Текст книги "About That Night"
Автор книги: Julie James
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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Twelve
BY ONE THIRTY the next afternoon, the entire U.S. Attorney’s Office was in a stir.
As it turned out, Rylann had not originally been available at two o’clock, but she’d switched her schedule around to accommodate a particularly prickly witness who seemed to believe that he was calling the shots in this situation. After that, she’d told her secretary to add Kyle Rhodes to the visitor’s list, and the information had spread like wildfire.
Cade popped into her office right before her meeting, doing a slow clap. “Well done. How did you manage to bring in the Twitter Terrorist?”
“I have my ways,” Rylann said mysteriously. Although she wasn’t quite sure she knew the answer to that herself. “By the way, I think we can just call him Kyle Rhodes now.”
Cade raised a curious eyebrow at that. “Can we now?”
A call from her secretary interrupted them with the news that her visitor had arrived. “That’s my cue,” Rylann said, standing up from her desk.
Cade walked alongside her on the way back to his office. As they passed by the secretaries’ desks and the other AUSA offices, Rylann noticed that everyone’s eyes were on her.
“You’d think I’d asked Al Capone to drop by,” she muttered under her breath.
“Get used to it. When it comes to Kyle Rhodes, people are curious.” Cade saluted as he ducked into his office. “Good luck.”
Rylann rounded the corner, slowing her stride as she surveyed the scene in the reception area.
Kyle stood with his profile to her, looking at the photograph of the Chicago skyline. Surprisingly, he appeared to be alone. He’d dressed in business-casual attire, looking professional and confident, with the top button undone on his blue pin-striped shirt and his hands tucked into his pants pockets. Ironically emblazed in bold silver letters on the wall behind him were the words “Office of the United States Attorney.”
Rylann had to admit it. She was impressed.
Clearly, there was no love lost between him and her office. Five months ago, they’d gone after him hard—probably a little too hard, from what Cade had told her. Yet now they needed Kyle, and so there he stood: head held high, not trying to hide or shield himself with the team of attorneys most men in his position would have insisted be present.
Kyle turned and saw her, watching with a wary expression as she approached. He’d said some things last night, and so had she—but still, he’d shown up. And as far as Rylann was concerned, that said so much more than a few heated words.
“Looks like we have an audience,” he said when she stopped before him.
Rylann looked back and saw that several secretaries and attorneys were staring at them as they “happened” to walk by the reception area.
“No lawyers again?” she asked.
“I don’t have anything to hide, Ms. Pierce,” he said coolly.
“Actually, I’m glad they’re sitting this one out. I couldn’t afford to buy all fifty of them coffee, anyway.”
Surprise flashed across his face. “We’re not staying here?”
Rylann knew that if she brought him back to the conference room, as she’d originally intended, people would be gawking and whispering at him the entire time. And frankly, she thought it was about time that somebody from her office cut Kyle Rhodes a small break. “I figured we could go someplace that’s a little less…stifling.” She lowered her voice. “It’s a weird situation, Kyle. I know that. But I’m trying here.”
He studied her for a long moment, seeming to debate whether to accept the olive branch she had offered.
“I like your hair better this way,” he finally said.
Rylann smiled to herself. Well, that was a start. “Does that mean we have a truce?”
Kyle began walking in the direction of the elevators. “It means I’m thinking about it.”
But when he pushed the down button and stole a glance at her, the familiar devilish spark back in his eyes, Rylann knew she was in.
KYLE SAT OPPOSITE Rylann in the booth, checking out the scene around them.
She’d brought him to a diner—the quasi-seedy, retro-but-not-in-a-hip-way kind of diner complete with vinyl booths and plastic menus—that was located under the L tracks a block from her office.
“How did you find this place?” He picked up the menu. “They actually have meat loaf on the menu.”
Rylann shed her jacket and placed it on the booth next to her. “One of the other AUSAs told me about it. It’s a courthouse hangout.”
With a loud pop! the lights suddenly went out.
Rylann waved her hand dismissively. “Just a fuse. Happens all the time.” She set her menu off to the side and looked at him through the dim light filtering in through the windows. “So. I’ve read your file.”
