Page 55 of Tin

She stops in front of a large set of double doors. “We’re here.” She eyes me up and down. “You may want to take a moment. Take a breath or something.”

I frown. “Why?”

Her hand reaches up to smooth the collar on my dress shirt. “Because. It’s murder in there.” Then she pats my chest and nods at the security guy to open the door.

The room is quiet when we go in, not counting the booming voice of the attorney standing front and center, who based on his tone alone is in the midst of verbally assaulting the person sitting in the witness stand—Quinn.

Kirsten shoots me a warning look, and I unclench my hands, then slide into the seat beside her. Sitting right in front of us is an older couple. The woman’s profile is almost identical to Quinn’s. They’ve got to be her parents. And I ache, realizing these are the circumstances in which I’ll be meeting them.

“Did you, or did you not, continue to attack Mr. Murphy long after he was already unconscious?” The man’s oversize belly jolts with each emphasized syllable.

Quinn nods, her face void of any and all emotion. “I did.”

“Now, Ms. Quincy. If it was really an act of self-defense as you claim it was—“

A woman at the table before us rises to her feet in an instant. “Objection, Your Honor. He’s badgering the witness. She has explained multiple times here today why it was, in fact, an act of self-defense. Suggesting otherwise or trying to undermine her testimony with such a belligerent tone is not only objectionable but unconscionable at this point in the proceedings.”

Judge Hanson, a woman who looks to be in her sixties, with silver hair draping her shoulders in large sweeping curls, moves her head curtly. “I’m inclined to agree, counselor.” She turns toward the Murphys’ lawyer, the unconscionable one. It’s the nicest thing anyone could say about him as far as I’m concerned. “Please proceed, but keep your insinuations to yourself.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” He clears his throat, preparing to have another go at Quinn. “Ms. Quincy. Please tell the court why you proceeded to attack a man after he was unconscious and clearly no longer a threat to you.”

“I didn’t want to. I just...couldn’t stop. I knew if he got back up, there would be no escaping him again. But I never intended to kill him. I realize that’s hard for everyone to comprehend. In spite of everything he did to me, I still loved him.” She’s staring blankly ahead, and I wonder where she’s really at. I want more than anything to run across this room and bring her back. To see the light shine in her eyes. To know she’s present. Alive.

The Murphys’ lawyer snorts, and I see Devyn about to shoot out of her chair again, but he catches himself and she does the same.

“You’re right. That is hard to comprehend. Impossible, actually. Considering we’ve all seen the pictures. We know what you’re capable of. The only question left now is how much do you think the loss of a life is worth? How much do you think you owe for what you took that day?”

“Objection!”

“Withdrawn.” He tilts his head toward the judge. “Our side rests, Your Honor.”

Her lips purse. “Yes, I should think so.” She addresses Devyn next. “Counselor, would you like to cross-examine the witness?”

She’s already walking out from behind her table. “Yes, Your Honor. I would.”

She approaches Quinn. “I think opposing counsel brought up an interesting point. How much is the loss of a life worth? Is there a number high enough, in your opinion, Ms. Quincy? I ask because Jackson Murphy’s wasn’t the only life lost that day, was it?”

“No. It wasn’t.”

Devyn shakes her head. “No, it wasn’t. As we heard earlier, during the altercation leading up to Mr. Murphy’s death, he brutally attacked the defendant with the specific intent of terminating her pregnancy. Which he succeeded in doing. A life was lost. A life Mr. Murphy should have felt a God-given instinct to protect. And yet he snuffed it out in the most violent way imaginable.”

“Objection, Your Honor. I’m not hearing any questions here.”

Devyn raises her hand. “Oh, I have one. I promise.”

“Then please get on with it, counsel.” As of yet, I can’t really tell if the judge likes one of them better than the other, but then I guess she’s not supposed to.

“Will you ever be able to conceive another baby, Ms. Quincy?”

Quinn’s jaw tightens, and the light that was missing comes back in a furious blaze. “What?”

“Please answer the question, Ms. Quincy,” the judge directs her.

Quinn bites her lip, blinking several times. “No, I will not.”

But Devyn doesn’t let up. “Why not?”

Even from where I’m sitting, I can see her swallow hard like she’s forcing down a spear that’s painfully trying to push its way up her throat. “Because the repeated blows to my abdomen that day caused such severe internal bleeding that they had no choice but to perform an emergency hysterectomy to keep me from bleeding out and dying.”

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