Page 32 of Claimed by Him

Fifteen

I triedto keep my face blank as I sat down, but Clay knew me too well.

“Okay, seriously, what happened to you?”

“I got mugged,” I said. “Nothing broken, and nothing some rest and painkillers can’t handle.”

He sighed as he sat down next to me. “You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?”

“I’m not lying.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re not?”

I deflected. “Is this really the discussion we need to be having now? You said you wanted to talk to me about my dad. How…what…”

I didn’t know what question to ask even though my brain had been scrambling to think of something.

“I know,” Clay said quietly. “I know everything. I saw the file.”

The air rushed right out of my lungs. When he said he needed to talk about my dad, I’d thought that maybe he’d heard a rumor that he wanted to discuss. But this…this was more than I’d thought it would be.

“I can explain,” I said. “Anton didn’t tell you because we didn’t like talking about it.”

Clay shook his head. “That’s not it. I understand why neither of you wanted to talk about it.” He put his hand on my knee for a moment, but there was nothing sexual about it. “I’m so sorry.”

I nodded, then took a slow breath. “What do you want to know?” I didn’t want to talk about it now any more than I had before, but he knew enough that it’d be better to give him answers than let him guess.

“I’m not here for answers either.” He still looked sympathetic, but it moved to the background. He was all business now. “Your father filed an appeal.”

I felt the blood drain from my face as I shook my head. “That’s not possible. The case was airtight.”

“Because of your testimony,” Clay said. “And there wasn’t anything wrong with that. He’s claiming insufficient counsel.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what pretty much everyone involved in the case thinks.” He stood and went into the kitchen, coming back a few seconds later with two bottles of water. “I’d say you need alcohol for this conversation, but it’s not a good idea to mix it with whatever you’re taking for that.” He gestured at my face.

“Thanks,” I said dryly. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”

He sat back down next to me but put a little more space between us this time. I knew this was serious, but a part of me wanted to keep going with the easy banter the two of us had always enjoyed, even back when I was just Anton’s little sister. Once he started giving me details, I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening.

“The defense attorney who handled your father’s case was arrested three weeks ago on bribery charges.”

“Shit.”

Clay nodded. “Exactly.”

“All of that lawyer’s cases are getting reviewed then?” I asked. “As a precaution?”

“I wish it was that simple.” He took a drink before continuing. “Every defendant he ever worked for is filing an appeal, but not all of them will be granted a new trial. They have to prove that something happened in their case.”

“That’s what, hundreds of cases? It’ll be years before anything happens, right? And with my testimony, there’s no way he could be granted a new trial. I was there. I told everything that happened.” Panic clawed its way up my throat.

“Your dad’s case is one of the ones that was specifically involved in the investigation that busted his lawyer,” Clay said. “It was a corruption case, internal affairs looking into some cops they thought were dirty. One of them got arrested and started talking, implicating a handful of other cops – some officers and some detectives –as well as a couple other lawyers.”

“What’s the connection?” I spoke around the lump in my throat.

“One of the detectives implicated was the same one who took your witness statement back then, and the officer who gave the name was one of the first responders. Both men’s financials show payments from the defense attorney to their personal accounts around the time of your father’s trial. They both gave sworn statements that they’d been paid to make sure your father went to jail.”

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