Reasonable Doubt

by Carsen Taite

  “I’ve been up against that type in court. It’s no fun, especially if they win.”

  Ellery nodded. “The timing was a problem. The judge had continued the trial twice to let this guy settle on the attorney he wanted, but she runs a very strict docket and she’d already made it clear she thought the guy was beginning to think he could delay trial forever if he just kept switching counsel. She gave him a choice. Forfeit his bond or be ready on the special setting.”

  “He was out on bond on a murder case?”

  “High bond, but yes. His employer posted it. Like I said, he had a good job. Everyone who knew him raved about him, talked about how he had to have been falsely accused. The state was crazy to think he was guilty.”

  “What kind of evidence did they have?”

  “The usual. All circumstantial. The victim was his neighbor. He was the last one to see her alive. Neighbors heard them fighting several times. An eyewitness saw a car that looked like his near where her body was discovered.”

  “Sounds a little lame, even from this jaded FBI agent.”

  “Except something similar had happened before. In another state. Neighbor lady turned up dead. He’d been the last one to see her and they’d argued.”

  “Okay, so he doesn’t get along well with his neighbors.”

  “Exactly. The only physical evidence the state had were some fingerprints in her house, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by the fact he’d been there several times. I had a great time making them look crazy for suspecting the head of the homeowner’s association, a successful local businessman, and a loving parent.”

  Sarah noted the bitter edge to Ellery’s voice, and she was certain she knew where this story was going, although she wasn’t sure why Ellery had chosen to share it with her. “What was the result of the earlier case?”

  “State didn’t have much in the way of evidence except a witness who’d seen him at the house the day of the murder. The witness disappeared before trial and they didn’t have enough to go forward on. They dismissed the case without prejudice.”

  “Meaning they could refile if the witness ever showed back up.”

  “Right, but that was ten years ago and they never refiled.”

  “So, here he was in Dallas charged with a similar crime and he hires you. What did your gut say?”

  Ellery stared hard. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the evidence.”

  Sarah heard the edge in her voice, bitter and ironic. She didn’t want to stop the flow of Ellery’s story, but she desperately wanted to expose the source of Ellery’s obvious distress. She was convinced that was the only way it could be resolved. “What happened?”

  “Exactly what should’ve happened. The jury found him not guilty. The state’s case was weak and they didn’t meet their burden. Another victory for me and he got to resume his life.”

  Ellery’s clipped tone signaled her win wasn’t a true victory. At least not in retrospect. She could wonder or she could ask. Time to jar Ellery out of this vague retelling. “Are you going to tell me what really happened or just dance around the subject?”

  “I’ve never told anyone. I have a funny habit of taking my oath to keep my clients’ confidences seriously.”

  “Like I haven’t noticed.” Sarah smiled to lighten the mood. She reached a hand across the table and curled her fingers into Ellery’s, happy when she didn’t draw away. “You started telling me this story for a reason. Can you tell me the reason without telling me details?”

  “It’s hard to distinguish between the two. I’ve already told you enough that you could look up the case if you were interested.”

  “I’m interested, not because of what you might say, but because of why.” She drew a finger across her lips. “I get you may not be inclined to trust any government agents right about now, but I promise you I have no desire to look past whatever you tell me.”

  “You may not be able to keep that promise once you hear what I have to say. I haven’t told anyone this.”

  In the long pause that followed, Sarah wasn’t entirely sure Ellery was going to finish the story. She’d just about decided to try to gently change the subject, when Ellery cleared her throat and resumed her telling.

  “This guy, I’ll call him John, he wouldn’t accept no for an answer. When he first came to me, I tried to turn him away. I had a lot of other cases pending and I knew this particular judge was unlikely to give us a reset on his case. He said he’d take his chances. He wanted me. When I heard his story and looked at the evidence, I thought I was taking on a sure winner. Even if he hadn’t offered to pay me a small fortune, I would have taken his case for the sheer justice of it. Justice. That’s a good one.” Ellery laughed and the sound was hollow and hard.

