I glanced over to her. She chewed her bottom lip and wrote down all my instructions in an unintelligible scrawl. I tried to stop looking at her body, but she didn't make it easy. Then again, her curves would have been evident even if she'd been wearing a nun's habit.
I put my eyes back on the road. I had to settle down and treat her just like I did all my other associates. I was an exacting boss, and I prided myself on encouraging excellence in all my younger counterparts. I couldn't let her be an exception to that, especially since she already showed so much promise.
"Tomorrow morning we're going to hit the ground running. Call over to the district attorney's office and set a time in the afternoon for us to get their discovery. Document Rowan's entire timeline and pin him down as best you can around the dates the bodies were found. And I want every scrap of information on this Tyler Graves character he mentioned. Phone numbers, addresses, relatives, everything. I have a feeling he's going to be useful."
Rowan had given us a storied past of all manner of depravity, but one thing stuck out more than all the rest. One of his acquaintances-Graves. Violent and with a penchant for hurting hookers. He could be a perfect scapegoat, the shadow of reasonable doubt I needed to get Rowan out of the death penalty.
Rowan. What a fucking degenerate. I'd defended several just as bad, but not many who were worse. Caroline's question flitted around my mind-was he guilty? I honestly didn't know. His story was plausible, full of drugs and other crimes he'd committed along the road to an eventual early grave. But there were still plenty of nagging questions, ones I needed to clear up before we got anywhere near trial in three months.
Several things about him worried me, not the least of which was that he gave a statement to the police when he first got popped. Idiot. Of course, he couldn't recall a word of what he said. Being high on meth while talking to the cops was a sure way to land in Angola for good.
"So the State will just give us their file? The whole thing?" Caroline chewed on her pen, her dark pink lipstick coloring the translucent top.
"That's the law. Only things they can play keep-away with are their own notes and mental impressions. I don't want those anyway." I smirked. "You should know this. I realize you didn't graduate with flying colors, but I thought you did well in criminal procedure."
"I was just asking." She turned toward me, her anger quick before she got it under control. "You said you had an issue with the prosecutor, so I didn't know if it would be a problem."
"Matt can pull some dirty tricks, but he tends to follow the rules on constitutional issues."
"What sort of dirty tricks?" She twisted the pen around in her mouth, more lipstick on the top.
A mental flash of those lips wrapped around my cock had me shifting in my seat. I was out of control. I was able to hide it-barely. When the guard at Angola tried to feel her up, I almost boiled over. It wouldn't have ended well for him.
"He's just an unpleasant person. Let's leave it at that." Telling her about my history with Matt Turnbull was not an option. Some things were best left buried, even though Matt showed up with a shovel and proceeded to dig every chance he got. Chances like this case, like every high-profile case I worked.
"An unpleasant person? You mean he's a dick?" She smiled. I got the feeling that, behind her sunglasses, her brown eyes were twinkling.
"Yes. Just so. Thanks for clearing that up, Ms. Montreat."
She ignored my sarcasm. "Well, we're going to eat his lunch in this case, so maybe he'll be nicer next time."
"Pretty cocky for your first time out, aren't you?"
"Cocky?" She quirked an eyebrow, her mouth an enticing pink pout.
We were close enough to New Orleans to get NPR again, so I turned the radio up and let her question die in a story about the lost art of muslin embroidery. She settled back into her seat, but not without a little smile.
She was playing a game with me. It was ballsy and, I admit, unexpected. I enjoyed watching her move her pieces all around the board.
She didn't realize I was the most competitive person in the car.
Chapter Four
CAROLINE
"He clocked the handsy guard?" Terrell sipped his white wine.
"No." I leaned back in my ratty comfy chair and tucked my feet up under me. "Where did you even get that?"
"Oh, I was just making your story more entertaining, is all." He took another sip and started flipping through the channels.
This was our nightly ritual: debriefing and bitch session. We'd been roommates in law school and didn't see any reason to change it, especially since we'd lucked out and were working at the same firm-even though Terrell went to Tulane, whereas I went to a city school with a less than stellar reputation. I was pleased, even if Terrell's parents weren't.