Again, sorry for the terribly long delay between chapters. Finding time to write between the big move, the new job and killer calls has been a bit of a problem. I hope that the last two chapters, although short, build on the story and actually make sense as i wrote both while i was post call and horribly sleep deprived. Enjoy, review if you wish and i hope to have another chapter out sooner rather than later.
Chapter 8: present day.
Nikki sat at her mahogany desk poring over the files Claire had given her. Over the past few days it had become a nightly ritual for her to retire to her home office directly after dinner and bury herself in work until the early hours of the morning. Claire really knew her stuff and Nikki was impressed with the quality of research and the care she must have taken to choose every one of the cases she'd pulled out of Pandora's Box, as she referred to it. If she could win even half of the cases she'd reviewed in the last few days it would cause just the right amount of unrest in all the right circles. Some of the miscarriages of justice and downright negligence of the courts that she'd come across so far was enough to make your hair curl, and she had no intention of keeping anything she found on the down low. People had a right to justice and a court system they could have faith in and she was damn sure going to try her level best to make a difference.
Satisfied with her chances of providing another woman with hope she closed the current file she had in front of her and pushed it to one side out of the bright pool of light cast by her desk lamp and reached for another from the box. Clair had been thoughtful enough to attach a photo of each of the women whose cases she had chosen to the front of their files. As Nikki looked down into the bright green eyes of Alex Montgomery she had no idea that her case would be one of the hardest, yet also most rewarding she would ever take on, not only would Nikki be righting a terrible wrong in someone else's life, she would also unknowing be conquering a few of her own deeply buried demons.
As she analysed the picture of Alex she wondered if she still had that natural curiosity you could see on her face in the photo, which by now was three years old, or if prison life had managed to rob her of that too. "She's a beautiful girl," Nikki thought to herself, not even an out of focus mug shot could hide that. She couldn't help but worry that maybe that wasn't such a good thing in prison.
Nikki opened the file and began to read through the material Claire had collected. The girl came from a middle class family, was well educated and had been at university studying biology at the time of her arrest. She had no violent past, no prior run in's with the law and had been a model citizen before being charged with, and found guilty of murder.
As she read through the statement Alex had given to the police one solitary line caught her eye, "there was a hell of a lot of blood, and I didn't regret a single drop of it." Nikki's breath caught in her throat as she read it and her knuckles turned white due to the pressure she was exerting as she clung to the page.
Suddenly she was right back at Chix, looking down at DC Gossard as he weakly tried to stem the torrents of blood spurting from the jagged wound in the side of his neck. The flash back was so powerful that she could even smell his sickly sweet cologne mixed in with the smell of cigarettes, blood and the red wine from the half empty bottle she'd broken over his head. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might leap out of her chest at any minute. It had been a long while since she'd last had such a vivid recollection of that night, and she had hoped that they had stopped all together.
Slowly but surely her breathing returned to normal and her heart slowed. She unclamped her hands from the page and smoothed the wrinkles from it. She let out a deep breath and ran her finger through her hair, "I could really do with a cigarette right now," was the first thought that went through her mind. She smiled to herself as she imagined the look on Helen's face if she came up to bed smelling of cigarette smoke. She wouldn't hear the end of it. Nikki hadn't smoked in years but since they'd started trying for the baby Helen had become so health conscious that she wouldn't even go near anyone who looked like they might light up. Since the pregnancy her nose had become finely attuned to the scent of smoke and even the slightest whiff on someone's clothes would send her hurtling toward the bathroom. Cigarette smoke seemed to worsen Helen's morning sickness a thousand fold.
As she slowly worked her way through the rest of Alex's file Nikki knew that this was the case, the first she would tackle and the one she most wanted to win. She'd found several discrepancies with how her case had been handled originally that displeased her and she'd found a note from Claire alluding to a possible new witness and fresh evidence. To make sure she hadn't missed anything Nikki paged back to the front of the file and began to run through it again. This time she made notes of anything she thought to be important or facts that she needed to check with Claire.
Nikki was so engrossed in her reading that she hadn't seen Helen standing in the doorway, her left hand languidly stroking her belly as she watched Nikki. She smiled as she saw the familiar scowl that inhabited Nikki's face when she was in deep concentration. "You are going to get wrinkles if you keep staring at that page like that," she said with a grin and walked over to stand beside Nikki's chair, "and besides, I don't think any amount of face pulling is going to scare new information out of a piece of paper."
Laughing, Nikki stretched an arm around Helen and pulled her closer. "Cheeky sod," She said letting out a contented sigh and rested her face against the side of Helen's belly. Bean automatically rewarded her with a swift kick to the cheek. "Ouch, I seem to be getting it from all sides this evening." Nikki said, planting a big kiss right where the tiny foot was just a second ago. "You coming up to bed anytime soon?" Helen asked hopefully as she ran her fingers through Nikki's messy hair.
She watched as Nikki's attention wandered back to the open file on the desk, almost immediately she felt the change in Nikki's body language. Shaking her head she bent down and kissed the top of Nikki's head. Already being drawn back in by Alex Montgomery Nikki absentmindedly mumbled, "I'll be up in a minute," before scratching another note down on her legal pad. Helen knew she'd be spending another night alone and that she's most likely find Nikki curled up on the couch beneath the window when she came down for breakfast in the morning. She gave Nik's shoulder a squeeze as she left. "Love you babe," came the reply as Helen stepped from the room.