Читать книгу Confessions Bundle - Jo Leigh - Страница 16

BLAKE TOOK IN the courtroom with one glance. It was smaller than he’d expected. Or perhaps just too close for him.

She’d told him there’d be anywhere from thirty to ninety people—defendants, prosecutors and defense attorneys. Arraignments were done all at once on certain mornings, ten to thirty at a time, and the court distributed a press release so at least there’d be no reporters. Each arraignment would take approximately two minutes. He was prepared.

Juliet motioned him to take a seat in one of the back rows and he gladly obliged. He preferred to have everything in front of him, where he could see it. And he appreciated that she’d somehow known that, or at least stumbled unknowingly on his first choice.

The judge’s bench was empty. Too bad it couldn’t remain that way. For a moment, Blake was back in fourth grade, maybe nine or ten, sitting in a chair in the waiting room of the dentist’s office, waiting for his name to be called. He’d been there to have a cavity filled and the idea of having a needle poked into his mouth had been traumatizing him for days. He’d tried to speak with his father about his fears, about the risks of leaving the cavity unfilled. The old man had laughed at him. Told him it was merely a case of mind over matter and as a son of his, Blake would master that in no time.

Just think about baseball, his father had told him.

Blake hated baseball.

“They’ll do any ‘in custodys’ first,” Juliet leaned over to whisper. She smelled heavenly—an artistic cross between seductive and innocent. She’d obviously switched to a much more expensive perfume than the simple musk she’d worn nine years before.

Registering what she’d said, Blake looked over the thirty or so heads in front of them. “In custodys?” he repeated.

Paul Schuster walked in, pretended not to see them and took a seat on the opposite side of the room, one row up.

“The defendants who’re locked up,” Juliet said, pulling his attention back to her.

He looked around but didn’t see any handcuffs. Or guards, either.

“If there are any, they’ll be done via conference call. We’ll just listen,” she said. He nodded and wished she’d just keep talking to him. As horrible as the morning was, Blake was glad to have her there beside him. Her presence calmed him.

Some people at the front of the room stood. “All rise.”

After being announced, the judge entered and sat. So did Blake. And he had the thought that he’d like to keep right on sitting there, feeling Juliet’s warmth, until it was time to go home.

The ocean beckoned.

HIS LEGS STIFF, Blake sat straight as yet another twosome—attorney and client—filed out of the room. This time the accused had been a woman in her mid-thirties, accused of drug and child abuse. He wasn’t sure he believed her not-guilty plea. Judging by the impersonal look on her attorney’s face, he wasn’t sure that man did either.

He, Juliet and Schuster were the only ones left in the room. At least he’d been spared an audience to his humiliation.

Blake’s nerves hummed. He itched to run. Never, in all the years living under his father’s rule, had he felt this trapped.

“Blake Ramsden,” the brown-haired judge called, looking over a pair of reading glasses to the almost-empty room.

Juliet was slightly in front of him as Blake approached the bench and stood. After obtaining a document of several pages from the court clerk, Juliet rejoined him. Schuster came up last, standing on the other side of Juliet.

Just as he had for every other defendant before Blake, Judge Henry Johnson read Blake his rights. The man looked friendly enough, not more than forty or forty-five, very few frown lines.

Pulling off his glasses, Judge Johnson looked straight at Blake, his expression serious. “How do you plead?”

Blake stood silently, as he’d been told to do.

“My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”

Judge Johnson wrote something down, then lifted some papers and looked over at his clerk, who was glancing at the computer screen in front of her. She jotted something on a little piece of paper and handed it to the judge. Just as she had for every other case they’d watched that morning.

“Trial is set for July twenty-third, 8:30 a.m.,” he said. Almost three months away, just as Juliet had predicted.

The judge glanced up again, his gaze skimming over Blake and Juliet to land on Schuster. “Let’s talk about release conditions.”