  Sarah listened as Ellery relayed the story of the trial. How the judge had not allowed the prosecution to introduce anything related to the prior case. How the state’s key witness got cold feet and took off after sending a letter to the prosecutor recanting his story. How Ellery won by doing nothing more than cross-examining the state’s remaining witnesses without calling any of her own, and how she delivered an indignant closing argument that shamed the prosecution for putting her client through the trial in the first place.

  As she listened she could imagine Ellery standing in the well of the courtroom, capturing the attention of the jurors with the combination of her intense likability and commanding presence. They probably nodded right along with her as she pointed out the holes in the state’s case and then demanded they do the right thing and let her client go. She almost caught herself nodding along as Ellery replayed every detail.

  “A week later, I called to tell him I had the expunction paperwork ready for him to sign. I explained to him how the charges would be wiped from his record and all evidence in the police reports that was related to him would be destroyed. He asked if I could meet him at a job site and he gave me the address.”

  Sarah leaned in closely now as the tension in the room sucked away the air and she hung on Ellery’s next words.

  “It wasn’t a job site. It was just a desolate piece of land in the middle of nowhere. Dirt and rocks and the occasional patch of wild grass. No fences, no houses, no barn. Just the two of us standing out there all alone.” Ellery took a long drink from her beer and then set the bottle down softly on the table as if she didn’t want to break the mood, but the disconnect of her next words shattered it entirely. “You want to know the number one question I get asked?” She didn’t wait for a response before saying. “It’s how can I represent a guilty person.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  Ellery’s smile was mirthless. “Thanks for not asking, but my stock answer is unless I was an eyewitness, there wasn’t any way for me to know for sure if one of my clients actually did what they were accused of doing. Innocent people sometimes confess. Bad guys sometimes get falsely accused. It’s a jury’s job to decide if a person is guilty according to the law, and my only role is to make sure my clients don’t get railroaded by the system.”

  The shifting tense of Ellery’s speech signaled she had one foot still in the profession. It was obvious whatever Ellery believed about her role in the justice system before had changed drastically, but Sarah didn’t need to hear the details to accept that whatever it was affected her ability to cooperate in the case against Naveed Khan. “I get it. You don’t have to tell me anymore.”

  Ellery squeezed her hand and kept talking. “So, John and I are standing in this field and after he signs the expunction papers, he thanked me for my work. He said he’d had every confidence in my abilities during trial, but he’d wanted to help out along the way. He pointed to a ravine in the distance. It was the perfect place for a witness to stay out of sight, he said. Six feet under, he said. He handed me the paperwork, walked over to his car, climbed in and drove away.”

  Sarah forced a calm expression, but she wanted to say holy shit.

  “When I got back to the office, I mailed the paperwork
back to him, unfiled. I enclosed a letter saying I was phasing out my practice and I wouldn’t be in a position to help him anymore. The next day I told my law partner I would be gone as soon as I could wrap up my pending docket.”

  Sarah took a deep drink from her beer, her other hand never letting go of Ellery’s. She could only imagine the effect of her client’s confession. She had a million questions, but this was Ellery’s story to tell, so all she did was offer a slight prod. “Did you ever see him again?”

  “No. I heard he took a transfer with his job and lives somewhere on the West Coast. And I never told anyone what he told me.” Ellery’s voice cracked. “Until now.”

  Sarah cut off the whispers in her head that questioned Ellery’s judgment. She’d listened to dozens of horrific confessions in her time at BAU, but she’d always been the adversary, not the advocate of the confessor. Lawyers didn’t rat their clients out. She might not like it, but it was the law and she’d sworn to uphold all of the law, not just the parts she didn’t like. Besides, this wasn’t just some random lawyer talking, it was Ellery, and she was witnessing firsthand the devastating effect keeping secrets could have. She shuddered at the very idea of having to hold inside the horrible things she’d heard over the years, never being allowed to sort through them with another person or even speak of them.

