Chapter 6
SIX
T he door opening had Kent looking toward it, waiting for his client to come in.
He expected her to walk inside, so he was confounded when he could only see her head poking through. Before he could understand what his client was doing, she was shoved from behind, being pushed into the room.
“I don’t have all day.” The officer he had gotten in an argument with not even five minutes earlier sent him a satisfied smirk.
Tripping forward, his client somehow managed to right herself.
He jerked himself to his feet and gripped the table to prevent himself from going after the asshole, knowing the fucker would use the excuse to have him thrown out and preventing him from talking to his client.
“Officer Dunbar, that was completely unnecessary,” he said furiously, giving him a menacing look.
Officer Dunbar’s callous expression turned smug, unfazed at the way Kent was looking at him. The fucker was going to regret laying his hand on Valerie Monroe just to get back at him. Valerie might be locked up in prison, but he wasn’t. Yet.
“Kent, you have twenty minutes.” The officer couldn’t resist giving him a gloating smile before he snapped the door closed.
“I’m afraid Officer Dunbar’s behavior is my fault.” Apologizing, he frowned, then sat back down on the chair. “He wanted you to be shackled before leaving your cell. I disagreed with him to his supervisor, and he took it out on you. Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Have a seat.” Kent looked the woman over. Her appearance did her no favors. She looked like a fucking hacker.
“Do you mind me asking who you are?” She returned the look he was giving her by looking him over. Hers lasted much longer, and for some reason, he was beginning to feel uncomfortable under her stare.
“I’m sorry. I was so angry at Dunbar I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Kent Bryant. I’ve been hired to be your attorney.”
“So … you’re not a public attorney?”
“No, I’ve been retained as your attorney.”
“By whom?”
“Lucca Caruso.”
Her mouth dropped open. It was obvious she had heard of the Caruso family, which would have been more surprising if she hadn’t.
The Caruso family owned the Casino Hotel that was the direct competition of the Horseshoe that Valerie was alleged of cyberattacking by her former boss.
Lucca Caruso was the CEO of the Casino Hotel and was paying him to represent the woman. She was smart enough to be afraid.
“Lucca Caruso?” she repeated the name to make sure she had heard it correctly.
Yeah, she was smart, but he already knew that.
“Yes, Mr. Caruso asked me to represent you.”
“I’m not usually in the position to look a gift horse in the mouth, but are sure you’ve been shown into the right room?”
“Are you Valerie Monroe?” he asked, opening her file to keep from laughing.
“Y-yes.”
“Then I’m in the right room.”
“I didn’t hack into the Horseshoe’s computer system, if Mr. Caruso is afraid I’m going to attack his computers.
” Valerie dropped her voice, making it hard for him to hear her.
Hell, she was barely moving her lips. “I wouldn’t, even though I could,” she added in a rush.
“I would never ever be stupid enough to try to hack into the Caruso’s computers. ”
He was forced to drop his eyes to her lips so he could try to understand what she was saying. “Why are you talking so weirdly?”
“In case they’re reading my lips.” Using her chin, she nodded at the camera on the wall.
She was playing too many video games and had become lost in a world she had created.
“Why would they want to read your lips?”
When she started wigging her eyebrows at him, he had no clue what she was trying to get at. Geeze Louise, if he hadn’t stepped in to represent her, Valerie would have found herself in prison for the foreseeable future.
Confused by her behavior, when she looked at him pitifully, she didn’t realize he was staring back at her the same way.
Talking to Valerie was like stepping into La La Land, where you couldn’t understand a fucking thing anyone said to you, not because you couldn’t understand the language, but it didn’t make any fucking sense.
He had to get her out of jail. It wasn’t good for her, mind wise.
“The Carusos are dangerous.” Her voice dropped even lower, and she began distracting him with the way she was wiggling her lips.
“Everyone in KC knows they have ties to the mob.”
Kent was finding it hard to keep a straight face. He had been the one who told her about the Carusos. Of course, she didn’t know it had been him who had told her.
There wasn’t much he didn’t know about Valerie.
They had been playing video games together for years.
While she hadn’t had any inhibitions about telling him her life story, he had made up one for her.
When he had heard Valerie getting arrested through his headset, he had already decided to represent her.
He’d devised a way to get Lucca to pay his bill to keep her safe and find out who had framed Valerie.
Whoever had framed her had an ulterior motive, and he didn’t have the time to find out why, nor play bodyguard.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No.” He was, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“You sound like you are,” she hissed at him. “Listen up. It’s nice meeting you, but I’m going to decline your offer to represent me. I’ll hire my own lawyer.”
He grew serious real fucking quick. “Do you have enough to pay a lawyer? There’s going to be a hearing Monday morning to arraign you. The DA is going to ask for a two-million-dollar bail.”
Her jaw dropped. “What the frick! I can’t afford that!”
Kent nodded. “I’m aware of that fact.”
