“Sorry, Your Honor.”
My useless attorney snatched my upper arm and dragged me back down to my seat.
Bent close, the onion bagel he had scarfed down in the side room before court was still strong on his breath as he whispered, “Miss Hastings, you have to stop objecting.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Fine. I’ll stop objecting when you start.”
He swiped his sleeve under his nose before responding. “I’ve already told you there is nothing we can do about the video evidence. It’s solid.”
“And I’ve told you that not only was I not driving that night, but countless people could tell you that Jameson never let anyone drive his precious sports car. He wouldn’t even let the valets park it. They always had to keep it up front.”
A sharp rap of the gavel cut Finkle’s reply off. “Mr. Finkle, if the Court may proceed.”
Startled, my attorney’s arm jerked across the table, scattering several papers and files onto the floor. He dropped to his knees and gathered them up. “Yes, Your Honor.”
Looking over my shoulder, I caught Hailey’s gaze.
She mouthed, “Twatwaffle,” and rolled her eyes.
Rylee was sitting next to her and gave me an encouraging two thumbs-up.
It would have been more encouraging if her eyes weren’t red-rimmed and swollen.
I glanced over at the jury. One man kept twisting his finger in his ear. Another wouldn’t stop licking his lips every time he looked at me. Three had been doodling on their notepads the entire time, and one woman had actually fallen asleep. Since the day this trial started, the one thing they all had in common was they all looked bored as hell and not the least bit concerned I was on trial for my life.
I slumped in my chair and covered my eyes.
The commonwealth’s attorney cleared his throat before continuing. “As I was saying, you can clearly see it was the defendant, Miss Hastings, behind the wheel, as captured in this traffic camera footage, not the poor victim Jameson Worthington, moments before the tragic accident which took his life.”
I peeked through my fingers.
The video was playing on a large flat-screen TV just to the side of the judge’s bench, in full view of the jury. The CA had momentarily stopped the video. The footage was gray and grainy, but I was clearly behind the wheel. What looked odd was while Jameson was on the passenger side, his head was turned to the right, and his mouth was open as if he were in the middle of yelling at the closed window instead of at me.
But what I remembered from that night was he’d screamed at me from the moment we got into the car until the accident. I sat up straighter and stared at the frozen image.
There was something wrong with the video.
Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. All those Sherlock Holmes books I’d shelved and sold and read twice. Observe without judgment.
The CA pressed play again, and I had to stop myself from asking him to pause it again.
It was right there, practically on the tip of my tongue.
The seat belt!
Oh, my god! The fucking seat belt!
It was angled the wrong way.
If Jameson had been in the passenger seat as everyone claimed then the strap should have gone from his right shoulder down to his left hip but in the video the seat belt crossed his torso from his left shoulder to his right hip, exactly as it would if he were in the driver’s seat.
Extending my arm, I clutched at Mr. Finkle’s cheap suit. “It’s wrong! The video is a fake.”
He dislodged my grasp. “We have been over this?—”
“Look at the seat belt! The seat belt proves it’s a fake.”
Finkle bent closer and squinted at the screen. He shook his head. “I see nothing wrong.”
