A Defender's Heart

“I’m convinced a young woman is in trouble, that she’s protecting a man she thinks loves her. She might have done some things that could put her in prison, but...”

Heather shook her head. “I’m not helping you free another criminal who should be serving time. I understand that United States law allows everyone the right to a proper defense. I believe in and uphold our laws. But I will not be party to working the system in the name of preserving someone’s rights. I won’t be used again, Cedar. Thank you for the lunch invitation, but I won’t be staying.”

She stood, her purse slung over her shoulder.

“She’s not my client.” He had no clients.

Heather took one step and stopped. He stood up, too, facing her. “She’s the victim of a former client. I need you to help me get her to tell us the truth, Heather. Help me nail this guy before he kills her.”

“How exactly are you going to nail him?”

“I’m going to take whatever evidence we can get out of her and go straight to the police.”

She dropped back into her seat, and he slowly lowered himself into his.

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” She eyed him warily, and it stabbed him to know she didn’t trust him at all. He wasn’t surprised. He’d known. Like the ass he was, he’d betrayed her. But sitting there, seeing the evidence of the fallout...it hurt.

He’d never cheated on her. Never even wanted to. But he hadn’t been trustworthy. He’d never out-and-out lied to her. He’d just manipulated the truth to get what he wanted.

“It would be a conflict of interest if he were still a client.”

“Even a former client... He has protection under the law from anything he might have told you. You could lose your license, and any competent attorney will get him off...”

“Let me worry about my license.” At the moment, it was little more than a piece of paper. One he’d gladly burn if it would make things right. He knew he’d put criminals back on the street to bolster his own reputation. And he knew he had so much to do before he could even think about practicing law again.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever trust himself to do it.

Because while it was absolutely true that everyone deserved a good defense, in the end, he hadn’t been about his client’s rights. Or the spirit of the law. He’d become all about his own win. At almost any cost. Just like Heather had said the day she’d walked out on him.

The day she’d found out he’d used her to obtain testimony that would keep an abuser out of prison—knowing that her career choice was based on her own personal need to avenge the death of her aunt, her mother’s sister, who’d lied to law-enforcement officials to protect the man she loved.

“The woman I’m trying now to help never testified for me. The prosecution called her. Not me. And my client wasn’t up for abuse. I was defending him on unrelated charges, which means this is extraneous to anything my client said to me—or to client-attorney privilege. However, I think I could give you enough information to help you ask the right questions to get him on abuse.”

He was a top-notch manipulator. And she had the gift of being able to tell when someone was lying to her. Unless she was blinded by emotion...

That was the reason she’d thrown at him to explain her inability to recognize his duplicity. The fact that he’d never actually lied to her was irrelevant.

To his immense shame, he’d deliberately misled her to get her to do things he’d known she wouldn’t do if he’d asked.

“He’s beating her. And, he might be involving her in his drug trade. I never found anything to prove that, but I wouldn’t be surprised. She obviously feels indebted to him, in a subservient kind of way, and if we don’t intervene, she could end up dead.”

Heather watched him for too long. She ordered the Cobb salad he’d known she’d order when the waitress came to the table. And she waited patiently while he asked for his usual fish tacos without jalapeños.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I...know her.”

“You dated her.”

He hadn’t, but didn’t deny it. He couldn’t pour his soul out to her. It could soften her toward him and that would serve his own selfish good.

“You slept with a client’s woman.”

“No! Of course I didn’t.” He couldn’t let her erroneous negative assumptions go that far. He’d done a lot of things. Infidelity wasn’t one of them. Not with her and not with any other man’s woman, either.

“You’d like to.”

Not at all.

“I don’t want to sleep with her. Never did. I just need to do this, Heather. I need to make this right. Will you help me?”

“If you’re playing some trick to get me to think you’ve changed, that you’re some kind of new man...you might as well give it up, Cedar. I’m not getting back with you. Not for one kiss. One night. Or a lifetime of them. I cannot fathom even entertaining the thought.”

Her words took away his appetite and a whole lot more. “I understand.”

She watched him. He withstood the silent interrogation.

“She’s at The Lemonade Stand, Heather.”

He knew the mention of the unique, resort-like women’s shelter in town would reel her in. She and her parents had been longtime supporters of the facility. But even as he spoke the truth, he cringed, too. Using that knowledge felt like a well-oiled tactic. Something he would’ve done deliberately in the past, simply because he knew it would work.

“She says her abuser is a family friend, and that she won’t press charges. She wants help but is afraid of the repercussions—with good reason. My personal opinion is that she’s using the Stand as a hideout to buy herself some time for her bruises to heal and to figure out what she wants to do. If things are left as is, I’d bet my life’s earnings that she’ll end up back with Dominic. This might be our only chance to help her.”

“Dominic?”

The man he’d set free by tricking Heather into getting to a truth his client wouldn’t give him. Dominic’s alibi for phone calls to the police had to do with domestic violence, not the drug trafficking for which he’d been standing trial.

It was the case that had blown him and Heather apart.

She dropped the fork she’d been toying with and stood up.

“If I do this...it has nothing to do with you. It would be for the girl. And only if, after I speak with her, I think there’s any merit to what you’re saying.”

“Fine.”

“If, on the other hand, I find out you’re working me...trying to get information that’ll protect your privileged and far-too-rich client from some other crime, I will go after your license myself.”

A year ago, the idea would have panicked him. He’d have protected his career at all costs. Had done exactly that.

And in the process, he’d lost something far more valuable. More vital than he’d ever known.

“Understood.”

He understood another truth, as well. If he was going to help Heather, if he was going to save her from the emotional consequences he was responsible for, then this case was his chance to get close enough to her to do that. He was, one by one, going through his client list, following up with everyone he’d helped set free, and doing what he could to protect those who might be hurt because of his actions...

And it occurred to him that by getting her to help him, he’d have a chance to help her. He had no idea how. The plan was just coming to him. But after seeing her again, seeing the lack of passion, hearing the superficial conversation the other night...knowing how much she’d changed...he had to do something.

He was walking a fine line here. Having other motives, while also telling her the truth—the worst kind of manipulation.