Free Unfit to Practice by Perri O'Shaughnessy Page A

hall. She allowed herself a happy thought: Maybe we'll luck out and Ali'll evade process or fight it. Sometimes the lawyers kept the cases right on track, and sometimes the cases oozed in unexpected directions, along with the witnesses.
    Inside the courtroom, Kevin took his place at the table beside Nina, his face set and his eyes averted from her. She smiled first at her good friend Deputy Kimura, the bailiff today, who was on the phone as usual, then nodded at Judge Milne's clerk. Praying for the glint of a car key, she sneaked a quick look under the table. Nothing there.
    Just to their right, Jeffrey Riesner took his place alongside Kevin's wife and whispered into her ear. Lisa Cruz inclined her head toward her lawyer, listening. When he finished, she turned toward Nina and stared, holding still, all frantic activity ceased for the moment, almost frightening in her cold disgust. Eventually, she turned back to the table. She had a stiffer look today—her long hair sprayed into a twist, tiny pearl earrings, smooth white skin.
    Lisa's long-fingered hands eventually settled down on the photo of her children on the table in front of her that had kept her company throughout. Riesner finished his intermittent whispering, then got up and approached Nina. She stood to meet him, tensing her muscles to prevent herself from flinching.
    Of course he noticed. Stretching to emphasize the whopping height difference between them, he plastered on a fake smile for the onlookers. “We should chat.”
    Kevin excused himself to go back into the hallway momentarily for some water, leaving the two lawyers alone at Nina's table.
    “Why?” she asked.
    Riesner nodded. “Outside.” Seeing her expression, he chuckled a nasty chuckle. “In full view of the glass front door of the police department. That way there's no chance you'll lose control. Get violent. Or something.” Although he overtly referred to an actual physical altercation they had gotten into during another case a few months earlier, the subtext was, as always, sexual.
    “No,” Nina said. “I don't think so.”
    They both kept their voices low so the conversation, already bursting with tension, held an intimacy that made Nina recoil.
    “Am I supposed to coax you? Don't worry, I only eat what tastes good. You're too sour to bite.”
    “You already bite,” Nina said. She gave herself an immediate, silent tongue-lashing about not giving him the satisfaction. A cringe, a flinch, a flash of anger—he lapped up her emotional reactions like Dracula lapped blood.
    The slightly upturned corner of his mouth twitched with pleasure. He had shaken her already. Success. “My client has a settlement proposal.”
    “You better be serious.” Nina looked at her watch. Court convened in seven minutes. She indicated the back of the courtroom with her head. She wasn't going to get out of Deputy Kimura's sight this time.
    Riesner followed her to the back wall and leaned against it, arms crossed. His eyes were green, the same color as fungus on the rotting stump in her backyard. “Well?” she asked.
    “Mom gets sole physical custody. She'll agree to joint legal custody. Under the circumstances, she's being generous. Supervised visitation. He can have Christmas. She doesn't celebrate it, so she doesn't give a shit. And the kids go to her church.”
    Sole physical custody meant the kids would live with Lisa. Kevin would have visitation rights. Joint legal custody meant Kevin would have to be consulted regarding important issues such as the kids' educations and health.
    The offer wasn't much. Lisa couldn't get a better deal even if she won in court. Plus Kevin had already rejected the whole idea of Lisa taking physical custody of the kids.
    But Ali altered the topography of the case. Could Kevin lose even joint legal custody? Nina thought about it briefly, then decided. When in doubt, give nothing. “Too bad,” she said.
    “What do you mean, too bad?”
    “You weren't serious.” She began