Читать книгу Charged - Jay Crownover - Страница 13

You look pretty, Avett.” My dad’s gruff voice startled me from where I was still trying to pin strands of pink hair into the tightly coiled bun at the back of my head.

I should have changed it. I’d had almost three weeks to buy a box of dye, to make the pink no more, but I couldn’t do it. Every time I thought about it, every time I really contemplated the fact I might have to go to prison for an extended amount of time, the idea of going away as someone that wasn’t me, the thought of facing the judge and everyone else slotted to judge me as an imitation of myself, it made my skin crawl. Plus, every time I had a meeting with Quaid in his stuffy office, with its fancy carpet and boring furniture, the first thing he did was look at my hair, then look at me with a combination of reproach and admiration in his eyes. I liked both of those responses from him. I liked any kind of response from him. Getting him to react to me had become a personal challenge, and I was well aware I was pulling on a big, golden lion’s tail. The man was a predator, a civilized beast in a designer suit. There was more to the handsome lawyer than met the eye. I was dangerously intrigued by what kind of secrets his killer grin and steely blue gaze kept hidden.

He never mentioned me changing my hair again, so I was secretly hoping he realized it came with the territory … one more choice I was making that might bite me in the ass, but like all my other choices, I would face the consequences of my actions. I would own being the type of person that was critically flawed and forever fucking things up. I wasn’t hiding any of that, so that meant the pink hair stayed, but I did my best to make it as subtle as possible, and I did concede to part of Quaid’s advice, deciding not to dress like a college dropout for the big day. That was why my dad was leaning in the door of the open bathroom looking at me like he hadn’t ever seen me dressed up before.

Probably because he hadn’t.

My family was casual to our bones. I owned one skirt that dated back to high school. I’d had to go shopping, with my dad, because I didn’t have a car or any kind of cash to buy something that was suitable for convincing a judge I would never take part in an armed robbery.

I put my hands on the sink, looking at my dad’s dark gray eyes in the mirror. Things had been tough since I’d come home. There was a tension there, a lingering cloud that hovered over us, and I wasn’t sure how I was ever going to fix things with the most important person in my whole world. I knew a lot of his unease came from the fact my mother still wasn’t happy with me, and when she wasn’t happy Brite wasn’t happy. I didn’t know how to make things better with her either and that meant I did nothing. Doing nothing was always the action that seemed to hurt the worst and, even knowing that, I still found myself doing it over and over again.

“Thanks, Dad. How does the hair look?” The tightly coiled bun had taken more time than I’d spent on my hair in all my twenty-two years. Generally, I let the loose and wavy strands do their own thing. I was all about no-fuss-no-muss.

“Pretty, all of it is pretty. You can’t even see the pink from the front.” He was trying to be reassuring but I could tell he was nervous by the tense set of his broad shoulders and the downturn of his mouth within the forest of his beard.

“Good. I’ll remember not to turn around in front of the judge. Thanks again for the classy duds.” I pulled at the front of the lacy, cream-colored, three-quarter-sleeved, knee-length dress he had actually been the one to pick out for me. It was cute and totally conservative enough when I paired it with black leggings and ankle boots. It wasn’t something that made me look like a mom or like some high-class chick I would never, ever be. It was an outfit that made me look like a twenty-two-year-old that should, theoretically, have her shit together. So that’s who I was determined to be, even if it felt like I couldn’t have my shit less together if I tried.

“I’m happy to help you out, Sprite. Always have been.” His frown went deeper into his fuzzy face as his salt-and-pepper eyebrows slanted down over his eyes. “Your mom, too.”

There it was. The Darcy-sized elephant in the room that had been hovering between us since he bailed me out of jail … or longer. Things had never been particularly easy between me and my mother. I blew out a breath and turned to face him. I leaned back against the sink and met his solemn gaze.

