About That Night

by Julie James

  Understandably, that took Dex by surprise. “Wow. She must be smoking hot to have talked you into that.” Then he cocked his head. “Hold on…is it that assistant U.S. attorney you were in court with the other day? The dark-haired one whose rack you’re checking out in that photograph?”

  Kyle stood against the onyx bar, waving this off. “We were in the middle of a courtroom—I wasn’t checking out her rack. My eyes were on hers the entire time.”

  “Must be some eyes.”

  Kyle opened his mouth to protest, then stopped.

  Well, actually, yes.

  Fifteen

  “I HAVE NO further questions, Agent Wilkins.”

  Rylann looked over her shoulder at the twenty-one people sitting behind her in three-tiered rows. Everyone was still awake, which was always a good sign. “Does the grand jury have any questions for this witness?”

  There was a pause. Up front, next to the witness stand, sat the jury foreman and the recording secretary. The foreman shook his head no.

  Rylann nodded at Sam. “You may step down, Agent Wilkins. Thank you.” She turned and watched him leave the room, stealing another peek at the jurors. She could tell from their expressions that they’d liked him, and they had every reason to. He’d been engaging, professional, and prepared, not once needing to look at his investigative reports while testifying. If the case against Quinn went to trial—which, in reality, was unlikely—she had no doubt that Sam would make an excellent witness.

  Her job today, simply, was to tell a story. Granted, because this was a grand jury proceeding and not a trial, she could eliminate many of the details of that story, but through her witnesses she needed to convey the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the crime. This particular story had three acts: Agent Wilkins, Kyle Rhodes, and Manuel Gutierrez. At the conclusion of the witnesses’ testimony, she would hand the jury a proposed indictment that laid out the charges against Quinn. Then the rest was in their hands.

  Today she would be asking them to indict Quinn on two counts: second-degree murder and conspiracy to violate the civil rights of a federal prisoner. Since she had no direct proof that Quinn had instigated Watts’s attack on Brown, she was asking the grand jury to infer that connection based on circumstantial evidence. It was not a perfect case, but it was one she believed in regardless. And all she needed was sixteen of the twenty-three men and women sitting in that room to believe in it, too.

  When the door shut behind Agent Wilkins, Rylann looked over at the jury members. Since there was no judge in the room, the assistant U.S. attorney ran the show. “Why don’t we take a ten-minute break before our next witness?”

  She waited until the jurors and court reporter left, then she made her way to the witness room across the hall. She paused momentarily at the door, then pushed it open and found Kyle looking out the window at the view of the building most Chicagoans still refused to call anything but the Sears Tower.

  “It’s showtime,” she said.

  He turned around, looking strikingly handsome—and conservative—in his dark gray pin-striped suit, blue banker shirt, and gray and blue striped tie. He wore his hair neatly brushed back, the first time she’d ever seen it styled like that, and the color of his shirt brought out the blue of his eyes from across the room.

  Rylann felt a little fluttering in her stomach, then quickly brushed it aside. Justa few butterflies of anticipation.

  Kyle tucked his hands into his pockets, looking ready and raring to go. “Let’s do this.”

  KYLE FOLLOWED RYLANN through the doorway, his curiosity piqued. He knew virtually nothing about grand jury proceedings, but the confidential nature of the process shrouded it in an aura of mystery. He walked into the room and saw that it was smaller than he’d expected, probably only half the size of a regular courtroom. To his right was a witness stand and a bench, the same kind a judge would normally sit behind. On the opposite side of the room was the table from which, presumably, Rylann would question him, and behind that, three rows of chairs for the jurors, stacked like a movie theater.

  Chairs that were noticeably empty.

  “Counselor, at some point do you plan to have any actual jurors at this grand jury proceeding?” he drawled.

  “Ha, ha. I sent them out for a break. I want the jurors’ first image of the infamous Kyle Rhodes to be of you sitting in that stand. I don’t care what they’ve previously heard or read about you—today, you’re simply a witness.” She gestured to the stand. “Why don’t you take a seat?”

