Adrian smiled.
“Exactly what it says.” Lena stared at him, still trying to process the document in front of her.
“So what you’re saying is that Martin Hayes caused Ethan Pike’s death while courageously intervening to protect a police officer?” “Correct.” “And Ethan Pike…
essentially caused his own death while attempting intentional homicide?” Seeing that she had finally understood what he meant, Adrian nodded with satisfaction.
“Exactly.” Lena opened her mouth, hesitated, and eventually swallowed the questions that were fighting to come out.
Protecting a police officer?
Since when had the armed officers at Pine Hollow needed Martin Hayes to protect them?
No, that wasn’t even the biggest problem.
She took a slow breath before asking with obvious concern, “Can you seriously make arguments like these in court?” “Why not?” Adrian looked genuinely puzzled as he leaned back in his chair and spread his hands.
“I haven’t seen everything you’ve prepared for the hearing yet, but based solely on what you’ve just shown me, don’t you think this is a little…” Lena crossed her arms and spent several seconds searching for the most diplomatic word she could find.
“Arrogant.” Forget whether the arguments could ultimately be supported; if Adrian presented them to the prosecutors without sufficient explanation, Lena could already imagine the expressions on their faces.
“What’s arrogant about it?
Every argument I’ve prepared has a factual and legal basis.” Adrian waved a hand dismissively.
“If Derek Vaughn thinks I’ve crossed a line, he’s welcome to challenge me.” He clearly had no intention of worrying about it any further and instead changed the subject.
“Anyway, if the True Monarch really wants to help me, there’s something else I need from you.” Lena’s eyelid twitched slightly at the nickname, but she had already suffered through enough of Adrian’s teasing that morning to ignore it.
“What?” “Find me a male attorney you trust who can help over the next few days.
If you don’t know anyone suitable, don’t force it.” Lena fell silent.
After thinking for a long moment, she sighed with a helpless expression.
“Fine.” She had already reached the point where resisting Adrian’s strange plans felt more exhausting than simply listening to them.
Whatever she thought about his courtroom arguments, everything he had explained regarding the child had remained maddeningly within the boundaries of the law, and even if his arguments irritated the prosecutors, irritation alone was hardly something they could prosecute him for.
As for finding another attorney…
“I actually do know someone.” Lena paused, and a particular face appeared in her mind, making her expression slightly strange.
Adrian immediately noticed.
“But?” “Well…” She thought about how to describe the man before finally settling on one word.
“He’s a little…
free.” Adrian blinked.
“Free?” What kind of description was that?
“You mean undisciplined?
Doesn’t follow instructions?” Adrian asked.
“Let me be clear: I need someone in the legal field who can follow directions.” Lena shook her head.
“That’s not what I mean.
He’s a lawyer, graduated from a top university, follows instructions when it matters, and he’s reliable when something actually happens.” Adrian frowned slightly.
Competent, obedient when necessary, and unlikely to make mistakes.
Then what exactly was so “free” about him?
Still, Adrian was not the type to waste time worrying about a description that would become obvious once he met the person.
“All right.
If he’s willing to help, I’ll pay him a thousand out of my own pocket.
I’ll leave it to you to contact him, True Monarch.” Lena nodded, although the look she gave Adrian remained complicated.
As an attorney, she had naturally heard of plenty of unscrupulous lawyers and had encountered more than a few herself, but compared with the man sitting in front of her, most of those people suddenly seemed almost innocent.
At the very least, even someone who had memorized the entire Criminal Code would probably never have thought of “stealing a child” as a legitimate litigation strategy.
Adrian, however, had somehow designed the plan while avoiding every obvious criminal element, to the point that Lena—who normally disliked lawyers who played games around the edges of the law—had actually agreed to help him.
Her feelings were so complicated that she did not even bother correcting him for calling her “True Monarch” again.
“Fine.
I’ll contact him.” She stood.
“I’m leaving.” Adrian rose as well and gave her a friendly smile.
“Take care.
I won’t see you out.” Lena was not particularly sentimental about goodbyes.
She turned and walked toward the front entrance, tightening her trench coat and wrapping her scarf around her neck as though she could somehow bundle up the enormous collection of questions still running through her mind.
The door opened with a soft creak, and she stepped out into the cold autumn wind.
Adrian watched her leave, then calmly gathered the documents on the table and placed them back into his briefcase.
Everything that needed to be prepared was essentially ready.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
Wait five days for the trial.
Meanwhile, Derek Vaughn returned to Creston Law Group carrying a stomach full of anger.
“What an inexperienced fool.” He pushed open the office door far harder than necessary and walked inside with a dark expression before dropping his briefcase onto a nearby table.
Several attorneys in the lobby looked up at the noise.