“I don’t know what to say to her, Dad. She isn’t you. She doesn’t forgive the way you do.” When I started my downward spiral, when I went from being a simple yet defiant party girl to the girl determined to ruin everything good in her life, my mom didn’t understand and she watched me fall with little sympathy or compassion. Granted, she didn’t have the whole story but I wanted her to love me enough to forgive me and excuse me anyway. Instead, she forced enough space between the two of us that my guilt and the blame I fostered from the night I learned how tragic doing nothing could be had plenty of room to flourish and grow.

“You have so much of your mom in you, Sprite. I think you’re both too stubborn and hardheaded to see it though. She loves you. She will always love you and support you just like I do. She had to find her way just like you did, kiddo. Darce wants more for her baby girl. She doesn’t want to see you waste your time on loser after loser like she did, and she doesn’t want you tied to a no-named bar. We both know you have so much more to offer. Those aren’t bad things to want for your kid.”

I sighed and stiffened my spine. “I’ll convince Mom I’m innocent and have learned my lesson after I convince a judge. Deal?” He looked at me until I squirmed under his intent gaze. “Dad, I promise I will figure out a way to work on things with Mom. I’ve let things go for far too long and it’s gotten me nowhere good.”

Finally, after a beat, a grin that transformed him from surly, grumpy biker badass into a warm, kind, and much more Santa-esque badass broke across his face. “I know you will, Sprite. I have faith in you … always. And you might’ve let go but we’re your parents. We’ve been holding on tight since the beginning.”

I pushed off the sink and nervously tugged at the hem of my dress. “Thanks, Dad. Let’s do this thing.” Quaid seemed so sure the charges would be dismissed, but he never forgot to remind me that we could take the plea deal, that ninety days in jail was a much better option than three years. I was nervous, but there was something about Quaid Jackson, something about the way he handled himself, something about the way he handled me, that gave me unbridled confidence that the situation would go the way he guided it. I honestly believed the man would get the charges dropped, and if he didn’t, then I had full confidence he could unleash that dangerous grin and wicked charm of his on a jury and bend them to his will.

My dad moved out of the doorway and followed me down the hall towards the front of the house. I grabbed my purse and was pulling the front door open when my father’s heavy hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to look at him in question and was relieved to see his grin was still in place.

“Avett, you need to understand how I got to a place where I learned how to forgive. The main reason I can hang in there until someone that’s lost finds their way is because I was a man, not too long ago, that needed that kind of forgiveness and needed someone to show me the way. All the choices we make, good and bad, have a lesson in them. I think it’s time you quit letting those lessons go over your head, Sprite.”

The lessons weren’t going over my head. They were hitting me right in the heart, right in my very soul, and I deserved all of them. Those lessons reminded me every single day what kind of person I was; they reinforced the fact that when you were a bad person, bad things happened to you, and I knew I deserved them all. Every lesson I learned, I held close and let prick at me with sharp barbs over and over again.

My dad pulled the door closed behind him and we walked down the front steps of the beautifully restored two-story Italianate brick home that my dad had lived in since his split with my mom. It was home, as much as the bar had always been, and I loved it and the Curtis Park neighborhood it was located in. We were walking towards his red truck when he stopped by my side and waved at someone across the street. I squinted against the sun to see who he was waving at, but all I got was a flash of rust-colored hair and an arm full of brightly inked tattoos as it disappeared into the driver’s side of a beautiful old Cadillac. The guy moved quick and his car sounded loud and mean when he started it. That wasn’t a show Caddy; that was a Caddy with some balls and well-maintained guts.

“Who was that?” Dad pulled open my door for me because even the most badass of badasses treated his daughter like a lady, and wouldn’t accept anything less from any man in her life.

My dad lumbered up behind the wheel, slapping on a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Maybe Quaid should have given my old man a list of dos and don’ts for proper court wear instead of me. At least he had left the Harley T-shirt at home and had opted for a plain black one in its place. That was totally how Brite Walker dressed to impress. I chuckled a little at the thought as he backed out of the driveway.

“New neighbor. The boys call him Wheeler. He runs a garage down in the warehouse district. Boy has skills when it comes to anything with a motor in it. I keep telling him if he comes across a 1959 Pan-Head, I’ll buy it no questions asked and have him rebuild it for me. He’s a good kid, and my boys like him.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “And he just happened to end up in the house across the street from you?”