“How?” Suspiciously, she stared at him.
“I researched you before I took your case.”
She looked at him hotly. He wanted to slam his face onto the table.
“Your house was two hundred thousand when it was last listed, but you’re behind on two mortgage payments, and your credit cards are in even worse shape.
Currently, you have no source of employment.
You’re a flight risk with no known family in the area, or anywhere I could find.
The Horseshoe is pressing charges that they lost over one point four million dollars before they could get their computers online.
The DA wants to make an example out of you to keep others from attempting the same crime.
He’s going to go for the maximum sentence he can get. ”
“I’m going to rot in prison …” she began to gasp, as if she were having a panic attack.
“Val—” He cleared his throat, catching himself.
He couldn’t tell her who he was. He had already given her a fictitious persona online.
While what he had told her was a lie, Valerie was the only person in the world whom he had shown his true self to.
In some ways, she was the only real friend he had, which was why he had no intention to ever tell her he was her online friend Justice.
“Ms. Monroe, are you all right?”
“Do I look all right?” She looked around the room wildly. “I need to get out. I can’t stay in here any longer! I need my Twizzlers!”
“Breathe!” Kent started to get out of his chair then sat back down. If he got up, the officer monitoring the room would come in and end the interview. “Dammit, put your head between your knees.”
Turning sideways in the chair, Valerie put her head down to her knees.
“Now, take deep breaths,” he instructed her firmly.
Thankfully, she started breathing slower.
“Better?”
“Yes,” she mumbled with her head still down. “Is a public defender going to be able to get me out of here?”
“No.” Hell, he would be lucky to get her out.
“C-can you?”
“Yes.” He might have to use a few of his favors owed to him, but he would do everything he could to get her out.
Raising her head, she looked searchingly into his eyes.
“Are the Carusos going to off me if you get me out?”
“No.” They might want to, but they wouldn’t. He’d have to keep an eye on her.
“Then I guess you can be my attorney.”
The least she could do was sound grateful.
“Thank you. You made the right choice,” he said wryly.
“I have no choice.” Suddenly, she gripped the table, making him jump.
“I need my Twizzlers. And my computer. I’ll go nuts without them.
I used to vape, but the Twizzlers kept me sane.
Will they let me vape in my cell?” Valerie frantically turned in her seat, facing the door as if she were thinking about escaping. He had to calm her ass down.
“No, they won’t let you vape in your cell, but”— Kent reached into his open briefcase—“I do have this. It was going to be my lunch. Do you like n—”
“Nutty Buddy!” Snatching it from his hand, she ripped it open and started eating it.
“Listen, the police aren’t going to let you near any computers, especially your own.” Trying to get her attention as she wolfed down her snack wasn’t easy. “And they’ve executed a search warrant. Are they going to find anything incriminating?”
Valerie started fanning herself with her free hand. “The only thing they’ll find are the games I’m developing, and the games I play.”
Kent didn’t like the nervous way she was acting. He tried to think back to the times they had discussed her job at the Horseshoe. “That’s all?” Kent searched her expression. He had been a lawyer long enough to recognize a guilty expression when he saw one.
“I worked for the Horseshoe before they fired me. They’ll find some work-related correspondence,” she admitted. “I warned them a kindergartener could get past their firewalls, and I was terminated for my trouble.”
“That’s all?”
“When I got fired, I might have sent the dude who fired me a tiny bug in an email …”
She was giving him a headache. Rubbing his temples, he promised the next time he had to consult with her, he would take Tylenol beforehand.
“What kind of bug?”
“Nothing bad, per se … just every time my boss, Edmond, sent an email to other employees, the emails would also be sent to the CEO. I wanted him to find out that Edmond is undermining his authority. I tried to tell him that before I was terminated, but he didn’t want to listen any more than when I had warned him about the firewalls.
I sent another email the next day, fixing the bug. ”
“You just made my job much harder.” There went any chance of getting her bail lowered.
“It was just a harmless prank.”
If he wasn’t amused, the judge certainly wouldn’t be.
“The judge won’t see it that way.”
“The judge didn’t have to work for the Horseshoe.” She then added without missing a beat, “They’re dicks.”
“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
“No …” Her eyes went to his briefcase. “You got anything else to eat in that briefcase? Or a vape I can take a hit off of?”
He shook his head, raising an eyebrow at her. “You don’t seem sure,” he prodded, wishing he had a fucking cigarette.
Her shoulders slumped forward. “I think I need a break.”
“Valerie.” He tried to look and talk sterner, which was hard to do.
She had been a vape fiend before he talked her into quitting.
She had replaced one fixation with another, so he was aware how hard it was for her to be without her Twizzlers and go-to snacks.
“Is there anything else you need to tell me?”
He almost broke and told her who he was when tears rose in her eyes.
“Not in the computer, per se … but does taking their scrap computer parts count?”
Yeah … maybe not.