Page 31 of Two Kinds of Stranger (Eddie Flynn #9)

Kate

Kate held her cell phone to her ear, and listened to the dead silence as Elly ended her call.

It was late. Everyone else had left the office. She was alone, panicked and had no idea what the hell to do. Elly would be calling her back in ten minutes. Kate had told her she needed a little time to think.

She got up from her desk, took a breath, put her hands on top of her head.

They don’t teach this shit in law school. You learn case law. Statute. The basics. How to prepare for a trial. How to write a legal brief. How to stand up and speak in court.

There’s no class on what to do when your client is about to get stabbed in jail.

She called Eddie, relayed Elly’s conversation.

‘They stabbed her cell mate Suze so Elly would have no protection tonight. The COs told her Suze is stable in the hospital wing, but she won’t be back in that cell for a long time.

There’s a woman in her cell called Nance who has a shiv.

She thinks Elly has money. Elly thinks she’s going to get cut up in her cell tonight.

She’s in real danger, Eddie. We don’t know anyone in her house who can protect her. ’

‘Goddamn it, all this because of Busken. There’s no way we can get anyone friendly transferred to her house. Not this fast,’ said Eddie.

‘What if she tells the COs about Nance’s shiv and the threats? Or I could try and get hold of the governor and tell him?’ asked Kate.

‘That’s the worst possible thing that could happen. If we do that, or, even worse, she tells the CO, then Elly becomes a snitch. That makes her a target for every inmate in that jail. They won’t just hurt her or threaten her, they’ll kill her.’

‘Then what the hell are we gonna do?’

‘There’s only one thing she can do. You’re not going to like it. She’s not going to like it, but there’s no alternative . . . ’

Kate listened, began to make notes on her legal pad, then stopped.

She didn’t want to write this down, not anywhere.

‘Eddie, I can’t do that. I can’t tell her this. I’m a lawyer.’

‘You’re her lawyer, but the law won’t keep her safe in Rosie’s. I know there’s risk in this for both of you. But it’s way less risky than Elly spending a night in a pitch-black cell with someone who is going to cut her up or worse. There’s no other way.’

Since Kate began working with Eddie, she noticed pretty quickly that her partner didn’t have much respect for the law.

Eddie stepped over the line when he needed to, but always to help someone else.

She had looked the other way so many times when her professional duty as an attorney was to abide by the law.

In many ways, Eddie had never really left his con-artist life behind.

He’d never left those streets where he had plied his trade.

But she took no part in his schemes. That wasn’t the way she was brought up. Sure, she was different now to when she first started. Sometimes, she had to push right up to that dividing line of what’s legal and what’s not, but she never crossed it.

This situation was crystal clear. There was only one way to help Elly make it through the night in Rosie’s.

And if she did what Eddie suggested then Kate would be jumping over that line for the first time.

Whether she got caught or whether anyone could prove what she had done were other questions, and in many ways the answers to those questions didn’t matter.

Because Kate would always know what she had done.

‘There’s really no other way, is there?’ she asked.

‘Not that I can see. I know this is difficult for you, but—’

‘Difficult? It’s illegal.’

‘Of course it is, and you don’t have to do it. I can call Elly and—’

‘I know she’s our client, but she reached out to me. I can’t throw this all onto your shoulders. I have to stand on my own two feet sometimes.’

‘You stand a lot taller than I do, Kate Brooks. You’re smarter and tougher than me, and you’re a better person too. It’s okay to let me take one for the team. I don’t mind. It’s not like I haven’t done this shit before.’

‘And what happens if I have to do something like this some day, and you’re not here? It’s my responsibility. I just wish there was another way.’

‘If you don’t do this, Elly is going to get hurt. They don’t want to kill her, but they could put her in the infirmary and accidents happen. We can’t rely on the crazies in Rosie’s not to go too far. She could die in there tonight.’

‘So either I compromise everything in my professional duty or Elly gets beaten and stabbed? That’s what you’re telling me?’

‘Welcome to the New York criminal bar practice. If you can’t do it, I understand. But somebody has to tell Elly what to do. For what it’s worth, there’s a way to tell her this without you losing your law license or the DA prosecuting you . . . ’

‘I know how to do it and not get caught. Whether Castro or the NYPD can prove I broke the law, doesn’t matter. I will know what I’ve done.’

‘Then let me—’

‘Eddie, it has to be my decision.’

She heard him sighing on the end of the line.

‘I know you’ll do the right thing, Kate.’

‘Yeah? And what’s the right thing here, exactly?’

She hung up the call and then tore the page out of her legal pad, ripped it up and put it in the trash.

Elly would be calling back in less than sixty seconds.

Kate stared at her cell phone on the desk and chewed her lip.

Eddie once told her that sometimes a case takes away a little piece of you.

The question is whether you let that happen.

The best lawyers, the ones who care most about their clients, they pay that price.

She picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk, staring at the phone.

She didn’t want to give up this piece of her.

It belonged not just in her mind, but in her soul.

Her father had been a cop. Twenty years in the NYPD.

If she had asked him what to do, he would say there’s nothing she could do.

That what will happen in that cell, in the dark, wasn’t her problem.

She was just a lawyer. She could only do so much.

Her responsibilities were to represent her client, in court, and that’s it.

The screen on her phone lit up. The pulsing vibration from the incoming call sent the device dancing across her desk.

Kate’s mouth was dry as she picked it up, answered the call.

And made her decision.

All of the detainee’s phone calls are monitored. It didn’t matter if she told her lawyer she was under threat; she hadn’t made a complaint to the COs so they could do nothing. But it also made things difficult for Kate, because she couldn’t tell Elly exactly what she had to do. Not outright.

Kate was subtle in relaying the information from Eddie.

Hypotheticals.

In the unlikely event that this might happen, this is what the CO response will be.

They talked for a few minutes.

Elly hung up.

Kate leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling. She had crossed a line tonight. She told herself this was a one-off. Never to be repeated.

Part of her knew that once she had opened this door, she would have to keep walking through it. That there was no going back.

She closed her eyes and thought about Elly.