Of course she had. “And what did this file tell you about me?” Kyle asked.
She pulled a legal pad and pen out of her briefcase. “Well, I can tell you one thing it didn’t tell me: why you were in disciplinary segregation.” She clicked her pen and poised it over the legal pad, ready to go. “Perhaps you could explain that?”
Kyle fought back a grin, wondering if she knew how oddly enticing she looked when she went all official on him. “All the times I was in disciplinary segregation, Ms. Pierce, or just the time I was locked up next to Brown?”
She blinked. “How many times were you in disciplinary segregation?”
“Six.”
Her eyes widened. “In four months? That’s quite an accomplishment.”
The lights suddenly flickered back on, and some of the diner’s other patrons cheered approvingly.
“There we go,” Rylann said with a warm, easy smile. “All part of the ambience.”
Hmm.
Kyle remembered that smile. He’d once walked up to a complete stranger in a bar because of one just like it. And had then been thoroughly sassed.
“You were about to tell me about the six times you were in disciplinary segregation?” she prompted him.
He sat back, casually stretching his arm along the booth. “I guess some of the other inmates thought a rich computer geek would be an easy mark. From time to time, I needed to defend myself to correct that misimpression.”
Rylann jotted something down on her legal pad. “So you had problems with fighting.”
“Actually, I did quite well with the fighting. It was the getting caught part that I had problems with.”
Kyle smiled innocently when she threw him a look. He couldn’t help it—something about Rylann Pierce and her suit and no-nonsense legal pad made him want to…agitate her.
“Any noteworthy fights I should know about?” she asked.
“I once shoved a guy’s face in a plate of mashed pota-
toes.”
He was pretty sure he saw her fighting back a smile at that one.
“Tell me what it was like being in prison,” she said.
“You’re a prosecutor. You must have some idea what it’s like,” he said.
She acknowledged this with a nod. “I’d like to hear you describe it in your own words.”
“Ah. So you know what I’ll say when I testify on the subject.”
“Precisely.”
Kyle thought about where to start with that one. Interesting that Rylann would be the first person to directly ask about his prison experience, instead of dancing around the subject the way his friends and family all had. “Most of the time, it was boring as hell. Same routine every day. Wake up at five a.m., breakfast, wait in your cell for a head count. Leisure time if you passed inspection. Lunch at eleven, another head count, more free time. Into your cell for yet another head count, dinner at five o’clock, free time until nine, and then—you guessed it—another head count. Lights off at ten.” He pointed. “Not much to write about that on your legal pad.”
“What about the nighttime routine?”
He shrugged. “The nights were long. Cold. Gave a man a lot of time to think.” He took a sip of his coffee, figuring there wasn’t much else he needed to say about that.
“You mentioned you had some issues with the other inmates. How about the guards?” she asked.
“Other than the fact that they kept tossing me in segregation for defending myself, no.”
“Would you say that you resent the fact that they kept putting you in segregation?”
Kyle saw where she was going with this—already thinking ahead to what a defense attorney might bring up on cross-examination. “I have no ax to grind against prison guards, counselor. I understand they were just doing their jobs.”
“Good,” she said with a nod. “Now tell me about Quinn.”
“Quinn’s a different story. That guy is one mean son of a bitch.” He watched her. “You’re actually writing that down?”
“Yes. And feel free to say it exactly like that to the grand jury.”
Kyle was glad she’d brought that subject up. She may have been confident about her case, or at least she seemed to be, but he had his doubts. “You really think the grand jury is going to believe what I have to say?”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I believe you.” When she finished writing, she looked up from her legal pad and saw him staring at her. “What?”
It was nothing, really, that she believed him. Just words. “You’ve asked a lot of questions about me. Now it’s my turn.”
“Oh, sorry. But that’s not how this works,” she said sweetly.
“It is this time, counselor, if you want to keep me sitting in this booth,” he replied, just as sweetly.
She shook her head. “You are just as annoyingly cocky as you were nine years ago.”
“Yes.” Kyle’s gaze fell to her lips. “And we both know how that turned out.”
Much to his surprise, she actually blushed.
