Breaking Steele (Sarah Steele Legal Thriller)

Chapter 23

“SO WHAT ARE WE hoping to find out from Heather?” Joshua asked. He rolled down the window and rested his arm on the sill.

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to her, see what we can find out. I want to know what made her change her name.”

“So we’re fishing?”

“Pretty much.”

“Got it.”

“Have we gotten anything back from the evidence in the barn yet?” I asked, needing something concrete to hope for.

“Nope, not yet,” he replied. “It’s a long shot—not sure the judge will even let us use it. It’s been in that barn a long time and it’ll look to the other side like it was planted.”

“I know. I need it more for my own motivation than anything else, proof in my own head.”

The whole case, from start to finish, didn’t make sense. The more I thought about it, the more messed up it seemed. The paid jurors, my kidnapping scare, the forensic cokehead, the witness flaking out, the way Hank Williams was so calm through the trial, the flowers and threats, Hannah’s reticence . . . it went on and on.  

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Joshua broke in to my thoughts and I snapped back to reality.

“Oh, just thinking about this case, the trial—all of it.”

“Kind of messed up.”

“Yeah.”

Joshua looked out the window. “I think he’s just a spoiled man who has a lot of money and has some guys on his payroll who do his dirty work. I think he gets off on it.”

“I agree. I feel like I’m missing something big, like he’s playing this game and I only have half the rules.”

“I feel just the opposite,” Joshua said. “I feel like we’re searching for rules that aren’t there. Does he seem to you like the kind of man who plays by rules?”

“No.” I sighed. “No, he doesn’t.”