Love's Verdict

by Carsen Taite

  “Same. You want to call or should I?”

  “Trevor called me. I’ll call him back while you call Jane.” Carly was already punching his number when notifications from CNN, Bloomberg, Huffpost, and more started cascading down her screen. “Hold up. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

  Landon crossed the room, phone in hand. They stood shoulder to shoulder and read the latest news. The Dallas County grand jury had indicted Trevor, and within moments after the announcement, the NFL commissioner had held a press conference calling on the Dallas Cowboys to terminate his contract.

  “Someone must’ve tipped him off about the true bill,” Landon said. “No way the commissioner could’ve put together a press conference that fast.”

  Carly merely nodded, but all she could think about was how many news alerts they’d missed during their little make-out session, and how mixed up her feelings were about whether, given the chance, she’d go back and do things differently.

  “Are you okay?”

  Carly looked up into Landon’s dreamy eyes. It would be so incredibly easy to fall back into the haze that had swept them up in its spell just moments ago. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, change what had happened, but she could and would guard against letting it happen again. “I’m good, but we’ve got some work to do. Ready to hit the road?”

  * * *

  Landon checked the right lane and pulled over just in time to make the exit to the office. They’d spent most of the three-hour car ride on the phone, together and separately, and even though Carly was sitting only inches away, it felt like they were on different planets.

  Carly seemed completely unaffected by what had happened at her apartment, while Landon had been hard-pressed to think of anything else. She’d thought kissing Carly would satisfy an itch, but now she ached all over. Several times during the ride, she’d considering pulling over and reaching for Carly again, but she could feel the wall Carly had erected between them the moment the job reached back into their world with its firm demands and tangled allegiances. She wished she could shut it down as easily as Carly had. She’d have to work on that.

  In the meantime, they had to deal with a nervous client, an irate agent, an anxious football team management, and a commissioner with something to prove. Two of the four were waiting at the office, and Jane had made it clear they were to come straight there for a strategy session. The office was less than a mile away, and if she didn’t take advantage now, there would be no time to talk to Carly about what happened between them. She’d faced angry prosecutors, grumpy judges, and unsympathetic juries, and never backed down, so why was she so reticent when it came to talking about a kiss with a woman she’d nearly undressed?

  Because you don’t usually talk to them.

  It was a hard truth but a fair assessment. Since she’d been tossed aside after chasing a girl to Austin, she’d allowed plenty of women in her bed, but not in her heart, which meant her dating conversations usually started with things like “What do you want for dinner” and ended with “What do you like between the sheets?” She hadn’t cared about the lack of depth, or at least she hadn’t thought she cared. Until now. Working with and against Carly had stoked something besides the challenge of their rivalry. She’d gotten a glimpse of what it could be like to spend time with someone and actually get to know them before collapsing into each other’s arms.

  Time was running out. Landon pulled into the lot and barely got the key out of the ignition before Carly had the door open. It was now or never. “Wait a minute. Please.”

  “They’re waiting for us.”

  “I know, but they’ve been waiting a while, another minute won’t hurt.”

  Carly took her hand off the door and turned to face her. “I know what you’re going to say.”

  “You do, do you?”

  “The kissing, back at your place, it was nice.”

  “Nice?”

  “Fine.” Carly’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “It was hot, steamy, amazing, but it can’t happen again.”

  This was it, her opening. Her chance to argue the other side and win, but when Landon opened her mouth, all she could think to say was, “Why not?”

  Carly looked down and fiddled with the door handle. “It just doesn’t make sense. We’re working together, but whatever the outcome of this trial, one of us is going to win and one is going to lose. Let’s not complicate things by having the contest get personal.”

  Landon listened to the sterile delivery, barely able to believe that a few hours earlier Carly had melted into her arms. Had she completely misread the situation or was Carly a complete ice princess, able to turn her feelings off and on whenever she wanted? Clearly, she and Carly didn’t want the same thing. When it came to now or never, she supposed she had her answer. Never.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Two months later

  Carly hugged a sweater around her shoulders and shivered at the sound of the wind whipping outside her window. Dallas was having one of its rare runs of cold weather, but she was reluctant to turn on the heater since the temperatures were expected to be back up in the seventies in a few days. It didn’t really matter what the weather app said, she’d been feeling cold inside for a while now.

  She looked up from her work at the sound of a knock on her door. It was nine a.m. on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and she wasn’t expecting anyone. She’d been up since six, prepping for Trevor’s trial that was set to begin first thing tomorrow morning. This afternoon, she’d have to brave the outside world for another meeting with the rest of the team at the office, but she wasn’t quite ready for human interaction.

  When she looked out the door viewer she saw Mr. Jasper raising his hand to knock again. No doubt he knew she was inside, and he wouldn’t go away until she answered. She cracked the door and stuck her head out. “Hi, Mr. Jasper, do you need something?”

  “Not me, no.” He held up a medium-sized square box. “This came for you yesterday, but the delivery guy left it in front of my door. Sorry I’m just now getting it to you. I was at my sister’s for the holiday.” He stood up tall and tried to peer over her shoulder. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?”

