"Ms. Wu, let me help you," he said.
"No, thanks. I've got it. And you can call me Amy."
"Ray, if you didn't remember," he said, then stood waiting at the door while she finished up, throwing everything into her heavy lawyer's briefcase, snapping it closed. When she stood, then leaned over to pick the briefcase up, he said, "That thing must weigh a ton. At least let me take that."
Exhausted, her head still pounding from her hangover, she finally nodded. "That would be nice."
He stepped into the room, picked up the briefcase, gave her some support with a hand under her elbow. "You're sure you're okay to walk?"
In fact, she had some question about that, but she took a step and then another and in a minute they were outside in the hall and then at the main entrance to the cabins. Cottrell accompanied her outside to the razor-wire gate and opened it for her. They stopped there and he put down her briefcase. Turning to say good-bye, she looked up at him. Their eyes met for an instant, and she thought she caught a glimpse of that earlier wariness she had noticed in the courtroom. Again, his eyes seemed old and somehow empty, but- it was as though he had a switch he could throw- suddenly a bit of life came into them. "Your client seems pretty down," he said.
She blew out heavily. "I don't blame him," she said. "He's screwing himself."
"How's that?"
"I dealt him an eight-year top and he turned it down. Now he's looking at LWOP."
"They're moving him to adult?"
"Not yet, but it's probable. I'm trying to get him to help me, but he doesn't seem to know the word 'cooperate.' "
"Maybe he's just scared."
"I'm sure he is. And he should be. Oh, God!" She brought a hand up to her head, squeezed at her temples. With her other hand, she grabbed the side of the gate for support. Cottrell stepped up, grabbed both of her shoulders. "You look like you're going to faint. Maybe you want to sit down."
She nodded and leaned into him. He put his arm around her and walked her back toward the cabins.
From the lobby of the admin building, down the hill Jason Brandt saw the bailiff carrying her briefcase, walking with her to the gate, where they stopped and spent a minute talking. He didn't want her to see him, at least not until she was alone, and so he remained where he was, pretty much out of sight.
Wu hadn't left his thoughts since the night they'd spent together, and now Brandt was unable to take his eyes off her. He had wanted to get to know her since the first time he'd seen her, back right after his law school days. But one or the other of them had always had other relationships going or big cases and she'd more or less slipped from his consciousness until she showed up in his courtroom last week, when finally- he'd thought- there had been no impediment.
Then he really believed that running into her at the Balboa had been a sign. There had been real chemistry between them that night, something uncommon and, he believed, maybe even a little magical. As a general rule, he didn't do one-night stands. The encounter, like it or not, had seemed as though it meant something. Maybe something important.
Then, this morning, thinking for a moment that because she had been near Boscacci when he'd been shot that she, too, might have been physically hurt, made him realize that he'd been way too harsh with her the other morning. Okay, she'd made a mistake by not telling him right away that Bartlett's case wasn't really settled, but maybe it had been innocent after all, something he'd never really given her a chance to assert. Maybe they'd just started talking at the Balboa and in all the personal stuff they'd shared, including the sex, the professional business between them had receded into the background. It certainly had for him.
So he didn't want this antagonism between them to go on any longer. He wanted to apologize for his overreaction, at least see what she had to say to that. And just now, when he'd first seen her coming out of the cabins, he thought he'd take the opportunity to talk to her. One way or another, he thought that the Bartlett matter was going to be over in a few weeks at the most, at least as far as Wu and he were concerned. If Bartlett went to adult court, they wouldn't be adversaries in the same courtroom anymore. Maybe they could pick up where they'd left off. If he could get her to talk to him.
Although if she had gone off on him as ballistic as he had with her, he wasn't sure if he would talk to her.
But then suddenly, as Brandt was watching them, he saw the bailiff put his hands on her shoulders. Then she leaned into him, her face against his chest, and he put his arm around her, keeping it there until they had both disappeared back into the cabins.
His stomach went hollow. He turned to take the long way out the front door of the admin building, where there was less chance that they would inadvertently run into each other.
Cottrell stayed with Wu until she told him she felt better, and then he told her to take care of herself and went inside, back to work. Still, Wu didn't move for a few minutes. She sat on the bench just outside the entrance door to the cabins, trying to summon enough strength to get up and walk to her car. When the cellphone in her briefcase rang, she considered not answering, but then realized that it might be, in fact probably was, the Norths. After all that had transpired so far, she felt that however exhausted she might be, at least she owed them accessibility. She got it on the third ring.
It wasn't the Norths. It was her boss. "Amy? So you're up and about. Where are you?"
"Up at the YGC. I just talked to Andrew."
"Good for you. How's he doing?"
"He's depressed. We talked about starting a club. Not really. That was a joke."
"Well, this isn't. Did you get the message I left at your house about talking to Glitsky?" It came back to her in a flash. "Oh, shit."
"Right," Hardy said. "He's still at his office and he called me at home just now, which I really try to discourage. He was wondering how he could get in contact with you, like immediately. Since I had more or less promised him that you'd see him today, he wondered what was going on. You want his direct number?"
"I guess I'd better."
"Good guess."
By now it was nearly 7:00 P.M. There was no one at any of the desks in Glitsky's reception area at the Hall of Justice, so Wu walked back through the conference room and down the small hallway to the deputy chief's door, which stood ajar.
Some natural light from outside made it through the drawn blinds, but with the electric lights off, the room seemed dim. Glitsky sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. He was canted slightly forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his head down. He might have been napping. Wu was surprised that he didn't seem to have heard her approach, and she stood a moment in the doorway, waiting for him to turn and acknowledge her. When that didn't happen, she tapped lightly on the door.
He didn't exactly jump, but he'd clearly been somewhere else. Now, back in the present, he stood and came toward Wu, checking his watch as he did so. "You made good time from the YGC," he said. "I appreciate it."
"No traffic for a change," she said. "I'm sorry about the mixup around this interview, sir, me not coming down here. It's all my fault, not Mr. Hardy's. He called my home and told me you wanted to see me, but I have a client who's in big trouble and I went to see him first. I didn't realize that this was so urgent, even though Mr. Hardy said it was."
Glitsky seemed to find a little humor in her explanation. "Next time I talk to him, I'll tell him you tried to cover for him. But I know the truth. He forgot to tell you, didn't he?"
"No, really. He-"
But Glitsky held up a hand and stopped her. "Kidding, just kidding." He didn't seem to take much joy in it, though. Awkwardly, he shrugged, half turned. "Well, you're here now," he said, pointing. "Why don't you take that chair and we'll get going."