Read Online Reilly 04 - Breach of Promise by Perri O'Shaughnessy - Free Book Online Page A

are so amazing. Everyone’s doing what they can for me.” She sounded moved. “I treasure my friends.”
    “I guess they treasure you, too.”
    “If that’s true, I’m lucky,” Lindy said. She didn’t say anything else. She waited for Nina.
    “Meet me at my office at nine tomorrow morning,” Nina said. She hung up, pushing away a nasty little feeling that told her she had no business taking this case.

4
     
    Fifteen days later, Nina stood up as Judge Curtis E. Milne of the Superior Court of El Dorado County materialized from the wall behind his dais. Or so it appeared. Actually, a nondescript, burlap-textured partition extended out in front of his personal back door to the courtroom, and he merely came out and sat down behind his tall desk, but the effect was that of a magical manifestation. A Baraka chief from the Congo would have appreciated this encouragement of superstitious respect.
    Unfortunately, many California judges these days got no respect from the office they held—they had to put up with lawyers who no longer bothered to control their tantrums and defendants who dissed them to their faces.
    Judge Milne, an ex–district attorney with fifteen years on the bench, was an exception. His bailiff, Deputy Kimura, had toured the courtroom, meticulously collecting bubble gum and newspaper litter before Milne came in. Any disturbance or other breach of protocol while Milne’s court was in session meant expulsion or worse. “The Judge,” as he was called by the little community of Tahoe lawyers who appeared before him on a regular basis, was actually a small, balding senior citizen, but in Nina’s mind he stood ten feet tall in his black robes and his voice erupted like a volcano.
    When the judge came in the courtroom fell silent except for the interminable noise of the ventilation system, and all rose. Although the Order to Show Cause had been taken off the morning Law and Motion calendar and had been specially scheduled for two o’clock, the place was packed with reporters and other community members. Photographers lounged in the public hallway outside the courtroom, and several TV vans waited outside the courthouse. The Markovs were private people, but they were monstrously rich. Everyone wanted to watch the action in this particular family feud.
    At the plaintiff’s counsel table, Jeffrey Riesner stood in a thousand-dollar suit with Mike Markov, while Nina had taken her place at the other table with Lindy at her side.
    Nina had spent several days after her conversation with Lindy trying to get Riesner on the phone, to set up the meeting Lindy had requested. All she got was Riesner’s secretary, who was so sorry, but Mr. Riesner was unavailable.
    Markov, barely contained by a charcoal suit stretched tight across the upper arms, hadn’t even acknowledged Lindy when she came in. Dressed in a simple burnt-sienna-colored suit over a soft beige blouse, she had tried to talk to him but Riesner had taken his arm and led him firmly to his chair.
    It was just as well. Markov had brewed to a boil; his clenched jaw and bulging eyes made that clear. He had been served with Lindy’s responsive papers just a few days before. Obviously, he hadn’t liked what he had read.
    Rachel Pembroke sat in the front row of the audience seats, close enough to Markov to whisper back and forth with him. Her legs in an extremely short skirt were crossed in that very uncomfortable way that makes legs look their best, and she was enjoying the attention of the reporters who took up most of the other seats. A long-haired man nearby had riveted his eyes on Rachel’s face.
    “That’s Harry Anderssen,” Lindy told Nina in a low voice, “the model for our new ad campaign. Rachel’s old boyfriend.”
    Nina recognized him as the man on the boat who had called out to Rachel when she went overboard during Mike Markov’s party. His hair was shorter and darker than the supermodel Fabio’s, but there the differences pretty much