Well, well. Apparently the unflappable Prosecutrix Pierce could be…flapped after all.
Interesting.
She recovered quickly. “Fine. What’s your question?”
Kyle thought for a moment, wondering where to start. He decided to go right to the heart of the matter. “Why did you leave San Francisco?”
Rylann raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I lived in San Francisco?”
“On a scale of one to ten, how pissed would you be if I said that I hacked into the DOJ’s personnel records and did some poking around about you?” He whistled when he saw her look of death. “Okay…ixnay on the ex-con humor. Relax, counselor, I Googled you. From what I could tell, you had a good thing going back in California.”
He saw a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes.
“I felt like it was time for a change,” she said simply.
Yep, definitely a story there.
“Does anyone actually buy that excuse when you say it?” Kyle asked.
“Of course they do. It’s the truth.”
“But not the whole truth.”
She acknowledged this with a slight smile. “Perhaps not.” She readied her pen once again. “Now. Back to your testimony.”
“All business once again,” he teased.
“In this case, yes. If the past is any indication, you and I only get along in about eight-minute stretches and”—she checked her watch—”uh-oh, our time is almost up on this one.”
Kyle laughed. She was just so frustratingly, amusingly self-assured. “One last question. Then you can ask me anything you want.” He paused and locked eyes with her. “Admit that you liked that kiss.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “That wasn’t a question.”
“Admit it anyway.”
As she held his gaze, the corners of her lips turned up in a smile. “I told you then. It wasn’t bad.”
Then she clicked her pen once again. “Now. Back to your case.”
THE REST OF the interview went smoothly enough, as far as Kyle could tell. Rylann spent a good twenty minutes firing questions at him about the night Quinn threatened Brown—whether he’d actually seen Quinn talking (yes), whether he was sure he’d heard the threat (also yes), whether he was making the whole story up because he was an egomaniac attention hound desperate to be in the limelight again.
He paused with his coffee cup midway to his mouth at that one.
Rylann smiled mischievously. “Just a little prosecutor humor.”
There was a brief awkward moment when the check came and they both reached for it at the same time. His fingers softly grazed hers as their eyes met. “Sorry. Instinct.”
After she paid the bill, they walked out of the diner and stood momentarily underneath the L tracks.
“I plan to bring the matter to the grand jury next week,” Rylann told him, raising her voice to speak over an approaching train. “I’ll call you as soon as I have the exact date and time you’ll be testifying.”
She extended her hand in farewell, and Kyle closed his hand around hers.
“This is a good thing you’re doing, Kyle,” she said. “Just remember—”
The train roaring directly overhead made it impossible for him to hear her. Kyle gestured to his ear, shaking his head. She stepped close to him and put her hand on his shoulder as she stood up on her toes to speak in his ear.
Her breath was a soft caress on his neck, her voice low in his ear. “—Don’t screw it up.”
He turned his head so that they were eye to eye, his lips mere inches from hers. He said nothing for a moment, and neither did she, and he became very aware of the catch in her breath, the warmth of her hand on his shoulder.
Kyle felt a sudden urge to pull her closer. He’d teased her in the diner about their kiss, but unless he was wholly off his game after those four months in prison, the vibe he was getting from her right then was very real. If he bent his head just the slightest, he could brush his lips over hers. Find out if she tasted as good as she did in his memory.
“How are we doing on that eight-minute stretch of getting along?” he asked huskily.
Rylann stayed where she was at first, their lips still so close. Then she cocked her head and met his gaze. “Time’s up.”
She pulled back from him and turned and walked away, the roar of the L train fading as it passed by overhead.
BACK IN THE safety of her office, Rylann shut the door behind her and exhaled.
That had been a little too close for comfort.
As a lawyer, there were certain lines she would never cross, and getting involved with a trial witness was definitely one of them. She and Kyle might exchange a few quips here and there, there may even have been a reference to a nine-year-old kiss, but as long as she needed his testimony in the Brown matter, that was as far as things could go.
She ran her hands through her hair, collecting herself, then took a seat at her desk. Welcoming the distraction of work, she checked her messages, first her voicemail and then she turned to her computer. She had just begun to scroll through her unread e-mails when she saw something that caught her completely by surprise.