One of them raised an eyebrow.
“What happened, Derek?
Difficult client?” Derek’s irritation only increased.
“No.
I ran into a young lawyer who still thinks passion is a substitute for experience.” The others immediately understood what kind of person he meant.
Law tended to produce people at two extremes.
Some newcomers entered the profession already learning how to calculate every advantage, while others arrived full of ideals and convinced that every injustice could be corrected if they simply fought hard enough.
For experienced attorneys, dealing with the latter could sometimes be more troublesome because once they decided something was morally right, persuasion became almost impossible.
Derek exhaled.
“Forget about him.
Have my clients arrived?” “You mean the Pikes?” “Yes.” One of the attorneys chuckled.
“With how much attention the Hayes case is getting?
Of course they came.
They’ve been waiting in the reception room.” The amount of attention surrounding the case was hardly surprising.
A fourteen-year-old girl had been abducted and disappeared for ten years.
Her parents had spent a decade searching for her, only for police to discover that she had been sold into an isolated village, imprisoned, abused, and prevented from leaving.
When her father finally reached her, the man who had bought her ended up dead during the rescue, and now that same father was facing a serious criminal prosecution.
Any one of those facts could have drawn public interest.
Together, they had made the Pine Hollow case one of the most widely discussed cases in Greenwood City.
“All right.” Derek headed directly toward the reception room without even bothering to retrieve his briefcase.
When he opened the door, Walter and Martha Pike, who had been half-asleep while waiting, immediately looked up.
The moment they saw him, both hurried over.
“Well?” Martha asked eagerly.
“Did that ungrateful woman agree?” From the expectation in her voice, she already seemed to be imagining Clara returning to serve her for the rest of her life.
Walter sat up straighter and took a satisfied puff from his pipe.
“It’s a murder case.
Her father committed a crime, so he has to be punished.
If she doesn’t want him punished, then she has to agree to our terms.” His confidence made it sound as though Clara were still the frightened fourteen-year-old girl his family had controlled for the past decade.
Unfortunately for him, reality had not followed the script.
Derek’s expression became slightly awkward.
He hesitated before closing the door behind him.
“They refused.” Walter stared at him.
“What?” “They didn’t agree to the forgiveness statement.” For several seconds, neither of the elderly couple reacted.
Then Walter abruptly pulled the pipe from his mouth.
“They refused?
Have they lost their minds?
They actually dare refuse?” Martha’s face twisted with anger.
“Her father killed my son, and all we’re asking for is our grandson.
She won’t even give us that?” She immediately began slapping her thighs and wailing.
“Heavens, is there no justice left?
How are we supposed to live if they take away our only grandson?
Are they trying to end our family line?” Derek endured the noise for several moments before raising his voice to calm them.
“Don’t panic.
The court summons has already been issued, and the hearing is in five days.” The wailing gradually weakened.
Derek continued confidently, “Once we establish the advantage at the first hearing, they’ll understand their position.
When that happens, they’ll be the ones coming to us and begging for a Statement of Forgiveness.” As far as Derek was concerned, Adrian was simply refusing to surrender until reality forced him to.
Five days from now, the courtroom would destroy those unrealistic expectations.
Walter and Martha immediately brightened.
“Really?” Derek smiled and calmly took a sip of the tea on the table.
“I’ve already asked around at his firm.
The opposing attorney is a young lawyer with essentially no criminal-trial record.
There’s nothing to worry about.” Walter grinned.
“Then we’ll be relying on you, Attorney Vaughn.” Martha’s mood improved just as quickly.
Having received the reassurance they wanted, the two soon left the firm, eager to return home to their grandson while they could.
Derek watched them disappear before finally releasing a long breath.
Once he was alone, his thoughts returned to the coming trial.
In Derek’s view, evidence was naturally the foundation of any case, but in a close case there was another factor that could never be ignored: judicial discretion.
A judge still had to interpret the evidence, determine credibility, evaluate context, and decide where within the range allowed by law the case belonged.
In a matter as emotionally charged as Martin Hayes’s, public sentiment could inevitably become part of the atmosphere surrounding the proceedings, even if no judge would openly admit to deciding a case because of newspaper headlines.
And in 2002, the clearest reflection of Greenwood City’s public opinion was still the newspaper.
With that thought, Derek walked toward the public newspaper rack and pulled out that morning’s edition of the Greenwood Gazette, the paper still carrying the faint smell of fresh ink.
He unfolded it.
A prominent headline about the Pine Hollow case immediately appeared before his eyes.
[MORAL DECAY IN PINE HOLLOW: THE SHOCKING CASE THAT HAS GRIPPED GREENWOOD CITY] Derek’s eyes narrowed as he began to read.