I picked up my laptop, where her screen was still black in the RAT desktop, and shook it, screaming, “Where did you go?”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE CAT

The man across the aisle from me loudly cracked open another pistachio, his twenty-sixth. I’d been glaring at him since the third, hoping the intensity of my stare would shame him into eating a quieter snack. Instead, he reached for another.

Sitting alone in the Acela’s Quiet Car, scowling at a stranger and counting nuts, was not how I envisioned my return to DC after the Phillips trial. Then again, it wasn’t technically “after” the Phillips trial. The rest of the team remained in New York, preparing for the next day’s work, while only I returned in shame. I blanched as I remembered what had happened in court that morning. It had been time for me to speak, making a jurisdictional argument that was technical and a bit dry, but nonetheless important. As I rose from my chair, nylon-clad legs shaking underneath my skirt suit, I heard Connor whisper, “Go get ’em, Harrell.”

I took a deep breath and glanced down at my notes. On the table beside my legal pad, my phone screen lit up, Audrey’s name visible. Messages started appearing on the screen, one after another. I tried to ignore them, tried to focus on my notes, but the word “help” caught my eye.

“Catherine,” Bill whispered to me. “You’re up.”

I lifted my gaze sharply, reminding myself of the import of what I was about to do, but my concentration was shot. I couldn’t stop thinking about that “help.” Did Audrey need me? Did this have something to do with the noises she claimed she’d heard in my apartment? I had assumed they were Max, depositing his flowers or whatever he had decided to do, but what if it wasn’t? What if Audrey was in trouble?

The argument I’d exhaustively practiced left me; it simply vanished from my head. I felt Bill’s eyes burning holes through the back of my suit jacket, no doubt wondering why he had entrusted something so important to such an awkward loser.

Cat got your tongue? Emily Snow taunted.

I opened my mouth and forced out words. They weren’t the words I’d planned to say, and my voice was thin and tremulous, like that of a child rather than a competent professional. More than once, the judge had to ask me to speak up. When I flubbed a case holding and the judge interrupted to correct me, I knew it was over. I wanted to melt into the floor. It took every ounce of fortitude I had to finish the argument. As I returned to my seat, I looked to Connor for sympathy, but he couldn’t even meet my eyes.

And the worst part was that when I checked my phone and read Audrey’s text messages, they were just something about not being able to sleep and needing to talk about Max.

Goddamn Audrey.

She was my savior and my executioner. Without her, I never would have gotten along in the sorority, never would have had any friends or any fun. But without her, I might have succeeded today. If she hadn’t distracted me at the last minute … She knew how important this trial was to me. She knew, and still she texted me with this self-obsessed nonsense. I didn’t know why I was surprised. Audrey always thought about herself first and foremost.