  “Yes, thanks.” She was thankful he’d been out of town and therefore hadn’t tracked the fact she hadn’t left her apartment and no one had come to visit her. All she wanted now was for him to go away, but she felt a stab of guilt for not knowing that he had a sister or that he’d been away. She glanced back at her dining room table, piled up with work. “I’d invite you in, but I’m working on a case and the files are spread all over the place. Maybe after the trial we can catch up.”

  He nodded. “That football player, right? Trial starts tomorrow?”

  She shouldn’t be surprised he knew. Everyone in Dallas was following the lead-up to Trevor’s day in court as well as the team’s playoff chances if Trevor was found not guilty and able to get back on the field before the regular season ended. “That’s the one.” She decided to take advantage of his touch on the pulse of the public. “What do you think our chances are?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He seems like a good guy, but two dead girlfriends? Hard to ignore the facts.”

  Carly wanted to scream that he probably didn’t know any of the facts, only the snippets he’d read in the paper, but since she wouldn’t impress the jury by yelling at them, she practiced a calm, rational demeanor. “I know the prosecutor has tried her case in the papers, but we have facts of our own to introduce. We’re just saving them for a jury. You’ll hear all about it soon enough.”

  “I hope so. Would be nice to see the team have a good showing for once.”

  “We’ll do everything we can to get Trevor back where he belongs.”

  “I should let you get back to it, then.” He started to back away and then stopped. “There was a woman came by the other day, day before Thanksgiving. She stood at your door for a bit, but then she left. Didn’t look like she knocked.”

  Carly perked up. “W
hat did she look like?” Could it have been Landon? She hadn’t seen Landon outside of the office since their trip to Austin, but the very idea she might have come by aroused all kinds of feelings.

  “Not sure. Medium height and build. Had a hat on. One of these knit things with a ball on the end.”

  “A beanie?”

  “Not sure what they’re called, but her hair was all tucked up in it. She wasn’t carrying anything, and she had gloves on. Leather, I think.”

  Carly resisted the urge to interrogate Mr. Jasper with questions about exactly what date and time the woman had come by. “Maybe she had the wrong address and figured it out before she knocked.”

  “Maybe,” he allowed. “Whatever happened to that woman who came around before? She seemed very nice.”

  She wasn’t fooled by his feigned innocence. He was talking about Landon, and apparently his curiosity was strong enough for him to reveal he’d been keeping tabs. What if it was Landon who’d come by this week? She’d be surprised if it was since they hadn’t seen each other outside the office since their trip to Austin to meet with Mandy Hauser. Every interaction she’d had with Landon since had been purely business. No casual drop-ins to each other’s offices, no foodie lunches, and definitely no kissing or touching of any kind.

  The personal distance was exactly what she’d said she wanted, so she had little room for regret, but in the moments between projects while getting ready for Trevor’s trial, she had plenty of misgivings. Not so much about getting involved with Landon in the first place, but of how abruptly she’d chosen to cut things off. But she hadn’t had a choice. Had she? No way could she juggle the mountain of trial prep and its implications for her career with the smoldering draw of Landon’s lips on hers. Her job was all she had, and Landon was a distraction designed to make her chuck everything she’d worked toward.

  “She is nice, but she’s just a colleague. She won’t be coming back here again.”

  “That’s too bad. You could use someone nice to keep you company.”

  After he left, she dove back into working on the voir dire questions for the jury panel, but the words swam on the page, and her attention was fractured. She blamed the distraction on her lack of sleep, but every nerve ending in her body knew her thoughts were focused not on the case, but on the attorney who’d be trying it with her. How was she going to make it through the next two weeks of trial with Landon sitting next to her, leaning in close to discuss strategy and working together to make decisions? She had no idea, but she had approximately twenty-four hours to figure it out.

  * * *

  Landon was pushing the food around on her plate when her brother’s voice boomed in her ear.

  “If you don’t like it just say so.” Ian slumped into the chair next to her. “God knows the critic from the Morning News won’t hold back, why should you?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sure everything is wonderful, but I’m just not hungry.”

  “Said no one at Sunday brunch ever.” Ian snatched a piece of the maple-crusted bacon off her plate and held it like a cigar. “I was counting on you to tell me you can’t live without this bacon. Have you seriously not even tried a bite?”

  She’d been sitting in the back room at the Salt Block, surrounded by gourmet comfort food and witness files for the last few hours. Ian had paraded several new dishes into the room, but for the first time in her life, Landon didn’t have an appetite for his amazing creations. She didn’t have an appetite for much of anything and hadn’t for a while. She’d attributed her malaise to the impending trial, but she knew this wasn’t the same performance anxiety she usually experienced before a trial. She’d been a litigator long enough to know that once she was in the swing of things in front of a jury, excitement would outpace anxiety, and exhilaration would take over. No, her melancholy was a result of the solid wall Carly had erected between them. They still spoke, but it was all about the case. Their conversations always took place at the office, and each one was stiff and formal. At this point, Landon would take the more antagonistic exchanges they’d shared when they first met over the dry, apathetic interactions of the last couple of months.

