Page 26 of Happily Never After

“Ouch,” a reporter called, and a very tan couple appeared in front of Tyler and Ericka.

Steve, another former client who had proposed to his girlfriend via Jet Ski the previous spring, held a boogie board infront of him, and his fiancée, Cassie, clutched an oversized tote bag like a battering ram.

“Hey, Claire,” he said as calmly as though they had run into each other outside a local café.

She gaped at them. “What are you guys doing here? Aren’t you getting married like?—”

“This weekend.” Cassie nodded and turned to the crowd in front of her. Raindrops came down on both of them, but neither moved to pull out an umbrella. Claire made a mental note to send their congratulations card out when she got home. “We weren’t about to let the media make mincemeat out of you. Not after everything you did for us. I saidget outta here,” she demanded, shoving her purse directly into a camera. “Oh, and put this on.” She pulled a scarf out of her purse and tossed it to Claire.

“What is it?” The fabric was shiny.

“Jane made it for you. It’s high contrast apparel, so if the paparazzi use a flash, it’ll blur your face. She and Aaron wanted to be here, but Jane had an exhibition in New York.”

Jane was a talented painter. Her proposal video had gone viral, and Aaron wrote to Claire several months later to tell her that Jane was getting offers from galleries all over the country.

“I didn’t realize you all knew each other.” Claire tilted her head and ducked under a boom microphone.

“We didn’t,” Aaron said. “We connected online after you were abducted. We wanted to do something nice for you, but we couldn’t agree on anything. That’s why we’re here.”

Claire smiled and obediently wound the scarf around her neck. Between her FBI father, scowling boyfriend, and the four people wielding various objects in front of her, their path to the courthouse immediately became more manageable.

Déjà vu hit her like a Mack truck as she reached the building’s exterior stairs. Everything felt exactly the same as ithad on the day of the preliminary hearing. Climb the flight of steps to the front doors, pray that the metal detector inside didn’t erase any of her proposal notes, hope her mother didn’t try to bring any voodoo dolls or other questionable objects inside. As long as she thought of each step as an item on a To Do list, she could survive.

This time, instead of being sequestered, Claire was allowed to enter the courtroom. Her former couples broke off from the crowd with handshakes and hugs. They filed into one of the rows. Tanya pounced on her immediately and was, thankfully, wearing clothes today. Her tie-dyed romper and Birkenstocks were not conventional court attire, but for some reason, the sight of her zany stepmother was like a salve.

“Claire, you are an amazing, strong, beautiful goddess. Everything will be fine. How was your leftover spaghetti?” She clutched her hand like the outcome of her entire day depended on Claire’s assessment.

Alice wrinkled her nose. Apparently Tanya’s new role in Claire’s life was getting under her skin.

“Uh, it was great,” Claire said. “Luke enjoyed it too. Didn’t you?” It wasn’t really the time to talk about pasta, but maybe she was just offering a distraction.

“Hmm?” he asked. He had been scanning the front of the courtroom. “Right. Yeah. I didn’t even know you could make meat sauce without the meat. It was very convincing. We’d better go take our seats.”

Alice managed a handshake with Tanya before whisking Claire away to a different row.

Kyle’s growing bald spot was visible behind the counselor’s desk. Mindy was already sitting in a row, tapping away at her tablet. Her raven-colored hair was gathered into a low bun. Sawyer’s hulking shape sat next to her. Rachel was in the row behind them, as rigid as a two-by-four.

And there, in the front row, was Barney’s mother. She was alone, head bowed. A woman defeated. No matter how this day ended for Claire, it would be worse for her. Her only son, a murderer. A chill ran down Claire’s spine.

“Where’s Coli?” she asked as Alice rushed to embrace Mindy. Focusing on Barney’s mother wouldn’t do her mental health any good.

“Bathroom,” Mindy grunted through one of Alice’s legendary bone-crushing hugs.

Claire sat on the worn wooden bench and pulled her purse onto her lap. She removed a binder, her victim impact statement, a roll of poo bags, a pen case, and a scrap of her wedding dress that she had brought for inspiration before finding a sleeve of saltine crackers. She bent forward and gestured at Kyle before tossing the crackers to him.

“Thank you for coming,” she said to Mindy with a quicker and gentler hug than her mother had offered.

“Like I would miss the chance to stare daggers at that douchebag. It’s great, by the way. You don’t have to worry.” Claire had forwarded her the victim impact statement when she had finally finished it at midnight.

“You get everything out that you wanted to say?” Sawyer asked as she hugged him next.

Claire paused. “I think so. We’ll see if it makes a difference.”

If her statement didn’t make a difference, and the judge went with the minimum sentence, she was going to give up on America entirely and move to Canada. There was no way the Canadian justice system would let a dangerous idiot like Barney Windsor out after a paltry five years. She could totally make a living planning proposals in Canada. She just needed to learn more about hockey and publicly funded health systems first.

Nicole came back a few minutes later, paler than usual with dark circles under her eyes. She hugged Claire and collapsedonto the bench between Kyle and Luke. She took the crackers eagerly and shoved several in her mouth.

Alice stood and let out a little squeal, then nearly fell over Luke’s knee as she rushed toward Nicole.

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