A still image from Catch My Draft stared up from the page—Eleanor half-turned, Lila in the background, the blurred edge of a raised phone catching the frame.
“I take it,” he said dryly, “neither of you arranged for half this county to wake up to a video of lead defense counsel publicly identifying Ms. Grant as ‘Lila Allen’ in the middle of a bar.”
“No, Your Honor,” Reid said. “The State had no contact with either podcast or their crews. I found out about it when the clip hit my phone, same as everyone else.”
Eleanor kept her hands folded in her lap.
“I didn’t invite it either, Your Honor,” she said. “I went to dinner with a friend. The podcasts followed.”
Harlan’s gaze sharpened.
“Be that as it may,” he said, “I now have video circulating that shows lead defense counsel in a public confrontation with a media figure tied to this case, discussing matters entirely outside the evidence and inflammatory enough to give me judicial heartburn.”
He turned the paper back toward himself, glanced at it once more, then shoved it aside as if it offended him on principle.
“I am not declaring a mistrial because two podcasts can’t tell the difference between journalism and opportunism,” Harlan said. “But I will not have this jury poisoned if I can prevent it.”
He looked directly at Eleanor.
“I am inclined to poll the jurors individually before we proceed.”
Eleanor’s stomach dropped.
Of course he was.
She had stood in a bar and publicly identified Lila Grant as Lila Allen in front of God and everybody with a cell phone. She knew exactly how it looked. Exactly what any appellate lawyer would do with it later.
Weeks of work. Tons of preparation. David’s life dropped back into limbo because for one terrible minute, she had stopped being careful.
“Your Honor?—”
“I think I have to,” Harlan said, not unkindly. “If any of them saw the clip or related coverage, I need to know now.”
Reid looked once at the printout, then back at the judge.
“I agree,” he said. “This could affect my case as much as hers. If jurors have seen any of this—or any outside information suggesting this case is being driven by something other than the evidence—they need to be questioned.”
Eleanor turned toward him before she could stop herself.
For one second, she just stared.
Seriously?
The anger flashed hot and immediate. Of course, he agreed. Of course, he would sit there and sound calm and reasonable while the judge talked about the possibility that she had just damaged her own client’s case.
But underneath the anger was the harder truth: he was right.
She had done this.
She had spent her entire career being careful, ethical, controlled. And now, because of Lila and Charleston and two and a half years of swallowed anger, she had stood in a bar and given them exactly what they wanted.
Reid did not look back at her. His eyes stayed on Harlan, jaw tight.
“The State has no objection,” he finished.
Harlan looked from one to the other, measuring.
“I’ll question them,” he said. “Briefly. Then we are done with this.”
