Casey studied his face.

"Do you really think I'm that mercenary?" he asked. "I don't want you working with a client if it disturbs you. Besides, one week to prepare is almost unheard of. I don't know if you could do it."

His last words were spoken with an ingenuous expression. Whether they were actually intended to challenge her or not, Casey responded that way.

"I can do it," she said with a snort, hoisting a pair of dumbbells and beginning to crank out a set of curls as if to accentuate her confidence. "I could walk in on a case in a day if I had to."

"What about the fact that it looks like he did it?" he asked, sitting down on the padded bench and bracing his elbow against one thick knee.

"Innocent until proven guilty," she said. "Remember?"

"But tell me you don't think he did it," Tony said. As he continued to speak, he counted off on his fingers. "Come on. The guy was seen leaving the scene. He lied about it to the police. He had her bloody underwear in his bag, for God's sake! And they caught him heading for the airport with a reservation to Toronto. Oh, that's good, Casey. That's overzealous. Tell me how you explain the guy out of all that."

"You're talking like a prosecutor," she said.

"Hey, I started there, too, you know," he reminded her.

"You're so far from the DA's office that you… I don't know. You're just far."

"Okay," he said, "so we're back to representing defendants until they're proven guilty? That's good. I thought we were going to have to start chasing ambulances."

"Funny," she said, switching her dumbbells to an overhead press. "But Lipton didn't say he did it. That's the difference and you damn well know it. If a client tells me he did it, I won't represent him. I don't care if it's the pope. But Lipton says he's innocent, and he deserves to have someone plead his case."

"Hey, go easy on the pope. This guy's no pope."