"What can I do to repay you?" she had asked, relieved.
"You could put your bank account in my name,” he had said, getting out of the car to give her the driver's seat.
"Or?”
He looked at her like someone who already knows he has won.
"Come to dinner with me tonight."
And that was when it had started.
3
Ethan went past her almost running, as if he were in a hurry to leave the office. "Hey, Loreley!"
She was leafing through a file and stopped to look at him from over her blue-framed glasses. There was a dark trench coat hanging over his arm and the ever-present hat in his hand, a sign that he was going to court or to some client.
"The boss wants to see you in his office," he said, looking sorry for her.
"Are there problems brewing?”
"I'm not sure, but when he asked me to send you in to him, he had this strange little smile..."
"Not looking good for me, then; how much do you want to bet on it?"
"I only gamble if I'm sure of winning. But I must run now. Good luck." And with that, he winked at her and disappeared through the door.
Loreley sighed. Kilmer would be dumping a problem on her soon, she thought, heading to the office next to hers.
When she went in, he was sitting at his desk dressed in a dark gray suit. He gave her a half smile, which was more like a smirk, and handed her a folder which she took without taking her eyes off his face.
As she read the few notes inside it her anger mounted, but she continued, trying hard to remain impassive. She had already heard about the murder, near her parents' home, on the news the day before and had been surprised and disgusted at the cruelty of it. She knew the victim's family by sight, a retired business couple who had only one daughter, and the thought of having to defend the person who had snatched her from them was enough to tie her stomach in knots.
The boss was staring hard at her, almost as if to challenge her.
"Why do I have to take this on?"
"Ethan is following another case and Patrick is sick. Furthermore, the guy who contacted us to give us the job wants you; evidently he prefers women." He sniggered, but immediately became serious again. "Sorry."
You’re not sorry at all!
Kilmer leaned back in the black leather armchair, which creaked under his weight. "If you need a hand, don't hesitate to let me know," he continued in a friendly voice, but which immediately sounded false to her.
He could forget that! Loreley thought. She closed the folder and held it tightly.
"Come and see me if you finish before we close for the day, and you can give me an update."
Of course! You can count on it! She would make sure she was late, she told herself, nodding at him.
"Hurry up then, your new client is waiting for you."
With a forced smile, just like the one he had given her when she came in, Loreley walked out of the room, her back straight and a sure step, looking confident and composed; but she had a great desire to kick that fat butt of his.
***
Having to defend what she considered indefensible had never been in her plans, nor did she consider it a means of getting ahead in her career, so the case she had been assigned was hard to swallow. If only she could refuse it, but she had already lost face when she had refrained to assist Leen Soraya Desmond, so she could not back out yet again. Kilmer would be furious and would jump on it as the perfect pretext to kick her out of the firm. She had always felt that he had a certain prejudice towards her, but in recent times it had become worse.
Her boss was demanding increasing commitment from her, more than he asked of Ethan, and she suspected that the motivation stemmed from the fact that she was privileged by birth, a girl who only had to ask and it would be given. He, on the other hand, had been forced to work hard for thirty years to attain a certain position and a decent bank account.
Thus, the day before, she had been forced to accept that thankless job, and it had kept her awake late into the night.
What technicality could she call upon to prevent her client ending his days in prison? A 31-year-old man who had beaten his partner to death leaving her agonizing on the floor of the house, then going off as if nothing had happened. How many cases like this must she see in courtrooms? It was not for her to judge, but how could she prepare a good defence, based on reciprocal trust with her client, if she herself felt no empathy for that individual, nor any kind of compassion?
Sometimes she wondered if it had been a mistake to choose the career of criminal lawyer. Perhaps it was not suitable, she should have chosen civil law; or maybe she was just going through a period of confusion, in conflict with her own work. Who knows?
But if she wanted to become a good lawyer, she knew she needed to toughen up.
In the interview room, her client had claimed that he had only slapped the girl and did not kill her. Just before he left the house, he had seen her touch her cheeks, in tears. She was alive and angry.
A murderer who declared he was innocent, however, was nothing new.
The waiter put the coffee she had ordered on the table, bringing Loreley's attention back to where it was before: the newspaper that had printed the article about that misdeed. The names of the accused and his defence lawyer, her, were also included were.
What perverse emotion drove a man to beat to death the woman he said he loved? Or to want to keep her tied to him at all costs, when instead all she wants is to be free?
She had heard so many stories like that and there were certainly others who were still silent because the victims often just put up with it, most of the time out of fear, but in some cases because of a penchant for submission. She recalled a friend from her university days who had saved herself only because she had reported her boyfriend in time and then had turned to a psychologist to overcome her addiction.
How long can a victim be considered just a victim and not also accomplice, because she accepts to endure the violence in silence? Luckily, things were changing, but not fast enough. Not yet.
With a gesture of frustration, she turned a couple of pages and stopped when she saw a short article with the image of a tall guy with brown hair coming out of the theatre beside a beautiful red-haired woman.
Her hands trembled. Him again!
Since that man had almost died at the hands of his ex-wife, his notoriety had taken a huge leap, and he was now known even to people who had never seen him.
Not stopping to read the short piece, she closed the newspaper and threw it onto the empty chair beside her. To hell with him!
She was feeling the need to get rid of her tension, and the only thing that took her mind off work was ice skating. Yes, of course, why not? It was a while since she’d been there.
Finishing her coffee, she paid and called a cab to take her home to get what she needed. She asked the taxi driver to wait for her downstairs and in less than an hour she was at Chelsea Piers, on the Hudson River Park.
It was that very place where she had put the blades on her feet for the first time, a day she remembered very well, because it had given her a taste of what it meant to fall down and have to get up again despite the fear. She had fallen in love with the sport immediately and had become an excellent skater, winning a few local competitions along the way. But then with university she had been forced to cut back on training and after the accident had not competed again. The return to skating had not been easy. She was terrified she might have another bad fall and it had blocked her. It had taken several months before she was able to get back on the ice.
But