“Due to the fact that the defendant spent four years out of the country without so much as a visit to his elderly parents, added to the fact that he has no local family, the state recommends that the defendant be detained, Your Honor. And because there is at least one million dollars sitting in an account in the defendant’s name in the Cayman Islands, we are asking that Blake Ramsden be held on a million-dollar bond.”

A razor-sharp pain shot through Blake’s chest. He’d been prepared, done what he could, but most of his money wasn’t liquid. They were going to take him away from that room and lock him up. He’d been telling himself all morning that he just had to get through two minutes and then he’d be on his way to the beach. And back in his office, working, by noon. Juliet hadn’t expected them to hold him.

Ignoring Blake, the judge turned to Juliet. “Ms. McNeil?”

She ignored Blake, too. Did that mean she wasn’t going to be able to help him out of this one?

His first time up to bat and already he was striking out. He’d always struck out when his father had dragged him off to Little League practice, too.

Track had been his sport, not that his father had ever noticed. It wasn’t nearly as much of a spectator sport. Due to Blake’s grandfather’s requirement that Walter work after school from the eighth grade on, spectating was the only kind of athletics Walter Ramsden had been able to participate in.

Dad, if you’re around anywhere, keeping that watchful eye on things, I could sure use some help, just this once.

“Your Honor, with all due respect, I believe that Mr. Schuster grossly underestimates my client’s ties to this community,” Juliet said. She moved one step closer to Blake and his breathing came just a bit easier. She might not be able to get him out of this, but she was here. Supporting him.

“He owns a home, sir, on a cliff overlooking the ocean in La Jolla. He’s resided there for five years and it is his only residence.” Juliet spoke as though her client owned a portion of heaven and could therefore be trusted.

The actual facts didn’t sound like much to Blake, but it was all he’d given her to work with. She’d do everything she could. And she was the best.

“He is also the sole owner of a very successful company here in San Diego, with more than one hundred employees and subcontractors all over the state. And while he has no local family, sir, he has no family anywhere else, either, to whom he might be tempted to return.” Her voice didn’t rise or get dramatic, yet maintained a note of conviction.

“Mr. Ramsden has many, many acquaintances and friends in this city, sir, including the mayor, with whom he was scheduled to have breakfast this morning. San Diego is where he was born and raised. Other than an educational stint abroad, encouraged and, in part, funded by his father, he has never left this city for more than the duration of a family vacation. His life is here, sir. I believe that, in light of these ties to his community, Mr. Ramsden should be released on his own recognizance, sir. I can personally guarantee that he will be present and ready to face charges at eight-thirty in the morning on the twenty-third of July.”

Blake stared.

She was a woman. Beautiful. Soft. Compassionate. And she was a barracuda, daring anyone to disagree with the obvious. Blake imagined she’d intimidated many people over the years.

He didn’t figure Thomas for one of them.

The judge looked him over. Put on his glasses again. Read something in front of him.

“Very well, Counselor, I will take your word that Mr. Ramsden will appear as ordered. Please advise your client that he is not to leave the state. And Ms. McNeil, if he does not appear back in this court on the date and at the time designated, you’d better not ask this court to take your word for anything—ever again.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.” Juliet didn’t crack a smile.

Blake did.

JULIET SET ASIDE the entire weekend to spend with her daughter. From the time she picked her up from school on Friday—as she did most afternoons unless she had a late day in court, when Duane Wilson’s wife, Donna, did the honors—until she dropped the child back at school on Monday morning, she was going to lavish every bit of attention she had on Mary Jane McNeil.

And sometime during that sixty-five-hour period, she was going to tell her daughter about her newest client.

She wasn’t sure it was the right, the best or the fairest thing to do. She just knew she couldn’t keep the appointment she had with Blake Ramsden on Monday morning to discuss his case and come up with a plan unless she’d come clean. Mary Jane had been willing to fight to protect her mother’s honesty.

Juliet had no choice but to do the same.

