Chapter Seventeen
Threatening and Intimidating
Dane tore into the parking lot of Tweed Law. His truck knew just where to park. Muscle memory. But that was all it was at this point— a memory.
Upstairs, only Mr. Tweed lurked, and possibly a few janitors.
“Don’t you know it’s not safe for a man to be alone in an office at night? Predators and such. In red dresses.” Dane’s joke rang hollow as he took a seat in front of Tweed; the man’s eyes had circles beneath them.
“This time they’re in beige.”
Beige?
Tweed pushed a folder across the table at Dane, and Dane opened it. Inside the front cover was a photo that could’ve been titled “Beige Woman.” Eyes, hair, skin tone, blouse, jacket, even her glasses; all the same color.
“Okay?” Dane looked up, needing explanation.
“Not really. Read on.”
He opened to the next pages. Oh, right. Not okay. “They’ve set a hearing for me.”
“I asked them to expedite.”
But it was for Tuesday. At four-thirty. Brooke’s hearing was at four. Even if they were both set for the Naughton Superior Court building, Dane couldn’t be in two hearings at once.
Great. He could go to hers, cut out early and head downstairs to get disbarred at the same location. One stop shopping.
Dane’s mouth dropped open to protest the scheduling conflict, but he remembered he wasn’t supposed to be doing legal work for a female client, especially not a former Miss Chesapeake. Instead he replied, “And they complied with your request? Maybe I shouldn’t be shocked.”
Tweed’s eyes got an even more exhausted tilt. “Someone reported you.”
“Reported me? For what?”
“For serving as that bombshell’s lawyer at the Harvey Jarman will reading.”
“But I—”
“No buts, Rockwell. In a sexual harassment case, the facts don’t matter. You should know that. It’s all about the appearance of guilt.” Tweed exhaled heavily. “I warned you. Didn’t I warn you?”
“She’s a friend of the family.” Er, that wasn’t right. He was a friend of her family. It was getting late. “I was only there for moral support.”
“No one else registered to attend as her legal counsel.”
How did Tweed have all this information?
It didn’t matter.
“So, basically this expedited hearing is so the ethics commission can convict sooner rather than later because I’m some sort of menace to women?”
Tweed didn’t answer, and Dane’s stomach wrenched, his words coming faster.
“There’s so much wrong with this.” He shoved the file back. “Did you even see the security tape from my original accusation? Do the facts even matter in my situation?”
Tweed looked grim. “I’ve met this beige person. Nieve Ingersoll. She’s…let’s just say she’s the guilty-until-proven-innocent type in matters like this.”
Great. “Now we’ve crossed over into Napoleonic law.” The French legal system gave all the power to the accuser. Which was probably the whole warped reasoning behind the guillotine mania back in the day.
“She did attend law school in New Orleans.”
Perfect. Where Louisianans still kept French law a stronghold. Dane set his jaw. “So due process is out of the question.”
“Bring your A game.” Tweed’s words were a dismissal.
Dane left, the moonless night’s heat and humidity threatening to stifle him.
Now his career hung by a fragile thread, and the one thing he had going for him, the thing that would guarantee he’d always be there for Brooke— and that he wasn’t the Rockwell his name implied— had gone into jeopardy.
His phone rang. Brooke. What was he going to say to her? That he couldn’t be her lawyer? That it didn’t matter because Ames was back, and she’d have him to count on, like she’d always wanted? That in a matter of days he’d be a convicted sex offender and lose his license to practice law?
And let the beige ethics woman prove I’m the Rockwell I always knew I was.
He let the call go to voice mail. Brooke really couldn’t count on him.
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