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I visibly flinch from the outburst, my nerves shot.
“Seven! Warning One,” a guard hollers.
Michael closes his eyes, muttering curses under his breath.
“You can’t say things like that here. Everything is admissible for my case.” He opens his eyes and narrows his beady gaze at me. “Unless it’s with a lawyer.”
“I don’t care about your case. You can stay in this hellhole forever for all I care. You called me a cow in front of your friends and let them all laugh at me.” I sit back and fold my arms. “Did your parents raise you to treat people that way and expect them to help you?”
His mother is a piece of work, though. She hung up on me when I called her for help getting into Michael’s apartment.
“There’s something you need to do for me.” His sinister voice sends ice up my spine.
“I just want the laptop and my drawings.” I swallow nervously. “Michael, please. You made it clear, you didn’t want me anymore. Give me my stuff, and you’ll never have to see myfat assagain.”
“I need a lawyer,” he says, instead of answering me.
“You certainly do. You get phone privileges. Call one. You called me. Collect!” A call that cost me over thirty dollars.
He rubs his chewed-up knuckles. “The lawyer I want is astronomical and doesn’t take calls fromRikers.”
I shrug. “That’s what public defenders are for.”
“I’m not getting a public defender,” he roars.
“Seven. Warning Two. One more, and I toss you out of here.”
Teeth on edge, I glare at the man in front of me. “I don’t follow how any of this has anything to do with me.”
Sitting back, Michael paws at his dry, chapped lips. He looks quite different without an expensive suit, manscaped, and holding a crystal tumbler of expensive scotch.
“I need you to call Ford Montgomery,” he mutters.
“Who is that?” My voice shakes when I realize he’s not going to tell me where my designs are unless I make that call.
“He’s the best criminal defense attorney for people like me.”
“Rich, white, drug dealers?”
Michael’s lower lip quivers like he’s holding back another outburst.
“Hire Ford. Make him take my case. When I’m free, I’ll tell you where the laptop, your sketchbooks, and that pretty portfolio are.”
The meticulous inventory of exactly what was missing from the back of my closet gives me chills.
“You’re blackmailing me?” I jump out of my seat.
“Shhh!” Michael hisses.
“You’re forcing me to hire you a lawyer.” I think that’s insane enough, but then his earlier description of this attorney shudders through me.
Astronomical.
“And I have to wait until the case is settled to getmyproperty? Are you out of your mind? Your casecould take months.” I dipped into what was left of my parents’ estate to pay for a motel. It won’t cover months!
I’d been living in a sublet while I worked for Prada. The alcove studio was perfect for me, but the owner came back from Milan around the time I met Michael.
“Montgomery’s got a perfect record of getting cases like mine dismissed.” Michael clears his throat. “This won’t go to court.”