My dad chuckled and turned to look at me, but all I could see was my own pale and pinched expression reflected back at me. Definitely not a chick that had her shit together. I wasn’t going to fool anyone.

“The boys may have mentioned he was looking and I may have mentioned there was a for-sale sign in the neighborhood. Kid’s got himself a girl and recently got engaged. He’s trying to settle down and do right. You know how I feel about a good man trying to do right.” He paused and then muttered under his breath so quietly I almost didn’t hear, “Even if he’s doing right by the wrong girl.”

“You don’t like his girlfriend?”

My dad shrugged and turned back to the road. In Brite Walker speak, that meant he more than didn’t care for her.

“The kid works hard, has raw talent when it comes to what he does. The girl seems happy to sit around and take him for a ride. She’s been around a long time and I think the kid doesn’t know anything else. Reminds me of my first wife, and my first marriage, and we both know how that turned out.”

It turned out bad … really bad. Dad had cheated with my mom, knocked her up with me, and left the first wife without a backward glance, even though they had been together since high school and she had waited for him for years while he was overseas with the Marines. He said, time and time again, that he regretted the way things ended with his first wife—she deserved better from him—but he got me out of the deal. I was his great story from that bad decision and I knew he wouldn’t trade me for anything in the world.

I chuckled again and looked out the window as we got closer and closer to downtown and to the courthouse. “It’s not your job to save every single, confused, twenty-something in Denver, Dad.”

He chuckled as well, and wheeled the big truck into a paid parking lot because there was no way to parallel-park the beast on the busy downtown streets. Even badasses hated parallel parking on crowded city streets.

“I’m retired, Avett. What else am I going to do with my time?” I guess he had a point, and as he came around to open my door, I hooked my hand in the elbow he offered, and took a deep breath. My nerves kicked into high gear and my tummy started to tie itself into knots.

“I hope they appreciate you and what you do for them.”

He patted my hand where it had gone clammy against his tattooed arm. “Doesn’t matter if they do, or don’t. I appreciate them and what they do for me.” And there it was. He was giant-sized, he took no shit from anyone, he was grizzly, and he was gruff, but there would never be a better heart than the one that beat strong and true inside of Brite Walker. He was amazing through and through. I knew I had never done a single thing in my short life to deserve him, but I was selfish and greedy enough to know I would never, ever let him go. Even if I knew I would never feel entirely worthy of his loyalty and devotion to me.

His voice rumbled over my head and distracted me from my dark musings. “You ready to do this, Sprite?”

I took a deep breath as he pulled open the door and guided me towards the security line. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”

We didn’t say anything else as we passed through the security checkpoint, the officers giving my dad pointed looks and predictably pulling him aside to run the wand over him before they let us go. We found the tiny room Quaid had instructed us to meet him in outside of the actual courtroom. When we walked in, he was already there tapping away on his phone and looking as sharp and as pulled together as ever.

Today’s suit was black and the shirt under was a charcoal gray. The silk tie knotted at his tanned throat was a pretty royal blue and all of it made him look good enough to eat. The man wore a suit well, but I was curious to know what he looked like out of it. There had been one picture Google was generous enough to share with me of him in his Army fatigues, but he was so young then—a boy, really, and not the tall, imposing man that stood before me now. I wondered if he ever relaxed, if he took the suit off when he got home and rocked a pair of tattered sweats and a stained T-shirt. I doubted it, but I would bet good money that he looked as good in casual wear as he did in a thousand-dollar suit.

His eyes roved over me and he gave a quick nod before reaching out to shake my dad’s offered hand.

“I see you took my advice to heart, Ms. Walker. This will do, this will do nicely.” I rolled my eyes at him when he called me Ms. Walker. For weeks now, I’d been Avett when we were alone in his office, and he had been Quaid. The formal title was a reminder that it was showtime and I better get my act together for the powers that be.

