“I am the victim. I have every right to refuse to press charges against Taylor. So either you back off and let me represent him, or I’ll drop the charges.”
“I don’t need you to take this case to a grand jury, Ms. Everett.” If words were daggers, Ross’s would’ve sliced her to pieces. “Even without you, I can still have him indicted.”
“True,” she responded. “But we both know your case won’t go well at trial when the victim takes the stand for the defense.”
Ross tried to stare her down, but when she folded her arms and tapped her foot in an I’ll-wait stance, he threw his hands in the air.
“This is a fool move, Counselor. And if I can find the slightest precedent in Westlaw to stop you, I will.”
With an arched brow and a confident smile, she responded, “By the time you do that, I’ll already have him out of custody.” She gave him a wink and a smile, putting her smugness on display. The resulting tight set of Ross’s jaw was proof she’d already won this argument. But just for good measure, she restated her position so the surly prosecutor understood her assertion.
Tipping her head in Taylor’s direction, she said, “From now until his father arrives with an attorney, I will be his attorney of record during this interrogation. I told you to get him a lawyer, and you didn’t. So now his lawyer is me. Again, clear the room, gentlemen. I need to talk with my client.”
Chapter 30
Aja stood across the table from a seat full of trembling sixteen-year-old boy, and her blood boiled. She was angry. Angry with the men who’d been so eager to collar this child that they’d been willing to let him hang himself. She was angry at the justice system. More often than not, it treated kids—who did stupid things, as kids do—as adults who should know better. But most of all, she was angry that someone she’d trusted may have set out to harm her.
If she were her aunt Jo, she’d have taken off her shoe and tanned his hide for putting himself in this position. But since she didn’t want to end up with an assault charge herself, she folded her arms and glared at the frightened young man.
“From the first moment I laid eyes on you, you became the nephew I’d always wanted. There’s been nothing but love between the Henrys and the Sullivans for generations. When I wanted to rebuild my family’s legacy, your father was the first and only name I thought of to help me do it. Earl was family. I wouldn’t have to explain to him why this project was everything to me. And even when your father couldn’t finish the work he’d begun because of unsafe working conditions, I never lost respect or love for him. I didn’t even attempt to seek retribution in a civil case. So tell me, why would you do this? Why would you steal from your own father? Why would you create the situations that forced him to lose half the money he was supposed to make? Why would you deliberately try to hurt someone that loved you like blood?”
“It wasn’t like that, Ms. Aja.”
“It wasn’t like that? That’s your response to the trouble you’ve caused? Do you even know what you almost did tonight?”
The way his blue eyes darted back and forth in his head as he stared openly at her told her Taylor had no clue what his actions would have destroyed if he’d succeeded.
She leaned over him, much like the way her mama used to crowd in on her when she was in trouble. Aja figured if it worked to keep her on the straight and narrow, maybe it would do the same for Taylor.
“My great-great-great-great-granddaddy built that house with his own hands after toiling for the Union Army during the Civil War. He left the brutality of slavery on that land and returned four years later with his freedom and his dignity. He bought this land from the people who enslaved him and his kin and vowed that his blood would forever have a place in this world to call a home of their own. That’s not just some old rickety building, Taylor. It’s a mark of my legacy. A reminder of everything my people have endured and survived. It’s a promise of what we can achieve if we keep trying and refuse to succumb to the pressures of the outside world. So whatever you have to say to me, it had better be damn good. Otherwise, I’m gonna let that prosecutor swallow you whole.” She bared her teeth behind curled lips and spoke with her jaw clenched. “Do you understand me?”
The child was shivering now. “I can explain everything, Ms. Aja. I pr-promise. I just gotta know you’re really here to help me.”
His pleading blue eyes shimmered with unshed tears as they darted from side to side, scanning her face for the truth. The implication that he didn’t automatically know he could trust her sliced her heart into fine shreds.
“Unlike the police, as an officer of the court, I’m not allowed to lie to you. If I’ve asserted myself as your lawyer during this interrogation, I have to perform on your behalf. If I don’t, it can be used against me, and it can also be used as a means of getting you out of this mess you’ve made for yourself. Not to mention…”
She sat down on the table facing him, stretching a slow, nonthreatening hand out to him. As she laid it softly against his cheek, she longed for the days when doing this would make every hurt better for him. “You’re my baby, Taylor,” she huffed. “I’m mad as hell at you, and if we weren’t sitting in a law-enforcement agency, I’d take a switch to your behind. But I’m not gonna let anyone harm you without going through me first. You understand?”
He closed his eyes, relief flowing like the streak of tears falling down his face, fast and unchecked. “Believe me, Ms. Aja. I never wanted any part of this, but I didn’t have a choice.”
She wiped away the wet tracks on his cheeks before continuing. “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Bennett said—”
Aja held a hand up as she sat across from Taylor. “Wait, Eli Bennett? Is that who you mean?”
He huffed frantic breaths in and out before blurting everything out in one headlong rush. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Aja. He made me do this.”
Aja’s heart beat fast and hard in her chest, knocking against her rib cage in pronounced thuds.
“Tell me everything.”
Still handcuffed to the table, Taylor raised his arm in an awkward position to wipe the tears on his face away. Sitting here, watching uncertainty and anxiety paint the canvas of his face reinforced how much of a child he truly was.
If Eli Bennett has done anything to harm this boy, I swear I will end him.
“What happened, Taylor?”
