Page 52 of The Wrong Side of the Law

She looks at me silently for a long moment, considering and weighing her next words.

“Okay, then.” She says, with a sharp, definite nod of her head.

Emily reaches over the table to where my hands lay folded in front of me, prying them apart without resistance, and takes each of my hands in one of hers.

My body freezes in place, but even if I could move I wouldn’t know what to do. I’d be too afraid to spook her, startle her into pulling away again. I glance down to where Emily’s long fingers wrap around mine, squeezing so tightly that her French-manicured nails nearly draw blood.

“I don’t want to make this awkward,” she says, looking at our joined hands as though she’s as surprised as I am. “And I don’t want to ask anything that you can’t tell me, nothing that would compromise your work or your ethics.”

I nod, silently.

“If this doesn’t work,” Emily begins. “If we don’t find a way to tie Ferry to the Ecstasy. What happens then? I know that you have to prosecute Frank, but would you get a conviction? With what you already have?”

“The trial is still a long way off,” I say, looking for something safe to say. “It’s still… It’s just too early to really know. I mean, the interviews aren’t all finished yet. Lab protocols, all sorts of things that could still come back.”

The safest path through a minefield is the one which avoids it entirely. Emily turns away, the expression on her face clearly showing her disappointment at the cowardice of my answer.

Of course I know what’s going to happen if it goes to trial. Innocent or not, he was caught in actual physical possession of a whole lot of a thing which both a K-9 and a field test kit identified as something highly illegal. The lab might have a couple weeks of backlog to give us the official results, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I could try Francis Wilson Junior tomorrow morning and the jury would give me a guilty verdict by lunchtime.

I feel like a total shit right now.

“Emily,” I say, flipping my hand palm-up inside hers, holding them tight when she starts to pull away. “Emily. Look at me.”

Her sapphire-blue eyes rest, unfocused and unseeing, on our joined hands for a time before drifting aimlessly up to someplace near my face. It’s close enough.

“You know I have to prosecute him, right? Unless we can find something, some missing link, that ties the drugs to someone else.”

Emily nods silently.

“It’s not personal,” I tell her, punctuating with a squeeze of her hands. “It’s… it’s thelaw. I don’t have any choice.”

“I understand,” she sighs. “I know.”

There’s not a thing I can do about this. Absolutely nothing, if I want to color inside the lines. Not without crossing those lines, going over to the wrong side of the law.

There’s no magic wand I can wave to make this go away, and ethically I can’t even tell her that I wish there was.

“I’m sorry I brought it up,” Emily whispers. “I shouldn’t have. I know you’re going out of your way on this. I know you’re going to be as fair as you possibly can be.”

“Of course I will be.” It’s more than a statement, but not quite a protest.

Emily closes her eyes again, and for the space of a deep breath her face betrays the effort it takes to will herself back to calm; to stuff the worry and fear back into its box. When she opens them again, she’s smiling. Only someone who’s spent time with her, spent hours seeing her face, would recognize the shadow of sadness that she can’t quite cover up.

With regret, I start to pull my hands away, but she doesn’t let me get far, and clasps both of mine in both of hers.

“I know,” she says. “I really do. It’s just, I’m worried about him. He’s always been so sheltered, and Margaret never really let him grow up. He has no idea what he’s facing. She… wasn’t really the best mother, in hindsight.”

“And the award for understatement of the year,” I say, deadpan, “goes to—drumroll, please—Miss Emily Wilson.”

She laughs at that, bright and cheerful again, but I know that it’s feigned.

“It’s getting late,” Emily says, letting go of my hands and folding her arms in front of herself. Her body language is closed off, protective. Her eyes glance this way and that: at the bar, at the table, at her purse, my forehead, my cheekbones, my hairline, anywhere but direct eye contact with me. “And I still have to get back to my car.”

It seems we’re done here, then. Whatever brief interlude that was with the pretty yet so confusing girl who might or might not have been flirting with me… is over.

“Let me walk you there?”

Emily slides out of the booth and stands, shaking her head. Her movements are jerky; awkward, in stark contrast to her usual careless grace. Whatever this was, it affected her.

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