They Called Me Copy Girl. I Wrote the Law. Chapter 03

They Called Me Copy Girl. I Wrote the Law. Chapter 03: Five Minutes

Nine a.m., Conference Room B.

Fourteen people at the table.

Me at the wall, with a coffee carafe and a stack of napkins, because Celeste made sure everyone saw exactly what I was for.

“That’s Cole,” she’d said on the way in, loud, warm, cruel. “She does our copies. Don’t mind her.”

One of Hart’s lawyers had actually laughed.

The evidence timeline went up on the screen and my whole body reacted before my brain did — that old animal lean toward the exhibit, that itch in my fingers.

I made myself look at the carpet.

Celeste presented beautifully. She’s good at this part. Voice like a documentary narrator. Slides that looked like a fashion campaign.

Then Nathaniel Hart started asking questions.

“You’ve projected a five-day trial.”

“Correct.”

“Six firms told me to plead. You’re telling me five days and an acquittal.”

“Six firms were conservative.”

“Or six firms were honest.” He tapped the table once. “Explain the text message.”

Celeste didn’t blink. “Theo will testify. He’ll explain the context. Juries believe kids.”

“Juries believe kids.”

“Yes.”

“And how did the prosecution get that text?”

“Search warrant on the phone. Standard.”

The consultant on the video screen went very still.

Hart leaned back. “Ms. Marrow. What time was the warrant signed?”

Silence.

Three seconds. Four.

I have seen lawyers blow a whole reputation in four seconds. It doesn’t sound like anything. It’s just a person breathing wrong.

“Approximately three-thirty a.m.,” Celeste said.

“And what time did they take the phone?”

“…When they arrested him.”

“Which was when?”

“That would — I’d have to check the log.”

“You’d have to check the log.” His voice never rose. That was the worst part. “My brother’s freedom is not a thing you check later.”

Whitcombe jumped in. “Mr. Hart, Ms. Marrow is one of the finest—”

“Mr. Whitcombe, I’ve read your revenue projections. You need my eighty million more than you need your dignity, so please stop talking.”

Whitcombe stopped talking.

Hart looked back at Celeste. “I’ll ask once more. If the phone was taken before the warrant, what is your motion?”

“We would… raise it at trial.”

“With what?”

“That — would depend on how the detective testifies.”

“You don’t have one.” He said it flatly. “You have a beautiful slide deck and no plan for the only thing that actually matters in that courtroom.”

He stood and buttoned his jacket.

“We’re done. Hart Industries withdraws. Theo takes the plea Thursday.”

Whitcombe stood too fast, knocked his water over. “Mr. Hart—”

“The plea is fifteen years in an adult facility,” the consultant said quietly from the screen. “He’s seventeen. He’s five-foot-eight. You know what happens to boys like that at Coldwater.”

And that sentence went through me like a blade.

I know exactly what happens at Coldwater. I know what a laundry room looks like in a coroner’s photograph. I know what it’s like to hear the verdict and feel your whole life leave your body while you’re still standing at the defense table.

Two voices in my head.

Not your business. You’re the copy girl. You have a small quiet life and it doesn’t hurt anymore.

It always hurt. You just stopped calling it that.

Hart was three steps from the door.

The carafe was still in my hand.

“Mr. Hart.”

My voice came out steady. It surprised me more than anyone.

Fourteen heads turned.

Celeste’s face went white, then red. “Cole—”

“Give me five minutes,” I said.

The room made a sound. Someone laughed. Whitcombe said, “Get her out of here—”

“She has a coffee pot in her hand,” Celeste hissed. “Mr. Hart, I apologize—”

Nathaniel Hart didn’t look at Celeste.

He turned fully around, and looked at me, and something in his face was not surprise.

It was recognition. Like a man confirming a suspicion he’d been carrying since yesterday morning at 8:59 a.m., when he watched a woman with a cart read a strategy memo in nine seconds and go pale.

“And who exactly are you?” he said.