DEFENSE (16 page)

Harrison

I clutched one of Katie’s letters to my chest and replayed the words over in my mind. What an idiot I’d been to ignore them, to leave them unopened in my drawer all those weeks. In my darkest moments, they would have given me the joy I’d been so desperately in need of.

              I picked one of the letters off the mattress and began rereading it:

I can’t stop thinking about your body. I want to lick every inch of you, to taste you. I want to feel your hard cock in my hands, to take it in my mouth and suck until you come.

              I put the letter down again and tipped my eyes upwards. Katie Scott, Katie Scott. God, the things that woman could do to me. Even here, in this dark, depressing cell, with silent Mack on the bunk above me, she could still arouse me with just her words. If I closed my eyes, I could almost remember the smell of her skin, slick with sweat, as our bodies had writhed. I read on:

I keep thinking of the way you teased me, how you touched the tip of yourself against me, of how delicate and gentle you were with my body. My mind is consumed with memories. I want more. I need more. You’re the best lover I’ve ever had.

              I spent all of Saturday reading and rereading Katie’s words, using them to conjure her voice into my head, using them as fuel for my fantasies. The thought of seeing her again on Monday was overwhelming.

              Just then the lights went dead and the cell was plunged into pitch blackness. That meant it was 10 p.m. and they wouldn’t be back on again until 6 a.m. I tidied up the letters as best I could in the darkness, then closed my eyes and began daydreaming about making love to Katie.

              One of the things I’d wished we’d been able to experience during the weekend we were together was leaving the Newland & Rook offices. But because of my ankle tag, that had been impossible. I wanted to make love to Katie on white sandy beaches surrounded by palm trees, in crystal clear oceans with the sun glittering off the water, in Jacuzzis and volcanic springs and lakes. At least in my dreams, I could do all those things.

              I closed my eyes and slowed my breath in order to ease myself into a meditative place. Then, in my mind, I allowed the image of Katie to materialize.

              She was laid out on a plush bed with white, silk sheets bunched up around her. One of her lithe, pale legs was exposed, crooked at the knee. Her arms were splayed beside her head and her dreamy blue eyes were locked on me. She bit her lip seductively.

              I imagined myself walking over to the bed and peeling the sheets from her body, exposing her full, round breasts and pink nipples. I took one in my hand, cupping it gently and bringing my lips down to meet it. My tongue roved in circles, tasting her, reveling in the noises she was making.

              In my deep, trancelike state, I could really sense the things I was imagining. I could truly hear Katie’s moans in my ear, and feel her kisses on my skin. The plastic lining of the mattress really became silk beneath my fingertips. I was really there—wherever the place was that I’d taken her. It was a Caribbean island, I decided, and all at once I felt the warm sun on my back and heard the gentle breaking of waves in the distance.

              Katie pulled me down onto the bed beside her. Her skin was sun-kissed, turning slightly pink in the bright sunlight that streamed through the window. She took my face in her hands and smiled in a way that made my heart race. She brought her face close to mine, and then our lips met. Her tongue roved inside my mouth, tickling my own tongue, feeling warm and silky smooth. Her fingers laced into my hair, scratching my scalp in a way that made me shiver all over.

              “Katie,” I murmured as she pulled away from me.

              Her eyes were blazing with lust. She pressed kisses into my neck, then traced the line of my collarbone, my chest, before working her way down my stomach. As she went, she gently pushed me back against the bed and maneuvered herself on top of me.

              She wended down my body, licking, kissing and nibbling my flesh as she went. When she reached my cock, she gently licked along the length of it, before circling the tip with her tongue.

I pressed my head back against the pillow and allowed a sigh of pleasure to escape from my lips.

              “I want to take you in my mouth,” she said, “And suck until you come.”

              “Yes,” I moaned, encouraging her to do just that. “Do it. Please.”

              I felt her warm, wet mouth around my erect penis, taking me in millimeter by millimeter. The pleasure was intense and I couldn’t help but cry out. As her tongue roved over my cock, her hands inched up my body, fingernails bared, scratching lines across my chest. It felt amazing, like heaven. I never wanted it to end.

              All at once, the blazing hot sun became even brighter. I squinted and raised an arm, trying to block it out. Katie became an indistinct silhouette, hovering above me.

              I rubbed my eyes, confused. When I opened them again, it wasn’t Katie looking down at me, but Mack. I wasn’t in a plush hotel room by the beach on a Caribbean island; I was in my cell, in prison.

              Katie’s letters were splayed across my bed. The harsh yellow lights were on, which meant it must be morning. I’d fallen asleep while daydreaming about Katie.

              I only prayed that one day I’d get to make love to her the whole night long for real. But I couldn’t help thinking that such an experience was never going to happen.

