The three found the stable hand in a drunken stupor in front of his television playing an old repeat of Bonanza. The detective flipped off the television and shook the stable hands shoulder until he woke up.
“What? Who?” The drunk shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
The detective explained that Sophia was missing from the Ojai resort and had never returned from the stables.
“What do you mean?” The stable hand tried to get to his feet but fell back into his chair. “Who never came back?”
“The pretty dark-haired woman.” Paul said. “Sophia.”
“Yeah, the horse woman. Sure she came back.”
The stable hand took the slip from his shirt pocket and the pencil stub fell to the floor.
“When?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t write it down. She must have.” The stable hand studied the slip. “It’s dark. She was only going for two hours. Hell, it’ll be my job if that horse is missing.”
“The horse! It’ll be more than your job if something has happened to her!”
Detective Rutger grabbed the slip, read it, and then crushed it and threw it on the floor. “Her golf cart is still here.”
“Shit. It is?” The stable hand grabbed his hat and jacket and retrieved the slip off the floor to get paid. “I’ll check.”
Tricia handed Paul and the detective an umbrella and she opened hers as they all started for the barn.
“There it is.” Tricia started to run across to the barn. “A horse. There.”
Gypsy was standing at the rail outside the barn door. She was saddled and bridled and soaked.
“Did that animal come back without Sophia?” Paul demanded.
“I don’t know.” The stable hand grabbed Gypsy’s reins and she jumped. “Whoa, girl. I’ll get your saddle off.”
“You didn’t even check?” Tricia screamed at the stable hand from under her umbrella. “Didn’t you even care that she didn’t come back? Where can she be?”
“Sorry.” The stable scratched his head under his hat. “I thought she came back.”
“Well, she didn’t. Her cart is still here,” Paul raged, standing in the rain.
“How would I know that?”
“Where did she go on the ride?” Paul demanded.
“The left trail. Through the meadow and across the stream,” The stable hand pointed out into the dark pouring rain. “It circles back here.”
“Is that your jeep by the house?” The detective snarled at the stable hand. “And we need flashlights.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
“Are the keys in it?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’re taking it.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can.” The detective flashed his badge.
“But I . . .” The stable hand stopped objecting in the face of the badge and the anger.
“The flashlights?” Tricia asked, more calmly and with a modicum of charm, to get quick cooperation.
“Sure.” The stable hand went into the barn and the three followed.
Tricia, Paul, and Detective Rutger emerged carrying three filthy cheap plastic flashlights that obviously had been bought in a multi-pack and made in China. The stable hand got Gypsy and led her into the barn out of the rain.
“They don’t have much juice, but they’ll have to do.” Detective Rutger headed for the jeep.
Tricia and Paul followed him across the dimly lit yard to the jeep.
In the rickety commandeered jeep, the three bumped and slid up the left trail to find Sophia.
* * *
Sophia was awakened from her black haze by the sound of an engine, a car engine, and people calling her name.
When she opened her eyes, it was pitch black and pouring hard with big raindrops pummeling her. She thought she was dreaming, but recognized Tricia’s voice and then Paul’s. They were close. She was freezing, but at least the cold had quelled her pain.
Sophia didn’t know which way to call for help. She didn’t want to move her neck and lose consciousness again. If that happened, she might never be found.
From the corner of her eye, she saw headlights and then flashlights on the trail coming from the direction of the meadow she and Gypsy had cantered through that afternoon. She tried to take a deep breath to call out, but her ribs made the breath shallow and painful.
“Here,” Sophia breathed, inaudibly and weak with powerless air from her blue lips.
Her eyes involuntarily slipped closed once more. Her mind floated away and she was riding through the meadow again, with the wind whipping her hair into her face.
Sophia forced herself to open her eyes and focus. She realized, instead of her hair in her face, it was the rain crawling over skin and her hair was actually lying in the muddy pool surrounding her.
As Sophia blinked away the water, she thought she saw Roger’s face again leaning over her. She held her breath and shut her eyes. Lightning flashed. She looked up. There was nothing but black sky above. She took another shallow breath. The downpour had subsided into a gentler rain. She felt weak and slid into semi-consciousness.
The next thing Sophia knew she heard Tricia calling out.
“Here. Here. She’s here, Detective,” Tricia shouted, stooping next to Sophia. “You were right.”
“Sophia?” Detective Rutger called, kneeling over her.
He aimed the flashlight directly on Sophia’s face and her eyes popped open.
“She’s alive. She’s alive,” Paul shouted excitedly as he leaned in. “You’re going to be fine, Sophia. You’re going to be fine.”
Sophia looked up at Paul and whispered, “How did . . .?”
“Detective Rutger figured it out,” Paul answered.
“With a little help from your friends.” Steve smiled at Sophia.
“He got proof about Roger and . . .” Tricia stopped when Sophia shut her eyes again.
Paul touched Sophia’s hand.
“Now’s not the time, Tricia. She’s frozen.”
“She’s in shock, too,” Detective Rutger added.
“Oh, my God,” Tricia cried, standing next to Sophia’s prone and broken body. “What should we do? Can we take her in the jeep?”