  Kyle stepped up and took a seat in a well-used swivel chair, banging his knees against a sturdy metal bar bolted to the underside of the podium. “Whoever designed these clearly didn’t have tall men in mind,” he grumbled.

  “Sorry. It’s for handcuffs,” she said, referring to the bar.

  Of course it was. Kyle looked out at the small courtroom. “So this is what I missed out on by pleading guilty.”

  Rylann approached the witness stand with a reassuring smile. “This is nothing. No cross-examination, no objections—just think of it as you and me having a conversation. The jurors can ask you questions when I’m done, although it’s unlikely they’ll do so. Assuming I’ve done my job right, they shouldn’t have any questions.”

  She was awfully cute when she did her lawyer thing. “I like the pep talk, counselor,” Kyle said, appreciating the fact that she was trying to make him feel comfortable.

  “Thanks. Do you have any questions before we get started?” she asked.

  “Just one.” His eyes coyly skimmed over today’s skirt suit varietal, which was beige. “Do you actually own any pants?”

  “Any other questions?” she asked without batting an eye.

  They were interrupted when the court reporter walked in, followed by two jurors. Immediately, things got serious again. The trio spotted him in the witness stand, and two of them, including the court reporter, did a double take. Ignoring their looks, Rylann returned to her table and nonchalantly studied her notepad, as if she put notorious billionaire heir ex-con hackers on the stand every day.

  Over the course of the next two minutes, the remaining twenty-one jurors trickled in. Kyle was pleased to see that four of them didn’t seem to recognize him at all, and three other jurors merely looked at him curiously, as if they couldn’t quite place him. The remaining thirteen appeared highly intrigued by his presence.

  When all the jurors had returned to their seats, Rylann nodded at the foreman. “You can swear in the witness.”

  “Raise your right hand,” he said to Kyle. “Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you’re about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

  “I do.”

  Rylann locked eyes with him, with a hint of a smile on her lips only he understood.

  They had sure come a long way from the cornfields of Champaign-Urbana.

  “State your name for the record, please,” she began.

  And away we go.

  “Kyle Rhodes.”

  KYLE HAD TO say, he was impressed.

  She was good.

  Of course, he’d guessed that Rylann would be a force to be reckoned with in court, since everything about her screamed Bad-Ass Attorney, but it was another thing to actually see it. Although she never moved once from the table, she commanded the room with her questions, drawing out his testimony in a way that hit all the right notes. She spent the first few minutes asking questions about his background, focusing on his education and work experience, which simultaneously gave Kyle a chance to settle into the witness stand and gave the jurors a chance to see him as someone other than the Twitter Terrorist. She addressed the circumstances of his conviction directly but moved on quickly after that, and then talked with him for a while about prison life.

  Not exactly the proudest four months of Kyle’s life, nor a subject on which he enjoyed being an expert, but he understood the role he needed to play that afternoon.

  She slowed the pace when they got to the night Kyle o
verheard Quinn’s threat, first eliciting testimony from him that set the scene.

  “Can you explain what disciplinary segregation is, for those jurors who may not be familiar with the term?” she suggested.

  “It’s a cell block where they separate inmates from the general population. One inmate per cell, and there are none of the regular prison privileges. Meaning no leisure time, and you eat your meals in your cell.”

  “Is it quiet?” she asked.

  “Very, especially since inmates in segregation aren’t supposed to talk to each other. If a man’s stomach growled, you could hear it three cells over.”

  He could tell she liked that answer.

  Back and forth they went, grabbing the jurors’ attention and reeling them in. They steadily made their way to the climax of their story—Quinn’s threat. Kyle could see that the jurors were listening with much interest, practically on the edges of their seats as he repeated the words Quinn had said to Brown that fateful night. The tension and excitement in the room was palpable as Rylann circled back to the threat two times, hitting hard with her questions to emphasize this part of her examination, and then suddenly—

  It was over.

