DEFENSE (4 page)

Then I heard my own voice, as though coming from a million miles away, scream out a name I hadn’t let leave my lips for a long time.

“Catherine!”

That was it. It was over. All at once the pleasure seeped out of me, leaving me feeling cold, empty, and guilty.

I fell back on the bed beside Shantelle, my heart racing, not from the mind-blowing orgasm I’d had, but from the name that had burst from my mouth as I’d experienced it.

Shantelle looked over at me, her eyebrow cocked.

“Did you just cheat on your missus or something?” she said.

“No,” I muttered gruffly, turning my face from her.

“I don’t care if you did,” she said, and something about her naivety, her coldness, left me feeling dirty and disgusted with myself.

“You should care,” I said, standing. “I’m going to clean up.”

“What, no snuggling?” she said with a laugh.

When I didn’t respond, Shantelle sighed and pulled herself up to sitting. Her hands were still bound as she fumbled with a cigarette packet and lighter. I felt no desire to help her. I could see the red fingermarks on her neck, and it scared me to think that I’d done that to her. Not just that I’d done it, but that I’d enjoyed it. That wasn’t me. I wasn’t that guy, and I didn’t want to become him.

With Catherine, the afterglow had been my favorite bit. We would hold each other, whisper sweet nothings, listen to the thud of one another's heartbeats, feel the echoes of the pleasure we’d given each other. But I didn’t want to hold Shantelle. I didn’t even want to look at her. She was a stranger who I’d invited into my bed, and that made me vulnerable.

I turned and paced into the en-suite bathroom, then grabbed the side of the sink to steady myself. I tried to breathe, to calm myself down. Of course the first time I had sex after Catherine was going to be strange, I thought, trying to reassure myself. I tried to remind myself it was okay to seek pleasure, in the same way my therapist had told me it was okay to smile again, and to laugh. But I couldn’t help but feel like I’d just cheated on my dead wife, and in the weirdest, shallowest way I could have.

“I’m getting another drink,” I heard Shantelle shout from the bedroom.

“Sure, do what you want,” I called back.

My hands were shaking. I began washing them, trying to get the smell of the woman who wasn’t my wife from my skin. I discarded the condom, then went back into the bedroom and stripped the sheets.

“I’m sorry, Catherine,” I muttered as I bundled them into my arms.

Why had I done it in our bed? I should have taken Shantelle to a hotel room where Catherine’s ghost wouldn’t have been lingering over my shoulder.

I put some jeans on, then went into the kitchen and shoved the laundry into the washing machine. Shantelle was standing naked on the balcony, wind blowing through her hair. She was holding a drink between her bound hands. I went out to her side and took the drink from her, then untied the laces.

“Can you leave now please?” I asked.

As soon as her hands were free, she took her drink back.

“That’s not very polite,” she said, taking a sip.

“I know,” I replied. “But I…I just need to be alone right now. Please.”

All at once Shantelle turned on me, her eyes blazing with anger.

“You’re not joking, are you?” she barked.

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry…”

All at once, her demeanor changed.

“You fucking men are all the same,” she growled. “I haven’t even got my clothes back on yet and you’re turfing me out!”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I know I’m being a jerk. It’s just, I—”

“Have a girlfriend or wife already?” she finished for me venomously. “And have only just now decided to grow a conscience?”

“It’s not like that,” I said.

Shantelle let out a disgusted noise, clearly thinking it was, in fact, like that. She downed her whisky then threw the glass onto the ground. It smashed against the slabs.

“Look,” I said, starting to lose my patience. “I didn’t mean to make you pissed, okay? Can you just leave quietly?”

“I’m sick of men like you,” Shantelle cried. “Quietly? You want me to scream when it suits you then shut the fuck up when it suits you, too?” She got close to me, her pointer finger raised.

“You’re drunk,” I said. “You should go home.”

She narrowed her eyes then went to barge past me. But as she went, she stood on a piece of the whisky glass she’d smashed and winced in pain. Blood began pooling around her foot as she ducked down and grabbed it.

“Shit,” I said. “Let me get something for that.”

“I don’t need anything from you!” she shouted, pushing me away, leaving bloody traces on my bare chest.

I stepped back, growing increasingly irritated. I was about to go back into the house to fetch her a towel when she reared up. But she moved too fast and stumbled. Suddenly, she veered over the side of the balcony, careening down to the ground. Her scream pierced the air as she fell.

The oxygen left my lungs in a rush. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t believe that she’d fallen.

