Across his big mahogany desk, Dan, a wiry man who looked bored and was almost begging for something that would surprise him, stared seriously at me. Meting out justice was serious shit. I was his fifth Homecoming Week case of the day.
"You're asking for a continuance with a dismissal?" Dan adjusted his glasses. "This isn't a simple minor in possession/minor in consumption. Your client was driving while intoxicated. He hit and nearly killed another student."
I stared into my lap and swallowed hard, thinking of Zach and the crazy-grateful way he'd reacted to the whole thing. Like me hitting him had let him atone for his past sins and save the life of a sister of sorts as repayment for taking one. Zach and the mysterious way his mind worked attracted girls like a magnet. And had always driven me crazy. He was impossible to understand.
"Technically, my client was still on private property. Not on the public roads, where the campus police have jurisdiction. He was simply backing his car in what amounts to a private driveway." Tom smiled. "Look, Dan. I know you've read the case notes. There were extenuating circumstances. By his own admission, the victim, Zachary Harris, admits he jumped out behind Mr. Bradley without warning, giving him no time to react and stop."
Dan looked neither amused nor moved. "To save a young woman Mr. Bradley was about to run over with his car." He glanced at me.
I sat like a stone, unmovable, trying to be unreadable, about to be stepped on by justice. Grateful as hell to Zach that he'd saved me from killing Morgan. Or even merely maiming her. Furious with her for putting me in this position. Why the hell did she lie down in that alley? Why hadn't I walked her home?
Morgan had always seemed so tough. But she'd been an emotional basket case that night. We both were. I shouldn't have taken advantage of her. We shouldn't have taken advantage of each other.
Tom looked completely unfazed by the accusation. "It remains to be seen whether my client would have actually hit Miss Peterson. His car is equipped with a backing camera and object detection. Just a few inches more and his car would have warned him of the young lady's presence. He may very well have stopped in time. We'll never know for sure now." Tom's tone was as smooth as a lake on a calm summer morning.
Dan looked like he wanted to throw both of us into that lake. Like Tom's story was a bunch of bullshit.
"You've read the statement I submitted from Mr. Harris. The victim has asked the courts for mercy for my client, saying he doesn't blame Mr. Bradley for his injuries. And maintaining that if it were up to him, Mr. Harris wouldn't press charges. In these extreme circumstances, I think it's worth taking his wishes into consideration.
"Zachary Harris accidentally ran over and killed his baby sister when he was a toddler. He feels that one accident nearly ruined the rest of his life. Being a true friend, he wants to spare Mr. Bradley the same fate. Let's not lay more guilt at Zachary Harris' feet.
"My client was doing what almost every student on campus was doing that Friday night of Homecoming Week—partying. Spirits ran high after his team won the powder puff football tournament. He wasn't taking as much care to pay attention to his surroundings as he should have. And yes, he was drinking.
"But he's just months away from his twenty-first birthday. This is his first offense. He has a clean record—not even a speeding ticket. His father has made recompense to the victim for injuries incurred. And Mr. Bradley has abstained from alcohol since the incident. He has apologized to the victim. And been forgiven.
"We're not asking for mercy. We're asking for reason. There's no need to take punitive action for what is an unfortunate accident and temporary lapse of judgment. One that my client has owned up to and learned from. He's an ideal candidate for a continuance. Don't ruin his future with a criminal record over a stupid college mistake."
Dan stared at us, studying me. My mouth went dry.
"You make a good case, Tom." It was hard to tell whether he believed his own words. "I'll grant your continuance. If Mr. Bradley agrees to my terms. He will surrender his driver's license until his twenty-first birthday. Attend the first available session of Alcohol and Drug Information School at his own expense, and pay a two-thousand-dollar fine. If he doesn't get into any more trouble within the year, the charges will be dismissed."
I released a breath I'd hardly been aware of holding.
Beside me, Tom tensed. Two thousand dollars was extreme. The maximum was five thousand, but most people got off with paying a few hundred.
