by Ford, Hannah
WHAT HE REASONS (What He Wants, Book Twenty-Five)
Hannah Ford
Contents
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WHAT HE REASONS
WHAT HE REASONS
BETTER WHEN IT’S WRONG by Chloe Hawk
C opyright © 2017 by Hannah Ford
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WHAT HE REASONS
(WHAT HE WANTS, BOOK TWENTY-FIVE)
WHAT HE REASONS
(WHAT HE WANTS, BOOK TWENTY-FIVE)
C HARLOTTE
J ail .
Depending on who you believed, it was either the kind of place where you’d get killed in the shower, or the kind of place where you went to make strong friendships for the rest of your life. I suspected that the truth was somewhere in the middle.
A female officer by the name of Officer Jansen booked me in.
She was nice but efficient, and despite the fact that I got the sense this was totally routine for her -- a part of her workday so common it seemed as if she found it mundane -- it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life.
First, she entered all of my information into a computer.
“Name?” she asked, almost bored, her hands poised over the keyboard.
“Charlotte Holloway.” I was sitting in a chair flanked by two other officers, like they thought I was going to take off running. Which would have been totally impossible. I was still handcuffed. I got the sense that the handcuffs and the guards weren’t usually needed, that I was being given special treatment because I’d been accused of murder. And not the kind of special treatment you wanted.
“Speak up,” Officer Jansen barked.
“Charlotte Holloway.” My mouth was dry, and I licked my lips and swallowed in an effort to make my voice sound not as hoarse.
“Date of birth.”
I answered the rest of her questions, and then I was led into a small room, where they stood me in front of a camera.
Two flashes, front and to the side, and my mug shot was done.
My body and mind were on automatic pilot. I should have been panicked, but I didn’t feel anything. I was numb. I wasn’t thinking about how serious this was, wasn’t thinking about the fact that I was pregnant and about to be thrown into jail. I felt like I was in a dream, like the things that were happening to me were actually happening to someone else.
After my mug shot, they uncuffed me and took my fingerprints. My fingers were pressed against a square on an IPad, which lit up under the pressure, letting the officer know that the print had been accepted.
Then came the worst part.
The strip search.
I was made to take my clothes off.
Officer Jansen looked through them, making sure I didn’t have any weapons or drugs, then told me to squat and cough.
She did this with a formality that I appreciated, a clinicalness that made the whole thing feel impersonal. For some reason, I felt as if it would have been worse if she were warm.
I was allowed to put my clothes back on after that, which made me extremely thankful – I’d assumed they would have given me a prison-issued jumpsuit or something similar.
The thought of a prison jumpsuit made my skin crawl. The place wasn’t exactly a bastion of cleanliness, and from the looks of the people who’d also been waiting to get booked – not to mention the putrid smell that hung in the air, a mix of urine, body odor, and stale cigarette smoke – I was afraid that a prison jumpsuit would give me an infection or worse.
After my strip search, they took blood to check for any STDs I might be bringing into their pristine prison (no STDs here, officer, just a baby haha -- which they said they would also test for), and then placed me into a holding cell.
There were two girls in the cell with me.
One of them was clearly on something, and she kept slamming her head against the wall. In between slams, she ran to the bars and screamed bloody murder.
The other woman was wearing short black shorts and a crop top, her hair slicked back into a sleek ponytail. She wore hot pink lipstick and seemed bored by the whole entire process.
“First time?” she asked me.
I stayed quiet.
One thing I’d learned from watching movies was that you were never supposed to interact with the other prisoners. If you did, they thought you owed them something.
She rolled her eyes. “You watch too much tv, huh? Heard you aren’t supposed to talk to people?”
“No,” I said automatically, shaking my head and hating how defensive I sounded. I wished I was one of those people who gave off that air of ‘don’t fuck with me’ but I didn’t.
“Relax, sweetie, no one wants to fuck you.” She gave me a smile, like she couldn’t believe how stupid I was. “Your tits are too big for me. I like them tiny. Strung out.”
“I didn’t … I mean, I’m not – ”
“Holloway,” an officer at the door barked. He slid the key into the lock and opened the bars. “Your lawyer’s here.”
“My lawyer?” I repeated dumbly as the guard began to cuff me.
“Your lawyer, Noah Cutler.”
“Woooweee,” the woman in the black shorts said, looking at me with new respect. “Cutler, huh? You must have money.” She winked. ‘Maybe you’re my type after all.”
“Knock it off, Dori,” the guard said. “Leave the newbies alone.”
I got the feeling the guard didn’t really give a crap about newbies, and that he just didn’t want to have to deal with what would happen if Dori decided she wanted to go after me or something.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall, Dori and the other woman shouting after us.