I couldn’t bring myself to look down. Instead I ran out of my flat and down the stairs. As I raced two steps at a time, I kept replaying the moment over and over in my head, willing it not to be real, praying that the hedges below had broken her fall, desperately hoping that she’d not just lost her life.

I burst into the foyer.

“Mr Wrexler?” the security guard said, leaping up and looking alarmed by my near-naked state.

“A girl,” I stammered. “She’s fallen. Call an ambulance.”

The guard immediately grabbed his phone and dialed 911.

As I slammed my palms into the double glass doors that led outside, I bumped straight into two police officers—a man and a woman. They looked me up and down.

“Where are you going in a hurry?” the man said, blocking my path.

“A woman’s fallen!” I stammered, trying to pass them. I gestured to the bushes to my right, where Shantelle would be. “I have to help her!”

Frigid cold air made me shudder. The male police officer held me back and the woman stepped backward, craning her neck, looking at something I couldn’t see.

“Have you been drinking, sir?” the male officer said.

“Yes. A bit. I’m not drunk. What about Shantelle?” My voice was growing desperate now.

The female officer was talking into her walkie-talkie, and as she did, her eyes roved across the blood smears on my chest.

“We have a one-eight-seven,” she said, never taking her eyes off me.

“What’s that?” I demanded. I tried to look past them, to see whether Shantelle was okay or not. “Shantelle!” I shouted. There was no response.

The radio on the female officer’s shoulder crackled. She answered in a hushed voice, then looked at me. “I’d like you to come with us, sir. We just have a few questions to ask you.”

“But what about Shantelle?” I stammered. “I have to help her.”

The male officer placed his hand on my shoulder. “There’s no helping her,” he said.

Just then, neighbors who’d been alerted to the noise began filing out of their apartments. Someone screamed, the noise bloodcurdlingly shrill.

Dazed, I let the officers lead me away to their car. As I looked behind me, I saw a pool of bright red blood radiating from the place where Shantelle’s broken body lay in a contorted mess on the sidewalk.

Katie

I hadn’t been as nervous about a case since my very first. The Washington, DC police station was hardly a formidable building—dusty red brick walls, neat hedges, an American flag flapping in the wind—but as I climbed up the steps and buzzed to be let in, my heart was racing.

It was 2 a.m. An auburn-haired detective came to the door and allowed me through.

“Katie Scott, attorney at Newland & Rook,” I said, holding out my hand to shake hers.

She was bleary eyed, clearly nearing the end of what had been a stressful shift.

“I’m on the Harrison Wrexler case,” I added.

She nodded and waved me through. I noted that she hadn’t bothered to introduce herself in return.

“The coffee machine’s there,” she said as she plonked herself back behind the desk. “Help yourself. We don’t do table service.” She smiled thinly.

The place was humming with activity. Detectives strode in and out, doors slammed from deep inside the building, and someone was cursing in the distance.

I stood there awkwardly, my hands clasped tightly to the handle of my briefcase.

“I’m sorry,” I said at last. “I think there’s been a miscommunication somewhere. I’m on the Harrison Wrexler case. My boss should be here to meet me. Galiema Rook.”

The woman raised one of her over-plucked auburn eyebrows. “No Galiema here, Miss Scott. I think you’re on your own.”

She handed something to me across the desk. It was an access pass. The photo was the same one used on the Newland & Rook website, where I was two years younger and a hell of a lot perkier. The photo never failed to embarrass me—thanks to the layer of baby fat I’d not yet shed at that age—and I wished in that moment I wasn’t going to come face to face with the most handsome man in the world with my hideous twenty-four-year-old face hanging around my neck on a lanyard.

“You been here before?” the auburn-haired officer said. “Or do you need me to show you the way?”

Just then the main doors opened and two police officers burst in, manhandling a guy through the entrance. The auburn-haired officer stood up.

“Sorry, kid, I have to help with this.”

She ran off to assist the officers, leaving me standing there, at a loss.

“I guess in that case, I’ve been here before,” I muttered under my breath, and swiped my way through the first security door.

I couldn’t believe Galiema had ditched me. This was a high-profile case, and she’d left me to handle it alone! I tried calling her cell but didn’t get an answer. I didn’t even bother calling John Newland; the other named partner of my company was never on call. In fact, the only time I ever saw him was in company meetings. Galiema was supposed to be my mentor, and now she’d left me in the lurch. Anger quickly replaced my anxiety.