Katie

True to her word, Galiema used one of her contacts in the media to pull some strings and schedule a press conference the next morning, the day before I was due to see Harrison again. The hope was that it would give them just enough to whet their appetite. Hopefully it would get them off our backs for a few days, at the least.

              I’d told Jessica and Tim about it the evening I’d returned from work and they’d both been excited for me. They knew I’d wanted to take on a high-profile case ever since I’d become a lawyer, and that the exposure would help my career. It was so great to have them back on my side after everything that had happened over the last few weeks.

              The morning of the interview, Jessica helped me pick out an outfit that made me look, in her words, “sexy and severe.” I appreciated her support.

              “Hey,” she said, peering out the window while I was busy admiring the way the dress accentuated my curves in the mirror. “Is it me or is that guy hanging around outside the apartment an awful lot these days?”

              Wearing only one heel, I hobbled over to her and looked out the window. Sure enough, there was a guy smoking a cigarette and leaning against a car. We were too high up to make out any distinguishing features, but I thought I’d seen a guy smoking in that same spot Saturday evening when I’d gotten home from work.

“Probably just a neighbor,” I said. “Banned from smoking inside his apartment.”

              Though I was trying to be blasé about it to Jessica, really I was thinking it could be a reporter. It could be the guy who’d followed me to Starbucks yesterday. It made me anxious to think he might have gotten hold of my home address. Because if he had, then others would, and soon it would be like a circus. What little time I did spend away from the office would be ruined.

              But if he were a reporter, why hadn’t he asked me any questions when I’d gotten home last night? Why hadn’t he harassed me and tried to get information out of me? Reporters didn’t usually just stand around smoking, waiting.

The man probably had nothing to do with me or the case at all. I was just being paranoid.

              “Even if he is just a neighbor,” Jessica added, “he gives me the creeps.” She shut the curtain, blocking our view along with the daylight I needed to put on my mascara.

              Jessica had been more jumpy ever since she’d been raped by Seb, as if by violating her body, he’d damaged the carefree part of her mind. Adding to her paranoia with my own was a bad idea.

              “Right,” I said, slipping on my second heel. “I’m ready.”

              “You look divine,” Jessica said with a smile. “And I know you’ll totally smash it.”

              It was my first conference in front of the media. I was nervous but excited. I knew Harrison wasn’t guilty, and I knew we had the evidence to prove it. This was my first opportunity to put forward the fact that this case wasn’t as cut and dry as the media was trying to make it out to be.

              But when I walked into the conference room, jam-packed with reporters, I was shocked to see a camera crew.

“You didn’t tell me this was going on TV,” I hissed to Galiema after making a beeline for her.

              “Of course it’s going on TV,” she replied simply. “I thought that was obvious.”

              I chewed the inside of my cheek nervously. I’d thought it was the sort of press conference where reporters and journalists gathered. I mean, I got that Harrison’s fame made him interesting to the public, but it wasn’t like he was going to be here. Why exactly would anyone want to see his lawyer talking about the case?

              As much as I didn’t like the idea of the whole nation getting involved, I knew on the other hand that everyone had already formulated an opinion. What Galiema had given me was a platform that I could use to change the public’s perception of Harrison.

              “It’s a good thing I dressed for the occasion,” I added, before Galiema shoved me up towards the podium.

              As I took to the stand, the lights were blindingly bright. I tried to keep my face neutral and hide the fact I was a bag of nerves. It didn’t help that questions started being fired at me immediately.

              “How is Mr. Wrexler?” a tall, blonde woman asked. “Have you spoken to him?”

“We spoke Friday evening,” I said, blinking as a camera flash went off in my face. “He’s well, considering the circumstances.”

              A red-haired man, who sat in the front row holding a notebook, waved to get my attention.

              “Am I right in thinking Newland & Rook have come back on the case after several weeks of not being involved?” he asked. “What’s happening with Mr. Wrexler that’s making him go back and forth between lawyers?”

              I squirmed under the scrutiny. If only they knew the real reason Harrison had parted ways with me...

              “Mr. Wrexler’s making sure he has the best legal team around him that he can,” I replied calmly. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”

              “Couldn’t it indicate a lack of faith in your services, though?” The ginger man insisted. “I mean, what’s to say he won’t fire you again and take on someone new?”

              “Mr. Wrexler’s under a great amount of pressure. It took him a while to settle on a legal team, but now he has.”

              I cut an end to his questions by glancing over his head and pointing at the guy with the raised hand sitting behind him. He was a weedy-looking guy with a thin moustache. He leaned forward and locked eyes with me. I recognized him as the reporter who’d followed me to Starbucks. I couldn’t be sure, but there was a chance he was the same guy who’d been hanging around outside our apartment, too. I was filled with revulsion towards him.

