’re doing taking Castille to trial?” He tried to enunciate each word for emphasis, but I could tell his teeth weren’t in. His words were sloppy, though no less dangerous.

“I’m doing my fucking job.”

“Are you? I thought we already discussed this. I thought I told you how bad this could go for you. Didn’t I do that, Evangeline?”

I leaned against the wall, needing something stronger than myself to support my quaking body. “Yes, but I—”

“But you what? You thought this was the way to handle it? To get some fucking prosecutor’s brother on your team? That would fix it?”

“Look, Leon, I have this all set up. Castille is getting off. Your name will never be mentioned. Nothing will happen. This is the way to fix it all, to clean it all up, to put it to bed.”

“You sure, Evangeline? Positive?” He was taunting me now. Laughing.

“Yes. Remember what I did for Sherman?”

“I remember Sherman crying for his mother before I put a bullet between his eyes.” The laughter was gone; only the cold crackle remained. “I did it myself, Evangeline. I made sure it was done right.”

“This is being done right.” I tried to keep my voice steady. It didn’t work. Fear was there in the syllables.

“You better hope so. We’ll see, we’ll see.”

The line went dead.

My knees buckled and I slid to the floor. I clenched my eyes shut, warding off the bogeyman with my own self-imposed darkness. I sat there for a long time, my heart racing and sweat pouring from me. So much was riding on every move I made. Everything I touched was on the verge of being destroyed. I had to win this trial. I had to appease reasonable doubt. I’d already sacrificed so much, but I would give even more if I had to. Self-preservation, primal, instinctual, was there, ruling my actions.

After a long while, I collected myself and rose. There was no other option now. Keeping it together was the only way for me to get my neck out of the noose. I needed to eat and go home. I had to look good tomorrow, my best. Professional for the female jurors, a little sexy for the males. I couldn’t do that if I slept in the office. I couldn’t let DiSalvo ruin my chance at saving myself. I had to keep going, to see this through, to show him that this was the right way to handle it all.