“Stand back and watch poetry in motion,” I joke, trying to shake off my thoughts. I take my favored bowling pose, draw my arm back, and aim. I slowly bring it back, knowing I can make this strike and clench the game. It’s all mine.
Until…
“Luka!” I hear a woman cry.
My face jerks away from the lane and I search for the voice. There, standing across from me two lanes down, is Luka with the secretary in his office. He’s laughing with her, and that would be painful enough, but he’s got his arm around her as she leans over to give him a kiss.
It’s in that moment that my world ends. I don’t even realize that I dropped the ball until I turn to watch it slide down into the gutter.
Just like my life.
Coming spring of 2017!
UNLAWFUL SEIZURE
BAYLEE ROSE
1
Tess
I wake up with a migraine and feeling sick to my stomach. That is sign number one. Sign number two is my horoscope warning me I shouldn’t leave the house today. Sign number three is when I go outside to discover my old, beat up, 1990 something model Toyota, sitting on a flat. I’m stressed out already, and it’s only 7 am. I’m all set to call in sick when my boss calls me with his usual song and dance. I’m sick today Tessa. I really need to take the day off. Clear all my appointments. Make some excuse up for me. What he really means, is he and his wife are flying to Tahoe for the weekend. I know because Claire, the other secretary, let that little tidbit slip.
When I remind him that Judge Ryson appointed him as counsel in a case that was on the docket this morning, he goes silent. When I inform him it is a parole hearing and can’t be rescheduled, that sick feeling only increases. When he asks me to get Stuart to cover for him, we begin a ten-minute conversation on why Stuart is useless and will end up losing the case and destroying a man’s chance for freedom.
I’m not usually so concerned, I’m only a legal secretary after all, but his client today is Max Kincaid, and I’m more than slightly obsessed with this case. Max deserves someone who will actually try to get him free.
I shouldn’t be that concerned with this case. I should have kept my fat mouth shut because the next thing I know, Charles, my boss, has volunteered me to go before the parole hearing and present the case as his proxy. I try every way in the world to stress that I can’t do it. I point out that Mr. Kincaid was unlawfully put in jail, and he needs a real attorney looking out for him. I might as well have saved my breath. His response was that I know the case better than anyone and Mr. Kincaid would best be served, with me, by his side.
“Tess you know the law inside and out. You can do this.” Click.
That’s the only response I get from my final plea for him to do what the freaking state pays him to do. I really should have quit this job ages ago. I haven’t because I can’t afford to. I would have loved to go on to law school, but I put myself through school to get my paralegal license. Between working full time to try pay back student loans and carrying a full load of classes, there’s no way I could even contemplate law school.
I was stupid enough to think that I would get a job; just like that. Well, not completely stupid. I did get a job immediately—at McDonald’s and then later at Shoe Warehouse and Dollar Mart. I had three jobs and still could barely manage to pay rent on my apartment. It was also an apartment I barely saw unless it was to collapse on the bed to nap before my next shift started.
I was drowning in debt from school loans and so tired I could barely hold my eyes open. When I walked into Charles Barger’s, and he offered me a paralegal position, it seemed like the answer to my dreams.
It turned out to be a nightmare.
It does keep a roof over my head though and those damn collection calls down. That’s what I remind myself of again today as I put on my big girl panties and suck it up. It’s a parole hearing and on a case I do, in fact, know inside and out.
I get my tire changed and head to the office, grabbing the files and things I will need for the hearing, then head straight for the federal prison in Ormond. It takes a good hour to drive there, and the hearing is scheduled to start in forty minutes. That’s when yet another sign from the universe falls in my lap, in the form of a speeding ticket. Fuck my life!
I try to pay attention to my speedometer the rest of the trip, but it’s hard. My mind is swirling as I go over the facts I need to present to the panel. My boss wasn’t lying when he said that I knew this case better than anyone. The truth is I’ve been consumed with Max Kincaid’s case. I must have read his file a thousand times. I know it’s not healthy. I do. I just can’t seem to make myself stop. I stare at his picture, and something about those dark, inky, onyx eyes call to me. His features seem familiar, even though there’s no way that’s possible.