"And he will attend a victims' panel," Dan said before Tom could speak and argue for better terms.
It was clear he was making a power play. The longer we considered his offer, the steeper the terms became. And everything was non-negotiable.
"Thank you, Dan. On behalf of my client, we accept." Tom stood and extended his hand to shake Dan's.
"Good. The next session of ADIS begins this Friday night. Make sure he's in it."
Outside the courtroom, Tom hugged me.
"Thank you, man," I said, slapping him on the back. "It was touch and go there for a minute."
We stepped into the frigid sunshine of an early November day.
"The bastard. Two thousand dollars! Your dad's going to chew me out for not trying to get away with less." Tom winked at me and pulled his keys out of his pocket. "I gotta run. I have a flight out in less than an hour. Stay out of trouble. I'll see you at Thanksgiving."
He glanced both ways and crossed the street to his parked rental car. He'd flown in from Seattle last night. Tom was always in motion, one of Seattle's top criminal defense attorneys. He had pressing cases that needed attention at home. If he hadn't been Dad's partner, he wouldn't have stooped to take my puny case.
I pulled out my cell phone and called Zach like I'd promised him. "Hey, you saved my ass, man. That statement of yours was genius. I got a continuance."
"What? They're not throwing your butt in jail?" Zach laughed.
It felt good to hear him recovering. He sounded more and more like himself every time I talked to him.
"Sorry to disappoint." I walked toward the corner, heading back to campus and the frat. "No, they're just fining my ass. Two thousand bucks. Dad's going to go apeshit."
"Two thousand. That's a bunch of bullshit," Zach said.
"It's peanuts compared to what I could have gotten." I changed the subject. "You sound good. How are you feeling?"
"Still have the headaches, but I'm getting there," he said.
I swallowed my guilt over being the cause of them. Zach had been so young, he couldn't remember running over his baby sister. I had been so drunk, the details of hitting him were fuzzy. We were even that way. "I still don't get how you're grateful to me."
"I told you—now I know how it felt when I hit my baby sis. It was quick. There was no pain. Until I woke up."
"That's supposed to be comforting? You're making me feel like shit. How much pain have I put you through?" I turned the corner and headed up the steep hill toward Greek Row.
Zach laughed. "It is to me. You're on your own, bud. Don't worry. I'm not going to sue you for pain and suffering. Though living with Mom was giving me second thoughts. Eighteen years of ignoring me, and suddenly she's suffocating me with her motherly attention. Staying with Dad is a welcome respite."
"Still at your dad's? They haven't started playing ping-pong with you yet?"
Since the accident when he was three and ran over his little sister, neither parent had wanted him. Since the night I nearly killed Zach, they were falling all over him, having a contest to show who was sorrier and who could spoil him the most.
"Nope. I'm still at Dad's. And still feeling like I woke up in an alternate universe. Who the hell are these attentive parents? I didn't realize how good I had it being the invisible child. This makes me sound like an ingrate, but I'm getting sick of all the fawning and attention."
"Cheer up," I said. "It's just a matter of time before they bounce back to their old bitchy selves."
He laughed. "Yeah, you're probably right." Za
ch paused. "I had a visit from Jordan yesterday."
I took a deep breath of the cold air. When I let it out, I watched it curl skyward, like it was portending doom. "Yeah?" I said as casually as I could, pushing back the guilt. "That was nice of her."
Jordan was my girlfriend back home. We'd been off and on again since high school. My parents didn't like her. BFD. I kept her a secret from them. Jordan thought it was bullshit, which caused a ton of stress in our relationship. We were teetering on the edge of off. She didn't like my friendship with Zach's girlfriend Alexis. If she found out about Morgan…
"She didn't tell you?" Zach's question was pointed.
I tensed. "No. Why? Should she?"
"Chill, Dak," Zach said. "I'm worried about you two. Jordan acts like she thinks you're freezing her out. After all we went through…"
"Are you talking to Jordan behind my back?"
"I just told you about it, didn't I? Is there someone else?"
