“What about the nighttime routine?”
He shrugged. “The nights were long. Cold. Gave a man a lot of time to think.” He took a sip of his coffee, figuring there wasn’t much else he needed to say about that.
“You mentioned you had some issues with the other inmates. How about the guards?” she asked.
“Other than the fact that they kept tossing me in segregation for defending myself, no.”
“Would you say that you resent the fact that they kept putting you in segregation?”
Kyle saw where she was going with this—already thinking ahead to what a defense attorney might bring up on cross-examination. “I have no ax to grind against prison guards, counselor. I understand they were just doing their jobs.”
“Good,” she said with a nod. “Now tell me about Quinn.”
“Quinn’s a different story. That guy is one mean son of a bitch.” He watched her. “You’re actually writing that down?”
“Yes. And feel free to say it exactly like that to the grand jury.”
Kyle was glad she’d brought that subject up. She may have been confident about her case, or at least she seemed to be, but he had his doubts. “You really think the grand jury is going to believe what I have to say?”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug. “I believe you.” When she finished writing, she looked up from her legal pad and saw him staring at her. “What?”
It was nothing, really, that she believed him. Just words. “You’ve asked a lot of questions about me. Now it’s my turn.”
“Oh, sorry. But that’s not how this works,” she said sweetly.
“It is this time, counselor, if you want to keep me sitting in this booth,” he replied, just as sweetly.
She shook her head. “You are just as annoyingly cocky as you were nine years ago.”
“Yes.” Kyle’s gaze fell to her lips. “And we both know how that turned out.”
Much to his surprise, she actually blushed.
Well, well. Apparently the unflappable Prosecutrix Pierce could be…flapped after all.
Interesting.
She recovered quickly. “Fine. What’s your question?”
Kyle thought for a moment, wondering where to start. He decided to go right to the heart of the matter. “Why did you leave San Francisco?”
Rylann raised an eyebrow. “How do you know I lived in San Francisco?”
“On a scale of one to ten, how pissed would you be if I said that I hacked into the DOJ’s personnel records and did some poking around about you?” He whistled when he saw her look of death. “Okay…ixnay on the ex-con humor. Relax, counselor, I Googled you. From what I could tell, you had a good thing going back in California.”
He saw a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes.
“I felt like it was time for a change,” she said simply.
Yep, definitely a story there.
“Does anyone actually buy that excuse when you say it?” Kyle asked.
“Of course they do. It’s the truth.”
“But not the whole truth.”
She acknowledged this with a slight smile. “Perhaps not.” She readied her pen once again. “Now. Back to your testimony.”
“All business once again,” he teased.
“In this case, yes. If the past is any indication, you and I only get along in about eight-minute stretches and”—she checked her watch—”uh-oh, our time is almost up on this one.”
Kyle laughed. She was just so frustratingly, amusingly self-assured. “One last question. Then you can ask me anything you want.” He paused and locked eyes with her. “Admit that you liked that kiss.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “That wasn’t a question.”
“Admit it anyway.”
As she held his gaze, the corners of her lips turned up in a smile. “I told you then. It wasn’t bad.”
Then she clicked her pen once again. “Now. Back to your case.”
THE REST OF the interview went smoothly enough, as far as Kyle could tell. Rylann spent a good twenty minutes firing questions at him about the night Quinn threatened Brown—whether he’d actually seen Quinn talking (yes), whether he was sure he’d heard the threat (also yes), whether he was making the whole story up because he was an egomaniac attention hound desperate to be in the limelight again.
He paused with his coffee cup midway to his mouth at that one.
Rylann smiled mischievously. “Just a little prosecutor humor.”
There was a brief awkward moment when the check came and they both reached for it at the same time. His fingers softly grazed hers as their eyes met. “Sorry. Instinct.”
After she paid the bill, they walked out of the diner and stood momentarily underneath the L tracks.
“I plan to bring the matter to the grand jury next week,” Rylann told him, raising her voice to speak over an approaching train. “I’ll call you as soon as I have the exact date and time you’ll be testifying.”
She extended her hand in farewell, and Kyle closed his hand around hers.
“This is a good thing you’re doing, Kyle,” she said. “Just remember—”
The train roaring directly overhead made it impossible for him to hear her. Kyle gestured to his ear, shaking his head. She stepped close to him and put her hand on his shoulder as she stood up on her toes to speak in his ear.
Her breath was a soft caress on his neck, her voice low in his ear. “—Don’t screw it up.”