Karen Young - Private Lives

Even though her appetite was gone, Elizabeth picked up her spoon. “Can we eat our lunch now?”

“Hot damn, I think you did it, Ryan!” Slapping his hand on the tabletop, Austin grinned with glee as he watched Ryan collect papers and notes, a couple of pens and a scattering of paper clips, then toss them into his briefcase. “I knew you’d cream Gina on the stand, but it was really inspiring the way you rattled that bitch she’s living with now.” He rubbed his hands together. “Hell, you made it look easy. We’ve got ’em, haven’t we?”

Ryan closed the lid of his briefcase and snapped the locks shut. He preferred spending the lunch recess alone. He stayed focused that way, but Austin was like a pesky pup, dogging his tracks and peppering him with questions. He’d done his best to prepare him for his testimony this afternoon, but he didn’t have a good feeling about it. “It’s a mistake to count your chickens before they hatch, Austin.”

Something about the grim set of his features finally signaled to Austin that his lawyer’s behavior was something less than joyful. His glee morphed into impatience.

“It’s not chickens we’re dealing with here,” he snapped. “It’s a couple of dykes with an agenda. Which is to take me to the cleaners. So I repeat, do you think we’ve destroyed their case? Am I going to come out of this without writing a check that’ll make me very unhappy or not?”

Ryan was silent. He’d been pretty brutal to Gina and her friend and he wasn’t feeling particularly proud of himself. Elizabeth’s testimony had been especially powerful and he’d had to use strong tactics to make his point. Hell, it was natural she’d want to stick up for Gina. That’s what character witnesses did. Their mission was to paint a glowing picture of the person they’d mounted the stand to defend. Elizabeth had done that all right, big time. As a result, he’d crossed a line professionally grilling them both the way he did. He knew in his gut the women weren’t lesbians. And Elizabeth’s explanation about the New Year’s Eve party had the ring of truth. Whether both were telling the truth about Austin’s abuse was more difficult to judge, and that was troublesome. There were no hospital records, Gina had never called the police, she’d made no formal complaints anytime, anywhere. With no paper trail, it was Gina’s word—and her friend Elizabeth Walker’s—against a man Ryan himself had known for several years. On the other hand, his acquaintance with Austin was not personal, but almost exclusively professional. And very casual. Still, word of that kind of behavior got around, didn’t it? And although he had never heard a word about it, the gossip mill at LJ and B was alive and well. On the other hand, anyone gossiping about Curtiss Leggett’s son would be severely chastised at the firm. That, in itself, would keep a lid on gossip. So, the question remained, were the allegations of the two women manufactured to put the squeeze on his client, as Austin claimed? If so, that kind of mean-spirited, grasping behavior deserved the full brunt of his expertise to rebut it.

He paused with a sheaf of papers in his hand. All this soul-searching and second-guessing of himself was a useless exercise. His treatment of Elizabeth Walker on the stand had nothing to do with her connection to the man who’d driven his father to suicide, and everything to do with his client. That would have been over the line, and he didn’t consider himself petty.

“Hello? Counselor…anybody home?”

“Hmm? Oh, sorry, Austin. I was just practicing my closing statement,” Ryan lied. He picked up his briefcase from the table and fell into step with his client, both headed for the doors. “Why don’t you go grab yourself some lunch and I’ll meet you here when we reconvene?” He shot back a cuff to look at his watch. “In about an hour and a half.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Austin said, ignoring the dismissal.

“I didn’t hear a question.”

“Is she going to be awarded big money?” he repeated in exasperation. “Jesus, Ryan, what else would I be asking about?”

“What about custody? Isn’t that what you’re most interested in?”

“Custody and the settlement amount go hand in hand,” Austin said, getting more agitated by the minute. On the steps of the courthouse now, he suddenly faced Ryan. “What’s going on here? Are you having doubts about the case? Are you starting to believe those two? Because if you are, I need to know about it. I can get another lawyer—”

Ryan stopped, fed up with the whole nasty situation. “Listen, Austin, if you don’t like the way I’m handling your case, there are thirty-five or forty other lawyers at LB and J who would jump to take my place. I didn’t ask for this job, I was put in a position by your father where it was flat-out suicide to refuse it. And now that I’m up to my ass in your life, I realize that Curtiss Leggett wasn’t particularly looking out for your welfare in ordering me to wrap the whole thing up neatly. What your father wants besides that is to shield the firm from any hint of scandal. Now, the question remains, Austin…why would he think there was a chance that the firm would be embarrassed?”

“I don’t know what he thinks.” Austin sounded like a surly teen.

“Maybe there’s some substance to those allegations Gina and Elizabeth Walker were making? Maybe your old man has picked up something from the office grapevine? Or maybe he has a more reliable source.”

“Meaning what?” Austin’s face was turned away, closed.

“Meaning he’s family, Austin. Your family. Families have secrets.”

“He doesn’t know my secrets,” Austin said sourly, his gaze on the lunch hour traffic. “There’s nothing for him to know. Gina’s lying. Liz is lying.”

“Everybody’s lying,” Ryan said evenly. “But not you.”

Austin turned and looked him squarely in the eye then. “No, not me.”

After a moment, Ryan began to walk again. “Then if you stick with that attitude on the stand this afternoon, you’ll be in good shape, depending on what you really want. If it’s to avoid writing a big check, maybe. Gina claims she doesn’t want much. But if it’s custody of your little girl, that’s more iffy.”

“You worry too much,” Austin said, his good humor restored by the prospect that he might not have to part with real money.

“Yeah, well, that’s my job,” Ryan said. Approaching his car, he opened the door and tossed his briefcase inside. What was really sticking in his craw was the custody issue. When it came to the little girl, Ryan had a bad feeling about handing her over to Austin. He’d felt these vague negative stirrings before in other cases…and it was always when he’d gone to the wire for a client who, when it was all over, turned out to be a liar.

Pity that little girl.

“Jesse, we’re home!” Gina tossed her purse on a chair, kicked off her shoes. “God, I feel like an ex-con getting out of prison. How do you stand being cooped up all day in front of that monitor, Liz? I’d go crazy. Louie! Jesse!” She pulled the comb from her hair and freed her thick, dark mane. Balancing on one leg, she reached for one of the staid, black pumps borrowed from Elizabeth for the hearing and took it off. She glanced into the den while massaging her cramped toes. “Where are they?”

Elizabeth tucked her purse into a drawer. “I’ll check my office.” Jesse had quickly learned to play simple computer games and she sometimes broke the rule not to open the machine when Elizabeth wasn’t there to supervise. “Not in here,” she told Gina. “They’re probably outside.”

“Probably.” Gina headed across the den to the patio doors. “If Louie would let her, Jesse would spend the whole day outside. She’s such a tomboy.” Gina sighed, savoring the cool wood floor on her bare feet. “My feet feel as if they’re out of prison, too,” she muttered, opening the French doors to a burst of enthusiastic barking in the area beyond the patio. “Louie! Jesse! Where are you?”