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“I want to talk settlement, lawyer to lawyer,” she said.
“What do you have I mind?” asked Jack.
“Not on the phone. Take a walk with me down the stairwell. I’ll meet you there in two minutes.”
It seemed like a scene out of a spy movie, but in a celebrity court battle, a healthy fear of hackers listening to their cellphone conversations made sense.
“I’ll meet you there,” said Jack, and the call ended. Then he brought Theo inside and laid out the new plan: “Call for the limo, take Imani down the service elevator, and I’ll meet you in the car at the Flagler Street entrance in ten minutes.”
“Got it,” said Theo. He stepped out with Imani and, as Jack had expected, every reporter waiting outside the room followed them to the elevator.
Jack hurried down the hallway in the opposite direction and pushed open the metal door to the stairwell, where Jennifer Ellis was waiting for him.
“Let’s walk,” she said, and Jack started down the stairs with her.
“What’s your offer?” asked Jack.
“Simple. Imani stops her ‘go pirate’ campaign, she removes all past posts on social media, and she issues a statement of apology telling her fans to buy her musically lawfully.”
They continued down another flight. “That sounds like surrender, not settlement,” said Jack.
“There’s something in it for Imani.”
“I’m listening.”
A janitor was walking up the stairwell. They let him pass and continued down two more flights until they were completely alone.
Ellis continued, “Tell Imani that if she agrees to everything, Shaky will not press charges.”
Jack nearly tripped down the stairs. “Press charges for what?”
“Imani will know.”
They’d reached the ground floor. Ellis stopped at the exit door but didn’t open it.
“What kind of a bullshit settlement offer is this?” said Jack.
“It’s no bullshit. When you tell your client that Shaky won’t press charges, she’ll know exactly what that means. And if we don’t go back into that courtroom after the lunch break and tell Judge Stevens the case is settled, you’ll hear it all—including the parts your client is too much of a manipulative little liar to tell you. Trust me, it won’t be pretty.”
Ellis exited the stairwell to the lobby, making hers the last word.
Imani’s warning—some of the evidence would be “very bad”—came rushing back to him. Jack wasn’t one to shy away from clients with big problems. In some cases, the “very bad” evidence hadn’t even been the worst of it. But this exchange with Shaky’s lawyer only stiffened his resolve to slap down Imani’s courtroom stunt.
He gave Ellis a minute of separation, and then entered the lobby, hurried out of the building, and continued down the granite stairs. Imani’s limo pulled up at the curb and, before the crowd could surround it, Jack jumped in the backseat. Imani and Theo were waiting inside. Jack quickly summarized as they pulled away.
“Shaky says that if we give him what he wants, he won’t press charges,” said Jack.
Imani laughed.
“His lawyer said you’d know what that means.”
“I do.”
“You want to tell me what it means?”
Imani’s smile faded. “It means you need to hear my side of the story.”
Jack’s office was just a five-minute ride from the courthouse. Imani talked, and Jack listened, all the way there.
