Eleanor shut the folder.
Everything from the last few weeks rearranged itself in her mind.
The way Lila always lingered on her name.
The little digs.
The smile.
The satisfaction.
It had never been about David Mercer.
Not really.
It had been about Eleanor Harper all along.
This wasn’t a kill shot on the case. It was a ritual. With a sickening jolt, Eleanor realized Lila didn’t just want a mistrial. She wanted to watch Eleanor lose everything again.
She looked at Deck.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His face softened.
“Because if Mercer isn’t guilty, I wasn’t about to hand you somethin’ that might make you see every piece of this case through her instead of through him.”
“And now?”
“Now I know this has nothin’ to do with Mercer. Not really.”
“And because,” he said quietly, “you were finally startin’ to look happy again. I wasn’t keen on takin’ that from you unless I had to.”
She looked away.
Part of her wanted to throw the folder across the room.
Part of her wanted to cry.
Mostly, she wanted to go back in time and never let Charleston touch her at all.
But she couldn’t.
So instead she sat there in the half-dark conference room and let herself feel it.
The betrayal.
The humiliation.
The terrible, awful understanding that the woman who had helped destroy her life had been standing ten feet away from her all month, smiling into a microphone.
Deck stood and gathered his keys.
“You don’t do anything with this tonight,” he said.
Eleanor laughed once without humor.
“You think I’m going to storm into Catch My Draft and throw her through a window?”
