“Andwhywould she?” asks Finley. “Why would she want to hurt Luke? My money’s still on her brother. I could see him putting the drugs in there without her—”
“Does Max wear lipstick?” I snap.
“I…I don’t know, some guys do—”
“Just stop, okay?” I sit back against the cushion.
“This wasn’t Trinity.” Luke crosses his arms. “No way.”
Finley turns back to us. “But we’ll never know, right? We’ll never know who gave the confidential information.”
“We’ll never know,” I agree. “But, Luke, if you persist in believing Trinity wouldnever do something like that, you’ll be convicted. Because she’s the only person who makes sense. No one else knew you’d be in that car.”
19
Allison
“Ah, the first appearance of the congressman’s mistress,” says Vivian, sitting at one end of our war room, the conference room down the hall from my office that we have commandeered for theChildresstrial. We are still reviewing the mountain of evidence from the prosecution, playing catch-up. Viv taps her laptop. “They have dates and locations of every tryst.”
“He mentioned to me he had a ‘relationship’ with a woman in D.C.,” I say. “He didn’t think it would make a difference to the case. Do you think she hurts us?”
“Not sure yet,” says Viv. “The G will try to find some relevance to her just to dirty up Childress before the jury.”
“Maybe we can use her for an alibi,” jokes Aaron. “ ‘I didn’t take a bribe that day because I was at the Waldorf Astoria cheating on my wife.’ ”
Vivian likes that. “You’re starting to loosen up, Aaron. But still with the suit and tie. You don’t even take your coat off. You do know we’re business casual if we don’t have court or a client meeting, right?”
“Leave him alone,” I say. “Dress how you want, Aaron. You class up the joint.”
“I have a question,” says Viv. “Why do powerful men always cheat on their wives? And why do they think they won’t get caught?”
“You’re asking me?” Aaron puts his hand on his chest. “I’m not powerfulormarried.”
“But you’re a man.”
My phone buzzes. A call from Bruce Ghadiali, Luke’s prosecutor. “I’ll be a minute,” I say. I leave the room before I answer.
“You have the forensic results yet?” I ask.
“Not yet. But I do have a witness list and discovery and an inventory of the car. No surprises. I emailed it to you, but I can mail hard copies if you want.”
“But when am I getting the DNA and print results?”
“Soon, I think. It’s always a wait. Especially for a drug case. Even one where the defense attorney was once a famous prosecutor.”
“Aw, shucks, you say the nicest things, Bruce.”
“By the way, someone told me your client is your brother.”
“Whether he likes it or not,” I sing, reaching my office. “You’ll let me know when the forensic testing comes back?”
“Of course.”
I sit in front of my laptop and pull up Bruce’s email. The state’s witness list is simple enough: the state trooper who pulled Luke over and the other trooper who helped conduct the search. The list of evidence is just as short and obvious: the bag in which the Oxy pills were found and the pills themselves.
The inventory of Trinity’s car looks standard, too:
Glove Compartment