  She let go of Ellery’s hand, stood up, and walked around the table. She knelt by Ellery’s chair and placed her hands on Ellery’s knees. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. Nothing about it was okay.”

  “Surely you’ve represented people you were pretty sure were guilty before.”

  “Absolutely, but this was different. I was absolutely certain he was innocent. I’m sure I’ve been wrong before, but this guy was a monster and I didn’t have a clue. Where was my barometer? How had I gotten so far off track? And, before you ask, of course I thought about telling someone. I examined it from every angle. He’d hired me to defend him in the case of the murdered neighbor. At first glance, the case of the murdered witness fell completely outside the scope of my representation. But it didn’t. They were linked and if I divulged one, it necessarily opened up our communications about the other.

  “I’d spent my entire professional life parsing questions like this, but it all boiled down to one big question. What the hell was I doing? I stood in a field with a stone cold killer, and for the very first time in my career, I felt danger. If he could kill a complete stranger and a neighbor he’d known for years, he could kill anyone. What was I doing with my life? What if I’d had a family at home that he could threaten? I obviously sucked at detecting danger before it got close.”

  Bam. Sarah instantly got it. Naveed, son of a prominent businessman, exemplary student, pristine record. Ellery had even emerged from isolation to plead his case and here she was back again, facing the same situation. Danger had crept up on her and there was nothing scarier than a threat disguised as a friendly. Whatever was between them, the last thing she wanted to do was be another friendly that really wasn’t and she made a snap decision. Trip and the other agents working this case were going to have to work a little harder. She wasn’t going to be the reason Ellery had to relive the kind of betrayal that had caused her to leave her practice.

  She stood up. “You did what you had to do. I get it.” She took a step back as if the slight distance could make it easier to say her next words. “I’m going now and I’ll do everything I can to make sure you aren’t bothered again.”

  Ellery stood and took a step toward her. “I want to help you with your investigation, but the only thing I know is that Amir Khan put my name on a tax filing to gain credibility for his organization. I confronted him about it today and he admitted the truth. As for the rest, I don’t know anything. I swear to you, I wasn’t involved in any of it—the money, the explosion. Nothing.”

  “I know.” The heat of Ellery’s gaze set off alarm bells telling her to get out now, but she was rooted in place. Ellery took another step closer and their stance was now intimate, with almost no space between them. She reached up and stroked Ellery’s face, gently at first and then pulled her closer, her entire body quivering with anticipation. Ellery’s lips were as strong and soft as she remembered, and she groaned as their kiss deepened. She slid her hands around Ellery’s waist, beneath her shirt, and stroked the tensed muscles of her back and abdomen. Soft, smooth, strong. Her body sagged at the intensity of sensation and she pulled Ellery closer as her mind swam toward clarity in a sea of confused thoughts. Her work, her duty, her loyalties. How important were any of these compared to the rush, the righteous feel of this tender woman who’d bared her soul and offered her a glimpse at what something deeper could be like? She was falling fast, and she only had a split second before she let her feelings trump her obligations.

  “Stop thinking.”

  Ellery’s voice cut through the clouds of her haze. She’d never stop thinking, analyzing, because that was who she was, but in this moment all her thoughts had a singular focus. She wanted only Ellery and she had to have her right now.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ellery tugged Sarah’s hand from her waist, pulled it to her lips, and kissed her knuckles. Sarah’s head tilted back, her eyes dark with need and her gaze unfocused, signaling she was every bit as aroused as Ellery hoped. She’d told her to stop thinking, but as much as she wanted this, she had to know Sarah wanted it too. “I want to take you to bed.”

  Sarah didn’t speak at first, and the second of hesitation robbed her courage. Ellery started to turn away, unwilling to see the expression on Sarah’s face as she made an excuse for not giving in to her feelings. But a hand on her arm pulled her back.

  “Don’t pull away. I want you too.”

