Page 48 of Deliver Me

Another door opened, this one along the wall in front of them, and a woman in black robes entered the room as everyone scrambled to their feet. Judge Turner was straight-backed and stern-faced as she walked to her seat, and Mia felt a frisson of fear work its way down her spine. All of her hope rested in this one woman and there was little to give any indication that she had any intention of handing out mercy or understanding as she swept the room with a serious gaze and began the proceedings.

The sharp snap of the gavel cut through the silence and Mia squeezed Brittany’s hand as they both jumped at the noise. Mia wasn’t usually the kind to be jumpy, but every muscle in her body was pulled tight and tense under the skin as though it would be enough to keep the tears in.

The jury in their box watched everything with interest as the state’s lawyer—a tall man that the judge referred to as Mr. Price who had stiff mannerisms and a penchant for clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke—laid out the case and the prosecution’s evidence.

“The facts,” he said, voice echoing against the walls, “are clear. There is no doubt about the guilt of this man. Gabriel Myers stabbed his father to death in an alley. The cold-blooded nature of the crime, the obvious disregard for right and wrong, leaves the state no choice but to keep him in prison. He is too dangerous to be released.”

Mia watched with a broken heart as he shrunk down under the weight of the words, his giant shoulders twisting in and down toward the table as though trying to hold himself together or disappear entirely.

Her free hand, the one not holding tightly to Brittany’s, balled into a fist that she hid in the folds of her skirt. She knew very well what Amy had said, and that Mr. Price was simply doing his job, but he didn’t know Gabriel like she did, and he was wrong about the kind of person he was.

A gentle hand came to rest over hers with a soft pat that let her breathe and relax her fist. She could always count on her dad to know when she needed him most and she traded her rage for a litany of prayers to repeat inside her mind.

“This was a personal attack,” Price said. “One born of rage and hatred. It was overkill, far beyond what was necessary for self-defense even if there had been a need for any. Mr. Myers was a good man, a loving father, and his life was cut short by his own child—an out-of-control teen, with no regard for life. A callous and selfish young man who was throwing a temper tantrum because his parents said it was time for him to stop running the streets causing trouble and come home.”

He turned then to look at Gabriel, who was sitting perfectly still and listening intently to some comment that Amy was making to him in hushed tones. His body was still tense and even from several feet away Mia could see the effort he was using to keep an impassive face, the muscle in his cheek that was twitching from the strain.

Mia understood very little of the rest of his opening argument and even less of Amy’s. After waiting for so long to be here, it felt as if she were underwater, all the sights and sounds of the proceedings dimmed by the rush of panic. Her head was light, and her body disconnected, rendering all of her senses dull and fuzzy around the edges. Time slowed to a crawl, and she marked its passing by counting her breaths.

In and then out again.

Repeat.

The judge released them all for lunch before Mr. Price began to call his first witnesses—the arresting officers and the coroner that had performed the autopsy on Hugh Myers’ body.

Mia couldn’t wait to get out of the courtroom and into some fresh air, her head buzzing with anxiety and her hands shaking as she fled down the quiet hallway. It was only when they reached the bottom floor and turned toward the front doors that she remembered the crowd of reporters waiting for her outside.

“Oh,” she said, stopping abruptly so that Lilly and Bryce walked into the back of her, bumping her forward an extra step as she swore quietly under her breath. “I can’t go out there,” she said, wincing at the thought of dodging the questions and the pushy reporters again to leave and then to come back. She’d already have to face them in the return to the car and didn’t think she had it in her to do any more than that.

Amy sighed. “I forgot about that,” she admitted. “They won’t let us bring food back to you. No outside food is allowed in the courthouse.”

“I understand,” Mia said, pasting a smile on her face that felt awkward and unnatural. “I think I’ll get something out of the vending machine upstairs if I get hungry. Not really sure I feel up to eating right now, anyway.”

They stood in the open foyer for several minutes, arguing quietly about who should stay behind with her as the flow of people coming and going flowed around them.

“I’m fine to wait alone,” she repeated. “If those of you that the reporters recognize all huddle behind the ones they don’t, they might not even see you. You need to eat,” she urged.

“I’ll go out first,” Amy said. “I’m used to dealing with them and I’ll make an announcement that we’re making progress. Everyone else can slip by while they’re distracted.”

“See?” Mia said firmly. “It’ll be fine.”

In the end, everyone went except her father, who couldn’t be budged. He sat beside her on the bench upstairs, eating a candy bar from the vending machine and sipping on a ridiculously expensive bottle of water.

Mia picked at the label on her bottle, candy bar forgotten on her thigh. She’d peeled it off in tiny pieces and then folded each of those into meaningless shapes, a pile of shiny paper as a testament to her nerves, before the others came back from lunch.

The afternoon was not any easier for her to sit through and she turned her face away when they put up the photos of the crime scene, but the images danced colorfully behind her eyelids. The body lying in dirt and surrounded by trash, the pool of blood dried and black on the ground, and Hugh’s hand curled where it had fallen with the glint of a gold wedding ring still on his finger. It painted a damning picture and Mia swallowed back her tears as the information from the autopsy was read. Seven stab wounds. Damage to the heart, the stomach, the liver, the intestines …

Somehow the prosecution had found several of Gabriel’s old teachers, neighbors, people who had known him before he’d been sent to his uncle’s, all willing to testify that his relationship with his parents had been strained. That he’d been a wild teen with few boundaries and little interest in following rules or obeying authority. Amy did her best to minimize the damage on cross examination of the witnesses, but Mia’s shoulders were slumped by the time Mr. Price finally sat down.

She’d pushed her way to the car after they were done for the day, the jacket over her head hiding her tears. Amy had warned them that today would be bad, but she had never imagined that it would feel this hopeless, that the despair could reach this deep.

Chapter Twenty

Michael was the first person to be called to the stand on the second day. He was unnaturally pale as he walked to the front and took his seat in the small witness box where he solemnly, sincerely and truly affirmed under the penalty of law for perjury to tell the truth.

Mia was not surprised to see that he had refused to swear in on a Bible, but she prayed that he would feel some comfort, some sense of relief once all of this was done. Richard was dead and this was the closest that Michael would ever get to justice for what he had endured.

Amy approached the stand, and the questioning began. “Good morning, Mr. Lansing,” she said pleasantly. “Thank you for agreeing to come here today. Let’s begin by having you tell us when you first met Gabriel Myers.”

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