She’d intended to tell her little girl on Friday night, but after dinner out at a local hamburger joint—Mary Jane’s choice—the child had been taken with a fit of the giggles that had set the tone for the rest of the evening. They’d rented a silly movie, spilled popcorn in Juliet’s bed while watching it and done each other’s hair, and Juliet had painted Mary Jane’s face.

It had been just what the doctor would’ve ordered, had he been asked, Juliet decided early Saturday morning, staring at the smooth and beautiful features of the child sleeping so peacefully beside her. Mary Jane’s curls spiraled around her head like a dark halo. The little girl’s rounded nose and full sweet lips almost brought tears to her eyes.

God, give me the words to tell her about Blake in a way that makes it okay for her.

She’d said this same prayer several times during the previous night, holding the child against her while she slept. She’d do anything for Mary Jane. It was just damn tough, sometimes, to know the best thing to do.

Give her a court of a law, an intimidating judge, a dishonest prosecutor, a wrongfully accused murderer, and she was fine. Give her a fifty-pound child with springy curls and eyes just like her own, and she had no idea what to do. There’d been no degree to get in motherhood. No Mary Jane manual.

And Juliet had never been comfortable with just winging it.

The phone rang and she panicked until she realized it was her home phone, not her cell. Blake Ramsden didn’t have access to the unlisted number.

She reached over her still-sleeping daughter for the receiver on the nightstand.

“Hello?”

“Jules? Did I wake you?”

Juliet stretched. Grinned. “No, but I’m still in bed,” she told her twin. “Mary Jane’s here, too.” The three McNeil women, together, at least in a sense. Her day was complete and it had only begun.

The little girl moaned, turned over.

“I need to talk to you.”

Juliet’s smile faded. With one last look to make sure that Mary Jane hadn’t awakened, she slid out of bed.

“What’s up?” she asked softly, tiptoeing out of the bedroom with the cordless phone and down the hall to the kitchen. Normally Mary Jane could sleep through an earthquake—except, of course, for those few times when Juliet needed the child to stay asleep. She seemed to have some kind of sensor that alerted her to those.

“I…I…” Marcie hiccuped.

“Marce? Talk to me.” Juliet’s voice was firm, but it hid a heart full of fear. If Hank had hurt her…

“You aren’t sick, are you?” She held her breath until she knew. Anything else they could handle.

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Okay. Her sister was talking. One-answer questions seemed to be the trick. “Is it Hank?”

“No.” The word broke on another hiccup.

“If he did anything…”

“He didn’t.” Marcie’s words were quick. Too quick?

“He doesn’t know…”

“Know what?”

“Jules?” Marcie’s generally controlled tone rose in a wail.

Juliet sank to a chair at the kitchen table, staring out at the ocean. There had been times in her life when that view had been the only thing that saved her. Its vastness and strength, its vitality, and its unwavering existence always helped put life in perspective. “Yeah, Marce, I’m right here.”

“Are you busy?” At seven o’clock on a Saturday morning?

“No.”

“Can I fly down?”

Juliet’s stomach knotted. “Of course. You got a flight or you need me to call for one?”

“I’ve got one.” She named a flight that left San Francisco in a little under three hours.

That was good then. If her sister was capable of making flight plans, things couldn’t be all that bad. Could they?

“You going to make me wait until you get here to tell me what’s going on?”

“Nooo…” Marcie’s hiccup strayed to a sob. “Oh, God, Jules, I can’t believe, after everything…”

“What?”

“I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid.”

What could be so difficult to talk about? Juliet twisted a finger in her hair, something she hadn’t done since she’d been a first-year lawyer and learned that the gesture was a sign of inner weakness.

“You’ve done something?”

“I…I…I can’t seem to tell you, Jules. You’re never going to believe I was this stupid.”

“Just say it.” Juliet fought the tension gripping her, so that she could give her sister the empathy she so clearly needed.

Something she’d be a lot better equipped to do if she knew what she was trying to be empathetic about.

“Is it about money?” She crossed her fingers. That would be an easy fix.

