Page 27 of Hard to Kill

Well, I am, actually.

Mommy’s home.

Katie Phang, a legal analyst from NBC, calls out to me. “As I recall, Jane, the last time you were here you said you didn’t miss this.”

“Hold on,” I say. “Doesn’t a girl reserve the right to change her mind?”

“So you’re here because youdidmiss the action?”

“I’m here because my client is innocent and shouldn’t spend another night in jail, and I’ll prove that for a second time.”

Running on pure adrenaline at this point, I clear security, then make a quick stop in the ladies’ room for a hair-and-makeup check. I drink some water out of the bottle in my bag, pat my cheeks, say what I always say before I walk into court:

“Showtime!”

Only this time, out of nowhere, I suddenly feel myself start to cry. I put my hands on the sink and try to deep-breathe the tears away.

A woman comes in and sees me standing there with red eyes.

“Are you all right?” she asks.

For some reason, I think of Fiona Mills, hear her voice inside my head.

“Brilliant,” I say.

TWENTY-ONE

JUDGE KANE’S COURTROOM IS already packed when I step inside. As the door closes behind me, I look around, nod, and breathe deep. I’ve spent the last two weeks and change filling my lungs with the cleanest air on the planet.

Just not this air.

I shake hands with Kevin Ahearn, who is already seated at his table, before shaking hands with his second chair, a red-haired woman he introduces as Maggie Florescu. There’s no second chair for me. I’m still doing a single.

I see Jimmy and Ben right behind our table as I take my seat next to Rob Jacobson.

“You look good, Janie,” Jacobson says.

“Try not to sound so surprised.”

“I mean, because of where you just came from.”

Only he can wipe the smile off my face.

“You know what we’re not going to talk about, Rob,” I say, keeping my voice low as I lean closer to him, “today or ever? Where I just came from. Or why I was there.”

Before he can even attempt to get a last word in, we’re all rising because Judge Kane has entered the courtroom and is aboutto take her seat behind the bench. She is small, blond, pretty, full of commanding attitude, projecting without saying a word that she’s not going to take any shit.

The onlyemptyseats I see are in the jury box. But we’re a long way from filling those. I’m a long way from having to explain away questionable evidence with an even more questionable timeline. Rob Jacobson’s fingerprints on a murder weapon the cops found months after the fact. DNA matches on both Lily Carson and her daughter, made only after Jacobson became a suspect. And the magical appearance of a time-stamped photograph of Rob Jacobson outside the Carson house the night before the whole family got gunned down.

One of my old law professors once told me that jobs without problems generally don’t pay very much.

For now, the only job that matters is getting Rob Jacobson out of jail before Kevin Ahearn tries to put him there for good, and forever.

Ahearn goes first.

“Your Honor,” Ahearn says, “I’d like to begin with an apology for wasting the court’s time with this frivolous and rather outlandish request for bail from the defendant and his new attorney. Or should I say old?”

I shake my head, grinning.

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