Death Gets a Time-Out Read Online Free Page B

But I don’t trust him. He’s . . . I don’t know. Slippery. I need someone there to make sure he’s doingwhat he’s supposed to. You’re my friend, Juliet. I know I can trust you.”
    I patted her hand, surreptitiously trying to loosen her grip on my now aching fingers. “I am your friend, Lilly. And that’s just why I shouldn’t be working on your brother’s case. It might be a conflict of interest.”
    “Why?”
    “Because I would be
his
investigator—part of his legal team—but
your
friend. Don’t you see how that would be weird?”
    “No, I don’t. If I can hire and pay his lawyers, why can’t I hire and pay you? I wouldn’t be asking you to
report
to me or anything. I just want you on his defense team so I know for sure that there’s someone there who is going to devote herself to Jupiter. Someone who isn’t doing it just for the money, or for the notoriety.”
    I blushed. The frisson of excitement I’d felt when I’d first heard the name “Jupiter Jones” had certainly been because of the notoriety of the case. Every criminal defense lawyer dreams of catching the big fish—one of those high-profile cases that end up on
Court TV.
And I was still, at heart, a defense lawyer. It’s kind of like being Jewish or Catholic. Once you’re born into the religion, you’re doomed, even if you stop going to services. I wanted this case—I wanted it bad. But could I do it? Was it ethical to represent a friend, or the brother of a friend? And did I want to work the hours this case would certainly demand?
    “Please, Juliet. I need you. I really need you.”
    Lilly had always been there for me, even when I was asking for favors that seemed downright impossible. And she’d stayed my friend, even after she’d become famous. That counted for something, didn’t it? Anyway, who was I kidding? As soon as the words “Jupiter Jones” had left her lips, I was hooked.
    “Let me talk to my partner,” I said. “If he thinks it’s okay, and if Wasserman goes along with it, we’ll take the case.”
    Lilly flung her arms around my neck. “Thank you so much,” she said.
    I hugged her back. “Don’t thank me yet. Let’s see what Al and Wasserman have to say, first.”
    “Oh my God!” she said, leaping to her feet. “My award!”
    We rushed back into the banquet hall just in time for Lilly to step up to the podium, receive her Tiffany crystal bare torso of a woman with only one breast (could I really have been the only person who thought that was in shockingly bad taste?), and give a gently humorous and profoundly moving speech about the inspiration cancer survivors provide the rest of us. Lilly was a consummate professional. You would never have known, looking at her on the stage, so beautiful that she almost glowed, that, moments before, she’d been pale and frightened, begging me for help.

Three
    I’ M as macho as the next mother, but I am simply not able to get my children dressed, fed, and out the door in the morning while crouched over the toilet seat, vomiting. The morning after I gobbled up all that Gorgonzola cheese and rare ahi tuna, I had to wake up my husband to help me juggle food poisoning and carpool. Peter works at night. Every evening after we put the kids to bed, he takes a thermos of black, bitter coffee into his office and hangs out with zombies and flesh-eating cheerleaders until dawn. Then he staggers to bed, and loses consciousness until noon. That morning, though, he was awakened earlier than usual by the lovely sound of me gagging and crying for help.
    Even his toes looked tired. That was the only part of his body visible to me as I lay on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor. “What’s wrong?” he said, his voice scratchy and barely audible. He cleared his throat. The sound of the phlegm rattling around made me heave again, and I bent back over the toilet.
    “Are you sick?” he asked.
    “No. I’m just cleaning out the toilet. With my face.”
    “Right. What do you