I cursed beneath my breath. "She put you up to that." I crossed another street and picked up my pace. "Jordan's always been the jealous type. She's imagining things. We're fine."
"Whatever you say," Zach said. "How are you handling the fallout from your fake relationship with Alexis and her, and me betraying you?" Zach laughed.
It was a long story. Alexis and I had pretended to be a couple to take the heat off her and Zach and me and Jordan. In retrospect, it had been a dumbass plan. At the time, I thought maybe I had a shot with Alexis. Yeah, I know. That makes me look like a douchebag.
"I'm bearing up. Getting ribbed a lot. But since you saved Morgan's life and mine, they're coming to terms with our friendship."
"Alexis insists she has to keep up the pretense of betraying you," Zach said.
"Yeah, she refuses to rat me out. I told her it's okay with me. But she refuses to step out of the fire and save herself." I paused. "You got a good one, Zach. My parents are giving me shit for, quote, 'losing her.'"
Zach laughed. "Nothing new there. Your parents give you crap over who you date all the time." He paused. "You should come clean with them and admit you're back with Jordan."
Like hell, I thought. My old man would shit bullets. Right now, I couldn't afford to be in deeper shit with him.
Chapter Three
Morgan
A little before five Friday afternoon, the sorority house pulsed with music and laughter. We weren't the most prestigious house on campus for no reason. Delta Delta Psis knew how to party. Knew how to dress. Knew how to look. We were famous party girls and flirts.
The happiest day of my life was the day they offered me a bid. Me, tagalong baby sister of my family, had arrived. Me, the child who never belonged, who didn't know the family stories, who'd never known my oldest brother, who had no shared history with my much older siblings, finally had an outrageously fun group of sisters.
It had been touch and go for me during rush. I was sure another house was going to offer me a bid. At our university, you're only allowed a bid from one house. You either take it or leave it. If more than one house wanted you, they decided among themselves who got the honor of offering.
I knew I had to take extreme measures to have a prayer of getting in. So I suicide bid the Double Deltsies. Suicide bidding is the riskiest move you can make during rush. If the house you suicide bid doesn't want you, you end up without a bid at all. I was scared I would end recruitment week without a bid and have to wait to try again during informal rush the following semester. Be a semester off and miss all the fun fall events.
To my absolute amazement, my strategy worked. I never looked back and never regretted a thing. Until now. Most of the girls blamed me for the accident that put our favorite live-in houseboy Zach in the hospital and on medical leave from school. They blamed me for getting him kicked out of the house when I caught him in bed with my little.
They didn't understand—I loved the house. And I had loved Zach. Loved them both so much that I wanted the rules respected and things to stay the same. Zach unobtainable and living in. Our sorority strong and vital.
They didn't understand how I'd lived my life striving for the unobtainable. It was something I was only realizing about myself—I was afraid to commit to reality. Afraid of really putting myself out there for a guy who was free to fall in love with me and be available. Afraid I was unworthy and unlovable.
I know—that's some serious crap, right? It's not like I sat around self-evaluating all the time. But since the accident, I'd had a lot of time to think. And a couple of alcohol abuse evaluations with a psychiatrist in the student counseling services.
She said my drinking was a way of self-medicating and numbing my pain. Dousing my fears.
Pain? I didn't think I had any more than the usual. Yeah, my siblings, who are all much older, treated me like I was their niece, not their sister. One even called me that, like she was embarrassed by me and the fact that our parents had sex after forty.
And my grandma, my steady force and biggest fan, had been having heart problems. Like, serious heart crap. In and out of the hospital, verge-of-death stuff. I hadn't told anyone in the house. I didn't need a pity party.
Others might argue that I had pushed Zach to break the rules with me. Live-in houseboys were forbidden from having romantic relationships with the girls. Violating the rule would cost them their job. I had tried to seduce him in defiance of those same rules, but only when I was drunk and or when my defenses were down. But was that really any different than all the other stupid crap people do when they're drunk?