Lightning flashed and a loud thunder roll followed.
“Better not,” the detective cautioned. “Call 911. Cover her with our jackets.”
⌘
Epilogue
What Goes Around
Less than a year later, Sophia had fully recovered. Fully recovered, because Detective Rutger had waited for paramedics who protected her cracked neck. Fully recovered, except on rainy days when her mended arm twinged from the embedded pins and her fear resurfaced from that stormy night.
However, on this bright, dry summer day in Los Angeles, Sophia had no twinges or fear. She sat at her second-hand desk drafting interrogatories. She had joined Krause & White, the upcoming plaintiffs’ firm that her classmates had started.
Sophia was again happy, as happy as she had been as a teacher. She was happy fighting for the rights of the injured and powerless, happy amongst people she liked, happy with a small sparse office, and happy drafting discovery for deserving, wronged plaintiffs.
Sophia knew she would not be alive today but for Detective Rutger and her friends Tricia and Paul. Friends who had migrated with her to Krause & White to brave the ups and downs of plaintiffs’ work.
* * *
Sophia had three burning regrets, though. First, that she was not at the Saturday night retreat dinner when Detective Rutger and the Ojai police arrested Roger. Second, even though Roger was ultimately convicted of both Sophia’s attempted murder and Frank’s murder, he was not prosecuted for the “accidental” deaths of the other managing partners. Despite Detective Rutger’s best efforts, there was insufficient evidence. And third, that there was also insufficient evidence to indict Taylor, Marvin, or Joe for any of the murders, even though she was convinced that they should all stand trial. In fac
t, vying for a deal, Roger had implicated them, but there was no corroborating evidence. The three had sanitized their paper trail—with Sophia’s unwitting help—and stood so staunchly together that they overcame Roger’s betrayal. Sophia couldn’t help but think that the calendar and notes she had found would have made a difference.
But one thing Sophia did not regret was that she ultimately did not have the Thorne & Chase character that Carlisle Sanderson had alluded to in her hiring interview. She knew now what that character included—not only the work-until-you-drop drive and an instinct to go for your foe’s jugular—but also, sadly, the instinct to go for your colleagues’ jugulars, at any cost.
* * *
After Roger’s well-publicized trial with its startling revelations and guilty verdict—Thorne & Chase’s Los Angeles office was finished. The New York contingent dissolved it, not for any altruistic reasons, but because the mighty money-making machine was irretrievably broken and the clients had all jumped ship.
For weeks, with the help of Sophia, Los Angeles Sun reporter Ben Kowrilsky’s investigation aired Thorne & Chase’s dirty laundry. He and Sophia became good friends and symbiotic avengers. Ben “somehow” got wind of the rampant, fraudulent overbilling at Thorne & Chase. Then, after becoming privy to the details of Toak’s summary judgment fiasco, Ben used it to expose the unethical, illegal, and outrageous billing practices at the firm. As a quid pro quo to Sophia, he also ran a series of articles on the abuse of junior partners and associates, the thefts of their clients, and the processes the full partners used to run the hard-to-handle junior partners out of the firm. He also did an exposé on the real reasons that led to Jim Henning’s shooting. Ben never disclosed his source.
The surviving attorneys fled like rats from a sinking ship. Sean, Adam, and Anne managed to hop to another big name downtown firm. James went in house for a dot com, a nine-to-five job for which he was more suited, anyway.
The California State Bar opened an investigation into many of the Thorne & Chase attorneys. Particularly, the lead counsel on cases in charge of the billing—or more aptly put, “value billing” and “over billing”—including Taylor, Chet, Toak, Carlisle, and twelve others. Too few really, but, all things considered, enough. They were all disbarred, but unfortunately, as Sophia knew, eventually they could apply for reinstatement. And in all likelihood, most or all of them would get it.
The Thorne & Chase associates who had gone along with the billing improprieties also did not escape unscathed. However, the State Bar gave them private reprovals because they had been coerced into going along with the system. Full leniency was afforded to Sophia, Tricia, Paul and some others, because they had stepped forward and cooperated in providing truthful information about the firm, as well as about their own conduct while there.
Toak never left his wife, but she left him—and so did Marlene. Marlene landed on her “feet” working for a sole practitioner in the furthest hinterlands of the Valley, far away and over the hills from downtown. Carlisle’s Southern belle secretary Violet, who had made Tricia’s life miserable, was too old to land another legal secretarial job—and didn’t deserve one anyway.
* * *
Having learned from the best, Sophia wanted to sue the hell out of someone. But there was no practical deep pocket for her to pursue.
The families of the murdered partners had all filed multi-million-dollar lawsuits seeking damages including the loss of the projected earnings of their dead loved ones. Many of the former Thorne & Chase clients who had been victims of its fraudulent billing practices had also filed their own lawsuits. Collectively, their damage claims would far exceed any available assets. The deepest pockets had filed bankruptcy, but that would not protect them from the fraud claims the former clients had filed.
So there was no real-world way for Sophia to get a judgment satisfied, even if she could get one. And, after all, Sophia felt lucky she had not died.
