The Justice Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

of deodorant—clinical strength—a fresh white T-shirt, and the same white shirt he had worn earlier in the day. He buttoned the shirt and pulled his tie snugly into place. He slid into his loafers and quickly combed and gelled his hair. He could feel his stomach roiling, the coiled nerves of a big verdict winding tighter with each minute of anticipation. He had barely eaten all day—a bowl of soup and a few crackers for lunch, an energy bar and a smoothie after court. He often lost three or four pounds a week during an intense trial, weight he couldn’t afford to shed.
        Jason gave himself a pep talk and focused on getting into character. In a few minutes, he would saunter into the courtroom and listen to the bailiff announce the verdicts. If he lost, Jason would stare at the jurors as if they were idiots and then would walk over and shake Austin Lockhart’s hand. If he won, he would shrug it off as if he expected nothing less. Twenty minutes from now, when the verdicts were announced, you wouldn’t be able to tell the result by the look on Jason’s face.
        He would be stoic. A first-class actor. A devil-may-care trial lawyer.
        He brushed his teeth and gave himself the once-over in the bathroom’s full-length mirror. He flashed a bright smile, accentuated by a gleam in the intense green eyes. There was nothing he could do about the small crook in the bridge of the nose, an old soccer injury, but it didn’t seem to deter the female jurors.
        “We would like to have the jury polled,” Jason said, turning serious, envisioning the worst-case scenario. “And we move for a new trial based on defense counsel’s discriminatory strikes during the jury selection process and our previously filed Daubert motion.”
        He narrowed the eyes, an intense stare for the imagined jurors who had turned on him. The look wouldn’t melt steel, especially with the platinum blond hair mocking his seriousness, but it would certainly let them know that, in Jason’s opinion, they had just sprung an unrepentant murderer. Right after the stare, the jurors would have one more chance to get it right while the judge polled them individually and asked if they agreed to the verdict.
        Okay, he was ready for the worst-case scenario. He would take the blow, congratulate his opponent, and spend a few days analyzing what went wrong. Afterward, he would move on to the next case. That’s what lawyers did. But he also knew a loss would stick with him for months, maybe years. Obsession? Most definitely.
        He shrugged. It is what it is. Underneath the laid-back exterior, a 24/7 Oscar performance designed to lure others into underestimating him, Jason was a warrior. He lived to compete.
        Knowing he could survive the worst case, he banished any further thoughts of losing. Today, he would play the role of the gracious victor, and he allowed himself to imagine the scene in his mind. He would barely react to the verdict, as if it were just a formality, as if he’d known all along.
        Van Wyck would be sentenced to life in prison. And Jason would start getting ready for the next case.

6
    Jason pulled into the student parking lot at Pepperdine Law School. He parked and quickly found his way to the second-floor courtroom, where a private security guard stood with his arms crossed, a listening device in his right ear.
        Jason nodded at the man, entered the courtroom, and spent the next few minutes giving the broadcast crew and court clerk a hard time. He had liked trying the Van Wyck case here. The school had recently renovated the courtroom, installing state-of-the-art technology, including three wall-mounted cameras and two ceiling-mounted ones, all controlled remotely from a soundproof booth. The inconspicuous technology had been less distracting than in other trials, where Jason felt like he was trying a case and acting in a movie all at the same time.
        Jason clipped his battery