Once outside, the bailiff stood there, as if blocking the door.“I’m afraid you won’t be let back in.”
Jill nodded, barely listening.What did she care about court?Grandma hadspoken.Words.Awake and on purpose.
Grandma, who was shaking.Jill looked around, spotted a bench, and then nudged Grandma to sit on it.Jill wanted to fully get her out of here, but she needed Grandma to be a little steadier to walk across the parking lot.
Grandma’s eyes were bright.She clutched her purse so hard her knuckles were white.She didn’t look at Jill.She just stared straight ahead, rocking a little bit, as if to comfort herself.
“Grandma…” Jill looked down at this woman who grew more a mystery to her every day.“You spoke.”It was a silly thing to say, but Jill couldn’t come up with anything else.
For her whole life, her grandmother had never uttered even a word—except the last few weeks in sleep.
Today, Glenda had stood up in court and called Benjamin Bennet a liar.Out loud.
Grandma shook her head, like it was denial.But there was no denying it.Jill had heard it.Seen it.Everyone in that courtroom had.
“You can talk, Grandma,” Jill said, emotion clogging her throat, and she didn’t even know what that emotion was.Too complex.Too much on top of everything Benjamin Bennet was claiming in that courtroom.
Grandma closed her eyes.One single tear fell over onto her cheek, trailed down.Jill had to fight back her own tears.She had to be the one in charge here.
“He lies,” Grandma rasped.
She opened her eyes, met Jill’s gaze for the first time since she’d spoken.She opened her mouth again, but no sounds, no words came out.
Jill thought Grandma wastryingmaybe but couldn’t get her brain and mouth to be on the same page.So Jill focused on the thing that had somehow… somehow gotten through Grandma’s traumatic muteness.The first thing in over thirty years, far as Jill knew.
Benjamin Bennet’s lies.
“Can you prove it?”Jill asked.“That he’s lying.With or without talking, can you prove it, Grandma?”
Grandma just shook her head while more tears fell onto her cheeks.
And no more sounds came out of her mouth.
*
Landon was crammedinto some little meeting space in the courthouse with not just his family and Sam, but Mr.VanderbiltandDetective Hayes.
This was clearly damage control.But in these first few moments after court had adjourned and they’d come together, no one seemed to know what to say.
Landon took it upon himself.“Where do we go from here?”
The lawyer didn’t meet his gaze, but he was clearly thinking it through.And had no answers.
Cal sank into one of the empty chairs.“It’s what I expected and yet… it never occurred to me he would… I just thought he’d try to paint Mom as unstable.Not mount a self-defense or… self-harm.The physical evidence doesn’t support self-harm.”
Landon held on to that.But he understood enough of everything that had happened that the jury was not made of scientists.They didn’t have to follow the evidence if it didn’tfeelright.
And boy did Benjamin Bennet know how to use that.
“The pregnancy wasn’t out of wedlock,” Sam was saying.“You can still introduce evidence.Introduce Bo’s DNA.Screw Marie’s medical records.That proves his story is full of shit right there.The DNA results haven’t come back on the public site yet, that I know of, but the DNA from when he was a kid—”
“Yeah, there’s a problem with that,” Detective Hayes said.
Everyone’s gaze turned to him.
“Bowman Lake will not consent to have his DNA be introduced as evidence in this case.Any public databases where itwashave all been wiped.Sometime last week, he made sure no one could access his DNA.”
How the hell was this all unraveling?
