Chapter Nineteen
Crawford County Courthouse
Nate knew the cuffs and the courtroom weren’t meant to humiliate him, but they did all the same. The lawyers. The audience.
He could say with some certainty he’d never really thought about any of this from the perspective of the person in cuffs. The only time he’d been in a courtroom before had been to watch his father’s trial, and Benjamin Bennet had been infinitely worthy of the humiliation ritual.
This wasn’t a trial. Just an arraignment to enter his plea. Still, it gave him a sense of life outside jail and guards and everything he’d been trying to dissociate from for the past two days.
Being a former soldier was really coming in handy.
He was led over to where Cal was waiting, but Nate didn’t bother to look at him. Sam was sitting in a chair right behind where he’d be sitting with Cal. So all he saw was her as she got to her feet.
He ignored Cal, the chair he was supposed to sit in, and searched her face, much like she was searching his. Both, no doubt, cataloguing the way the other wasn’t taking care of themselves.
“Looking a little rough around the edges,” he managed to say without sounding too hoarse.
“I slept last night,” she told him. She was clutching her purse and clearly trying so damn hard to pretend this was all normal. For him. “And Aly makes breakfast every morning. The last thing you need to do is worry about me.”
He noted Aly making breakfast wasn’t Sam eating breakfast, and sleeping didn’t mean she was getting enough, but she was at the ranch. That was something. “Worrying about you keeps me busy.” He tried to say it with a smile, but his face didn’t quite feel his in this moment.
He just wanted to reach out and hold her and go back to when this wasn’t happening, but if he leaned too hard into that feeling, he might just break. And he wouldn’t. Not in front of Sam.
“You should worry about her,” Cal muttered while people shuffled around the courtroom getting everything ready. “She’s crazy.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “He’s just mad that I bit him.”
Nate blinked a few times. Bit him. “Why … why?”
Sam shrugged. “He pissed me off.”
“You should both be thanking me,” Cal said. “If I’d let her go, she would have assaulted Hayes, and you’d both be in jail.”
Nate was torn between worry and amusement. “Come on, she didn’t really…” He trailed off as Cal unbuttoned his shirt cuff, shoved his sleeve up to his elbow, revealing a clear bite mark on his forearm.
He stared at the mark, then Sam. Who looked belligerent and capable of both biting anyone and the assault Cal referenced.
Which was a relief. Fighting Sam was Sam. Fighting Sam was a woman who was a little bit more with it than she’d been before.
“Maybe we should keep the assaulting my lawyer to a minimum,” he told her.
“We’ll see,” she replied, clearly not the least bit remorseful.
He didn’t mind seeing the spark of fight in her. It was better than defeat. Better than the way she’d looked at him when suggesting she give him his ring back.
God, he just wanted to touch her. “Going to have to control yourself, champ. I’m going to need one of us on the outside.”
She only grunted, but the bailiff announced the arrival of the judge, which meant the court proceedings would start.
Sam reached out, squeezed his arm. Some of that belligerence fading into worry he wished he wasn’t the cause of. “I love you,” she said earnestly.
He smiled reassuringly. “I love you too.”
They went through what felt like an incredibly unnecessary rigamarole of explaining the charge. Entering the plea. Did this really have to be a performance?
At least he got to see Sam, even if it was only briefly. She wouldn’t be able to visit him in jail until she was on some kind of approval list, and even then, there’d be restrictions. Not that he wanted her having to relive all the times she’d visited her father.
So he’d think of this as an opportunity to see her in a kind of neutral setting, if you took away the jail uniform he was wearing.
He was trying really hard to think on the positive side. So that whenever this was all over, he didn’t return to her some shell of himself. Traumatized, like he’d been after his military career. He was going to do everything to just … be okay.
For her.
When the court adjourned, he encouraged her to leave. Mostly because he didn’t want her to see him led away in cuffs.
“I’ll visit as soon as they approve it.”
He nodded. “Sure.” But he was going to tell Cal to talk her out of it, if he could.
He watched her go, couldn’t help himself. Tried to smile when she looked back one last time. He’d be fine. He could get through it.
Hopefully.
