Chapter 22
CHAPTER
Bria Gaines
UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA
Didn’t take long for Bria Gaines to discover a basic fact. Being charged with a felony was bad for business.
The destruction of her medical practice was an overnight phenomenon. Bria hadn’t expected it, couldn’t have foreseen the cancellations, the no-shows that left her pacing her empty office. She’d sent the receptionist home. Indefinitely.
When it became apparent that the downturn wasn’t a temporary blip, but would continue, she cut her hours of operation. Open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 8 a.m. to noon. The sign she printed for her office door said WALK-INS WELCOME! in bold print.
That’s why Bria was sitting at home on Monday afternoon at two thirty, parked in front of her television.
A reality TV program was playing out on the screen, two people engaged in some ridiculous argument.
Bria didn’t know what they were fighting about, hadn’t paid sufficient attention.
She kept it on for background noise. When the house was silent, she was left to her own thoughts.
And currently, she preferred the sound of battling strangers to the voice in her own head.
The doorbell rang.
It startled her. She still had some friends left in town. They had reached out, and she was grateful for that. But nobody would be stopping in on a Monday to have a friendly chat over a glass of tea.
On the other hand, since she’d been doxxed online by pro-life vigilantes, some crazy people had been pounding on the door.
Shouting out of car windows as they drove past. Somebody scrawled Murderer across her garage door in red spray paint.
Bria had made a quick repair as soon as she discovered the vandalism the next day, but it needed a do-over.
She fancied that she could see the red letters bleeding through the coat of white paint she’d slapped on the door.
When the bell rang again, she tiptoed to the door to look through the peephole. A young white man was standing on her front porch. He was wearing a dark blue suit, paired with a bright purple tie.
Sharp dresser. Probably a journalist, she thought. She definitely didn’t want to talk to the press. No effing way.
Bria didn’t open the door. She called to him through the crack. “Go away, please. I don’t want to see anybody.”
She squinted back through the peephole, to watch him depart. She wanted to be certain he’d understood her, that he needed to walk away. But he was still standing on the welcome mat. She saw him reach out toward her door.
He knocked. A nice knock, not too loud. But not timid, either.
So the guy was persistent. But not frightening. Bria took a deep breath and unlocked the dead bolt. When she pulled the front door open, she kept her screen door latched, to keep a barrier between them.
As soon as the door opened, he broke into a brilliant smile.
Definitely a journalist, she thought. TV, not print, from the look of him.
“Dr. Gaines!” he said through the screen door. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I’m not seeing you. You heard what I said two seconds ago. I’m not talking to anybody. Just making that clear.”
“I’m here to help you.”
At that, she choked out an involuntary laugh. And she hadn’t laughed in a long while. “Yeah, I bet. Really, I need for you to leave me alone. Just turn and go. Please.”
Her voice wobbled on the word Please. It embarrassed her. She would have to toughen up if she intended to survive this ordeal in the months ahead.
“May I give you my business card?”
He pulled a white card from a pocket inside his jacket and held it out. Bria kept the screen door closed, thinking: No way am I letting him in. She shook her head in the negative, to make it clear.
The man had a lot of confidence, she had to give him that. He pressed the card to the screen and said, “Take it. Check me out. I think you’ll like what you find. You can google me. I graduated from Duke Law School. Top of my class. Not number one. But close.”
Through the screen mesh, Bria read the embossed black lettering: Benjamin C. Meyers, Attorney-at-Law. So. A lawyer, not a reporter from Fox or CNN.
He still wasn’t getting past her door. “You carry your diploma around with you? To impress people?”
He laughed, flashing the megawatt smile again. “Hey, I’m proud of going to Duke, I won’t lie. A family tradition. My mother went there. Back when women were just breaking into the legal profession.”
Bria liked him a little better for that. But not enough to lift the latch on the screen door that kept him out of her house.
He said, “Dr. Gaines, I came over here today because I want to represent you.”
“No, thanks.” Bria backed away a step and started to swing the front door shut. “I already have a lawyer.”
“I know—Chuck Rich. I just came from his office.”
She hadn’t expected that. Maybe it was why she didn’t slam the door in his face.
“We had a long conversation, a good talk. In fact, Chuck encouraged me to come by. Gave me your home address. He thought I should introduce myself.”
That sent Bria’s anxiety into overdrive. What was Chuck thinking, sending people to her front door? She was going to let him know exactly what she thought about having a lawyer who made free with her personal information.
And then Benjamin Meyers put a hand on the frame of her screen door, like he thought she was about to invite him inside her house. She was determined to disabuse him of that notion.
She was curt. “I don’t know you, and I’m not in the market for a defense attorney. Chuck is a friend of mine. I trust him.”
Benjamin Meyers dropped the cheesy grin. His face was somber as he said, “Do you trust that lawyer with your life, Dr. Gaines?”
Bria didn’t have an easy answer for that.
“You understand that if the jury finds you guilty, they can send you to prison for the rest of your life?”
Bria nodded slowly.
“Well, you’re looking at the man who can get you off.”