Chapter 444

“I’m texting Eric,” you sighed. “Just to make sure he knows where we’re at.”

“OK,” Sabrina said. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor, half a dozen documents piled around her as she chewed on the end of a pencil. “Ask him if he can get together sometime tomorrow afternoon for final planning. We’ll make dinner.”

“Here?” you asked.

That got her to look up and then hesitate. “Um,” she said, looking around. It wasn’t exactly the cleanest it had ever been, and her camera equipment was out. “We can’t do Gemma’s because of Lucy. Do you think we could do yours?”

“I’ll text Mosche to see if he’ll be in or out tomorrow, and hint it would be great if he could give us a few hours,” you said.

“Thank you,” Sabrina nodded.

You started your texting, using it as a break from skimming documents. On the bright side, after all your keyword searching while digitising and sorting files at the internship, you were pretty fast at skimming both physical and digital copies for content. The downside was the sheer number of documents included in the resource package for the mock trial.

“Ugh,” Gemma grunted as she came out of Sabrina’s bedroom. She’d been pacing as she read through the opening statement you’d put together with her, repeating it out loud to get it down.

“Which part?” you asked.

“The paragraph about how our client feels for the troubles of the plaintiff, but is bound to the contractual limitations around the payout,” Gemma said. “It just sounds kind of ... evil, coming out of my mouth? Like ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ shit. And I know it’s literally true because not following the contracts down to the letter would open up so many issues, but it’s also like - the company has so much money.”

“Holy fuck,” Sabrina blurted out.

“What?” Gemma asked. “Am I being that soft?”

“No,” Sabrina said, standing up and starting to pace herself as she flipped back and forth between two different pages. “Just- Let me read a second.”

You and Gemma looked at each other, raising your eyebrows as you waited for Sabrina to piece together whatever she’d found. Gemma pursed her lips, and you gestured for her to come over to you at the kitchen table. She did, sitting on your lap and looping an arm around your shoulder for stability as she leaned in and kissed you softly.

“OK,” Sabrina said, coming over and thrusting the papers she was holding. “Read this paragraph. And then read this one on this page.”

You held the document as you and Gemma started reading. It was from the depositions of the witnesses of the accidents and seemed like just a general eyewitness account. Then, when Gemma nodded that she’d finished as well, you flipped to the other page. Another deposition, another account. Some of the details were different, but that was sort of to be expected in eyewitness testimony.

“I don’t get it,” you said.

“Yeah, I’m not seeing what you’re seeing, love,” Gemma said.

“The first one is the deposition of Mr Garret Smith,” Sabrina said. “He’s one of the first people who got deposed because he was identified in the police reports as one of the people to call it into 911. His account of things lands more on our side, with the signs of erratic driving right before the accident, and he performed CPR as a first aid responder before the ambulances arrive so he comes across as a really reliable witness. The other account is from Doctor Vivian Brookes, and lands on the other side, saying there wasn’t any erratic driving or anything. But here’s the thing - they were both in the same car.”