Once Sam was gone, Nate looked over at Cal. Who was frowning deeply. He had been oddly detached this whole afternoon. Something was going on, and Nate had a feeling Sam biting Cal had something to do with it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Cal flicked a glance at Nate. Then over to Hayes across the room talking with the prosecutor. Cal’s expression hardened exponentially.
“Hayes claims to have physical evidence,” Cal muttered.
Shock hit him hard. He knew there had to be some kind of circumstantial evidence against him for a warrant to have been applied, but … physical evidence? “That isn’t possible.”
“I know. I’ll find out what it is during discovery in the next few days. We’ll argue it.”
But arguing meant getting to trial, and who knew how long that could take. He glanced at where Sam had disappeared. How long would she hold up under all this?
“You hate Hayes.”
He looked back at his brother, unsure of the change of subject. “Sure, who doesn’t?”
“Do you have any reason to believe he might hate you enough to plant evidence that would hurt you?”
“Plant evidence?” Nate swore. “That seems like a leap.”
“Maybe it is,” Cal agreed. “But something isn’t adding up, Nate. And I’m starting to wonder if that begins and ends with Jake Hayes.”
*
Cal knew he shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to do.
But sometimes a man couldn’t help but dive headfirst into all that shouldn’t.
“Hey there, buddy.” Cal fell into step next to Hayes in the courtroom hallway. “How’s it hanging?”
Hayes didn’t spare him a glance, just kept walking. “I have no reason to talk to you, Bennet.”
“Thought we were friends.”
“Go to hell.”
He ignored that, kept walking in stride with Jake. “And since we are friends, I think I’ve started to figure out what this is really about.” Ever since he’d really started to focus on Hayes, thanks to Jill, Hayes was about the only thing he could focus on.
Maybe Jake was a bit of an enigma, but if Cal put all the pieces together from what he knew about Jake’s childhood, and used his own understanding of the way a messy childhood could fuck someone up, he’d started to peel back some of the layers he hadn’t tried to look under before.
Jake stopped walking, looked up at the ceiling and let out a long sigh, like he was exasperated but was going to humor Cal. “Yeah? Ready to admit your brother’s a murderer, just like dear old Dad?”
“I think you’re jealous.”
Jake shook his head with a disdainful scoff. “This idea Sam is the be-all and end-all—”
“Not of Sam. Not only of Sam. You see, I got to know you last month, Jake. Not just who you are now, but who you were growing up. The deadbeat dad who didn’t show up for you. The mom you don’t ever mention.”
Jake’s expression got so hard, Cal wondered if he might actually lose his cool and swing. But he wasn’t here to poke at Jake’s old wounds, even if it was what he had always been very good at. This was about making a point. Not scoring a point.
“Trauma recognizes trauma, buddy. And in your case, you’ve built yourself into some kind of seemingly infallible mountain because of all that shit. I can’t hold that against you. We all do what we need to in order to get by.”
“I was so looking for your approval, Cal.” He started walking again, but Cal followed, and he didn’t shut up, even when he probably should have.
Because once he started, he couldn’t stop himself.
“You’re used to being in charge, and you’re used to being right.
You make snap judgments about people based on instinct, and it’s served you well.
Your snap judgment about Nate was negative because Nate represents everything you wanted and didn’t get. ”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t give one little shit about your brother aside from making sure he pays for all crimes committed.” But he shoved those courthouse doors open hard and stepped out into a pretty afternoon that contradicted all this tension going on inside both of them.
Cal chose to ignore what Hayes said and just keep talking—what he was good at.
“Nate left Marietta, made a hero out of himself. While you stayed and became a detective in a tiny police department in the middle of nowhere. Then Nate comes home and gets a job much like yours and does it as well, if not a little better. People like him, because for all his stoicism, good and honorable just ooze out of him. War hero, right? But you? You hate him. You want the Benjamin Bennet stain to stick, because of that cop black-and-white thinking, and maybe even because deep down you think sons should bear the weight of their father’s sins. Wonder why?”
Jake was getting close to his car, so Cal said the rest in a rush, determined to get it all out.
To get under Jake’s skin, and maybe, just maybe, in the desperate hopes he could get through to Jake.
He didn’t want to believe the guy was behind all this.
He wasn’t even sure he did believe the planting evidence leap.