Ironically though, Sophia got the big contingency case Roger had brought into Thorne & Chase after Frank’s death. Sophia had remembered the case, and she went after it full bore while she was recovering. She snatched it away from the Westside law firm that had taken over by offering to cut her fee from the normal thirty-three percent to only ten percent of the take. The client told her it was giving her the case out of sympathy for what Roger had done to her. However, Sophia knew the real reasons were her reduced fee, her stellar credentials, and because a win was a certainty even for a novice—since the law and every fact was in their favor.
Sophia had great hopes both for justice and, even at ten percent, what would be a huge fee for her struggling new firm. Krause & White was happy to bring it in. She also thought the case might generate fees big enough for her to become a named partner. “Krause, White & Christopoulos.” That sounded great to Sophia, and it would make her parents even prouder.
* * *
Paul and Tricia popped into Sophia’s office and interrupted her as she was furiously inputting interrogatories. The three were still the “Musketeers” and had become an indomitable litigation trio.
“Want to get corned beef at the deli?” Tricia asked.
“Nope, I’m meeting ‘my detective’ for a pepperoni pizza.”
Sophia was looking forward to Steve’s company and his favorite Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant. And yes, it did have red and white checked tablecloths.
“Oh, your detective,” Paul chided. “Come on, Tricia. Let’s go. We’re tired of being jilted for this guy.”
“Tomorrow,” Sophia called out after them. “I promise.”
The End
Review this book at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I5SFMUM
Second in Series is THE GUN TRIAL
View Book Trailer ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0LiWhwjh6I
Buy at ~ https://www.amazon.com/Trial-Sophia-Christopoulos-Legal-Thriller-ebook/dp/B01AWZFU6G
Also Below is a Sample of Rogue Divorce Lawyer [Release January, 2018]
Buy at ~ https://www.amazon.com/Rogue-Divorce-Lawyer-Dale-Manolakas-ebook/dp/B0798D9PL9
View Book Trailer at ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEEWmGbmJ4c&t=2s
Chapter 1
For the first time in his career, divorce lawyer Gary Stockton was at a client’s house—a female client’s. He had no choice.
That morning, his secretary had handed him a message from Kim Duran: “Skip’s moving back. I’m telling.”
To his secretary it meant nothing. But to Gary—everything. It threatened his marriage, his law practice, and his well-established San Bernardino life. A good enough life—hard-earned in the heat and smog east of the Los Angeles sprawl.
* * *
Just being at Kim’s house made Gary’s skin crawl. The fifties tract shoebox was choked by dry weeds and dead bushes—victims of neglect in a record-hot July. A July made worse by a drought plaguing the desert terrain.
In the stark heat, Kim’s living room reeked of animal—human and domestic. The coffee table was archived with wine bottles, pizza boxes, and three bowls of Sugar-O cereal abandoned for the run to the school bus.
Gary was hung over and already angry from his late night losses at the Phoenix Casino. He glared over the coffee table at Kim’s screeching mouth. The mouth that before had obediently pleasured now terrified him—not because of its rage, but because of its power over him.
Unlike his other “special” female clients who paid with sex—Kim was out of control.
“I’m telling Skip,” Kim screamed over the TV game show.
“Like hell you are.”
“I’m calling the cops, too.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am. And I know about the others.” Kim eyed her cell phone on the couch.
Gary grabbed it. “Wait. Just wait.”
“For what? My divorce?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Bull! Skip says it’s not filed.”
“But it’s ready.”
“Liar, give me m
y cell.”
Gary put his hand on his crotch. “Come get it.”
“I’ll take Skip’s fist over your ass any day. You stink of old man.”
“Old man? You loved it.”
“Like hell. You forced me!” Kim leaned forward, her pale flesh popping over her skinny jeans.
“Forced you? You’re awhore. You’re—”
“Get out!” Kim hurled a dog-eared gossip rag at Gary. “Get out!”
Gary batted it back grazing her wiry, blond hair. “Not until you know what’s what.”
Threats to expose him were rare over the years, and Gary had crushed the renegades with the consensual card. He was practiced at subjugating desperate females.
Kim’s blue eyes flared. “Skip’s gonna kill you.”
“Me? I don’t think so.” Gary leered at her startled nipples jiggling braless under her bandeau and stepped up his game. “He’ll killyou. You moaned like a whore, and I have the videos to prove it.”
“Videos?” Kim froze.
After Gary first forced her to her knees, she had freely played the whore once … no twice … she fought to remember. He wanted it. She gave it to him, like the high school jocks who initiated her in the boy’s gym. Bursting testosterone packs preying on her adolescent double-Ds.
She did them for perks, just like Gary.
* * *
“Checkmate.” Gary grinned, plump cheeks spreading. “You shut your filthy mouth, or he’ll see them.”
“No.” Kim grabbed a wine bottle and charged around the coffee table with tear-blurred vision. “You bastard.”
“Shit.” Gary ducked as she smashed the bottle into his left shoulder. “Bitch!”
He dropped her cell and hurled the banshee back with his right hand.
Lethal Lawyers Page 37
