2009
Mike Cutter had not even cut his car engine before he threw open his car door once arriving at his destination. With almost lightning speed he turned off his car, grabbed his briefcase from his passenger seat and slammed his car door. He pressed the button on his remote to lock the doors before he charged into the fairly small police station.
After entering the underwhelming and tired looking precinct lobby he grunted when he saw that the desk was unattended. It was to be expected as it was a regional police station at a late hour, but due to the current situation he was hoping to be attended to immediately. Normally one would wait for a police officer to come out, but he wasn't going to be doing that today. He needed to get to Chelsea as quickly as he could.
"Hello?" He called out gruffly and tapped the desk so somebody would hear him.
He could hear typing coming from behind a partition wall out of sight that immediately stopped once he called out. He heard a loud sigh and an office chair creak as the weight of its occupant lifted themselves up and moments later a very large police officer appeared in front of Mike.
"I'm here to represent Miss Chelsea Callahan. I believe she's been taken into custody here." Mike quickly shot out, not even waiting for the officer to greet him.
"Let me see." The officer said as he lazily grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and sifted through it. Under different circumstances Mike would be amused by the archaic use of pen and paper record keeping, but today he was on a mission. He could only feel annoyed at how long this was taking. He needed to see Chelsea as soon as possible.
"Nope. No-one by that exact name here." The officer stated as he dropped the paper.
Mike went to turn around to call Connie, believing she had directed him to the wrong station. But then he realised the words the officer had used. No one of that exact name here. She was here, just under a different name. She must have given old identification under her old married name, something that had been issued before she got her divorce.
"Fine. Chelsea Garcia. Can I just go and see my client?" Mike huffed.
"Nope, no Chelsea Garcia here." The officer grinned wickedly and Mike could tell the officer was enjoying watching him squirm.
"For god's sake, this is a police station, not Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves where I need to give a special passcode to see my client. If you don't give me access to Chelsea Callahan right now, I'm going to see that you and your fellow police cronies are charged with kidnapping considering she's being denied legal counsel." Mike growled in an extremely low and threatening manner.
The threat did little to intimidate the large officer as he chuckled heartily, but he did open up the swing doors next to the desk and beckoned for Mike to go through.
"We have her surname down as Callahan–O'Toole. Not Callahan."
"Well then you have her surname down wrong then. After she got divorced she did revert back to her maiden name but she dropped the 'O'Toole' and just became 'Callahan'. If you have that wrong, I wonder what else you've done wrong tonight." Mike spat.
1995
Bzzzzzzzzzzzz
The annoying sound of the intercom for the offices of the criminal defence firm Mike Cutter worked at rang out, and his head popped up from his cubicle. The receptionist had long since gone home, and as he was the only one out of the few left in the office it was up to him to answer the door. He was glad it didn't ring again before he managed to get to the reception desk, that would have irritated him at this hour.
"Yeah?" He asked into the intercom after pressing the worn-out black button.
"Um, hi. I'm here to see Michael Cutter. I have an appointment, my name is Chelsea." A nervous voice answered back.
"You're speaking to him. It's outside of hours so I'll buzz you in as everything is closed, take the elevator to the fourth floor and I'll meet you there." Mike responded as he immediately pressed the buzzer to give Chelsea access.
He took a few steps towards the lobby and waited for Chelsea to arrive. She didn't take too long, as it was fairly late the building wouldn't have a lot of foot traffic and thus the lift would not be in use. The lift gave a 'ding' and Chelsea Callahan–O'Toole exited in all her glory.
Mike didn't know what he was expecting the great Eric Callahan's half–sister to look like, but he still felt Chelsea wasn't what he expected. If he squinted he could see a very slight family resemblance, they both had the same coloured eyes - deep blue. Unlike Eric's sandy blonde hair, Chelsea was a brunette, and unlike her brother she wasn't tanned but had fairly pale skin with a few freckles dotted around her nose. She was also fairly tall for a female, and her figure also had curves in all the right places. She was a good looking girl, he'd give her that. But he didn't find himself personally attracted to her, which he guessed was due to her age. She very much looked like a young college aged student, and not the sophisticated and well educated women he normally went for. This was good, it meant he could represent her with no conflicts of interest.
"Nice to meet you Miss Callahan-O'Toole, I'm Michael Cutter. As discussed on the phone, I'll be representing you." Mike introduced as he outstretched his hand. Chelsea accepted it, but only gave a weak handshake in response.
He had called Chelsea the day after Emily's law school reunion party. He was slightly hungover (now he was in his thirties he couldn't take his alcohol as well as he used to) and the only time he could think to line up was outside of business hours on Monday. Chelsea enthusiastically agreed as her diner shift ended at 7pm on Mondays, so with the timing being perfect for both of them here they were.
"So um, the meeting rooms are under construction at the moment as the partners are trying to make them a lot fancier. Is it okay if we sit in my cubicle? There's only two other lawyers in the office right now who are too busy to pay attention." Mike asked her as he began to lead her through the fairly ordinary looking law firm.
"Sure." Chelsea shrugged.