  “But?” She searched Sarah’s face, still flush with arousal. “Nothing’s stopping you from giving in to what you want.”

  Sarah closed her eyes and stepped forward. Before Ellery could process what was happening, Sarah’s lips were on hers, hungry and willing. She parted her lips and moaned as Sarah’s tongue gently stroked hers. “This is what I want,” Sarah whispered, her voice urgent.

  Ellery took her hand and led her down the hall to her room. A vision of Sarah, naked on her back on the bed she’d made with her own hands left her breathless. She sped up, barely able to wait for the real thing. She paused in the doorway and urged Sarah to step inside ahead of her, and then she watched expectantly as Sarah’s gaze swept the room.

  “Wow. Let me guess, you made all of this?”

  “I confess I’ve kept my favorite pieces all to myself.” She circled her arms around Sarah’s waist and pressed close to her back. “Do you want me to tell you about them?”

  Sarah leaned back against her. “Yes, but not now. Just show me your favorite.”

  Ellery smiled and led her to the edge of the four-poster bed. She eased Sarah’s sweater up over her shoulder and sucked in a breath as she admired the swell of her breasts tucked tight into a sleek black brassiere. “Beautiful,” she murmured as she traced a finger along the edge of the bra.

  “I have a habit of spending too much money in the lingerie department. Shoes, cars, and lingerie. My top three vices.”

  Ellery ducked her head to hide a grin at Sarah’s rambling that she suspected was the symptom of a slight case of nerves. She never suspected this supremely confident woman would be bashful when it came to intimacy. While the polite thing to do was proceed slowly, Sarah’s shyness merely stoked the fire.

  She unhooked the pretty bra with one hand and tossed it on the bed. “I wasn’t talking about the bra.” She cupped Sarah’s breasts. “This is what’s beautiful.” She bent down and teased her tongue around first one of Sarah’s nipples and then the other as Sarah arched toward her. “And speaking of shoes, don’t you think it’s time to lose those fancy loafers?”

  Sarah responded by kicking off her shoes and pulling her into a deep and consuming kiss. When they came up for air, Sarah had apparently decided to ass
ume control. “Time for you to start losing some clothes too,” she said as she ran a finger down the front of her shirt, ticking her nails against the buttons. “Strip or be stripped.”

  Ellery didn’t try to hide her grin this time. “Both of those options sound pretty amazing.” She slowly unbuttoned the first two buttons of her shirt, watching Sarah’s eyes cloud with what she hoped was desire. She’d only just started on the third button when Sarah grabbed her hand and said, “At this rate, I’ll explode before you’re done.”

  Sarah worked swiftly through the rest of the buttons and tossed the shirt to the floor. She stepped closer until their naked breasts touched and Ellery groaned as the sensation ripped through her to the gathering wet between her legs. As if she could read her mind, Sarah unbuttoned her jeans and slid her hand deep inside and drew lazy circles on her soft cotton briefs. Each pass of Sarah’s fingers brought her closer to climax, and she was torn between giving in to the sensation and wanting to feel every inch of Sarah’s naked body against her skin while she came.

  Painful as the pause was, she reached down and stilled Sarah’s hand. Holding Sarah’s gaze, she stepped out of her jeans and then tugged Sarah’s jeans and panties down to the floor, pausing on her way back up to kiss the inside of her thighs. Sarah bucked against her lips and she knew losing the clothes had been the absolute right decision. She lowered Sarah onto the bed and eased in beside her.

  Sarah lay against the soft down pillows and shuddered from the aftereffects as Ellery teased her way up her thighs with insistent lips. She stretched her arms above her head and moaned as Ellery ran her hands along her side and began stroking and pinching her breasts. Her first instinct was to roll on top of Ellery and direct the action. Lying back and letting someone else please her was a foreign concept, but Ellery’s touch was magic, and she sensed she’d only ruin the effect if she tried to take control. Besides, Ellery could use some time back in the driver’s seat after all that had been taken from her lately.