Plea of Insanity Read Online Free PDF

‘She’s here,’ was all she said. Then she looked back at Julia, and motioned down the hall with a nod of her head. Her doughy throat jiggled like a turkey’s. ‘Two-oh-seven. Take the hallway to the second corridor and make a right. Last office on the left.’

5
    She felt the stares of the secretaries silently follow her as she walked past them, like moving pairs of eyes in paintings that decorated the halls of a haunted mansion. The walkto the corner definitely seemed a lot longer than it looked, and she was all too happy to be out of direct staring range as she rounded the second corridor and entered another long hallway, this one lined with closed office doors, each adorned with the engraved nameplate of the resident lawyer inside – most of whom, she was realizing, she’d never met, and some of whom she’d never even heard of. Apparently, no one in Major Crimes was particularly social. Not that it was a constant party up on three, but among division prosecutors, office doors always seemed to be open, and attorneys wandered in and out of each other’s claustrophobic offices all day long to ask for advice on a case, bitch about a PD, chat up the weekend, or gulp down a quick shot of café cubano – hot, liquid, Cuban adrenaline – made fresh at three every afternoon by her best friend, Dayanara Vega, the B in Judge Stalder’s division. On Julia’s floor there was a sense of camaraderie in the pasty gray halls. Here, on what was known as ‘The Power Floor’, she just felt shut out from the rest of the world.
    Next to the door marked 207, was the nameplate, ‘Charles August Rifkin, Division Chief. The three cups of coffee and bowl of Lucky Charms she’d had for breakfast suddenly began to threaten mutiny, and she prayed her stomach wouldn’t start making any weird noises. Inside, she could hear Chief Rifkin talking in a low voice, his words muffled. She hoped he was on the phone, because an audience was the last thing she needed this morning. She wiped her hands one last time on her skirt and tapped on the door. There was a brief silence before she heard someone say, ‘Come in.’
    ‘Hi,’ she answered cheerfully as she pushed open the door. The file cart she was trying to negotiate behind her nailed the metal doorframe with a loud thud.
    ‘Leave that outside,’ commanded another voice from somewhere on the other side of the door. One she immediately thought she recognized.
    She nodded with a wince, backed out of the room, and pushed the cart up against the hall wall. She blew out a slow, steady breath before stepping back inside. The door closed softly behind her, but it wasn’t Charley Rifkin who’d shut it, because he was sitting right there in front of her, in a high-back leather chair behind an oversized wooden desk, wearing what looked a lot like a scowl. The door-shutter moved from behind her to one of the two small red leather side chairs positioned in front of the desk and motioned for her to take a seat in the other.
    Yes, the day could get worse.
    ‘Good morning, Julia,’ said the Assistant Division Chief of Major Crimes, Richard ‘Rick’ Bellido, looking cool and reserved in a conservative black Hugo Boss suit, crisp white dress shirt and gray silktie. The gray in the tie accentuated the vibrant silver strands sprinkled throughout his otherwise jet-black, wavy hair, but in a flattering way. She stared at him for what felt like an incredibly long moment, but he didn’t smile. He didn’t nod. He didn’t wink. God, he didn’t even blink. Julia couldn’t help but think that even the most talented psychic would be hard-pressed to guess at that moment that the two of them had slept together for the first time only three short nights ago. Even she was now doubting the memory.
    ‘I saw you in court today,’ Rifkin began. ‘You like to test old Farley, do you?’ Before she could reply, he turned to Rick and said flatly, ‘She’s going to trial on a domestic with no victim. Lenny