School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,10

Jesus.”

The lobby was utilitarian and plain, and they passed the security guard and the metal detectors before they were directed up to the third floor, where their particular public defender worked.

As they got in the elevator, they heard a disturbance, a man arguing vehemently, his voice thick with a Slavic accent. But that didn’t stop Jackson from hearing “Jenny Probst” in the mix of shouting and, just as the doors closed, gunshots.

He and Henry met startled glances.

“Shit, was that guy gunning for—”

“Our public defender,” Jackson finished tersely as they both watched the lift light up for the third floor. “You go jam the door to the stairs shut. I’ll warn everybody to get down.”

“And hide her,” Henry shouted as the doors opened.

“No kidding, Junior!” Jackson stepped out of the elevator and sighted down the hallway filled with doors. Jenny’s was third door to the left, so he had to get cracking.

He stuck his head into the first office and spotted the security guard leaning up against the wall, eyes scanning the office cubicles beyond. He nodded the guy over and said quietly, “There may be an active shooter downstairs, heading up here. Get everybody under their desks and tell them to keep calm. Lock the door until you can get an all clear from your buddies downstairs.”

The guy nodded tersely and got on the radio as Jackson ran to the next door.

The ones on the left were individual offices, and the first two were locked, thank God. He warned one more large public office before heading for Jenny Probst’s small office, throwing the door open right as he heard a ruckus back in the direction of the elevators and the stairs.

Henry came trotting up next to him as he opened Jenny Probst’s door.

“I propped the door closed with an axe,” he said breathlessly. “Good news is, it’s wedged there pretty tight. Bad news is—”

“If he gets past it, he’s got the fire axe,” Jackson muttered. He must have missed the sound of breaking glass in his rush to get down to Jenny’s office. Her name was emblazoned on the window, and short of breaking it and giving away an advantage and their position, there was no way to keep her whereabouts a secret.

“Jenny Probst?” Jackson asked.

The woman behind the desk had pale yellow hair and soft pink features. In her midthirties, if she hadn’t been wearing the power suit, he would have pegged her for a soccer mom, but one who forgot to dye her roots regularly.

“Hello?”

Jackson’s eyes searched the room. “Hey, does that lead to the office next door? The empty one without your name?”

“It’s the copy room,” she said, appearing puzzled. “Why?”

Jackson and Henry looked at each other as the shouting at the other end of the hall got louder.

“Lady, we need to get you in the fucking closet.”

Oops, Here I Go Again….

ELLERY LOOKED at the kid sitting on the other side of his desk and then at his tearful mother and wished his people skills were more on point.

“Look, Ty, I know this wasn’t fair.”

“Dammit, there were sixty other kids at that party with X on them!” Ty Townsend burst out, and Ellery resisted the temptation to rub at his temples.

“I know.”

“And they were all white kids, and I was the only brown boy in the crowd!”

“I know, Ty.”

“Then what in the hell am I doing here?” he shouted, and Ellery’s temper broke.

“The fact that you are here is not my fault! The fact that you’re not letting me defend you is!”

Ty sat down abruptly. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked, wounded and angry and thoroughly confused, and not for the first time in the last weeks, Ellery wished for Jackson.

Jackson had a way with people. He probably could have had Ty eating out of his hand and a way to get Ty out of the charge of possession with intent to sell before Ty had even had to pay for his first consult.

But Jackson wasn’t here, and Ty’s mother had put a lot of money into getting Ty a lawyer who would not plead her barely eighteen-year-old son right into prison, and Ellery needed to pony up.

“If I’m convicted, I can’t go to school at the end of this week,” Ty said. “I’ll lose my scholarship. I’ll lose everything!”

And part of Ellery wanted to say, “Well, you shouldn’t have grabbed the damned drugs as a party favor, then.”

But the other part of him recognized the absolute unfairness of Ty’s arrest when he had not