Read Indicted (Bad Judgment #1) for Free Online Page B

as I’d always thought. “ David will probably take it easy on you, if you’re exhausted.”
    “David? Take it easy on me? I doubt it,”Walker said. David snorted in lieu of a response and rifled through the report. Clearly, he was not concerned about the balance accruing on Walker’s legal fees.
    “He’s had me in meetings since the hearing this morning. Making sure all of my property and money are properly located in various trusts. So that when I go to jail, it will be protected.”Walker sighed and stretched his hands out behind his head; I tried not to stare at his massive shoulders and thick black hair.
    “You mean if you go to jail,”I said, gently, remembering that I was here to be this man’s lawyer, not to be his groupie.
    “Marnie Edmonds is out to get me. You saw her,” Walker said. “David assured me that I need to expect the worst.”David snorted again and continued to otherwise ignore all of us. He was now settled in and reading another large document, pen sticking out of his mouth, largely oblivious to his surroundings.
    “David is very big on worst case scenarios,”Alexa said, beaming at Walker. He was studying Alexa’s face. I felt my stomach clench, again, and I vowed to have a long talk about professionalism with myself as soon as this meeting ended. Right after I clawed Alexa’s eyes out.
    “Hey wait —aren’t you Senator Blake’s daughter?”he asked.
    “That’d be me,”Alexa said, shrugging at him like an innocent schoolgirl. “ We met at a Best of the City party a couple of years ago. But you’re so famous, I was sure you wouldn’t remember me,”she said. I was pretty sure that Alexa believed that all males would remember her, into perpetuity and beyond, but she was trying to be humble and appeal to him. It made me want to reach across the table and smack her.
    “I didn’t recognize you at first. Sorry,”he said, and the practiced smile was back. Sorry, Trust Fund Stripper Barbie. What color are your underwear? That’s what his smile said.
    My heart sank, watching them.
    “You kind of have a lot on your mind,”Alexa said, now sounding sexily sympathetic. I felt my hackles rise. Alexa could be prettier than me, richer than me, she could have better boobs —that was life. It was a mix of genetic coding and luck, and I could deal with that. But I hated liars. I loathed people who cheated to get ahead. And that’s what Alexa was doing with Broden Walker right now. Pretending to be nice and sympathetic when really, she was Mean-Spirited Trust Fund Stripper Barbie. I caught Mandy’s eye and Mandy shook her head: Typical Alexa. I rolled my eyes back at her and resumed looking at the file on my computer, willing my brain to start working, to start being productive.
    David Proctor put his document aside then and looked up. He jumped out of his seat almost immediately and started pacing, his hands in his pockets; a big bundle of too much energy now that he’d finished reading. He seemed like the type of man who could sit still only in short spurts, and I imagined he preferred those spurts when he had a nice glass of Scotch. “The arraignment’s going to take place tomorrow afternoon. That’s less than 24 hours from now, in case you’re all sleep-deprived and confused.” I sucked my breath in: Whoa, Walker could go to prison as early as tomorrow.
    “Now, an arraignment is a pretty straightforward procedure,”David said. He was explaining this as much to Walker as he was to the rest of us. “We’ll go to the federal courthouse, where we were this morning, and we’ll be seen in front of a magistrate judge. It’s basically an initial hearing. Your rights are going to be explained to you in more detail, Walker, but we’ll go through everything before that, so you’ll know what to expect.”
    “What can I expect?”Walker asked. “Are they going to hold me until the trial?” His jaw was set, tight, all traces of playfulness vanished.
    “The government will try to