A message from Jon.
There was no subject, and she hesitated to click to the message, not wanting its contents to show up on her preview pane. First, she needed a minute to process this unexpected development.
She checked the calendar on her desk, realizing that in one week it would officially be six months since she’d had any contact with him. By mutual agreement, they had decided not to call or e-mail each other, thinking that would make it easier on both of them to get over the breakup. Yet here he was, changing things up.
Normally very decisive in her actions, Rylann caught herself debating her next move. Part of her was tempted to delete the e-mail without reading it, but that seemed too bitter. And though she certainly had mixed emotions about the fact that Jon had reached out to her, she was pleased to realize that bitterness wasn’t one of them. Plus, heaven forbid he was e-mailing to tell her some kind of bad news. In that case, she’d feel horrible if she never replied.
But beyond that, there was a small part of her that was curious. Did he miss her? As practical minded as she liked to think she was, the idea that there might be a man somewhere out there who was pining for her, potentially wracked with guilt and angst over the demise of their relationship, a man who’d spent hours pouring his heart and soul into this sentimental missive sitting unopened in her inbox between an e-mail from a DEA agent she worked with—subject: “Need a subpoena ASAP”—and an e-mail from Rae—subject: “OMG—DID YOU WATCH THE GOODWIFE LAST NIGHT???”—was heady indeed.
So she clicked on the message.
Rylann read the entire e-mail, then sat back in her chair to contemplate its meaning. Given that this was their first correspondence in nearly six months, it would be tempting to read too much into Jon’s every word. Luckily, he had been thoughtful enough to spare her from the rigors of that exercise.
After three years of dating, a year of living together, and six months of being apart, he’d written one word to her.
HI.
Thirteen
“HI ? THAT’S IT?”
Rylann grabbed another carrot stick and dipped it into the hummus plate she and Rae had ordered. “Yep. That’s all he wrote.” She waived the carrot in the air. “What does that even mean? Hi.”
“It means he’s a jackass.”
Rae had always possessed a talent for getting to the heart of the matter.
“Is this his way of testing the waters or something?” Rylann asked. “He throws out a hi to see if I’ll write back?”
“Well, for one thing, it’s a sign that he’s thinking about you,” Rae said.
The bartender returned with their martinis—between the interview with Kyle and Jon’s stupid Hi, Rylann had called for an emergency post-work happy hour at a bar in between her and Rae’s offices.
She chewed her carrot stick, musing over Rae’s comment. Then she shook her head. “You know what? I’m not going down this road again. I’ve already spent plenty of time analyzing and second-guessing every word of my last few conversations with Jon.” That had been stage one of her six-month plan to get over the breakup—a stage that had gone nowhere.
“Cheers to that.” Rae clinked her glass to Rylann’s and took a sip of her French martini. “So are you going to write back to him?”
“Sure. How about ‘Bye’?”
Rae laughed. “Probably not the response he was hoping for. But over the last six months, Jon has displayed a shockingly poor ability to read you. I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised by this.”
“More than six months, since we obviously hadn’t been on the same page about our relationship leading up to the Italy thing,” Rylann pointed out.
Rae snorted in agreement. “How he ever thought you were going to go for that idea, I have no clue.”
Rylann had expressed that very sentiment on several occasions since the breakup, but something about the way Rae said it made her feel as though she needed to clarify something. “Right. Because I would’ve been a fool at this point in my life to quit my job and follow some guy to Italy who can’t commit to marrying me.”
Rae set down her glass. “Absolutely. But even beyond that, he should’ve known you would’ve never gone with him.”
Rylann hedged, not sure she liked the sound of that. “Well, I wouldn’t say never.”
Rae gave her a get-real look. “Please. You go to Italy? You have your plans, remember?” She held up her hands innocently. “Why are you looking at me like that? Come on—you know this about yourself.”
“True. But when you say it, it makes me sound so…lame.” Suddenly concerned, she leaned in, lowering her voice. “I’m not lame, am I?”
“Sweetie, you’re not lame.”
