4th of July

Chapter 83

YUKI STOOD ASIDE AS I edged behind the table and took my seat next to silver-haired-and-tongued Mickey Sherman. He half rose and shook my hand.

“How ya doin,’ Lindsay? You look terrific. You okay?”

“Never better,” I cracked.

But we both knew that no sane person would be feeling “okay” in my shoes. My whole career was at stake, and if the jury went against me, my life would go up in flames. Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Cabot were asking $50 million in damages, and although they’d have to get $49.99 million from the City of San Francisco, I would be financially devastated anyway and possibly known as Dirty Harriet for the rest of my life.

As Yuki sat down beside me, Chief Tracchio reached across the railing to squeeze my shoulder in support. I hadn’t expected that, and I was touched. Then voices rolled across the room as the plaintiffs’ “dream team” filed in and took their seats across from us.

A moment later, Dr. and Mrs. Cabot came into the courtroom and sat behind their attorneys. The reedlike Dr. Cabot and his blond and visibly grieving wife immediately fixed their eyes on me.

Andrew Cabot was a trembling rock of contained rage and anguish. And Eva Cabot’s face was a picture of desolation that would never end. She was a mother who’d inexplicably lost her daughter because of me, and I’d crippled her son as well. When she turned her red-rimmed gray eyes on me, all I could see was her bottomless fury.

Eva Cabot hated me.

She wished me dead.

Yuki’s cool hand on my wrist broke my eye contact with Mrs. Cabot—but not before the image of our locked stares was captured on tape.

“All rise,” boomed the bailiff.

There was a deafening rustle as everyone in the courtroom stood and the small bespectacled form of Judge Achacoso ascended to the bench. I sat down in a daze.

This was it.

My trial was about to begin.