As she followed Mike through the hallways she peeked around curiously. The office seemed fairly run-of-the-mill with thin grey carpets, white plastered ceiling tiles (with a few missing) and an endless maze of cubicles with corkboard dividers in the middle. Mike led her over to one of the cubicles, and grabbed an office chair from another one to give her a seat.
"So I always try to get the awkward parts out of the way first when I meet the client. That is, I need you to be honest with me at all times. If you're not going to be honest with me, I can't represent you." Mike said to Chelsea as he leaned forward and studied her youthful, innocent face.
He expected her to look uncomfortable but she broke out into a smile.
"When you use that line on your clients do they normally make a lame joke about lawyers being liars and stuff?"
"Yeah, they do." Mike admitted with a chuckle.
"Your approach is interesting. When I was in high school one of our teachers had a lawyer come in and talk about his career. This dude was a real scumbag type of lawyer. He bragged he would strongly hint his clients lie to him if they wanted to plead not guilty, so he couldn't be done for perjury himself. Then he bragged to us, mind you we were a bunch of sixteen year old school kids, how he had a feeling his client was committing perjury so he would break witnesses down on the stand to cover it up. He bragged he had so many clearly guilty clients get away with rape." Chelsea explained to Mike.
"See, people think that all criminal lawyers are like that, and incorrectly believe those are the signs of a good lawyer if you're in a pinch. But the law always catches up with those types and I wouldn't be surprised if that guy has been caught out and disbarred by now. I can't promise to manipulate justice for you, but I can promise to give you a hell of a good defence provided you're honest with me." Mike responded.
"I don't really have shit to lie about, anyway. Some junkie harassed me on the street, my friend who's a cop saw it and found drugs on the dude so he got arrested. A few days later a detective and an ADA wanted to question me. Unless it's for underage drinking at a dorm party or perhaps an accidental jaywalk, I have no idea what they think I've done." Chelsea began to explain.
"Emily has an idea." Mike stated.
He watched Chelsea intently as she cocked her head in confusion, giving him a curious glance.
Mike had spent the day researching this new case of his. One thing Emily had always given him kudos on was his ability to research and dig for information that may help him. He always had a knack for sniffing things out. He did find out a few things about Chelsea's current predicament.
He had never realised that Eric Callahan's half sister was the youngest of the first generation of American O'Tooles. The original clan who came from Ireland were big criminals, but most of their offspring hadn't been as cunning as their parents. Most, if not all of Chelsea's cousins had spent time in jail, mainly for smaller yet serious crimes such as armed robbery and grand theft auto.
The most serious charge that had been laid on a first generation O'Toole was an attempted murder charge in the first degree. Chelsea's cousin Larry had broken into his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend's apartment and had attempted to shoot him. He was only unsuccessful because the gun jammed and the would-be-victim was then able to overpower Larry and raise the alarm.
The interesting part of this story was that Siobhan O'Toole (Chelsea's mother and Larry's aunt) was able to easily buy one of the most powerful defence attorneys in the state - Carl Hume. The lowly DA who was prosecuting the case was no match for the heavyweight Hume, who ripped what should have been a slam dunk case to shreds and got Larry O'Toole acquitted.
However Mike's research only left him with more questions. Siobhan, Chelsea's mother, was an old accomplice of many black market leaders in Manhattan. She seemed to be cashed up and was able to get an attorney for Larry, Chelsea's cousin. Why was her daughter being tossed to the wolves without help from her mother? Especially as Chelsea had done nothing wrong in this instance. Chelsea seemed on the straight and narrow and took more after her father and brother, did that have something to do with it?
"Emily believes it has something to do with your mother's side of the family. It's a theory, but it's the only link that a detective and an ADA could have between you and a drug dealer that you came across. We don't know what they want, but this is what we should have in mind as we proceed cautiously." Mike began to explain.
Chelsea had been in a daze for most of the day. The meeting the previous evening with her lawyer, Michael Cutter, had been playing on her mind non-stop.
Mike Cutter had informed her that as of right now no action was required on her behalf. She had not been charged or even accused of any crime so she currently had no case to answer for. But clearly the ADA and the detective had some kind of angle they were working, which is why Chelsea needed a lawyer.
Cutter had told her that he would get to the bottom of it and would be in contact with her soon. But there was one tiny thing that Chelsea needed to do in the meantime.
Cutter had explained to her the fact that Chelsea had a personal relationship with the arresting officer of Alex the Junkie could be a problem. Chelsea tried to weakly argue that her relationship with Cyrus was strictly platonic. Why should it be an issue? Alex's arrest was completely independent of her. But Cutter had informed her that this didn't matter. The detective and ADA were investigating some kind of link between her and Alex, and the fact that a friend of hers had arrested Alex wasn't a "great look". Therefore Cutter had strongly recommended that Chelsea distance herself from Cyrus, at least temporarily until this was all over.
It was a quiet night at work so she had been resting her elbow on a counter with her chin in her palm lost in her thoughts. She hadn't even noticed a man come in and approach her.
"You alright there?" He asked her with a huge grin.
She dropped her elbow from the counter in shock and her eyes went wide as she stared at the figure in front of her. She hadn't anticipated this person would come in to be a customer of her diner, or that she would ever see him again full stop.