I strolled down the corridor, following the signs to the holding cells. The floors smelled of disinfectant. The walls were mint green. The whole place reminded me of hospitals.

I reached the holding cells at the end, which was being guarded by a six-foot man in a stiff blue uniform.

“Katie Scott, attorney,” I said, flashing my badge. “I’m here to assist Mr Harrison Wrexler.”

The guard gave me a strange smile, one I couldn’t quite read. Either he was amused by my childlike appearance or he was insinuating that I’d have my hands full with a man like Harrison Wrexler. I practiced my poker face. Finally, realizing he was getting no reaction from me, the guard nodded and unlocked the door. I took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Harrison sat at the desk, his face nestled into his arms. The chains of his handcuffs were spread out on the desk in front of him. He was naked from the waist up, and I noted he wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Standing opposite him were two detectives. I went over and introduced myself, shaking hands with each in turn.

“Good luck with that one,” the first detective said. “You’d think if you’d been charged with murder you might be compelled to stay awake, but not him. Been sleeping like a baby since he got here.”

A soft snoring noise came from the hunched figure at the desk.

The detectives left to allow me and my client some privacy to talk through the charges before they would later return and begin incriminations.

“Mr Wrexler?” I said to the slumped figure. “I’m your attorney, Katie Scott. I need to ask you some questions.”

Without looking up, he said, “I’m not talking to you.”

I was surprised by his British accent.

“You’re British,” I said dumbly.

“I’m
English,
” he replied testily, raising his head at last and locking angry eyes on mine. “No one says ‘British’ apart from you bloody Yanks.”

I should have said something about how no one calls us “Yanks” anymore, but all I could do was stare. Harrison Wrexler’s face was a work of art. He’d been beyond beautiful on the television screen, but now, in the flesh, his face took my breath away. His skin was a milky brown color, and his eyes were bright, pale green. His jaw was perfectly chiseled, and he had amazing cheekbones. If he hadn’t been a basketball player, Harrison Wrexler would surely have been a model.

A whole host of dirty thoughts raced through my mind. I could feel the echoes of the orgasm Nick had given me pulsating inside of me and could imagine them being caused by Harrison Wrexler instead. I forced the thoughts away. What was it Galiema had said? That Harrison was all fast sports cars, wrecking hotels, and binging on prostitutes… That wasn’t the sort of guy I should be fantasizing about, not to mention the fact he was a client.

I sat down. The chair was hard plastic.

“How did you manage to sleep on something this uncomfortable?” I said, pulling some papers from my bag.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” Harrison replied. “I was avoiding answering their questions until my lawyer arrived.”

Well, he was certainly smarter than your average criminal.

“Mr Wrexler,” I said, trying to let practiced formality override my nerves and arousal. “Have you been made aware of the charges you’re facing?”

He nodded glumly. “Murder.”

“Okay. And have you said anything to the police so far? I need to know everything you’ve told them.”

He looked into the far distance, and I found my gaze roving along his profile, from the smooth slope of his forehead to the perfect angle of his nose, past the thick, full lips and the crevice between them, his chin, then finally to his bare chest. When I saw the blood smears I immediately snapped back to attention. I could be dealing with a murderer here. Fantasizing about him was creepy.

“I can’t remember,” Harrison said into the air. “It all happened in a blur. I think I said that I had to help Shantelle. I said she’d fallen. I can’t remember what else I said. I just remember saying over and over again that I needed to help her.”

I took notes as he spoke. Anything he’d said to the police could be used as evidence against him in court, so it was essential for me to know if he’d incriminated himself in any way.

“You didn’t say anything about how you’d both been drinking? Or that you’d consumed drugs?” I said, glancing over the typed report in front of me, relieved to have a reason to avert my gaze from his magnificent beauty. “Your breathalyzer test showed quite a high level of intoxication.”

“I admitted to drinking, but I hadn’t taken drugs,” he said gruffly. “But I suppose since it was midnight on a Friday night and I’m a multimillionaire sports star, they assumed I was high....”

His speech ended with an accusatory sneer, as though implying I thought the same. Little did he know that what I was actually thinking was that at midnight I’d been fucking a random guy on a kitchen table while staring at his face.

I put my pen down and rubbed my eyes. It was late, and my mind was a mess after everything that had happened.

“Mr Wrexler,” I said. “I’m not here to judge you. But it’s my job to represent you, which means I need to know absolutely everything that might incriminate you, right down to the amount of drugs and alcohol you’d consumed.”

He looked at me sternly. “I
don’t
do drugs.”