              “Miss Scott,” he said. “What do you say about the charges that Harrison Wrexler drugged women before killing them?”

              I returned his glare with my own cold one. “I can’t discuss specifics of the case before we go to trial, Mr….”

              “Larson. Jim Larson of the Washington Post.”

              “Mr. Larson.” I smiled pleasantly. “But I can tell you that these allegations are speculative and completely unfounded. We have evidence to fully exonerate Mr. Wrexler, and once we have, we’ll be suing any paper that printed slanderous comments.”

              It was a warning to Mr. Larson, to the Washington Post, and to the rest of the reporters in the room. Innocent until proven guilty had flown out the window with Harrison’s case, and I, for one, was determined to make sure everyone who printed crap about him paid for it.

              “Is that a threat?” Mr. Larson said.

              “Not a threat,” I said, smiling sweetly. “It’s just the law, Jim.”

Harrison

“Hey, wizard,” someone said in the breakroom, late on Sunday evening. “Isn’t that hot chick on TV your lawyer?”

              I looked up at the small TV screen chained to the corner of the room. Sure enough, there was Katie. She looked so beautiful, so much more beautiful than she was in my memory. She was wearing the sort of dress that set my pulse racing. It accentuated her figure perfectly, reminding me of the curve of her hip as my fingertips had glided over it. The sassy way she fired down the reporters’ questions was really something to behold. I couldn’t help but swell with pride.

              “It’s just the law, Jim,” she was saying while shooting a death glare at a reporter who I recognized from my days before falling from grace.

              “She’s damn fine!” one of the guys in the breakroom shouted.

              It took all my willpower not to smack him in the face.

              “Miss Scott,” came the reporter’s nasally voice. “Some evidence has come to light recently suggesting that your client was obsessed with his late wife, and that his second victim was, in fact, strikingly similar in appearance to her. Do you ever fear for your safety, as a woman, when you’re representing men with stalking, obsessional tendencies?”

              The other guys in the room began hollering and jeering. Some turned round in their seats to look at me and join in with the laughter. I felt cold all over. I couldn’t believe what they were saying. Shantelle and Catherine had looked nothing like each other. My wife had had short, dyed blond hair. Shantelle’s was black, long, and wavy.

              “The only man I’m dealing with at the moment with stalking, obsessional tendencies, Jim,” Katie said, pursing her lips, “is you.”

              I was more than relieved to see she hadn’t fallen for the propaganda bullshit. But what did she mean about that reporter being obsessional? Was she being harassed by the paps? This was everything I’d wanted to avoid.

              The shouting and laughing intensified. They were loving how sassy and blunt Katie was being. I couldn’t help but see the way they were looking at her, and it filled me with rage.

              I stood up and walked out of the room. I didn’t want to stop watching, but I couldn’t stand the way the other guys were salivating over Katie. Besides, I’d be seeing her tomorrow. The quicker I could get my head down and fall asleep, the quicker I’d be face to face with the real Katie Scott.

***

“Here we go then,” Derek said the next morning, leading me into the interview room where lawyers and their clients met to talk about their cases. “You settle down and I’ll bring her through once she gets here.”

              I sat at the table, drumming my fingers on the top nervously. I knew my face was still bruised from the beating I’d taken on Friday, and I didn’t want Katie to see me like that. I didn’t want her to think of me as weak and vulnerable.

              While I waited, the words from Katie’s letters swirled round in my thoughts, and the image of her in her sexy dress at the press conference was stuck in my head. I could feel the heat rising into my neck at the thought of seeing her again.

              I heard keys grinding in the lock and jumped up. The door swirled open and in walked Katie, looking every inch like the goddess she was in my memory.

              “Good morning, Mr. Wrexler,” she said, extending her hand towards me. “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me first thing on a Monday morning.”

              I knew she was playing professional for Derek’s sake. I also knew that a handshake was going to be the closest we got to intimacy today. So I took her hand in mine and savored the sensation of her warm skin. I felt my pulse quicken.

              “No problem,” I said. “I had a clear diary.”

              She smirked at my quip, then her hand slid from my lingering grasp.

              We took our seats as Derek left the meeting room and locked the door behind us. He was still visible, though, just on the other side of the open-window hatch. It was as though he were standing ready to spring to Katie’s defense should I be gripped by a sudden murderous desire.

              “I saw you on TV,” I said as soon as I knew he was out of earshot, but kept my voice low just in case. “You were fierce. It made me want to tear your clothes off.”

              Katie pursed her lips and folded her hands across the table. “Harrison,” she said with a warning tone, “why didn’t you tell me that Shantelle looked like Catherine?”

              I baulked. So her answer at the press conference was just for show? She
had
fallen for that reporter’s bullshit.

