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Kim and Jimmy were both striving in their own ways—one taking on various cases by day, the other selling burner phones by night. Their mismatched lives pulled them further apart, and they spoke less and less. Even when Kim finally had her cast removed, there was no celebration. While Kim accumulated more awards, Jimmy’s only additions were arrest records. Jimmy dared not tell Kim about his sordid business: selling untraceable burner phones to criminals. Yet he never forgot his original goal—he’d found an affordable office space, intended to be the home of the law firm he and Kim would open together in a month.
One night, Kim took Jimmy to a company party and introduced him to her colleagues. It was Jimmy’s first time seeing Kim’s office, and its furnishings and decor were far nicer than the space he’d picked out—a wave of inferiority washed over him. At the party, the outgoing Jimmy got along famously with everyone, his chatter clearly stealing the spotlight from his boss, Rich. Kim noticed Rich’s darkening expression but couldn’t intervene publicly.
In the days that followed, Jimmy continued his small business, waiting patiently to get his law license back in a month. For safety, he’d hired the large, imposing Huell Babineaux to help him. One day, Huell went to buy hamburgers while Jimmy waited on the street for customers. A car pulled up, and Jimmy could smell the cop on the man before he even spoke. When the undercover officer realized he’d been made, he explained: a drug dealer shot and killed in the neighborhood the previous day had been in possession of a burner phone sold by Jimmy. The officer ordered Jimmy to get a proper storefront and sell phones only to law-abiding citizens. Jimmy refused— the whole point of burner phones was their untraceability, and this neighborhood was where his bulk of customers lived.
As the two argued, Huell appeared wearing headphones, a paper bag with hamburgers in hand. The music blared so loudly that Huell didn’t hear Jimmy’s shouts to stop; he swung the bag. Disaster struck: Huell was arrested for assaulting a police officer, facing two and a half years in criminal charges. Holding the indictment, Huell’s first thought was to flee. Left with no choice, Jimmy went to Kim’s law firm and told her the whole truth.
The problem was, Huell had been arrested for shoplifting by the same officer three years earlier. The prosecution argued that Huell had intentionally assaulted the officer in retaliation. Jimmy already had a plan: he’d dug up dirt on the officer—history of alcoholism and anger management issues. If they could provoke the officer in court, Huell might walk free. But Kim flatly rejected such underhanded tactics. She pored over the case files and relevant regulations, discovering that Suzanne, the prosecutor handling the case, had overseen five previous assault-on-an-officer cases—all defendants had been convicted of misdemeanors and released without jail time.
When Kim went to the courthouse to negotiate a reduced sentence for Huell, Suzanne refused outright. Even though in previous cases the officers had been badly beaten and bloodied, while this incident involved nothing more than a hamburger, Suzanne insisted on a harsh sentence, citing Huell’s prior record. With negotiations at a standstill, they needed a new approach. As she left the courthouse, Kim told Jimmy to ensure Huell didn’t skip bail and warned Jimmy not to pull any stunts—she’d come up with a better plan.
Meanwhile, the tunnel excavation proceeded smoothly under Mike’s tight surveillance. But even the best-laid plans had flaws: a support column in the tunnel was accidentally knocked over by a forklift, forcing a delay in the schedule. Confined to a life of night shifts and darkness for weeks on end, Werner’s German crew grew restless—none more so than Kai. Concerned for the project’s safety, Mike planned to send Kai back to Germany. But Kai was Werner’s top blaster, irreplaceable. Werner argued that the crew needed rest and relaxation, a chance to go outside and breathe fresh air. The request put Mike in a bind—who knew what trouble they might stir up?
On another front, Dr. Maureen updated Gustavo on Hector’s recovery. Hector had woken up with physical impairments but was expected to regain motor function with time. But what Gustavo cared more about was Hector’s mental state. Watching the video Dr. Maureen had taken, he noticed a detail she’d missed: Hector had used his only movable finger to knock over a paper cup of water on his side table. As the nurse cleaned up the spill, the old man’s eyes leered at her chest and buttocks. This was the Hector Gustavo knew—his recovery was going far too well. It was time to replace his attending physician.