Page 55 of Goodbye Girl
“Probation is possible.”
“The sentence doesn’t matter. I would never cut a deal on these charges.”
“Never say never.”
“I won’t admit to allegations that aren’t true. As Theo’s best friend, you of all persons should respect that.”
Jack didn’t always ask if his client was guilty and didn’t always need or want to know. But any client who put herself in the same category as Theo Knight had a few questions to answer.
“Nothing in this indictment is true? Is that what you’re saying?”
“None of it.”
“Not even your alleged extramarital affair with Tyler McCormick?”
Imani drew a breath but didn’t answer.
“You want to tell me about that?” said Jack.
“I was a twenty-year-old spoiled brat when I married Shaky. He’s eleven years older than me. He controlled everything. My career. My record contract. My finances. My image. My social media. Even the clothes I wore. The one thing he couldn’t control was whoever I randomly hooked up with. So I did it. I did it to spite him. And I did ita lot.”
It wasn’t Jack’s job to judge. “Men and women? Or only men?”
“What makes you ask that question?”
“Shaky’s claim at the court hearing about forced penetration. You said he wasn’t bisexual, but he claims you forced him to have sex with your partners.”
“Yeah, he wishes. That’s Shaky’s way of protecting his own masculinity. He’s not the weak man who stays with a wife who sleeps with other men. He’s a poor victim forced to have sex with two women. What misery.”
“Was Tyler McCormick one of your random hookups?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Then how does he fit into the picture, if he wasn’t your lover?”
“He fits in because he was the farthest thing from it.”
“What does that mean?”
Imani looked away, then back. “Tyler McCormick was stalking me.”
Her response seemed to hang in the air between them.
“Oh,” said Jack.
Imani locked eyes with her lawyer, the expression on her face deadly serious. “Yeah,” she said. “Oh.”
Chapter 21
Sixteen days after his client’s indictment, Jack burned an entire tank of gas driving north to the state’s most secure correctional facility for men, located in Raiford, Florida.
Imani’s arraignment had gone as expected. Both defendants entered pleas of “not guilty” and were released on bail. The rules of discovery required the prosecution to turn over all grand jury materials to the defense, but it had taken more than two weeks for the boxes to land in Jack’s office. Only after reviewing the grand jury transcripts was Jack able to identify the state’s key witnesses. Stop number one on his list of pretrial priorities was Florida State Prison, which housed some of the state’s most dangerous convicted felons. Among them was the prosecution’s star witness against Imani.
Jack checked in at the visitors’ entrance. “I’m here for the deposition of Douglas Paxton,” he told the guard behind the glass.
Jack had been to FSP dozens of time before to see clients—including Theo and others on Florida’s death row. Andie had never warmed up to it. “Off to defend the guilty,” she’d say on his way out the door. He’d always thought it was good-natured ribbing on her part, and that, on some level, she respected him for what he did. Jack wasn’t sure if there was something different about the Imani case, or if it was the cumulative effect over the years. But that blowup on the call from London seemed to drive home that Andie was able to love himonlyby separating who he was from what he did. Jack was starting to wonder if that was even possible.
“Follow the guard down the hallway,” the corrections officer said.