              “Because she didn’t.”

              Katie looked unimpressed. She took two photos out of her bag and laid them on the table in front of me side by side. One was of Catherine in her early college days, an official Oxford University portrait. The second was barely recognizable to me. It showed a fresh-faced young woman smiling into the camera, looking carefree and happy. I could just about make out that it was Shantelle as a teenager.

              “Okay,” I said, as my gaze flickered from one photo to the other. “I have to admit that that is uncanny. But Catherine didn’t look like that when we were married. She never wore her hair long and she dyed it blond. Besides, Shantelle did
not
look like that when I picked her up in that nightclub.”

              “What did she look like?” Katie pressed with a cold expression on her face. “Sluttier? Less virginal?”

              “Katie…” I began.

              She turned her face from me, frowning, her mouth pursed. I wanted to reach out and take her hand, make her look me in the eye, but I knew Derek would be able to see.

              “What’s this about?” I said, leaning forward. “Yes, I admit that nineteen-year-old Catherine, in that specific photo, looks remarkably similar to pre-topless dancing, drug-taking Shantelle in that particular photo. But all you have to do is Google pictures of me with my wife to know that throughout our relationship she had short blond hair. So…what’s this really about?”

She shuffled in her seat, looking uncomfortable, like my words were getting through to her. Finally she spoke, though very quietly, as though ashamed.

              “It wasn’t…it wasn’t just my name that drew you to me?”

              I frowned. “Is that a joke?”

              She kept her gaze down. “Just answer the question.”

              I shook my head, shocked that she was asking me something so ridiculous. “You think that I made love to you and gave you screaming orgasm after screaming orgasm because of your
name?
Katie, I fucked you because you’re gorgeous and smart and everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman and more.”

              I could see the rise and fall of her chest as her breath came in short, sharp bursts. Finally she looked me in the eyes, and I could see the genuine fear that her own contained.

              “I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I know it sounds mad. It’s been hard over these last few weeks without seeing you to reconcile the man they’re portraying you as with the man I know you to be.”

“You’ve started doubting my innocence?” I asked.

              She shook her head. “No. No. Not at all. It’s just Galiema is looking at the whole case through the lens of the jury and it’s messing with my head.”

              I sat back, a little stunned. But what was I expecting? Katie hadn’t been there the day Shantelle fell to her death. All she had to go on was my word. Shantelle’s autopsy report certainly made me look like a murderous rapist, and now with Catherine’s overdose being pinned on me, what reason did she really have for believing I wasn’t a killer other than saving face for the fact she’d spent two days fucking my brains out?

              “Do you believe me or not, Katie?” I challenged her.

              She locked her gaze with mine. “I believe you. I just had to look in your eyes to remember the man you were. And I’m sorry that it even crossed my mind for a second.”

              I nodded, satisfied, but still a little rattled. Because if we didn’t have trust, what the hell else did we have to go on?

              “You’re still getting beaten?” Katie said suddenly, tenderly.

              She was back, the Katie I remembered, disarming me with her kindness.

              “Just some guys,” I said, trying to be dismissive. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. But what about you? You said during the interview that you were being harassed.”

              The side of Katie’s mouth twitched up into a half smile. “It’s nothing I can’t handle,” she said.

              Just then, I felt something rubbing against my ankle. I looked down. Katie had slipped her foot from her heel and was running the toe of her stockinged foot up against my leg.

              My head darted up.

              “What are you doing?” I said, as my whole body trembled with arousal.

“No one can see,” Katie said, her gaze flicking over my shoulder.

              I looked back, too. Derek wasn’t even looking through the window hatch anymore. It was about as close to privacy as we were likely to ever get.

              I felt her foot inch higher.

              “They might not see,” I said breathlessly, “but they might hear.”

              Katie bit her lip. “Then make sure you don’t make a noise.”

              She brought her foot right up to my crotch. At the touch of her, my cock hardened to attention.

“Oh God, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this,” I said.

She put a finger to her lips and began rotating her foot in a circular motion.

              “Stop,” I murmured. “You don’t have to make it up to me.”

              “I want to.”

              I tipped my gaze to the tabletop, trying to make it look like I was focusing on a report, just in case someone did look back in. The words swam in front of my eyes. I couldn’t focus on a single word with Katie arousing me in such a manner.

              “I wish I could touch you, too,” I whispered, gritting my teeth as the pleasure mounted.

              “One day,” she said. “Once you’re out of this place.”

              I jerked my chair back, making her foot lose contact with my crotch. “If,” I corrected her.

              She sat back, pouting and clearly shocked that I’d ended our covert moment of intimacy so suddenly.

“When,” she corrected back.

              I shook my head. There was no way in hell I was getting out of this place.