"Heyyyyy, Detective Logan." She weakly smiled in an attempt to compose herself. She didn't want to look like an idiot in front of him and wanted to look cool and sophisticated.
"You look lost in your thoughts there. Does it have something to do with the events of the other day?" Mike Logan asked her as he took off his brown leather coat and rested it across his lap and sat on the bar stool in front of Chelsea.
She took a deep breath and quickly began contemplating what to tell him. Chelsea didn't want him to think any less of her and thus she was reluctant to tell him she was being investigated for her ties to her crime family. But she wasn't quick witted enough to come up with a cover story.
"Um, kinda. Well, let's just say you're the second Mike I've spoken to today who's involved in the criminal justice system. The other one is a lawyer." Chelsea responded, going red when she realised the response sounded suave in her head but confusing when spoken.
"I'm sorry…what?" Mike asked in confusion, echoing the sentiments going through Chelsea's mind.
She took a deep breath as she eyed her surroundings. The diner was almost empty except for one table where a man had finished his meal and was reading a newspaper, completely oblivious to the world. Therefore she wouldn't risk being unprofessional by telling Mike her personal problems within earshot of other customers.
But she risked looking ridiculous in front of the older man she had developed a petty sort of schoolgirl crush on. She didn't want to spill her guts and have him think any less of her.
"Um…just some stuff popped up in the wake of Alex the Junkie's arrest. An ADA and a detective approached me with some questions. I lawyered up, you know, just to be safe." Chelsea weakly smiled.
She had decided to just spit it out. Two minutes prior she was of the opinion she would never see Mike Logan again. His power over her only seemed to be active when she was in his actual presence. If she was honest with him and he came to a conclusion that she was criminal scum like the rest of her family, then she was no worse off than she would have been prior to him stopping by the diner.
But then realisation dawned on her. Mike Logan was in her diner. Was it a happy coincidence or had he tracked her down to see her?
But then her face fell as suspicions began to grow. Was he involved in investigating her?
"Wait, what? That piece of shit was arrested for drug possession after he had been harassing you, but you're the one under investigation?" Mike asked as his eyes went wide.
Chelsea studied him for a few moments. She had never been terribly good at reading people, unlike her two older siblings who seemed to be good at understanding body language, using it to their advantage to excel in their chosen life paths. But she could read Mike well enough to see that he seemed genuinely shocked. She let out a small sigh of relief and relaxed her tight posture. He definitely wasn't there as part of any investigation.
"Yeah, I don't get it either. My lawyer is currently investigating it to see what on earth is going on. He's of the opinion they want to use me as a pawn for a bigger case, rather than actually investigate me over anything I did. He's hoping to get to the bottom of it and shut it down."
"Your lawyer, is he any good?" Mike asked curiously and the fact he eyed the diner was not lost on Chelsea. She knew what was going through his head. There was no way a diner worker could afford a good lawyer. She wasn't offended by this, because he was absolutely correct.
"Apparently so. He's doing it pro-bono, a law advocate at my university convinced him to take it on. He also apparently went to law school with my brother but I don't know if that had any bearing on him taking on my case." Chelsea explained.
Mike only nodded as a response and Chelsea noticed he had grown quiet and was absent mindedly rapping his knuckles on the counter top in front of him. She didn't know if it was out of awkwardness or just boredom. She definitely didn't want him to get bored and leave so she decided to switch the topic to the first thing that entered her mind.
"So I've been thinking about that kiss, quite a lot." Chelsea stated in a sultry manner as she lowered her voice and sent him a wink.
This caused Mike to break out into a grin.
"I'd be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind once or twice either. I may have convinced Lupo into telling me where you work in order to see you again."
Hearing Cyrus' name made Chelsea's stomach turn in a twist of guilt. It had only been a day since she began distancing herself from him but she already hated herself for it. She hadn't even had the guts to tell Cyrus as of yet. Her master plan was to hope it would all blow over and go away before Cyrus could even realise what was happening.
"How did that even come up in conversation?" Chelsea asked curiously. She genuinely wanted to know how that conversation played out, but she also wanted to hear as much about Cyrus as possible considering it could be a while before she got to speak to Cyrus directly.
"It's not really that interesting of a story. Lupo bought it up in conversation in the squad room. Lennie mentioned we had to question a witness around here. Lupo mentioned that 'his friend that came in to visit him recently' worked in a diner around here. I asked him which one and he told me." Mike shrugged.
Chelsea only began to nod as she thought of how to reply to Mike. She was still caught off guard by his sudden appearance at her place of work, and was trying to wrap her head around how to seem cool and sophisticated. She wanted to hear more about Cyrus, but she didn't know how to bring him up again without sounding too keen. The last time she spent time with Mike Logan he had come to the conclusion that either Cyrus or herself had unrequited feelings for the other one. She didn't want Mike to still believe that was true.
Luckily for her it was Mike who would speak up. He would even bring up a suggestion she would be very happy to hear.
"So what time do you get off? I was thinking we could maybe do some more of that amazing kissing we enjoyed the other night?"