* * *
N oah was waiting for me in a room similar to the room in which we’d met Lilah Parks that night. Only this time, I wasn’t here to interview a potential client. This time I was the one who’d been accused of a crime.
He was sitting at a metal table, his hands folded in front of him.
He was wearing a grey suit, a white shirt, and a grey tie.
I didn’t know how he’d known I was here – I hadn’t yet been allowed to make a phone call. No one had even mentioned one, and I realized someone must have called him. Someone must have let him know I was here, a guard or an officer, or… someone he had a connection to.
As soon as I saw him, all I wanted to do was run to him, to feel his arms around me as he whispered in my ear that it was all going to be okay.
I expected him to rise, to run to me like I wanted, but instead he just sat there, a crisp new legal pad in front of him, his phone and an iPad placed in front of him on the table.
The guard released me.
“Uncuff her,” Noah barked.
“She’s being charged with –”
“Uncuff her.”
The guard sighed and uncuffed me, then left the room.
I sat down across from Noah, and suddenly, being so close to him, the full impact of my situation h
it me. It hit me like an overwhelming wave, stealing the breath from me.
“Did they hurt you?” Noah asked. He averted his eyes and picked up his pen, wrote my name and the date on the legal pad in front of him as if I were any other client.
I shook my head, because I couldn’t speak. But since Noah wasn’t looking at me, he didn’t see.
He looked up sharply. “Did they hurt you?” he repeated, more harsh and pointed this time.
I shook my head and managed. “No.” My throat was dry again, and again I licked my bottom lip and swallowed. My lips felt chapped and raw, which made no sense. I hadn’t been here that long, and my lips had been fine this morning.
Noah looked at me carefully, then pressed a button on the side of the table. A speaker crackled to life.
“Yes?” The guard’s voice came through the speaker, half annoyed, half bored.
“My client would like a glass of water.”
“And I want to be King of England.” The guard laughed at this, like it was the funniest joke ever, even though it was ridiculously stupid.
“Get her a glass of water, or I’ll let the judge know how my client wasn’t allowed to make a phone call and had to wait until I showed up here to be able to talk to me.”
“That’s bullshit,” the guard scoffed. “She wasn’t even here for an hour before you –”
“Now,” Noah barked.
The speaker cut off, and a second later, another guard appeared and set a paper cup full of water in front of me. I gulped it down quickly. It was surprisingly cool and fresh, and it tasted amazing.
Noah watched me carefully as I drank. I forced myself to stop when there was half left.
I set the cup down. “Thank you.”
“You’ll be arraigned,” he said. “But they have no case and they know it.”
I snorted. “They obviously feel like they have a case, Noah, or they wouldn’t have arrested me.” The one thing prosecutors didn’t want to do was arrest someone they didn’t think they could prove a case against. That was political suicide, and Noah knew that more than anyone.
“Do you know how an arraignment works, Charlotte?” he asked, ignoring my defense.
“Yes, of course I know how an arraignment works, Noah.”
“Then how does it work?” His voice was cold, like he was intentionally trying to trip me up.
“I’ll go in front of the judge,” I said. “She or he will read the charges and ask for my plea.”
“You will, of course, plead not guilty.”
“Of course.” A statistic flashed through my mind, something I remembered reading in one of my criminal law textbooks. It was something about how ninety percent of cases were pleaded out, which meant they never went to trial. That meant that ninety percent of people ended up pleading guilty so that they could avoid a trial.
In some cases, obviously this would make sense. The district attorney’s office might offer you probation or a fine or 30 days in jail, a sentence or penalty that might be a pain in the ass but would allow you to move on with your life without too much trouble. A blip on the radar was much better than going in front of a jury, who might find you guilty, and a judge, who might sentence you to years in prison.
But this was murder I was charged with.
Murder.
I couldn’t plead out in a murder case.
Pleading guilty to murder wasn’t like pleading guilty to being caught with a little bit of marijuana or something. It didn’t get you a slap on the wrist and a trip to a probation officer once a month. It got you prison time. A lot of it.
I felt my head start to get light, and my vision started to swim.
I was dimly aware of Noah calling my name as the room began to go blurry.
“Head between your legs,” he commanded, and then he was there, next to me, his hand on my back. “Deep breaths.” His voice was strong and steady as he rubbed the back of my neck. His touch was warm and comforting on my skin, and after a few more deep breaths, I started to feel better.
I sat up slowly and took another sip of my water.
“Better?” he asked, and I looked up at him. His voice was hard as steel, his jaw set in a firm line, but I could see a flash of emotion in his eyes.
