Free Lawyers In Love: In His Own Defense by Ann Jacobs Page B

looked at a sheet of heat lightning that turned the blue sky red until it went away.
    But raw sex would only take them so far.
    He wondered where he’d have to go to buy the kind of class that went beyond knowing how to eat and dress, and what to say. The kind of refinement a guy could only learn at the knees of a soft-spoken mother, or with a dad on a manicured golf course or the deck of a boat like this one, or like the ones at the dock he’d just left. That elusive quality called breeding.
    To hell with it. He was who he was, and people could take him or leave him. Even Kristine Granger. Gunning the engine and bracing himself as the big boat’s bow pushed up out of the murky water, Tony concentrated on arguments he would use tomorrow to get Ezra Ruggles a new trial.

Chapter Eight
     
    For the first time, Tony faced Ezra outside prison walls. The suit Tony had sent over with Hank yesterday hung on the kid’s skinny frame. As he’d thought it would, the olive drab color accentuated Ezra’s prison pallor.
    Leg irons clanked when Ezra moved to lean against a scarred wooden table in the room set aside for prisoners to confer with their lawyers outside nearby courtrooms. Tony made a mental note to insist the shackles be removed, but they were loose enough. He wondered why his client seemed barely able to walk in them.
    “What’s going to happen?” Ezra asked. His fists, held together by handcuffs clamped around his bony wrists, clenched until the knuckles turned white. His expression reflected horrors Tony could only imagine. “Are they gonna take me back to Raiford?” The tremor in his voice resonated with fear—no, terror.
    “Not if I can help it.”
    If the judge granted Tony’s appeal, Ezra would stay in the county jail pending his new trial. Tony didn’t delude himself. Bail wouldn’t be granted. Even if it were, it would be too high for his client’s only living relative, a grandmother who cleaned rooms in an economy-class motel on Nebraska Avenue, to manage the bondsman’s fee. “Did something happen at Raiford before you left?”
    “I’m gonna kill…”
    Tony held up a hand. “Not good to say, Ezra. Not even to your lawyer. Come on. I’m trying to get you a new trial. Get you out of that place for good.”
    “I got excited about gettin’ out. Wasn’t paying attention the other night. I got caught by myself.” Ezra paused, a look of anguish on his pale, thin face. Then he broke eye contact, stared at the scarred hardwood floorboards.
    “They caught me. Six of ‘em. I tried to fight, but there were too many. Too big. Didn’t have a chance. Thought they were gonna kill me. But they just used me for their bitch. Every goddamn one rammed his dick up my ass…over and over ‘til I passed out.”
    Tony wanted to throw up.
    He had to get Ezra a new trial. No way could he sleep nights if he let this kid down and had to watch them lock the door on him again in that place where only big, tough bullies managed to survive intact. The place where his old man had spent the last twenty years of his life.
    “No use them puttin’ leg irons on me. I couldn’t run if’n they paid me to.”
    “I’ll have the guard take them off you before you go before the judge. The handcuffs, too. Look, Ezra. I’m going to try to get bail set if the judge grants my petition for a new trial. It’s not likely he will, though.”
    Ezra swayed on his feet. “I’ll have to go back?”
    “No. They’ll keep you at the county jail until the new trial. I’ll try to see that you get a cell by yourself.” Tony watched Ezra catch himself before he hit the floor. He settled his client onto a chair before calling for a guard.
    Instead of being at Tony’s side while he argued for a new trial, Ezra spent the next three days under guard at Tampa General while the doctors patched him up. Cracked ribs, internal injuries. Tony itched to let the press know the whole story, but he had to respect Ezra’s desire to keep it