"I had no choice, Dan!" On the street out the front of One Hogan Place, he wouldn't do more than glare at her. Even so, Colleen flinched away from him. "And I don't have any choice now. Mr McCoy got the case and he asked for me. What was I supposed to say? How would it look for you if I refused?"
"That son-of-a-bitch McCoy," Dan fumed. "I could have made that case. If they'd let me."
"I know," Colleen said loyally. "I know, Dan. It isn't fair."
There had been a time when she would have believed him. There had been a time when Colleen had thought Daniel James was the most brilliant man she had ever met, and that she was incredibly lucky that he'd even been interested in talking to her. There had been a time when she had believed every word of Dan's complaints about biased judges, prejudiced supervisors, unfair outcomes and stupid juries.
She knew better, now. She'd seen Jack McCoy staring at the same page of a deposition for nearly an hour, so deep in thought he didn't even hear her when she asked him what he wanted for lunch. And she'd seen him look up, and grin, and then leap to his feet and take her hands and swing her around the room in triumph at having discovered the first, crucial crack in the defendant's alibi.
She'd seen him obsess over the details of the case until ADA Bell was rolling her eyes and Colleen wanted to scream. And then she'd typed up copies of depositions and seen McCoy using those details to wrong-foot defense witnesses as their stories fell apart right under the keys of her Remington typewriter.
Jack McCoy and Sally Bell were on the eighth floor, and Dan was in Narcotics, because Jack McCoy and Sally Bell were better lawyers than Dan could ever hope to be.
They'd make the case. Dan never could have.
Colleen kept her eyes fixed on the sidewalk and hoped that would keep Dan from reading her treacherous thoughts on her face.
