Page 74 of Whispers on the Water

Chapter forty-four

Sam

As soon as the words are out, I’m on my feet. “Penny, no!”

The judge was banging her gavel. “Sit down Ms. Williams or I will have you removed from the courtroom.” The rest of the audience is just as unruly, and it takes several more bangs and warnings before everyone is calmed down.

I couldn’t believe it. Why? Why would Penny tell the truth? The whole point of me running away was to protect my sister and keep the focus on me. I was perfectly willing to go to jail and had accepted that fate.

Why change things now?

One of the other lawyers leaned over to me as I sat back down. “You have to stay calm. This was always her plan, Sam.”

I narrow my eyes at the lawyer but keep my hands in my lap, trying to keep myself from jumping up again. But Joshua isn’t done. He walks over to the bench and reached into a box on the floor.

When Sam saw what was inside, she felt the bile rise in her throat. It couldn’t be. Not since the night of the incident had she even seen one, much less the one that had been used.

Joshua lifted the evidence bag into the air. “This is a sig sauer p22. The same one that Sam purchased two weeks prior to the alleged murder.” He set the gun on the judge’s bench, then went back to his box and withdrew another folder. “And this is a forensic exam of the pistol. You can see there is dried blood on the butt of the gun. The analysts concluded that it is Sam’s blood, and they were able to find her hair as well as Penelope Bennett’s fingerprints.” The judge studied the gun with a face full of disgust before putting it aside. “Underneath are a few photos.” Joshua tapped the photographs.

The judge was looking through the evidence he was presenting, her brows low as her eyes darted over the pages. Joshua took the photo and walked to Penny.

“Can you describe these pictures?”

Penny closes her eyes, pain etched in her expression. “It’s Sam at the hospital for her broken nose.”

“And the second one?”

She studied it for a second. “I’ve never seen this one. It’s in Spanish but looks like an ID.”

With careful steps, Joshua took it back and gave it to the judge. “It is a student ID from Universidad de Costa Rica. Taken three weeks after the murder. In the zoomed in image on the back, you can clearly see the deep cut above her right eyebrow, as well as bruising along her neck.”

At the sight of so much of my horrifying past, the air in my lungs is suddenly sucked away. Like I can’t breathe because oxygen doesn’t exist anymore. They were speaking about my trauma and past like it was some sort of clinical study. Everything was moving so fast, like a freight train off the tracks. It felt like I was suddenly back in that moment, a sharp pain hitting me in the chest. His hands tightening around my neck, the deafening sound of the gunshot.

As if Joshua knows how I’m feeling, he gives me a careful look of pure sympathy before going back to his wife. “Now Penny. Please tell me what happened afterwards.”

“I put her in the shower, dressed her in pajamas and drove her to my apartment. Once there, I grabbed my passport and some cash. I told her to go far away, to just start over somewhere new where she could be happy. I promised I would take care of everything. I would go to the police in the morning once she was gone and confess.”

“Did you?”

Penny looked down and touched her own stomach. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I slept in the next morning after taking some more of my anti-nausea medicine. I was woken up by my phone ringing. The doctor was calling to say it wasn’t the flu, that I was pregnant with my daughter.”

The courtroom started talking again, many murmuring excitedly. Penny looked up at Joshua. “I was so scared. Imagining going to jail pregnant and you, abandoning me because I was…” she started sobbing again. “A murderer.”

Joshua’s face softened, but he didn’t say anything. If I had to guess, Joshua was hurt that she thought so little of him.

“I called Sam. She was already in Mexico. I told her about the baby, and she told me not to go into the police. She said it was her fault for not leaving Kevin sooner. I begged her to come back and promised I would confess everything after the baby was born. But she told me no. She said the police would think it was her and to let them.”

“And did you?”

“Yes. I still had the gun in my purse. So I decided to hide it.” She looked directly at a still shocked Sam. “But I swear, Sam, I always knew I would turn it in someday. I put the gun in a ziplock and took it to a shooting range and locked it inside one of their lockers under a fake name. Until three weeks ago, I hadn’t even looked at it. That’s when I got it and gave it to my husband, erm you Josh, explaining the real story.”

“So why now?” Josh asks.

Penny dabbed at her eyes with the soaked tissue and nodded, clearly ashamed. “When my second son was born, he was sick, and she saved his life. I knew I couldn’t let her take the fall anymore.”

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