“Yes. Better.” I took in another deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth.
Noah sat back down and I reached my hands across the table, wanting him to take them. I was desperate for more of his touch, his fingers entwined with mine, something.
Instead, he leaned back in his chair and looked at me. He was intimidating sitting there in his expensive suit, his eyes serious, his expression determined. “We haven’t talked about whether or not you’ve agreed to have me represent you.”
“I didn’t think I had a choice,” I said, giving him a wry smile. It was my lame attempt at a joke, but he didn’t smile.
“A murder charge is very serious, Charlotte. A good lawyer can make all the difference.”
“Funny how you didn’t seem to think a murder charge was all that serious when you were the one accused of it.” I remembered his attitude back then, how flippant he’d been, how he’d acted like it didn’t matter.
“This isn’t about me, Charlotte.”
“It’s never about you.” I rolled my eyes, not sure if I was trying to make a joke or not.
“Charlotte.” He was still looking at me somberly, that same look of steely determination on his face, his shoulders pushed back, his strong jaw set. My eyes fell to his legal pad, where he’d written my name and the date, and underlined it twice.
And then I understood.
He was letting me know that if he was going to be my lawyer, it was going to be a strictly client/lawyer relationship. Not the kind of relationship where either one of us could let our emotions get involved. We needed to have clear heads in order to make the best decisions. The stakes were too high.
But what did that mean? I wondered. Did it mean that when we weren’t here, he was going to be shut down, too? And after what he’d told me, about how he’d gotten that doctor pregnant, how she’d lost the baby and how he’d always blamed himself, I wondered if this was just an excuse for him to shut me out.
Not to mention that I was pregnant.
And I hadn’t even told him.
I needed to tell him.
Right now.
Tell him.
Stop, I told myself. Stop and think about this. Take it one step at a time.
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
Noah was right.
This was serious.
We needed to be smart and focused.
I was innocent.
I hadn’t killed Jason Cartwright. So we had that on our side, which a lot of defendants didn’t.
Noah was the best criminal defense lawyer in New York, maybe even the entire country.
And if he wanted to represent me, then I would let him, even if it meant I was going to have to get over myself and stop worrying about how Noah was going to be when he was in lawyer mode. Because if we didn’t win this case, then I’d be in jail. For a long time.
But I still had to ask.
“What about when we’re home?” I asked.
He swallowed, and for a split second I saw the longing in his eyes, saw how badly he wanted to leap across the table and gather me in his arms, to take care of me, to comfort me and tell me everything was going to be okay.
His first instinct was always to protect me, and he was railing against that now. And I loved him for it.
“When we’re home everything will be the same.” His hands tightened around the side of the table, so hard that his knuckles turned white. He was physically having to keep himself from rushing to me.
I took in another slow breath. How could things possibly be the same when we were at home? There was a reason defendants weren’t represented by people they knew.
But what choice did I have? Some other lawyer that I knew nothing about? I would never be able to trust some
one the way I trusted Noah.
“Fine,” I said, nodding. I reached up and wiped away my tears with the back of my hand. “Then we need to talk about the arraignment.”
“It’s in an hour.”
“An hour?” I shook my head. “There’s no way that’s enough time to prepare.” I glanced at myself in the mirror that hung on one of the walls. Client conversations with their lawyers were supposed to be confidential – the two-way mirrors were only supposed to be utilized during times of interrogation by police. But you could never be too sure. Besides, two-way mirrors weren’t really even used anymore.
Most of the jails now had recording devices.
I glanced up at the wall.
Sure enough, a camera hung near the ceiling in the corner.
Its light was off.
I was almost positive the police weren’t going to try anything shady, especially not with Noah. But you could never be sure.
Which was another reason for Noah to be my lawyer. Unfettered access to him, any time of day.
“Look at me,” I said, glancing at myself in the mirror. “I’m a mess.” I was lucky that I was still dressed nicely, in a pair of black pants and a cream-colored sweater. I may have only been going to a doctor’s appointment that morning, but I’d dressed up because I’d wanted to impress Dr. Solomon, since she was Noah’s ex-girlfriend.
God, how stupid I’d been, how different my world was just a few hours ago!
My hair was pulled back, but strands had escaped from my hair tie and frizzed around my face.
My sweater hung loosely on one shoulder, like it had been pulled and stretched out.
“I can’t go in front of a judge like this.”
“You absolutely can go in front of a judge like that.”
I reached up to smooth my hair, but Noah reached over and grabbed my wrist, stopping me. The motion instantly sent a shockwave through me, my body responding to his touch.
“Don’t,” he commanded.