Now I was on the outside, a social pariah, banned from the fun, as my sisters discussed their Friday night plans. As I walked through the living room, Katie, one of our first semester pledges, stopped me.
"What are you up to tonight, Morgan?" Her gaze flitted over me.
I was wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt, no makeup, my hair up in a high ponytail. The best parties never started until after ten. It wasn't like not being ready was a giveaway of my social probation status.
Katie's innocuous little question was loaded. The pledge was probably fishing. On the one hand, I always knew where the best parties were. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she simply wanted the party scene scoop. On the other hand, she was one of Alexis' best friends. It was highly likely she was trying to trick me into confessing that I'd been put on probation.
I shrugged, noncommittal and full of false bravado. "I haven't decided."
What a cool liar I was. I was going to Alcohol and Drug Information School at six. Taking the bus because the prosecutor had confiscated my driver's license. My adorable blue Prius was parked in the sorority house parking lot out back, collecting dust until my birthday. I had already decided I was going on the best, most comprehensive birthday run ever next January. After I took my car for a spin.
I walked past Katie into the kitchen, thinking that I'd gone two full days avoiding Alexis rather than making nice with her. Call me rebellious.
Seth, Zach's former roommate, was hard at work in the kitchen, helping our cook Betty with dinner prep.
I smiled sweetly at him. "It smells delicious in here. I'm starving. Can I snag something to eat before I head out?"
Dinner was at six, precisely when I would be in school. I could have gotten something to eat out, but why bother when I could flirt with Seth and get something now?
When Seth saw me, he raised an eyebrow, clutched his chest, and fell back like he was having a heart attack.
"Shut up!" I gave him a gentle shove.
"Come on, Morgs. Don't give me a heart attack while I'm holding a knife." He sliced the air with it. "Is the infamous queen of partying and drinking on an empty stomach actually going to eat something before she goes out?" He made a show of glancing out the window. "Hell can't be frozen over. It's not even freezing here."
I rolled my eyes. "Stop teasing."
Betty glanced at us from the corner of her eye, and smiled. "Give her something, Seth. I don't need her death on my conscience."
It was the wrong thing to say, given how close I'd come to being road kill. Betty was usually kind, but her statement was clearly barbed beneath her lighthearted tone.
Seth sighed, defeated, and plopped a large spoonful of Betty's homemade mac and cheese, gooey with butter and cheese, on a plate for me.
"What? No bread?" I said. "To absorb the alcohol?"
"That's an urban myth. Protein and fat work better. Enjoy." He handed me a fork.
He watched as I took a bite and rolled my eyes upward in appreciation, punctuating it with a sigh. "Delicious! Betty, are you trying to make us all gain the freshman fifteen?"
She laughed and returned her focus to finishing dinner.
After the incident, I'd had a heart-to-heart with Seth. He understood me now, I hoped. Zach had been his roommate and they'd been tight. I knew he missed Zach, and blamed me—originally, anyway.
I leaned in and whispered in his ear, "I don't need protein and fat. I'm not drinking tonight. I'm doing the opposite—going to ADIS."
"Shit, Morgs." His look softened.
"Keep it to yourself, okay?" I took a deep breath. "Everyone knows I have to do it. But I haven't told anyone else I'm going tonight. I couldn't stand their pity or their judgment.
"Oh, and just so you know, I'm on social probation for the semester. Don't spread that around, either. Only the standards board knows for sure."
"Why are you telling me?" He looked puzzled.
"I need a friend." I was sincere.
"And I'm it?" He stared at me like he was debating whether I was telling the truth or pulling his leg. "Fraternizing with the help. You must be desperate." He grinned that roguish grin of his, the one that made his dimple crease. "Are you sure you can trust me?"
I shrugged and smiled at him, but my heart was pounding out of control. He was teasing and pulling my leg. Seth was the king of teasing. But his words held a lot of truth—I was desperate for a true friend I could confide in. And I had just handed him the power to blackmail me and lend truth to the rumors that were already flying.