But like he’d told Nate back in the courtroom, something wasn’t right, and Cal didn’t know who else it could stem from except Hayes himself.
“But Nate doesn’t have that stain, does he? He knows he’s not like our dad. He knows he came home and put that son of a bitch behind bars. In your mind, he should feel some weight of guilt for being born a Bennet, like you feel some weight of guilt for being your mom’s affair kid.”
Jake whirled then, but Cal figured some sense of self-preservation was the only thing that kept Jake from bloodying his nose. Pissed did not begin to cover the emotion of rage on Jake’s face.
But Cal didn’t stop. Backing off when he should was never his MO.
“And sure, you could hate all three of us, but Landon stays up at his ranch, and you think that means he’s kept in line, feels bad about his role in things.
He might. And you know I’ve got enough mental problems for a handful of people, so that’s my punishment.
Landon and I are paying our dues, in your mind, just like you feel you are, by being Mr. Upstanding Detective.
But Nate? He’s got it all—war hero, the job, and yeah, the girl. ”
“Fuck off, Cal. I mean it.”
But Cal couldn’t stop when he was so close to his final point. He stepped in close, almost willing Jake to break, to land a blow, to make a threat.
Something needed to break, and maybe Cal had gotten better about not always being the source of that … but sometimes old habits came in handy.
“Nate’s proven that you’re fallible, that you can be wrong about someone. Instead of admitting that, you’re going to go down in a blaze of being dead-ass wrong. Because you want him to suffer. Just. Like. You.”
For a moment, there was nothing but the sounds of the parking lot. A car door slamming. An engine turning over. And the ragged breaths coming out of Jake.
But second by second, he locked all that fury down and away. Impressive. Good quality for a cop, Cal supposed, his own breath not quite so steady.
“That’s a fun story,” Jake finally ground out. “Maybe you should share it with your shrink.”
It was meant to be a dig, but Cal wasn’t embarrassed by his therapist.
He was too well aware of how fucked in the head he was.
“I happen to think my therapist would be very impressed with my emotional intelligence in this matter. I can’t recommend talking to a professional enough, Jake.
You might figure out what in your shitty childhood made you so incapable of admitting you’re wrong.
And why you’re so willing to fight to convict an innocent man rather than show a little personal growth. ”
Jake jerked his car door open. Said nothing.
But Cal was worked up and wanted something. “You know, if you were the one who met with Jules Hyatt, you’re going to have some serious explaining to do.”
Hayes stopped getting into the car. Turned slowly to face Cal.
His gaze was furious again, but, per usual, he spoke with a calm evenness. “I don’t know what this is. What you think you’re doing siccing Jill on me like I’m stupid or that influenced by a pretty woman.”
Cal didn’t need to delve into why Hayes noting she was pretty bothered him.
“Or pretending you understand me because you’ve spent five seconds in my past. Or threatening me like you have any idea what happened. But I’ve had enough. Harassment is a two-way street, and I know lawyers too. So back off. All of you.”
The threat did what it intended. Pissed him the hell off. “I don’t want to believe this of you. I’ve defended you. Hell, I’ve helped you.”
“I’ve helped you,” Hayes shot back. “I told you a long time ago I don’t buy that your brother’s some perfect saint hero.
I think it’s pretty pathetic that instead of accepting that, you want to turn it around on me.
Try to psychoanalyze me. I’m an officer of the law. Some of us take the law seriously.”
“Yeah, some of us do. Some of us believe in due process. Not deciding someone was guilty long before he was accused of murder. Sounds like you’ve got a vendetta.”
“Sounds like you can’t admit the apple might not fall far from the tree.”
“So, what? This really is about my father?” Cal demanded.
“No, it’s about evidence. It’s about investigative work, of the real police kind. It’s about putting a murderer behind bars for good. Now you can be the good brother and defense attorney and try to muck up the waters, but believe you me, this case? Open and shut.”
Cal really didn’t care for Jake’s confidence. “I think you might underestimate how good I am at my job.”
“Do I? Because I’m not worried, Bennet. I’m not worried at all.”
Cal didn’t think that was particularly true as Hayes ducked into his car. Which was almost a relief.
Almost.