“Thanks. Dad picked it out and I spent forever trying to hide the pink hair. This is the best I could do.” I turned my head slightly to the side so he could see the bun, and if I hadn’t been standing right in front of him, I would’ve missed the barely there breath of what seemed like relief that whispered out of him.

“The work paid off.”

I nodded my head a little and met his chilly gaze with one of my own. “Whatever happens today is happening to me. I’m going to face the music, own up to the fact I messed up, picked the wrong person. Again. And I’m going to do that as me. Me, who has pink hair and won’t be caught dead in a power suit.” I let my eyes roll over his long and elegant frame draped in material that cost more than my dad’s monthly mortgage payment. “No offense.”

Like he would take any. No man on Earth had ever looked as good in a suit as this one did. I mean, I was pretty sure that was an actual fact.

His eyebrows lifted a hint as the edge of his mouth dipped because he wasn’t going to let himself smile at me. “None taken and you don’t need a power suit. What you’re working with is fine and more importantly you seem comfortable. That comes across as earnest and honest. We don’t need you in anything that would make you fidgety and uneasy. That behavior comes across as anxious and guilty.”

He turned away from me and moved to the table where his computer and a bunch of paperwork was laid out. “Remember the State gets to play their hand first. They’re going to bring up every single thing on your record. They’re going to bring up the fact you dropped out of school. They’re going to hammer the point that you worked at the bar, that you were fired, that you were upset your dad sold it.”

My dad stiffened behind me but I didn’t turn around. I nodded at Quaid. “I’m ready for it.”

“They are going to try and convince the judge you were there to help Jared, that you are a legitimate threat to society, and that you would be better off behind bars, then they are going to try and sway the judge with generosity by offering up the plea bargain.” He gave me a pointed look. “I don’t get to do my part until all of that is over, so you have to sit there and keep it together while they drag you through the mud. Both of you need to keep it together. Am I making myself clear?”

I peeked over my shoulder and saw that my dad was scowling again and that he seemed almost as anxious as I was feeling on the inside.

“I hear you, son.” My dad’s voice rumbled low and hard through the tiny room.

Quaid nodded. “Good. I’m here for one reason and one reason only, to win this judgment for you. The State has a decent enough case, but mediocre isn’t good enough when I’m the opposing counsel. We’re in this together, got it?”

He’s been telling me that for weeks, saying this was his battle as much as it was mine, but since I was the only one with something to lose, namely my freedom, I’d had a hard time believing him. Here in this tiny room, with my dad practically vibrating with tension at my back and him seeping confidence and talent in front of me, I actually started to believe him.

“Okay. We’re in this together.”

His eyes thawed just a hint and warm shots of pewter blazed from the depths. That look made my heart beat faster and some of the anxiety that was riding me warmed into something that was heavy and more languid. Even though it was the least likely thing in the world to happen, I realized I would totally fuck my attorney. Exactly like those girls had been talking about at the arraignment. He was hot in a way that was totally foreign to anything I had ever considered sexy before, beautiful even, but it was his steadiness, his indomitable attitude, that pulled at me.

Quaid wasn’t reckless or rash. He was a man with a plan, with the kind of fortitude to put that plan into action, and follow it through to the end. He most definitely had his shit together. While that never appealed to me before, it was suddenly the most desirable trait I had ever seen in a man. He was flawless, and to someone that was deeply and tragically flawed, it was impossible not to be fascinated by that kind of perfection.

I pulled a whoosh of air into my lungs and held it as I followed him out of the room and into the courtroom. Since this was the preliminary hearing, the only people in the room were the court recorder, the prosecutor plus his assistant, and our little entourage. It should be less nerve-racking to have all my mistakes laid out in front of a smaller audience, but since this audience mattered more, and my father was a part of it, my stomach churned and burned as we took a seat on our side of the room.

The prosecutor was the same one from the arraignment. He walked over and shook Quaid’s hand before he sat down and let his gaze skim over my attorney’s slick attire.

“Nice suit, Jackson.”

