Page 27 of Happily Never After

“Claire didn’t tell me you were pregnant,” Alice exclaimed, reaching her hands forward but snatching them back. At least she had the good manners not to rub the pregnant lady’s belly.

“How did you know?” Nicole asked over a mouthful of crackers, placing a hand protectively over her stomach.

Alice immediately launched into a discussion about intuition and changes in Nicole’s aura. Mindy scooted closer to Claire and offered her a thermos. The last time she had accepted a thermos from Mindy, it had been full of vodka. Claire shook her head. She needed a clear head for what was coming next.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, most of the courtroom was seated. Silence gradually fell, and Claire’s heart tripped in her chest. The yellowed walls seemed to be closing in on her. The clock at the front of the room ticked maddeningly. He was here. In the building. The man who had stalked her for months, chloroformed her in a hallway, dressed her in her wedding dress, and stabbed her.

The courtroom doors opened behind them. Was that the clack of chains? Luke and Alice simultaneously grabbed Claire’s hands. She kept her eyes forward as the shuffling sound of footsteps approached. The courtroom was silent except for those shuffling steps.

Shuffle. Shuffle. Had prison seriously impacted Barney’s ability to walk like a normal human being? Would it kill him to show some hustle? She could have been using this time to do another check of Pacific Park’s policy on outside vehicles. Finally, the world’s slowest felon hit her peripheral vision. His gaze bore into her like a drill, but she refused to look at him. He wasn’t worth a single glance. The swinging doors opened, andshe caught a flash of an orange jumpsuit before dropping her gaze to her lap. She dug the scrap of wedding dress back out of her purse and clutched it in her left hand.

Moments later, a door at the front of the room opened and the judge entered. It was time. Would justice be served, or had Barney managed to pay someone off despite his frozen assets?

The beginning of the hearing passed in a blur. People spoke at the witness stand, but it all sounded far away. After several statements from a parole officer, Kyle, and Barney’s lawyer, the judge shuffled some papers on her desk.

“And now we’ll be hearing a victim impact statement from Miss Hartley.”

Claire stood on quaking knees. Public speaking didn’t normally intimidate her, but this was something else entirely. She really should have peed again before coming into the room.

Her heartbeat thudded incessantly in her ears. It was so loud, surely the entire court could hear it. Her whole body was pulsating, telling her to flee. Even if her eyes were closed, she was certain she could have pinpointed Barney like a heat-seeking missile. Evil flowed out of him, billowed across the gallery like fog.

The scrap of wedding dress clutched in her fist grew damp as she entered the swinging doors and climbed the steps to the witness stand. The sheet protector with her statement crinkled in her hand.

She was going to be sick. She was going to throw up on the counselors. It would be in the news—Hartley Hurls at Hearing.

As she faced the court, she stared immediately into the steely, evil eyes of Barney Windsor. A shiver ran up and down her spine, but she barely gave him a passing glance before moving her gaze to her family and friends. Luke’s arm was around Alice. Rachel looked more pinched and constipated than usual. Nicole was like a frightened baby deer with chipmunk cheeks full of crackers.Mindy crossed her eyes, put her fingers at the corner of her mouth, and stuck her tongue out. It was almost enough to make her smile.

Claire bent the microphone toward her, and a deafening shuffling sound emanated from the speakers. A couple of people in the gallery flinched. Nothing like making a good first impression.

“Your Honor, thank you for allowing me to present my impact statement today.”

She turned to look at the judge, who nodded encouragingly at her. Everything rested on this moment. No pressure.

“How do you put into words the impact a violent crime has had on your life?” she wondered aloud. Her attention moved back to the crowd.

Alice smiled encouragingly while big, fat tears streamed down her cheeks.

Claire wrung her hands and picked up her paper. It shook in her hands. “Honestly, that night changed everything for me. My sense of security, my trust in my community and my judgment, my business, my emotional and physical health.”

She took a deep breath and glanced up from her paper. Luke nodded.

“I had anxiety attacks. I had to take self-defense lessons to feel even a tiny bit of security. And still, I don’t feel safe. I can’t walk down the street without studying everyone in my path, cataloging all the men and what they’re wearing. This scar”—she paused, patting the shiny mark on her chest where Barney had stabbed her—“it’s a daily reminder of the worst night of my life.”

She looked at the judge, but her face was unreadable. Claire’s hands trembled, and for a moment she lost her place. A bead from the fabric of her wedding dress bit into her palm. She glanced at it. The day she wore this dress was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. Instead it had been a blood-drenched nightmare. Although, technically speaking, marrying her ex would have been almost as bad as getting stabbed by a serial killer in the long run. Maybe he had done her a favor when he cheated on her with her nemesis.

Shit, which bullet point was she on? She glanced up, and Mindy mimed someone taking a picture. Right, the press.

“He made me a spectacle. The press hounded me for months after the attack. I had to climb down the fire escape with my dog just to let her pee in peace. And my business suffered too. We built Happily Ever Afters to work exclusively with couples we genuinely believed were in love and wanted to get married for no ulterior motives. We had a one hundred percent success rate before Barney. My reputation in the business community was irrevocably damaged. I’m now the girl who planned a proposal for a serial killer. Who could trust such a special moment in their lives to someone who didn’t see evil staring her in the face?”

She gestured at Barney. A smile curled his crooked mouth. “We’ve now incurred significant financial costs by requiring a federal background check for every applicant, but it still doesn’t feel like enough. Evil doesn’t always have a criminal background. Barney Windsor didn’t.”

A jolt hit her. Was her car door locked? She hadn’t done her customary memory dance after shutting the door. But then again, she wasn’t about to break out into the foxtrot with thirty reporters breathing down her neck. Surely Luke had locked it. She needed to focus. Another deep breath ballooned in her chest.

In her peripheral vision, Barney twitched in his orange jumpsuit, but she wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of eye contact. Right, she should probably keep talking.

She took a deep breath and continued. “Even after being drugged, thrown in a trunk, dressed in my wedding dress, tortured, and stabbed, I didn’t think I needed therapy. I thoughtI could handle it myself. Then the sleepwalking started. I would wake up with no memory of how I got where I was. I walked into a lake, woke up in the middle of a forest. One time I even drove my car. It made me a danger to myself and others. I started therapy a few months ago, and while it’s been helpful, it doesn’t stop the nightmares. It hasn’t restored my sense of security or my belief that people are basically good.”

Alice sniffed loudly from her row. At least she had listened to Claire and left the voodoo dolls at home this time.

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