Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 869(@200wpm)___ 695(@250wpm)___ 579(@300wpm)
The sickness seems to have passed and I look in the mirror. Do I look different? Apparently, my baby doesn’t like this question. My stomach rolls and I hurry into a stall, shut the door, and heave up nothing. My stomach is empty and maybe that’s the problem. Whatever the case, it’s over and I walk out of the stall to find Lori, standing in front of me. Lori, who knows about the secret bathroom because of me.
“What’s wrong?” she asks and as silly as it sounds, the floral pattern of the blouse under her jacket seems to make me sick again.
“Bad olives, I think,” I manage to explain, “but I need to be in that courtroom now. Reese will look for me. He’ll worry if he doesn’t find me there.”
“Do you have anything with you to take?”
“Nothing,” I say darting for the door.
She follows and catches me in the hallway. “I’ll grab you something.”
“No,” I say quickly, not sure what is safe. “No. Reese will be distracted if you come in late. Let’s just go sit. I have crackers.”
She looks like she wants to argue but she doesn’t. We enter the courtroom and we’re escorted to a row right behind the defense table. I sit down and stuff a cracker down that I’m not supposed to eat in here and do so as quickly as possible. “Is it helping?”
“I think so,” I say, “except I’m about to choke with no water.”
She opens her purse and points to a bottle of water. I discreetly grab it, take a drink and stuff it back in her purse, deciding that for now, I’m stable. The doors to our left open and the courtroom goes nuts as Dana, Richard, and Elsa walk in and take their seats. Dana is back to stone. She’s cold. She’s hard on the surface when I know she’s falling apart inside. Next comes Reese and he’s barely stepped to the table before he finds me. I love how he does this at the start of every trial. I love that we’re this connected. I had to be here today. I will always be here when he starts a trial.
The prosecution enters the courtroom and a few minutes later, we’re standing for the judge. We sit and that’s when Lori leans close and whispers, “Are you pregnant?”
Chapter forty-eight
Cat
Ilove Lori to pieces, but I really want to throttle her for asking if I’m pregnant when a) I’m not telling her before Reese, therefore I now have to try to make her forget this topic without lying to her and b) Reese is about to begin one of the biggest cases of his career in a few seconds.
“Forget I asked that,” she whispers, pulling out a notepad as I ready my own. “That was silly,” she adds. “You two have a plan and it doesn’t include getting pregnant right now during this trial.” Reese walks to the center of the courtroom and she squeezes my arm. “I can’t wait to watch Reese in action. I’m so glad I’m between cases.”
Relief washes over me at her backtrack, but we’re also working on a book together that I think I need to push back our efforts until after I tell Reese. Lori knows me too well. If we spend time together, she’ll figure out what’s going on. For now though, I focus on the prosecutor, a man named Milton Wicker, who Reese has gone head-to-head with before and beat. Milton, like everyone, wanted to dethrone Reese and break his winning record, and save his pride from losing once before, and lost. So we can all bet he has vengeance in his sight this time around. Tall and good looking enough, I guess, he’s mid-thirties, with dark-rimmed glasses and sandy brown hair. He begins his opening statement:
“Today we are here because, in the defendant’s own words, she wished her father was dead and she followed through to make that wish come true. The defense will tell you that dreams don’t always come true, but for the defendant they did. Facts are facts. Dana Warren wished her father dead and now he’s dead. Do you know what that means for her? Five hundred million dollars. She is set to inherit five hundred million dollars. That’s an astounding sum of money, isn’t it? And what did it take for Dana Warren to inherit that money? One bullet. Who else benefited from Nelson Warren’s murder? No one. No one else inherits. No wife, girlfriend, non-existent sibling. No one. Not even a charity. I’m not going to feed you a laundry list of reasons she did this when you already have five hundred million reasons and a phone call where she wished her father dead.”
His opening is that fast and over, leaving me certain that he doesn’t have evidence to prove his case that we don’t yet know about. He’s grandstanding. “He’s putting on a show,” Lori whispers, as if reading my thoughts, “and not a good one.”