Guilty Read Free Page B

definitely one of the good apples. Four months before, he'd taken her under his wing when she had graduated from law school at age twenty-eight and joined the prosecutor's office. It was the first step on a career ladder that she was determined would take her to the (lucrative) pinnacle of one of Philadelphia's stellar super-firms. Bryan, on the other hand, had been an assistant DA for going on sixteen years now and seemed perfectly content to make a career of it. Of course, he didn't have a hundred thousand dollars in student loans to pay off and a young son for whom he was the only source of support, either.
    She personally wanted more, for herself and for Ben, her sweet-faced nine-year-old, than to live for years on end in a tiny leased house on a diet of pasta and peanut butter at the end of every pay period.
    And she meant to get it.
    "We're not late," she replied, with more confidence than she felt.
    Pushing through the heavy mahogany doors of Courtroom 207 in the Criminal Justice Center, she was relieved to see that she was right. The "he" Bryan had been referring to—Circuit Court Judge Michael Moran, a humorless appointee who was presiding over today's circus— was nowhere in sight, although the courtroom deputy stood in front of the bench with an anticipatory eye on the door that led to the judge's chambers, obviously expecting His Honor to appear at any second.
    Hurry. Must not get on wrong side of notoriously cranky judge before trial even starts, she thought as she strode—big, long strides that killed her feet—down the aisle. Her shoes were wet and the highly polished terrazzo underfoot was slippery, making speed a dangerous proposition. But under the circumstances she felt she had no choice. The defense was already in place, and the courtroom galleries were full. The only thing missing was the judge—and the prosecution. Still, cutting their arrival dangerously close to the wire wouldn't cost them a thing as long as they were in place before the judge came out.
    In other words, what he didn't know couldn't hurt them.
    The deputy kept watching the door to chambers. Meanwhile, the bench remained unoccupied. Silvery rivulets of rain streamed down the pair of tall windows that flanked the bench, making the courtroom seem unusually closed off. It had been officially autumn for more than a week, but today's cold rain was the first real indication they'd had that the seasons had changed. The downpour was also why they were late— every available parking spot near the Justice Center was taken, which meant they'd had to park in a garage on the next block—and why unruly strands of her normally sleek, shoulder-length blond hair were escaping from her once-neat bun to wave around her face. She could only hope the mascara she'd hurriedly swiped on—it was waterproof but cheap, so you never knew—was still framing her blue eyes and not making inky rivers down her smooth, ivory-pale cheeks. Looking like a sad clown was not the way to win the kind of notice she wanted. Despite the danger inherent in charging full-tilt toward the counsel tables without keeping her mind totally in the moment, Kate multi-tasked. Juggling umbrella and briefcase, she ran her fingers beneath her lower lashes in the hope of doing away with any errant black streaks, then brushed down the front of her once-pricey black skirt suit with quick little whisking motions that just seemed to make the wet spots bigger, and plucked the damp front of her white Hanes T-shirt away from her chest so that it wouldn't cling too closely. At the same time she absorbed all of it, the large, high-ceilinged room with its mahogany-paneled walls, the bent heads of the public defender and his client close together as they conferred over a yellow legal pad, the steady murmur of conversation and rustle of movement from the packed gallery, the musty smell of too many damp bodies jammed in together, with a quick surge of satisfaction. This was her world, the world she