“No.”

And then something a little more horrific occurred to her. “You aren’t in trouble with the law, are you?”

“No.” Marcie almost chuckled, but hiccuped instead. “Of course not.”

Juliet laid her cheek on her hand. Her voice lowered, softened. “Tell me.”

“I’m…pregnant.”

Juliet’s entire body stiffened. Her skin felt hot. And then cold. The phone started to slip from her hand.

“Say something.”

She would. As soon as she could think.

“I love you.”

Inane, maybe, but it was all she could come up with.

“I love you, too,” Marcie said, and sniffled.

“Hey, Marce, don’t cry.” Her sister’s tears brought Juliet’s mind at least partially back to action. “We’ll get through this. You know we will. We always do. Together.”

The assurance was as much for herself as for her sister. “You’re coming here. That’s the right choice.”

She had to get Marcie out of Maple Grove. Away from settling for life in a trailer, raising a child alone only to have the child go off and find a better life, a fuller life, leaving Marcie with nothing but a bottle of sleeping pills and a bathtub filled with bubbles….

“It’s only for the weekend,” Marcie said. “I have to open the shop on Monday.”

“Who cares about the shop?” Juliet said, half-crazed with panic and half-determined to take control and make sure that they all lived happily ever after.

“I do.”

Yes. She knew that. “I’m sorry, Marce. It’s just a bit of a shock, you know?”

“Tell me about it.” The droll tone didn’t erase the tears in Marcie’s voice, but it helped calm Juliet anyway.

“Okay, did I hear you say Hank doesn’t know?”

“Yeah.”

Good. That gave them time to figure things out before Marce was pulled in ways she might not want to go. As their mother had been.

“And you aren’t planning to tell him? At least not this morning, before you fly out?”

“No. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

What did that mean?

“You’re having the baby, right?” She couldn’t believe she was asking.

“Of course.”

“And keeping it?” Neither of them would ever consider anything else. They’d been abandoned by a parent. Twice.

“Of course.”

“Good, so go pack, get down here, and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“Okay.” A loud sniffle sounded again.

Juliet watched waves roll onto the beach in the distance, wondering how many generations of babies had been born, how many generations of people had died, while that water just kept right on rolling in and out.

“How long have you known?”

“The time it took for you to answer your phone,” Marcie said, speaking the entire sentence without a sob. “I knew I’d be in trouble if what I suspected was true, so I made the plane reservation, dialed your number on my cell phone and waited until I got the results before I hit send.”

That sounded more like the Marcie she knew.

“I’m only about a month along. I bought the test four days ago,” her twin continued, apparently needing to get things out now that she could speak. “Every night I told myself I’d do it, but I just kept thinking that ignorance was better than the truth. I guess I was probably just waiting until I was free to fly down.”

The fact that Marcie had needed to come to San Diego during her time of crisis was not lost on Juliet. Her sister might be more aware, less like their mother, than Juliet had begun to fear these last couple of years. She just needed a loving boost to give her the courage to take those first frightening steps out of Maple Grove and the false sense of security she had found there.

“Does Hank know you’re coming here?”

“Not yet. I planned to call him from the airport.”

“You’re driving yourself in?”

“Yeah.” Marcie sighed, sounding exhausted, which she probably was. Remembering back to her own trip into this same hell, Juliet doubted that her sister had slept more than a few restless hours all week. “I know it’s more expensive to park the car, but I want the time alone.”

“I understand.”

“I gotta go if I’m going to make my flight,” Marcie said, her voice weakening again.

“Okay. Be safe, Marce. I’ll be right here waiting for you. You aren’t alone, you know? You aren’t ever alone.”

“I know.”

“And while you’re on that plane?”

“Yeah?”

“Think about nothing but what an incredible joy Mary Jane has been all these years.”

“You’d do it all again, wouldn’t you?”

“Absolutely,” Juliet said.

It was about the only thing she knew for sure.