Quaid gave the other man a smile, but it wasn’t a nice one. It was a smile that had too much teeth in it and it didn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy like I usually felt when he grinned.

“Thanks, Townsend. I dressed up for you.”

The other man grunted in response and shifted his gaze to me. I wanted to squirm in my seat but repeated over and over again that I was pretending to have my act together today so I needed to sit still.

“You sure your client doesn’t want to take the plea deal? I thought the bosses were being generous when it came across my desk.”

I opened my mouth to snap that I hadn’t done anything, but then shut it just as quickly. Quaid was getting paid a minifortune to defend me, and I knew I would make a mess if I tried to defend myself, so I kept quiet and forced myself not to react to the other lawyer.

“It is a good deal … if she was guilty of committing a crime. Having bad taste in men and getting caught up with a junkie loser is not a punishable offense.” Quaid’s tone was icy and there was no missing that he wasn’t in the mood to banter with the other man.

“When that junkie loser robs a bar with an unregistered weapon and threatens the life of a cop, it is a punishable offense. She didn’t call the cops, Jackson, she didn’t do anything.”

I cringed and tore my gaze away from their intense standoff. She didn’t do anything … I never did and it forever haunted me. It lingered around me like a black cloud. Nothing was just as bad as participating in a crime; at least, that was the way it felt. Nothing could linger heavy and thick until you couldn’t breathe through it, and I’d been gasping for air for a very long time.

“Again, Townsend, doing nothing is not a crime.” It might not be a crime, but the punishment that came with doing nothing might be worse than the punishment that came along with actually committing a crime.

“We’ll see if the judge agrees with you or not.” The other man skulked his way back to the other side of the room. Shortly after the exchange, the court bailiff told us all to rise and an older man, in billowing robes, entered the room and took his place at the bench. The court recorder read my case number and the charges that I was facing, then we all had to say our names clearly for the record.

The judge said a curt hello to both Quaid and the other attorney, and without any preamble, the other man launched into why the State thought I should be behind bars. Just like Quaid warned, all my dirty laundry was dragged out and laid flat for everyone to see. The DUI charge I’d recently bargained down, the bar fight that had resulted in a trip to the police station all because I was drunk and thought the other girl was trying to hit on Jared. The trespassing from when I jumped the fence at a resort to go skinny-dipping with some boy in a band that I met at a bar. All of it in its twisted, torn, and ragged glory. Every bad choice and mistake I had ever made there to be judged and weighed. Every instance I had taken the opportunity to do the wrong thing because I didn’t deserve to do the right thing. It was rough, but I sat silently, unflinchingly, and refused to look away from the judge, who had his eyes locked firmly on me.

“We also have a witness that will happily testify that Ms. Walker was fired, from the very bar she is accused of helping rob, for stealing. The same witness will testify that Ms. Walker was angry her father sold the bar, the bar she felt belonged to her and should stay in the family, so she concocted the plan for the robbery out of revenge.”

Quaid stood up and put his hands on the table in front of him. “Seriously, Townsend? Are you going to disclose to the court that your witness is a known drug user? Do you plan to clue the court in to the fact that you are in the midst of pressing charges against said witness for armed robbery and endangering the welfare of a police officer? What kind of deal did you offer this witness to testify against my client, Counselor?” I finally pulled my gaze away from the impossible-to-read judge and looked at my attorney.

There was a hard line of tension in his arms and along the line of his back. He was angry on my behalf. The little crush I was working on building towards him bloomed into full-blown infatuation. My dad had been the only man in my life to fight for me, so to have this man, this polished, seemingly perfect man, take my back, regardless of the fact he was doing it for a paycheck, still warmed me to my toes.

“Mr. Jackson, you will get your turn to argue against the State’s case soon. Please refrain from those kinds of outbursts in my courtroom. You know better.”

Chastised and clearly annoyed by it, Quaid sat back down next to me and shot me a look. It was full of heat and turmoil, so it was my turn to tilt my head in reassurance, and even though I’m sure he thought it was an accident, I let my elbow brush against his like he had done at the arraignment. We were in this together, after all.