Rylann grabbed her drink. “Look at this, I drink martinis on workdays—that can’t be lame, right? And this wasn’t even planned.”
Rae smiled. “You know I love you, right?”
Rylann eyed her warily. “That’s typically a lead-in people say to give themselves permission to tell you something you don’t want to hear.”
“Okay, then let’s start with the part you do want to hear: you are a brilliant trial lawyer, Ry. And part of that comes from your ability to plan ahead—you’re always three steps ahead of the other guy, and have figured out the solution to the problem before he even realizes there is one.”
Rylann sniffed, partially mollified. “Go on.”
“But let’s be honest: did any part of you, even for one second, think about chucking it all and getting on that plane with Jon?”
“No,” Rylann said matter-of-factly. “Because that would’ve been crazy. And I don’t do crazy. Crazy is for women in their twenties.”
“You didn’t do it then, either.”
“So I’m ahead of the curve.” Rylann took a sip of her drink, mulling something over and turning serious for a moment. Rae had been her best friend for years, even when they’d lived two thousand miles apart. She trusted her opinion more than anyone’s. “If it had been you, would you have gone to Rome?”
Rae thought this over. “Probably not. I don’t do crazy, either.”
Rylann threw her hands up in exasperation. “Then why are you riding me about this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because we’re both thirty-two and single. It used to be bridal showers and bachelorette parties. Now a week doesn’t go by without the mailman bringing me some sort of announcement or invitation with a baby booty on it.” She shrugged. “So maybe not doing crazy isn’t working so great for either of us.”
The words hung in the air between them.
“Well, thanks, Mendoza—now I’m just depressed. Actually, no. The hell with that.” Rylann reached across the table and squeezed Rae’s hand. “Just because we haven’t met Mr. Right doesn’t mean we’re doing anything wrong. And by the way, you’re brilliant and awesome, too. If I were a lesbian, I’d totally settle down with you and make lots of in vitro babies.”
Rae smiled, just as Rylann had hoped. She hated to see her friend—normally so upbeat about the dating scene—get down about this. Plus, it unsettled her. Rae was a smart, attractive, successful woman. If she didn’t have her pick of the litter, Rylann had no clue what men were looking for.
“Have I told you how glad I am that you moved here?” Rae asked.
“Me, too.” And as she said the words, Rylann realized just how true they were. Sure, she missed San Francisco at times, but even in the couple short weeks Chicago had begun to feel like home again. “So there’s something else I wanted to tell you. Not related to Jon.”
Rae took a sip of her martini. “It’s something good, isn’t it? I can tell by the look on your face. Let me guess: work hottie.”
“No.” Rylann thought about that. “Actually, there is a work hottie. A couple of them, in fact. But that’s not it.” She lowered her voice. “I can’t tell you any details because the matter is still in the investigatory stage, but Kyle Rhodes is a witness in one of my cases. We met for coffee earlier today.”
“Get out of here.” Rae’s expression changed from one of surprise to curiosity. “What kind of case is it? Computer hacking or something?”
“It’s an investigation related to the prison,” Rylann said vaguely. “He overheard something while he was there.”
“Did you two manage to exchange more than three words this time?” Rae asked teasingly.
“We did.”
Rae waited expectantly. “And…?”
“Andwe talked and had coffee.” Rylann looked at her pointedly. “Obviously, that’s as far as that story can go. He’s my witness now.”
Rae considered that. “Technically, it’s not an ethics violation to be involved with a witness, you know.” She held out her hands at the look Rylann gave her. “I’m just saying.”
“I think we’re way ahead of the game here. And regardless, technical violation or not, it would be a really bad idea.”
“Yes, it would,” Rae said, without hesitation.
“Can you imagine what would happen if this case went to trial and it came out that Kyle and I were involved?”
“Sure I can, I’m a defense attorney. I’ll tell you exactly what would happen if that came out at trial—I would light his ass up on the witness stand.” Rae set down her martini glass and went into mock cross-examination mode. ” ‘Mr. Rhodes, is your testimony here today at all impacted by the fact that you’re having sex with the assistant U.S. attorney handling this case?’ “
Rylann tipped her glass in agreement. “Exactly.”