I noted a hint of emotion flicker across his features—a look that was somewhere between sorrow and grief. In that moment, I believed him. What Galiema had told me was wrong. Harrison Wrexler wasn’t a hotel-wrecking, cocaine-snorting prick. And he wasn’t the stereotypical wild, arrogant millionaire. As he looked at me, imploring me to believe him, to understand him as a person rather than a caricature in a newspaper, I couldn’t help but feel like there was a whole lot more to Harrison Wrexler than anyone knew.

Without thinking, I leaned over and touched his hand lightly. A surge of desire pulsed up my arm, like electricity. “Please, Harrison, I need to know everything that may be incriminating.” My voice had become a little breathy, and I was frustrated with myself for revealing to him so blatantly that I was attracted to him. “Even things that happened in your past may be used against you if this goes to trial.”

Suddenly, Harrison’s hand shot out from beneath mine, making it fall against the cold, metal tabletop with a thud.

“You want to know what might incriminate me?” he snapped. “How about the fact that I prowled the nightclubs looking for a drunk, willing girl who’d come home and fuck me? How about the fact that I tied up her hands? That I ripped her bra? What about me strangling her and pulling her hair? What about the fact that the neighbors would have heard us arguing on the balcony before she fell, not to mention that I’d been fucking her so hard earlier that night she’d been screaming? How much more incriminating does it need to be?”

I squirmed in my seat. I knew that everything Harrison had just said should revolt me, but instead, it had aroused me. This guy was basically admitting to being some kind of kinky sexual deviant, was possibly even admitting to raping someone, and all I could feel was excitement crackling through my veins. There was something dangerous about Harrison Wrexler, like he was a man on the edge. Something that told me taking on this case was going to be more than I bargained for.

“That’s very useful,” I said quietly. I looked down at my notes, trying to break his gaze, trying to focus on my work rather than my throbbing clitoris. “Maybe we ought to talk about Catherine.”

Harrison immediately stiffened beside me, as though the mention of her name was possibly the last thing I should have said at that moment.

“What about her?” he demanded.

“It says in your notes that you were in contact with a shrink following the death of your wife in suspicious circumstances.”

“It wasn’t suspicious,” he barked. “She took an overdose and died. End of story.”

“But you’ve had intimacy problems ever since?”

“How the fuck do you know that?” Harrison suddenly cried, banging his fists on the table. “That was between me and my therapist! It was supposed to be confidential!”

“I’m afraid nothing is confidential when it may be evidence of a crime,” I said. “Your therapist should have explained that to you before he took you on as a client. I’m afraid the only person you can ever have complete confidentiality with, Mr Wrexler, is your lawyer.”

I let the words hang in the air as it dawned on me that I was in an incredibly privileged position right now. Harrison Wrexler was clearly a man with a lot of baggage—baggage that he could only entrust to me.

Harrison stared at me, a stunned looked on his face. “You mean you?”

“Yes,” I said, shuffling under his intense scrutiny. “You could tell me that you threw this woman, Shantelle Leeson, off the balcony in a psychotic episode, and I would be bound to take that information to my grave. It’s called client-attorney privilege, Mr Wrexler.”

Harrison sat back and took a deep breath. “That makes you a very important person to me, Miss Scott.” Then he looked up at me, his gaze intense. “I assume you’re a miss?”

I nodded, still reeling a little from the intensity of our exchange.

“And is your name short for Katherine?”

“Kathleen, actually,” I said.

“You should go by Kathleen, then. ‘Katie’ makes you sound immature.”

I raised my eyebrows. But before I had a chance to contest, Harrison spoke again.

“If you’re my lawyer, and my life is in your hands, I’m asking you to go by Kathleen. Do you understand?”

I nodded, stunned by how quickly the whole interview had flipped around.

“So,” I said, trying to get back to business with a nervous cough. “Shantelle was...the first woman you were able to become intimate with after your wife’s death?”

It felt so intrusive asking Harrison such a question. I’d never before felt like a snoop. Usually as a lawyer I found it easy to ask the most intimate questions, but somehow with Harrison it felt like I was ripping off a scab from a deep, raw wound.

“Yes,” he said mournfully.

“Why Shantelle?” I said. “Why tonight?”

He looked at me quizzically. “Are you asking for the case or for yourself?”

“The case, of course,” I said, but I wasn’t so sure that was true.

Harrison regarded me for a long moment. I could feel the heat prickling under my skin as his gaze roved from my head to my neck, then along the curves of my breasts beneath my stiff suit.