The Cartel Lawyer by Dave Daren (popular books to read .TXT) 📗

and then I’ll need to research someone who can help me with bringing my case to the DA.”

“I suggest Stephen,” I remarked after I tasted the strong brew and nodded my head in approval at its sweetness.

“Stephen?” she asked with a tilt of her head and a lifted eyebrow.

“He was one of my coworkers down at the Public Defender’s Office,” I explained. “He’ll look great when you run the story. The guy spends all of his time with teens at the youth center he volunteers with, and I know he’ll be excited to bring down the Everson Juvenile Detention Center.”

“Perfect!” the brilliant reporter exclaimed. “I’ll look into him this afternoon.”

“Sure,” I said with a nod before I pulled my phone out. “I can give him a call later today so he’ll be expecting you.”

“Okay,” Eloa said as she set her coffee mug on the counter and jumped down. “One more kiss before you go?”

“Of course,” I said as I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in.

I still had three minutes before my time was up, and I wanted to make the judge wait as long as possible. I wanted him on edge when I proposed the meeting so he’d feel the pressure to accept it. So I kissed Eloa deeply, and I reveled in the taste of coffee that lingered on her tongue and the feel of her soft lips against mine.

“Have a good day at work,” she said when we parted. Her voice was breathy, and the look in her eyes mirrored my own desire to stay right where we were.

“I will,” I told her as I forced myself to take a step back. “I’ll call you later today. We might be able to have dinner at my place tomorrow night. I just need to see where everything lands today.”

“Okay,” she said with a wave as I left her apartment behind.

The clock on my cell phone showed I had one more minute so I unlocked the screen and dialed the judge’s number. I had to wait until the third ring before the fat magistrate answered, no doubt his way of trying to take back some of the power, but I knew I would still have the upper hand in our conversation.

“Torres,” the judge growled into the receiver as he picked up. “You took your damn time calling me back.”

I jogged down the stairs to the first floor, and I realized my voice was a little uneven. But going down the stairs was an easier task than going up, and I soon had my breathing under control. I had managed to keep all of my coffee in the mug as well, and I saw it as a small omen that my talk with the corrupt judge would also go in my favor.

“Well, I did tell you I just woke up,” I replied as I opened the front door and stepped out into the morning air.

The converted warehouse that Eloa lived in was closer to the docks than my own apartment, and the scent of briny water and fish hung heavily in the air as I walked to my car. I took a deep breath in since the smell of sea creatures was still fresh and hadn’t had the chance to spoil in the heat. It mixed with the cool breeze that wafted in from the open ocean, and I felt transported to a different time when I might’ve been a fisherman who was leaving his wife for a long day’s work.

“You’re lazy,” Judge Travis Williams huffed as he brought me back to the present moment and the phone conversation that I was in. “When I was your age I was up with the dawn. I worked hard for my clients. It’s this lackadaisical attitude that got your client sent to juvie in the first place.”

I gritted my teeth as I resisted the urge to accuse him of corruption right then. There were too many people walking the street, and I didn’t want them to overhear our conversation. Instead, I took a deep breath in, unlocked my car, and then slid into the driver’s seat.

“I work hard for all of my clients,” I managed to say as I started my ancient blue Honda.

“Yeah, yeah,” the old man on the other end of the line grumbled. “That’s why you’re calling right? You think I should overturn my verdict.”

“I do think your sentencing was harsher than what was warranted,” I said as I pulled out of the parking spot.

The coffee mug that Eloa had lent me was precariously perched in one of my cupholders, but I’d managed to drink enough so that the tilted liquid wouldn’t spill everywhere. Still, I kept an eye on it as I joined the morning traffic.

“Of course, you do,” the fat magistrate said before I heard him gulping something down. “So you think you can just call me and convince me to change my mind?”

“Actually, I called--” I started to say.

“Now you listen here, Torres,” the judge interrupted. “I’ve been at this a lot longer than you. Hell, I was a defense lawyer while you were still holdin’ your mama’s apron strings.”

I rolled my eyes at the conceited man but let him continue his rant so that I could focus on the traffic as I drove toward my home. I had looked into the magistrate’s cases from when he was a defense attorney as part of my research. He’d been okay in his day, but I had a higher success rate than he did, and I had taken on tougher cases than the mediocre ex-lawyer had.

“And don’t think that I haven’t looked into your appeal,” the old man continued while I weaved through the bumper to bumper cars of a weekday in Miami. “They sent that garbage over to me a few days ago. You seem to think