“Not the exact moment.”
“Just a general impression?”
“Yes.”
He paces a single step. “And you were drinking too. So it’s fair to say the night was a little… blurry? Hazy in parts?”
“Not blurry,” Mikayla insists, but her voice has thinned. “Some of it, maybe.”
Jon David doesn’t push the word again. He lets it hang in the jury’s mind, quiet and poisonous.
“No further questions,” he says, returning to his seat.
I call the next friend, Jenna Blaylock. The way she twists her hands in her lap betrays her nerves.
“Ms. Blaylock, you also attended the gathering on April fourteenth?”
“Yes.”
“And did you arrive with Ms. Westbrook?”
“We met at the party. I got there a few minutes after she did.”
“And what did you note about her condition that night?”
“She was fine when I got there. She was standing with a group of friends. We talked for a bit. She joked about how she was nursing her one glass of wine.”
I nod. “And did her behavior change?”
“Yeah. Pretty quickly, actually. Maybe twenty or thirty minutes in, she started acting…off. At first it seemed like she was tipsy, swaying a little, slower to respond. But it wasn’t only that. Something was wrong.”
“Can you describe what you mean byoffandwrong?”
“She wasn’t tracking conversations. She kept blinking as if the lights were too bright. And when she tried to walk, she stumbled. I had to help her.”
“Did she say anything about how she was feeling?”
“Yes. She said she was dizzy. Kept saying she felt weird and needed to lie down.”
I let a beat pass before nodding once. “Was that typical for her?”
“Not at all,” Jenna says. “One glass of wine wouldn’t hit her like that.”
I meet her gaze. “Thank you, Ms. Blaylock. No further questions.”
I return to my seat.
Jon David rises. He moves with that same unbothered rhythm. Easy. Confident. Familiar.
“Ms. Blaylock,” he begins, tone cordial, “you and the victim are friends?”
“Yes.”
“Close?”
“Yes.”
He offers a sympathetic smile. “That can make things complicated, can’t it? Watching a friend go through something painful?”