” ‘Did Ms. Pierce ever talk about your testimony in bed, Mr. Rhodes? Perhaps give you a few pointers, lover to lover, on what you should say on the witness stand?’ “
“Right. So you see my—”
” ‘—You like to please your lovers, don’t you, Mr. Rhodes? You’d say anything to help Ms. Pierce win her case, wouldn’t you?’ “
Seeing that this could take a while, Rylann sat back in her chair and got comfortable.
Rae smiled. “Speaking for a moment as a defense attorney and not as your friend, that would be so much fun.”
“Well, that kind of fun is not happening in any case I handle,” Rylann said. And it wasn’t just Kyle’s reputation as a witness that she was thinking about. Just as important was her own reputation. She couldn’t imagine the embarrassment of sitting in court while a defense attorney grilled one of her witnesses about a sexual relationship with her. She was a former clerk; she knew exactly what the judge would think of any lawyer who allowed herself to be put in that situation. Not to mention the stir that would cause around her office.
Bottom line, she was trying to impress her new boss and coworkers, and make a name for herself in the Chicago legal community. And being the dimwit who slept with a witness sure as heck wasn’t the way to do it.
“Well.” Rae gave Rylann a disappointed look. “That kind of sucks. I mean, not to rub it in or anything, but he’s really hot. Like, movie star hot.”
This had not escaped Rylann’s attention. “I wouldn’t want any part of that scene, anyway,” she said with a shrug.
“Right. Because the hot guy scene is such a drag.”
“I meant Kyle’s scene. How many times did I see his name mentioned in Scene and Heard, PageSix, or TMZ.com, gossiping about how he was with some model at a hot new club or restaurant?”
Rae raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know, how many times did you see that?” Her tone turned sly. “Wait a second…have you been Googling Kyle Rhodes these past nine years, Ms. Pierce?”
Rylann blushed furiously at that. “No,” she said as Rae began laughing in delight. She shifted uncomfortably, suddenly feeling like a witness in the hot seat. “I may have accidentally, wholly inadvertently, stumbled across his name one or two times”—or ten—”when I happened to be perusing a few gossip websites. That’s all.”
As Rae continued to smile, Rylann shot her a look over her martini glass. “Oh, like you’ve never looked up a guy you once knew on Facebook or anything.”
“So you admit it.”
Rylann tossed her hair back dismissively. “I admit nothing except for the fact that the man is now my witness.”
“Over ninety percent of federal criminal cases plead out before going to trial, Ry.” Rae winked knowingly. “Kyle Rhodes won’t be your witness forever.”
LATER THAT EVENING, Rylann sat cross-legged on her bed with her laptop open. She’d been dreading this moment since she’d gotten home—trying to come up with some kind of appropriate response to Jon’s e-mail.
Finally, she typed, HI YOURSELF.
She immediately deleted it. That sounded too flirty.
This prompted a new question: Did she want to sound flirty?
Definitely not—he’d dumped her.
So she tried again. GOOD TO HEAR FROM YOU, she began, before deleting that, too. Frankly, it wasn’t all that great to hear from him. Particularly since he’d thrown her into a tailspin over the damn Hi and now she was up at night, writing and rewriting a response to an e-mail that barely deserved one.
So ignore it. He’ll get the hint.
But ignoring it made it seem as if she wasn’t ready to face Jon, even via e-mail, and that wasn’t the case. She was…okay with the breakup.
She perked up as that realization hit her. Suddenly, the pressure to write the perfect response was gone, and she just went with her gut.
HEY YOU—HOPE ALL IS WELL IN ROME AND THAT IT’S EVERYTHING YOU WERE LOOKING FOR. IF YOU GET A CHANCE, DROP ME A LINE IN ANOTHER SIX MONTHS. : )
There. She read it again and was satisfied that she’d struck just the right tone. Friendly enough—she’d even thrown in a smiley face emoticon—but not overly so. Assuming the whole point of Jon’s e-mail was to check in and see how she was doing, her reply conveyed the message that he was free and clear to go about his business.
And also that she was going about hers.
