LITMIR.BIZ

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Surprising how he could express such relief with one word. Or maybe it was the look in Blake’s eyes as he approached her in the foyer outside their courtroom that told the story.

      “Good. Brown suit, beige shirt, sedate tie, just like I asked,” she said, looking him over from a purely professional standpoint. Brown was an earth color, and instilled feelings of dependability and solidity.

      “I shined my shoes, too,” he said, his attempt at a grin falling only a little short.

      “And a fine job you did,” she said, taking a breath deep enough to distance herself from the trouble with her daughter, as she stared down at the brown leather wingtips.

      Blake sighed, shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “I guess we should go in.”

      She squeezed his elbow. “Relax, we’ll be fine. The most important thing is to appear cooperative while emanating confidence in your innocence.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” he said. And then, with a look of quiet concern, “Is there a reason why, if you’re so certain this will go well, you’re so tense yourself? This has to be all in a day’s work for you.”

      She was going to have to do better than this. The first day and already he was reading things she didn’t want him to see. “Just came from arguing another case with another judge—so to speak.”

      He frowned. “You’ve already been in court this morning?”

      “No,” Juliet guided them toward the heavy wooden door of the courtroom. “I was in her office.”

      Blake held the door for her, allowing Juliet to enter before him. She passed beneath his arm, close enough to feel the heat from his body, and in that second, the worry of the morning settled into something more manageable.

      Which worried Juliet. A lot.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      BLAKE TOOK IN the courtroom with one glance. It was smaller than he’d expected. Or perhaps just too close for him.

      She’d told him there’d be anywhere from thirty to ninety people—defendants, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Arraignments were done all at once on certain mornings, ten to thirty at a time, and the court distributed a press release so at least there’d be no reporters. Each arraignment would take approximately two minutes. He was prepared.

      Juliet motioned him to take a seat in one of the back rows and he gladly obliged. He preferred to have everything in front of him, where he could see it. And he appreciated that she’d somehow known that, or at least stumbled unknowingly on his first choice.

      The judge’s bench was empty. Too bad it couldn’t remain that way. For a moment, Blake was back in fourth grade, maybe nine or ten, sitting in a chair in the waiting room of the dentist’s office, waiting for his name to be called. He’d been there to have a cavity filled and the idea of having a needle poked into his mouth had been traumatizing him for days. He’d tried to speak with his father about his fears, about the risks of leaving the cavity unfilled. The old man had laughed at him. Told him it was merely a case of mind over matter and as a son of his, Blake would master that in no time.

      Just think about baseball, his father had told him.

      Blake hated baseball.

      “They’ll do any ‘in custodys’ first,” Juliet leaned over to whisper. She smelled heavenly—an artistic cross between seductive and innocent. She’d obviously switched to a much more expensive perfume than the simple musk she’d worn nine years before.

      Registering what she’d said, Blake looked over the thirty or so heads in front of them. “In custodys?” he repeated.

      Paul Schuster walked in, pretended not to see them and took a seat on the opposite side of the room, one row up.

      “The defendants who’re locked up,” Juliet said, pulling his attention back to her.

      He looked around but didn’t see any handcuffs. Or guards, either.

      “If there are any, they’ll be done via conference call. We’ll just listen,” she said. He nodded and wished she’d just keep talking to him. As horrible as the morning was, Blake was glad to have her there beside him. Her presence calmed him.

      Some people at the front of the room stood. “All rise.”

      After being announced, the judge entered and sat. So did Blake. And he had the thought that he’d like to keep right on sitting there, feeling Juliet’s warmth, until it was time to go home.

      The ocean beckoned.

      HIS LEGS STIFF, Blake sat straight as yet another twosome—attorney and client—filed out of the room. This time the accused had been a woman in her mid-thirties, accused of drug and child abuse. He wasn’t sure he believed her not-guilty plea. Judging by the impersonal look on her attorney’s face, he wasn’t sure that man did either.

      He, Juliet and Schuster were the only ones left in the room. At least he’d been spared an audience to his humiliation.

      Blake’s nerves hummed. He itched to run. Never, in all the years living under his father’s rule, had he felt this trapped.

      “Blake Ramsden,” the brown-haired judge called, looking over a pair of reading glasses to the almost-empty room.

      Juliet was slightly in front of him as Blake approached the bench and stood. After obtaining a document of several pages from the court clerk, Juliet rejoined him. Schuster came up last, standing on the other side of Juliet.

      Just as he had for every other defendant before Blake, Judge Henry Johnson read Blake his rights. The man looked friendly enough, not more than forty or forty-five, very few frown lines.

      Pulling off his glasses, Judge Johnson looked straight at Blake, his expression serious. “How do you plead?”

      Blake stood silently, as he’d been told to do.

      “My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

      Judge Johnson wrote something down, then lifted some papers and looked over at his clerk, who was glancing at the computer screen in front of her. She jotted something on a little piece of paper and handed it to the judge. Just as she had for every other case they’d watched that morning.

      “Trial is set for July twenty-third, 8:30 a.m.,” he said. Almost three months away, just as Juliet had predicted.

      The judge glanced up again, his gaze skimming over Blake and Juliet to land on Schuster. “Let’s talk about release conditions.”

      “Due to the fact that the defendant spent four years out of the country without so much as a visit to his elderly parents, added to the fact that he has no local family, the state recommends that the defendant be detained, Your Honor. And because there is at least one million dollars sitting in an account in the defendant’s name in the Cayman Islands, we are asking that Blake Ramsden be held on a million-dollar bond.”

      A razor-sharp pain shot through Blake’s chest. He’d been prepared, done what he could, but most of his money wasn’t liquid. They were going to take him away from that room and lock him up. He’d been telling himself all morning that he just had to get through two minutes and then he’d be on his way to the beach. And back in his office, working, by noon. Juliet hadn’t expected them to hold him.

      Ignoring Blake, the judge turned to Juliet. “Ms. McNeil?”

      She ignored Blake, too. Did that mean she wasn’t going to be able to help him out of this one?

      His first time up to bat and already he was striking out. He’d always struck out when his father had dragged him off to Little League practice, too.

      Track had been his sport, not that his father had ever noticed. It wasn’t nearly as much of a spectator sport. Due to Blake’s grandfather’s requirement that Walter work after school from the eighth grade on, spectating

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