Dallas, Texas

2009

CASEY JORDAN CHECKED her watch before hitting the curb, which sent a shudder through the battered Mercedes sedan. Her tires skidded on the grit as she rounded the corner of the old cinder-block gas station. She could hear the knocking of the engine all the way to the back door of her law clinic, remembering the day when the car had smelled of fine leather, not sour carpet and coffee.

Before she reached the rear entrance, the gray metal bathroom door swung open and a Latino woman emerged with a small child trailing a streamer of toilet paper. The woman said something in Spanish, and Casey offered a smile but shrugged, pointed to her watch, and hurried inside her office through the back door.

Stacy Berg, the office manager, appeared with a cup of coffee, a frown, and piercing dark eyes set in a mane of light brown hair thick as yarn. “Forget something?”

“I made some notes on the Suarez file I need for Nancy Grace,” Casey said.

“You know she’s half crazy?” Stacy asked and nodded toward her desk, which was really the old counter where the filling station had kept its cash register. “Speaking of that, Rosalita Suarez’s mother dropped off a chocolate icebox cake to celebrate your victory.”

Casey had exonerated Rosalita Suarez in a highly publicized murder trial on a charge of shooting the coyote who brought her across the border after he tried to rape her.

“And that guy called again,” Stacy said. “It’s in the middle of the pile.”

“What guy?” Casey asked.

Stacy rolled her eyes. “You know. That billionaire guy. How many billionaires do you know?”