Plea of Insanity

Plea of Insanity by Jilliane Hoffman Read Free Book Online Page B

Book: Plea of Insanity by Jilliane Hoffman Read Free Book Online
Authors: Jilliane Hoffman
fork in the winding road of her career. The fork, she could hear herself saying over and over again, that she should have taken. She drew a deep mental breath. Screw Rifkin and his opinion. She could do this. Right?
    ‘I understand your concerns, Mr Rifkin,’ she said, finally moving her eyes off the diploma and looking the Major Crimes Division Chief right in the eye. ‘But I would most definitely welcome the opportunity to second-seat this case.’
    Rick smiled. ‘Great,’ he said, rising and walking back toward the door to open it. ‘Drop off your files, then, and meet me down in the lobby in ten minutes. I want to take you over to the crime scene.’ Rifkin notably said nothing.
    She felt the Lucky Charms churn once again, but nodded expectantly, as if she’d already cleared the rest of the day’s calendar. No time like the present to get her feet not just wet, but completely soaked, she supposed. No time to change her mind. She followed Rick over to the door, thanked both men again, and walked out into the hall to get her cart. When she heard the door shut behind her with a click she finally exhaled the real breath she’d been holding, even though she knew that the conversation back inside was probably far from over.

7
    She practically threw the cart up against the wall of her office, next to a tall, overgrown stack of dispo boxes – pesky final case dispositions that she had yet to get to – grabbed her purse from the desk drawer, stepped over another stack and hurried back out the door. She hollered an informative, ‘I’ll be back!’ to her secretary, Thelma – who was busy watching The Jerry Springer Show on a portable TV/radio stuck up under her desk and who didn’t really care where she was going or when she’d be back anyway – and then headed down the hall, hastily trying to retouch her lip gloss and check her cellphone for messages as she did. It wasn’t even eleven yet and a lot of attorneys were still stuck in court across the street – their doors open and offices empty – but as she rounded the corner past the secretary for Judge Stalder’s division, she spotted her best friend, Dayanara, at her desk on the phone.
    ‘Oh good, you’re here,’ Julia said in a hushed voice as she rushed in the door, stuffed the cell and the lip gloss back in her purse, and grabbed the Herald off the top of Day’s perfectly stacked in-box. The room, as always, smelled of lemon Pledge, Windex and Cuban coffee. There were no dispos on Dayanara’s floor, no files waiting to be put away on her file cabinet – just a clock radio, a Tupperwared bag of Pilon coffee and a bottle of Dial hand sanitizer. Even on the small side table where she brewed café cubano for twenty every afternoon, there was nary an expresso bean or a sugar grain in sight. If the two of them hadn’t been such good friends for such a long time, Julia might have allowed Dayanara’s obsessive-compulsive disorder to make her feel inadequate, but aside from being insanely jealous that Day was in a normal judge’s division, there was no competition between them. ‘Can I borrow this?’ she whispered, heading back for the door without really waiting for an answer.
    ‘Hold on a moment, sir,’ Day said and let the phone slip down into her neck. ‘I haven’t read the funnies yet. Don’t crinkle it.’
    ‘Not a problem,’ Julia said, backing out with a quick wave. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
    ‘Are we doing lunch?’
    ‘Can’t. Not today.’
    ‘Are you in trial?’
    ‘Tomorrow. Want to try a domestic on an excited utterance with me?’
    ‘Hmmm … no. Thanks for asking. Where are you off to, then?’
    ‘I’ll tell you later!’Julia called out behind her as she made her way down the hall to the security door that led out to the elevator bay, ‘but you won’t believe it when I do!’
    NO SUSPECTS IN GABLES MASSACRE blared the front-page headline in her hands. She hadn’t had the time to actually read the article this morning

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