After the prosecutor was done talking, the judge took his time looking at the paperwork scattered in front of him and then turned back to the other attorney.

“I’m assuming there’s a deal on the table since I’ve seen the tape from the parking lot, and it makes it very clear Ms. Walker was not at the establishment of her own free will.”

The prosecutor visibly stiffened and cleared his throat. “The district attorney did offer a deal, Your Honor. Ms. Walker turned it down. We feel like we have a solid enough case to take this to trial.”

The judge didn’t say anything and looked at Quaid, who climbed to his feet. “Your client is aware of what happens if she turns down the deal and takes her chances with a jury, Mr. Jackson?”

“She is, Your Honor. The fact of the matter is she didn’t know Jared Dalton was going to rob the bar that night. She didn’t know he had a gun, and when he told her his plan, she tried to exit the car, and we all know what happened.” He looked at me. “Ms. Walker was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and is paying a remarkably high price for hooking her wagon to the wrong guy. You put me in front of a jury with her and you know as well as I do that they’re going to see a pretty, young woman who’s made some mistakes but none as bad as sticking around in an abusive relationship with an addict. That video is damning, but so is the witness testimony I’ll bring forth. It will attest to the fact she showed up to work with black eyes, and will also state that everyone that witnessed the two of them together knew Jared was bad news. Not to mention the fact, the State’s witness is being investigated on trafficking charges, on top of the armed robbery charges. When he was shot during the commission of the crime, it seems he got real chatty while he was in the hospital recovering. Offered the cops a lot of info in search of a deal. Avett Walker is a victim, not a perpetrator.”

I wasn’t a victim; I was a glutton for punishment and I had my reasons to be that way, but the judge didn’t know that. He shifted his attention to me and I swallowed hard.

“Ms. Walker.” I got shakily to my feet as Quaid put a hand on my arm and pulled me upwards.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“What exactly happened that night?”

I felt my knees start to quiver and my heart thudded heavily in my ears. “I, uh …” I started to stutter and had to clear my throat. I curled my hands into my fists and told myself to be honest. All the ugly was already out, so it couldn’t make it any prettier or any messier with the truth. “Jared had left town for a while. He owed his supplier a bunch of money, which was why I was stealing from the bar. It was stupid. It was desperate, but I did it because I thought I was helping someone that cared about me.” My voice cracked a little and I realized Quaid hadn’t let go of my arm because he gave it a gentle squeeze.

“While he was gone, some guys showed up looking for him. They, uh …” My voice drifted off again and I had to close my eyes and brace myself to get through the rest. “They broke into the place we were staying and roughed me up.” It had almost been so much worse, but thank goodness Jared’s landlady was a nosy old bat that had heard the ruckus and showed up in the nick of time. “When Jared came back to town and found me all messed up, he told me he was going to make it right, that he had a safe place we could go. He hustled me into the car, told me he had to make one quick stop, and the next thing I knew we were at the bar.”

I felt a sharp pressure in my chest and lifted my hand to hold on to the spot where my heart was kicking against the inside of me like a horse. “I should have known better. He was high—he was always high—and he was angry.” I moved my fingers from my chest to the spot on my forehead where the knot had lived for weeks. “I told him to stop it. I told him I was going to call the police. That was when he grabbed the back of my head and shoved me into the dashboard. I was already messed up from the thugs that were looking for him and he nailed me right between the eyes. I think I blacked out a little bit.”

I gulped. “I wanted to call the police.” I laughed a dry broken sound. “I really wanted to call my dad.” I looked over my shoulder at the man that was my own personal rock to lean on and wanted to wither away at the expression on his hard face. I was breaking his heart again, and again. “I didn’t do anything though. I sat there with my ears ringing, wondering how in the hell I had ended up in such a terrible spot. I didn’t know he had a gun. I never saw it and didn’t know until we got to the bar what his plans were. I should have done something, anything, but I didn’t, including help him plan the robbery.”