  She paused for a moment, letting Quinn’s threat hang dramatically in the courtroom air. Then she nodded soberly.

  “Thank you, Mr. Rhodes. I have no further questions.” She turned to the jurors behind her. “Does the grand jury have any questions for this witness?” After a moment of silence, she smiled politely at Kyle. “You may step down, Mr. Rhodes. Thank you.”

  With a nod, Kyle rose from the swivel chair. Ignoring the curious glances of the jurors, he strode out of the room. When the door shut behind him, he stood alone in the hallway feeling satisfied yet strangely dismissed—like a man who’d barely finished his last pump during a hot one-night stand before being shoved out the door with his shirt and shoes in his hands.

  He hadn’t expected her to hang around for hours making post-testimonial chitchat, but, boy, that was…anticlimactic. For one thing, she hadn’t even said when they were going to see each other again. Oh, sure, in a few weeks she’d waltz back into his life with her notepad and briefcase and fiery little subpoena threats, and she’d charm and sass and get whatever she wanted, and then wham-bam-thank-you-sir, she’d be on her merry little skirt-suited way again.

  This whole grand jury experience had left him feeling very discombobulated.

  Kyle made it all the way down to the lobby before he realized he could turn on his cell phone again. He did so, and moments later a text message popped up.

  From Rylann, presumably on a break before her next witness.

  YOU DID GREAT. I’LL CALL WHEN I KNOW ABOUT THE INDICTMENT.

  Kyle stuck his phone back into his suit coat, only later realizing that was the first time in six months he’d left the courthouse with a smile on his face.

  LATER THAT EVENING, Rylann walked out that very same door with a similarly pleased expression.

  Unlike trial juries, which could take days or even longer in deliberation, a grand jury typically voted quickly. Today, thankfully, had been no exception. Ten minutes after Manuel Gutierrez left the witness stand, the jury foreperson had brought to the chief judge’s chambers a true bill in the case that henceforth would officially be known as United States v. Adam Quinn.

  She had her indictment.

  Sixteen

  FRIDAY MORNING, RYLANN received her second piece of good news in twenty-four hours.

  “My client signed off on the guilty plea,” said Greg Boran, an assistant federal defender for the Northern District of Illinois.

  Over the course of the last week, Rylann had been negotiating the terms of a plea agreement for Watts. She’d known, as soon as Cameron had handed over the files, that this part of the case would plead out quickly. Watts was already a lifer, and the case against him was a slam dunk. Two men had been locked in a cell together, and one of those men had been beaten to death—not exactly a mystery who the attacker had been. In fact, Watts hadn’t even bothered to claim self-defense—disgustingly enough, he seemed almost proud of his actions.

  There was just one sticking point she’d been unable to make any headway on. “Any luck getting him to agree to flip on Quinn?”

  “Sorry. He says he’s got nothing to say about that,” Greg said.

  “Even if I knock the charge down to voluntary manslaughter?”

  “Knocking down the charge won’t make any difference in this case—which is precisely why you’re so willing to offer it,” Greg said. “Watts is already serving two life sentences. Shaving a few years off this conviction would be irrelevant.”

  “How about the fact that it would be the right thing to do?” Rylann asked. “Your client might want to try that some time.”

  Greg remained firm. “He’s a lifer, Rylann. He’s not going to shit where he eats just to throw you a solid. I don’t think it’ll go over so well with the other guards if he’s the guy responsible for sending one of them to prison.”

  Maybe not. Still, Rylann gave it one last shot. “I can arrange for him to be transferred out of MCC. Move him somewhere where the sun shines on the prison yard all year long. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that there are some lovely institutions in California that would be happy to welcome Mr. Watts as a guest.”

  Greg chuckled. “I already made the suggestion. But you can move him anywhere you want, and he’ll still be known as the inmate who ratted out a guard. Sorry, but if you want to nail Quinn, you’re going to have to do it without Watts.”

