Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 52699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 263(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“I don’t have that much time left on my sentence,” a soft female voice from someone I didn’t know said.
I paused the file and typed, “Don’t know the first person,” into an email. Then I hit play again.
“I can’t take this anymore.” Elizabeth’s raspy voice made me still. “Let me come clean and tell everyone the truth.”
“What the hell would that solve?”
“It would make things right.”
“Right for who?”
I paused the file, unsure of what the hell I was being let in on.
What the hell did Elizabeth mean by coming clean and telling the truth? She was the real life version of SVU’s Olivia Benson, and as much as she’d berated me about “morals” and “doing the right thing” I assumed this was something simple.
Taking the disk to my office, I locked the doors and replayed the first part again, stopping at the exact same mark.
Then I forced myself to listen to the next thirty seconds.
Other Voice:
Stop being foolish, Lizzie. You keep fighting and we’ll get it all cleared up eventually. Even if we don’t, time will and I’ll be out of here. It’ll be over either way.
Elizabeth:
I feel like such a fraud. I’m not cut out for this, you know. This was your dream, not mine.
Other Voice:
Keep it together and focus. You’re doing one hell of a job as a lawyer.
Elizabeth:
Real lawyers take the bar exam, Ellie.
Other Voice:
Shhh. Enough. Take out one of your cases and let’s talk about that.
Yes, let’s talk about that…
I picked up my phone and called Human Resources.
“Yes, Mr. Carter?” Marie answered on the first ring.
“Can you have an intern bring me Elizabeth Tanner’s file, please?”
“Which parts?”
“I want everything,” I said. “Her application, her bar exam results, her Harvard admissions letter and transcript. If you have a hair sample, I’ll take that, too.”
“We don’t keep hair samples here for anyone, Mr. Carter.”
“It was hyperbole.” I rolled my eyes. “Tell them the intern I need it as soon as possible.”
“The interns are off grabbing lunch for the associates.”
“Fine,” I said. “Have them bring it to me when they’re finished.”
Too impatient to wait, I called the private review line at Harvard’s admission office.
“This is Shanna Carlson at Harvard Admissions speaking, how may I help you?”
“Miss Carlson, this is Damien Carter with Hamilton & Associates,” I said. “I need to vet a graduate for our firm.”
“Of course you do.” There was a smile in her voice. “You guys always poach our best students. What’s the first and last name?”
“Elizabeth Tanner.”
The sound of her tapping the keyboard came over the line.
“Um…Can you spell it for me?”
I obliged, and she typed it again.
“Uh, do you have her student ID by chance?”
As if on cue, an intern slid a manila folder under my door.
“Yeah, give me one second.” I picked up the thin file, wondering if there was more to come. “It’s 6099-76-2673.”
“Ah, I see.” She let out a soft laugh. “Yes, we have that student on file as Ellie Tanner. I see here in her file, she wrote one hell of an admissions essay about her twin sister, Elizabeth. I’m sure people confuse them all the time, huh?”
Twin? “Oh, I’m sure…”
REDIRECT (N.)
AN ADDITIONAL DIRECT EXAMINATION OF A WITNESS FOLLOWING CROSS-EXAMINATION
DAMIEN
My blood pressure was spiking to levels unknown, but I refused to jump to conclusions.I just stared at the goddamn facts.
“Elizabeth Tanner” was never accepted into Harvard or Harvard Law School.
Ellie Tanner was.
“Elizabeth Tanner” dropped out of college to pursue theater, but after committing a brutal assault and being charged with attempted murder, she began serving a prison sentence in her hometown of Seattle.
Ellie Tanner completed her Harvard education and worked at Hamilton & Associates before moving on to the public defender’s office.
They switched lives.
I stared at the notes I’d written on my oversized whiteboard, shaking my head.
No matter how many times I ran this through my head, one thing was clear: Elizabeth, my Elizabeth, deserved a round of applause for her brilliant acting.
How did I not catch this before?
Pulling up her sister’s public prison photo, I saw that she was the spitting image of Elizabeth, down to the exact curve in her bow-shaped lips.
Or is she Ellie? I’m still slightly confused…
I walked over to my file cabinet and pulled out the pro bono case Elizabeth kept trying to make me look over.
I felt a pang in my chest the moment I finished.
Case Summary
A group of seven college students broke into a Seattle high school theater overnight, luring a fellow student there for a revenge beating. At the same exact time, another student and her relative (who was never caught) also broke into the theater, through another entrance.
The police were called upon receiving an alarm, and all the intruders (except one) were temporarily detained, but not arrested.
The beating victim was left with permanent brain damage and suffered contusions, so arrest warrants were sent out for all the perpetrators who broke in that night.