14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 12

YUKI WAS WRESTLING with a bear of a conflict as she parked her car in the wide-open parking lot at Fort Mason Center. She had a job interview with the Defense League at ten, and although they’d called her, she’d been borderline nauseated since she’d agreed to talk with them.

The main reason for her queasiness was that she liked her job and she liked her boss, Leonard “Red Dog” Parisi, who had been her biggest booster. She hadn’t told him or anyone else at the office that she was thinking of making a switch. So going on a job interview made her feel sneaky.

Just as important, she also hadn’t told Brady about the interview. Her husband was decisive and opinionated, and she wanted to make up her own mind before Brady had his say. And she was pretty sure he would tell her, “Do not take that job.”

Yuki stared out at the always astonishing panoramic view of the bridge stretching across the glistening bay. Then she locked up her car and crossed the lot to a sidewalk running alongside one of the former fort’s barracks. She passed several identical rusty brown doors before she saw the one marked THE DEFENSE LEAGUE.

Entering the office, Yuki gave her name to the young woman behind the plain wooden desk, took a wrapped peppermint from the dish, and sat down on one of six identical wooden chairs. Apart from the receptionist, Yuki was the only person in the small, unadorned, pretty-close-to-shabby room.

She couldn’t help comparing this out-of-the-way place with the district attorney’s office in the Hall of Justice. There, she was one of hundreds of legal professionals and cops working both sides of criminal cases all day, and most nights and weekends, too. The DA’s office energized her, tested her, and plugged her into the heart of the San Francisco justice system, where she was finally beginning to distinguish herself.

And thinking about all that made her wonder once again what in God’s name she was doing here. But she knew.

The one thing that nagged at her conscience was her growing awareness that people with money got far better representation in court than those without. Light-years better. Nearly every day, some poor guy who’d been represented by an overworked and overwhelmed postgraduate public defender got out of jail after twenty long years because the DNA evidence came back saying he wasn’t guilty.

Yuki couldn’t ignore her feeling that two-tiered justice wasn’t really just.

She’d been thinking quite often, really, that perhaps she should be doing something about this inequity—and then she’d gotten a call last week from Zac Jordan at the Defense League.

Jordan had said, “I’ve heard what a fighter you are, Ms. Castellano. I think we should talk.”

It was ten to ten, so Yuki used the few minutes of utter silence to review what she knew about this not-for-profit foundation sponsored by a secret-Santa megabucks philanthropist. And she remembered a scrap of headhunter wisdom she’d relied on when she was looking for her first job.

Get the job offer. Then you can always turn it down.

A phone buzzed on the receptionist’s desk.

The young woman answered the call, then said, “Ms. Castellano? I can take you back to see Mr. Jordan now.”

It was showtime.