Presumption of Guilt Read Online Free PDF Page A

to convince Bruce to take her on.
    The clouds had crept across the sky during the hour Dani spent inside the walls of the prison, and now drops of rain began to splash against her front window. She turned on the windshield wipers, and the rhythmic swoosh pushed aside her worries about Bruce. September rain smelled different than spring rain, she thought. It carried the odor of dying leaves instead of spring’s new buds. It signaled an ending of warm summer days, of sandy beaches, of family vacations. Some people looked forward to winter—to building snowmen and schussing down ski slopes, to huddling with their partner in front of a fireplace crackling with burning logs. Once Dani had enjoyed those activities, too.. But as she’d grown older, she’d begun to dislike the cold, the ice, the treacherous roads. From time to time she entertained the thought of moving to California, away from New York’s harsh winters and humid summers. Any law school would grab Doug up. And she could get another job, maybe in a large law firm, defending white-collar criminals. No one was sentenced to death for competing unfairly, or defrauding customers, or attempting to monopolize a market. She wouldn’t have to face the prospect of failing to free an innocent client, knowing that he would be executed if she didn’t succeed. She wouldn’t have to feel her heart break a little more each time she turned down a request for help from someone facing the rest of his life in jail because there wasn’t enough money or enough time to help every wrongly convicted prisoner. And she wouldn’t have to tell a woman languishing in prison since she was eighteen that she would never get to know her daughter because Dani wasn’t permitted to help her.
    She arrived home to an empty house and a note attached to the refrigerator door with a magnet. “Gone to the movies. We’ll be home before dinner.”
    “Damn,” she muttered. Jonah had been pestering them all week to see Despicable Me 2 . At first she wondered why he hankered for a children’s film, until she realized she wanted to see it herself. Now they’d gone without her.
    Without them home, the house seemed eerily quiet. No television blaring in the background, no music blasting from the radio, no sound of feet traipsing across the wood floors. The silence engulfed her and created a sense of disquiet.
    Dani fought it off. She plopped down on the living room couch and wondered what she’d do with this gift of time to herself, a rarity since she’d started working again. She knew what she should do—begin researching Molly’s conviction. Or get ahead on some of the cases awaiting her in the office. Instead, she rested her head on the sofa’s pillow, closed her eyes, and drifted off to sleep.

C HAPTER
    6
    D ani dreaded her inevitable confrontation with Bruce. She’d sped past his office when she arrived an hour earlier, with just a quick wave and a mumbled hello as she made her way to her own space. None of the usual Monday-morning pleasantries were exchanged. She didn’t pop her head inside and ask about his weekend. She didn’t wait for him to ask about hers. They’d worked together over four years and had long ago progressed past being mere colleagues. Although they rarely socialized outside the office, they were friends. They exchanged stories about their families, laughed at each other’s quirks, shared a familiarity that was bred from working closely together over life and death matters.
    After two hours spent on an appeal for one of her clients, Dani ambled over to Bruce’s office. She stopped along the way to chat with Vicky, her favorite paralegal, sitting at one of the many desks crowded together on the open floor. Unable to stall any longer, she stood outside his doorway. As usual, Bruce’s door was open, and he sat with his chair turned toward the only window, dictating into a machine. Dani stepped inside and plopped down on a chair.
    “Hi.”
    Bruce swiveled around to