  Ian waved the bacon in her face. “Eat me. Please eat me,” he said in a singsong voice.

  “Stop it,” she said, unable to suppress a grin at his antics. She grabbed it out of his hand and tore off a bite with her teeth. The bacon was crisp and rich, and salty sweet, and she couldn’t hold back a slight moan. “Sweet and savory. I give it a ten on the brunch meter. I’m tasting a bit of smoke on the finish. Hickory?”

  “Applewood. I thought it would go well with the maple.”

  “It does.” She took another bite. Maybe she was hungry after all.

  “So, you want to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “You turned me down for Thanksgiving dinner, and now you’re barely eating bacon of all things. Something’s definitely wrong, but if you don’t want to tell me, that’s cool.”

  She’d grabbed a plate from the hotel buffet on Thanksgiving Day and taken it back to her room. She assumed the food was good, but she’d barely eaten any of it. It had been a crummy day, but better than joining her mom and dad for lunch at Ian’s and facing her father’s probing questions about the case. “Really, it’s nothing. Trial starts tomorrow. It’s a big day.” She kept her gaze trained on the bacon because he knew her well enough to see the lie in her eyes.

  “Uh-huh.” He folded his arms and nodded knowingly. “What are his chances?”

  She flipped her palm up and down. “They have a decent case, but no smoking gun. Could go either way. I think it’ll boil down to the kind of jury we get.”

  “What kind of evidence do you have?”

  “Honestly? Not much. First off, it’s not our job to present evidence, and even if it was, it’s hard to prove a negative. He doesn’t have a rock-solid alibi for the time of death, but their evidence is all circumstantial. No one saw him kill Vanessa Meyers or Jocelyn Aubrey, and there’s no physical evidence to tie him to either crime scene other than fibers from a rope that’s a pretty common brand.”

  “The rope thing sounds not great. Are you going to go all CSI on them?”

  “Someone’s been watching too much TV, but yes. Juries expect pretty sophisticated evidence from the prosecutor nowadays. The fact that Trevor had some rope in his garage that’s the same brand doesn’t prove anything on its own. Hell, you probably have some of the same brand at your house.” Landon heard her voice rise and she took it down a notch. “Sorry about that. I might be a little passionate about the issue. I will admit, to you, the rope fibers will be more problematic if they manage to get in evidence that Jocelyn Aubrey was strangled with the same brand. The prosecutor will argue there are too many coincidences to deny Trevor’s involvement in both cases.” Landon gave silent thanks Carly was the one assigned to cross-examine the crime scene analyst and the motion to suppress the evidence gathered at the other crime scene.

  “Is that all they have?”

  “No, but the rest of the evidence is weak and incidental.” Landon shifted into litigator mode. “Yes, Trevor dated Vanessa and Jocelyn. Yes, both woman were killed, but to say he’s the killer because he was the only thing they had in common is a far cry from beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  “I see your point. Is there really no other connection between the two?”

  “Nothing else other than the manner of death.”

  He swiped another piece of bacon. “But tell me more about the trial itself. Are you trying the case on your own?”

  Exactly the topic Landon didn’t want to discuss. She tried to shortcut the conversation. “No, Jane will be there.”

  “What about Carly? Wasn’t she working on it too? You haven’t mentioned her much in a while.”

  She hadn’t mentioned her at all, and he knew that. Once Jane had successfully lobbied Judge Grafton for a quick trial date, she’d divvied up the work. Jane would pick the jury and handle the repu
tation witnesses, but she was leaving the rest to Landon and Carly. Landon would give the opening statement and cross-examine law enforcement, and Carly would cross the forensic witnesses and present closing argument for the defense. She and Carly had worked together on several pretrial motions, but their collaboration had consisted of sending drafts back and forth by email with little face-to-face time despite the fact their offices were only several feet apart. Jane had remarked several times on how seamlessly they seemed to be working together. If she only knew.

  “There hasn’t been anything to mention.”

  “Oh,” he said, obviously surprised. “Both times I saw you together, I got a vibe there was something brewing.”

  “Maybe there was, but there isn’t now.” She admitted more than she’d intended to and prayed he’d let it go at that.

  “What did she do?”

  Landon sighed. She so didn’t want to get into this with him, but Ian wouldn’t simply let it go without some sort of explanation. “I think I misread the signals. She just wasn’t that into me.”

  “Hmm.” He frowned like there was something more he wanted to say. “If you want to talk about it, you know where to find me.”

  “Right here, Mr. Workaholic.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  Landon deflected the commentary by glancing at her phone. She needed to get a move on if she was going to make it to the office on time. She started shoving her papers into her briefcase. “I need to go. Rain check on another serving of that bacon?”

  “Anytime, sis.”

  She was barely out of her seat when he scooped her up in a big hug. She allowed him to hold her for a moment, at first for his sake, and then because she actually needed the warmth and comfort of his strong embrace. “Love you,” she mumbled.

  “Love you too,” he said and then leaned in closer. “You’ll find the one. She’s out there waiting for you. I promise.”