  Rylann sighed. Not the response she’d been hoping for, but that wasn’t Greg’s fault. She had a lot of respect for the attorneys in the Federal Defender’s Office—they handled caseloads as heavy as those of the prosecutors they faced off against yet had one of the most thankless jobs in the legal profession. “It was worth a shot. I’ll see you in court next week.”

  BRIGHT AND EARLY the following Monday, Rylann got her first look at another man she’d set her sights on: Adam Quinn, the “mean son of a bitch” prison guard who’d instigated and arranged Watts’s brutal attack against Brown.

  Quinn had been arrested by the FBI the night before, and they were in court for his initial appearance. When Rylann walked through the courtroom doors, she immediately noticed two things: first, that Quinn looked younger than his twenty-eight years, and second, that he appeared to be extremely nervous.

  As well he should.

  Before taking a seat at her table, she introduced herself to Quinn’s defense attorney. “Rylann Pierce,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Michael Channing. I’d like a moment of your time after the arraignment, Ms. Pierce,” he said tersely.

  “Of course. I can even give you two moments,” she said with a pleasant smile. She’d been litigating against guys like this her entire career—lawyers who seemingly confused brashness with being tough. Good thing she’d stopped being unnerved by that kind of strategy somewhere around her third trial.

  She went over to the prosecution table and set her briefcase off to the side. Shortly thereafter, the clerk called the case, and they were off and running. Because an indictment had already been returned against the defendant, the magistrate judge combined the initial appearance and the arraignment. Quinn, not unexpectedly, entered a plea of not guilty.

  At the conclusion of the hearing, Michael Channing made a beeline for Rylann’s table. “Second-degree murder? My client never even touched the guy.” He peered down at her with a smirk. “I looked you up. You’re new here.”

  “The law in the Seventh Circuit is clear, Mr. Channing. Anyone who aids in the commission of a crime can be found guilty of that crime. I’ve been here long enough to know that, at least.”

  “I know what the Seventh Circuit says,” he said with a glare. “But this whole thing was just a fight between two inmates gone wrong. Show me what you’ve got that proves anything other than that.”

  Rylann could already tell—he was going to b
e an absolute joy to litigate against. “I’m happy to.” She unzipped her briefcase, pulled out a file that she’d prepared with all of Special Agent Wilkins’s investigation reports, and plunked it into Channing’s hands. “Here you go. There’s a letter on top outlining my proposed discovery schedule. Exculpatory evidence three weeks before trial, full witness list two weeks prior.”

  He looked down at the file in surprise, obviously not having expected to walk out with the FBI reports today. “Yes, well. I’ll…be taking a look at these right away.”

  “One other thing I should mention. For security reasons, Manuel Gutierrez has been transferred out of MCC and moved downstate to Pekin.” Given the inmate’s concerns about his safety, Rylann had felt that was the safest course of action.

  Channing nodded. “I see.”

  From his blank expression, Rylann guessed that he did not, in fact, see. Most likely, Channing had no clue who Manuel Gutierrez was. Which was precisely why she liked to hit defense attorneys with the FBI reports right away. It sent them a message, right from the get-go, that they had some catching up to do.

  Not surprisingly, Channing had no further demands at that hearing.

  UNFORTUNATELY, THE SWEET taste of victory did not linger long.

  “I’m striking out with the other inmates,” Agent Wilkins said over the phone later that afternoon when Rylann was back at the office.

  To further bolster her case against Quinn, Rylann had asked Wilkins to talk to some of the inmates at MCC to see if any of them could provide support for their theory about Quinn—that he’d been giving preferential treatment to certain inmates who’d carried out his retaliation. “Are they afraid to talk to you?”

  Wilkins snorted. “They’re not afraid—they all want deals. They know that Gutierrez was taken out of MCC after meeting with us. Apparently, the rumor floating around is that he’s playing golf at a minimum-security facility in Miami.”

  “Of course that’s the rumor. One day I have to find this elusive federal prison where everyone runs around free, plays golf, and eats five-course meals.”