Read Online Hold Me in Contempt by Wendy Williams - Free Book Online

that. But if you run and hide now, if you don’t share your story, what happened to that woman, the woman whose name you don’t even know, will happen to someone else. That’s what I’m trying to stop. That’s why we’re here, and that’s why I need you to testify.”
    I reached over the table and grabbed his hand.
    â€œIt’s time for you to stop being afraid. Right now,” I added. “If you don’t do it for you, do it for her. Tell your story.”
    Bernard sat quiet for a long while. And then he turned and looked at the books again.
    â€œWhat do you want to know?” he asked.
    â€œWe can start with the dealings in the basement of the Candy Shop,” I said. “I need you to be honest with me about what you saw there. The more information you give me about what Miguel Alvarez did and what you did and what you saw, the closer we get to stopping this thing.”
    â€œOkay,” he said with new tears rolling from his eyes. “I’ll do it.”
    While I was confident Bernard didn’t need any police protection, I ordered a police escort for him. Sometimes the fear witnesses feel in cases like this one comes more from guilt than from reality. Testifying about someone else’s actions was also an indictment of his inaction, and in his mind he had to create some kind of punishment for that. If the police weren’t coming for him, then someone else had to. The story he’d told me, and probably even the evil in the ones he’d kept hidden, would keep him up most nights for the rest of his life looking for payback behind tinted car windows outside his apartment. Sometimes the prison sentence in the mind was worse than the real thing.
    â€œPaul’s been down here twice looking for you,” Carol said, popping her head into my office after Bernard was gone and I was editing my notes from his interview.
    â€œTwice?” I repeated. “What did he want? Did he say?”
    â€œSaid he wanted to come down here himself to congratulate you on last week,” Carol said, grinning. “Said he was impressed. Good news, right? Coming all the way from the top!” She pointed up toward the district attorney’s office. “That’s pretty rare. Him down here just to speak to you. But then again, you were really great last week. Everyone’s talking about it.”
    â€œSure,” I answered flatly before delivering a weak smile to let Carol know I wanted to be alone.
    Carol took the hint and turned to walk out.
    â€œHey, Carol,” I called. “Can you do me a favor?”
    â€œSure. What do you need?”
    â€œCan you close my door,” I said in a low voice, “and if Paul comes back down here, tell him I had a doctor’s appointment.”
    â€œBut your appointment was this morning. Right?” Carol looked confused.
    â€œI know. I’m not really leaving. I just want you to say that. Okay?”
    â€œOkay.” Carol frowned at me awkwardly before pulling the door shut.
    â€œAnd Carol,” I added just before it closed behind her, “thanks for saying I did great.”
    â€œNo problem at all. You always do.”
    The Tuesday before, I’d delivered the closing argument in a case that we were sure we’d lose. While I started in my ADA class focusing on what we call rackets—basic economic crimes, arson, racketeering—after my first year it was clear that my best work was in cases that involved small-business corruption with illegal drug operations, so the DA put me on Special Prosecutions. In my last case, the owner of a small vegan bakery on the Lower East Side had been growing marijuana in his apartment and transporting it to his shop, where he baked it into cakes and brownies and even croissants. It was becoming a common New York setup for the kinds of drug operations I was set to bust down: illegal pill dispensaries and marijuana factories operating out of the