Chapter Nineteen
Summer
M ia’s fingers were white at the knuckle when her father parked the car in the courthouse parking lot. It was full, midweek bringing people dealing with marriage licenses and parking tickets, jury duty and drug court. The truly unlucky ones, the ones like her, were here for the court to decide on consequences most people would find unimaginable. Some of the people who had come to watch those proceedings would leave with their loved ones, others with tears and empty arms.
Her dad put the car in park and then waited in supportive silence as she tried to slow her breathing and bring her racing heart under control. He’d insisted on driving, on picking her up every day at her newly leased apartment so that she wouldn’t have to face the car ride away from the courthouse alone. She was grateful, honestly unsure if she’d be able to drive herself home if the jury re-convicted Gabriel and he was sentenced to life again. If they left her without hope.
She flicked open the mirror in the visor, checked the minimal makeup that she’d tried to apply, and sighed. She’d dressed carefully that morning—hair in a sophisticated twist, black skirt carefully pressed, heels low and sensible—but after several nights without sleep there was no makeup that could cover the dark circles exhaustion had drawn under her eyes.
Fear twisted in her stomach, a low roll of nausea that threatened to overwhelm her, but she smiled at her father reassuringly as she reached the door handle.
“It’s probably Lilly or Brittany checking to see if we made it,” Mia mumbled as her phone started to vibrate in her bag. There weren’t many people Gabriel could count on, and the few who were coming had all agreed to meet once they arrived at the building.
“Did you drive by the front of the courthouse on your way in?” Lilly asked when she answered. Her voice was hushed, likely inside the courthouse already, but tense and worried.
Mia frowned, brow creasing in concern. “No, why?”
“There’s reporters everywhere,” Lilly told her. “They swarmed us when we came in. I don’t know what’s going on, but we had to make a run for it to get inside. Luckily, security isn’t letting them in the building.”
Mia stopped and looked around, the stiff fabric of her suit already wilting in the early summer heat as it glinted viciously off the glass of parked cars and looming office windows. The parking lot was around the corner of the large courthouse building, out of sight of the main doors. She assumed they were waiting there since there was no other way for visitors to get inside.
She would have to run through them, it simply couldn’t be avoided.
“Thanks Lilly,” she said. “We’ll be inside in just a minute.” She hung up and dropped the phone back into her bag, wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt as she explained the situation to her dad.
He stood for a second, blinking at her in the heat, and then shrugged out of his suit jacket. “Take this,” he told her, holding it out at arm’s length. “Toss it over your head when we run by so they can’t get a picture of your face.”
Mia reached for it, her hands trembling. “What about you?”
He lifted one shoulder dismissively. “There’s nothing they can do to an old man like me. Everyone at the church knows we’re here so it isn’t the same as you having to go to school and deal with unfortunate publicity.”
She rushed into his hug, quick and light to keep from wrinkling his crisp white dress shirt and tugged his jacket loosely over her shoulders.
The screaming began the moment they turned the corner, an eagle-eyed reporter catching a quick glimpse of her face before she pulled the jacket over her head and ducked down to focus on her own feet as her father guided her through the crowd.
Bodies pressed in on her from all sides, shoving as they each tried to get closer than the rest, and a barrage of unfamiliar voices assaulted her senses.
“Mia, can you tell us how you became romantically involved with a killer?”
“Do you know that Gabriel Myers murdered his own father? Did he lie to you to get you here today?”
“Pastor Anderson! How do you feel about your daughter being in a relationship with a brutal murderer?”
They pushed through, neither of them speaking until the glass doors of the courthouse closed behind them, muffling the sounds of disappointed reporters as they gradually stopped shouting questions and settled in to wait until their prey had to leave the building. The run back to her car would be even worse, but she had bigger issues on her mind now.
After the brief wait to pass through the building’s security, during which the guard that scanned her bag and asked her to step forward through the metal detector gave her a pitying look, they passed into the large lobby and found Lilly and Bryce waiting for them with anxious expressions.
Lilly hurried over, pulling Mia into a tight hug. “Are you okay? Gabriel’s lawyer is already here, she went upstairs to settle some of his witnesses in and asked us to wait here for you. She saw us get mobbed and figured out that we must know you. Said she isn’t surprised that the media found out about the trial, but we don’t know how they found out about you and Gabriel.”
“Are the reporters not going after everyone?”
Bryce shook his head. “They went after Amy, but she’s his lawyer. The only ones besides her so far have been us and the two of you. All the witnesses made it in without anyone paying any attention so they must not know what they’re here for.”
It was a mystery that would have to wait, despite the nagging suspicion that planted itself firmly in the back of her mind. She pulled her phone out of her bag, checked that it was on silent and glanced quickly at the time. “Is Kennedy here yet? We should be heading upstairs.”
“Not yet. I already warned her about the reporters, but I can send her a message and have her meet us outside the courtroom.” Lilly pulled out her phone and began typing rapidly. “Amy said it would be just upstairs on the left.”
They found her in the hallway with Brittany and several other people that Mia had never met before, each of them anxious looking but determined to see through the promise they had made to testify. Brittany’s hand on Mia’s was cold and clammy but she smiled tremulously at Mia's friends and family.
Kennedy and Alison arrived just as Amy began to coach all of them through what they were likely to experience and how to behave in the courtroom.
“No gum, no phones, so disruptions,” she said firmly. “No matter how much of an ass the state lawyers may be. I know we’ve gone over this already with those of you who will be testifying, but it applies as much when you’re just watching the proceedings. I don’t want anyone thrown out or held in contempt. Any questions?”
She looked around at the small group, all that could be gathered to show support for the man she had come to represent, and nodded. She was as well dressed and composed as always, but Mia noticed the nervous tap of her perfectly manicured nails against her thigh as they waited for the doors of the courtroom to be opened so they could make their way inside.
Mia waited until they were allowed to go in, until everyone else was busy settling into their seats and looking curiously around the quiet courtroom before she stepped close to Amy’s side and whispered quietly, so no one else could hear her, “Do you think he really has a chance? Any hope at all?” She hadn’t asked before today because she had been afraid to hear the answer but now, with the decision so close, she couldn’t help herself.
Amy sighed and shook her head slightly, as though unsure for once, her eyes drifting to the empty seat at the front of the courtroom where the judge would sit. “I’ve done my best during jury selection and Judge Turner is tough. She’s the youngest Black woman sitting on a judicial bench in the state of Texas, and she didn’t get there by letting people run her over, but she’s fair. If we were ever going to have a chance, this is the best we could have hoped for.”
Mia breathed, her lungs expelling all the breath she had been holding and some of the painful tension. Amy patted her hand and moved to the front of the room, beyond the small gate that barred the audience from approaching too close to the proceedings and began to set up her papers on the table where she and Gabriel sat.
Mia sat on the bench closest to the front, hoping that Gabriel would be able to sense her presence so close to him even though they weren’t allowed to speak to him. Her father sat on her right and Brittany on her left, her hand once again clutching Mia’s painfully as she looked around with panic in her eyes. Lilly was on Brittany’s other side, talking to her about her son and trying to put her mind at ease.
She had just won a hesitant smile for her efforts when the door at the side of the room opened, and Gabriel was led in. Brittany made a small noise, of shock or surprise Mia assumed, since she hadn’t seen him in many years and the boy that she had known back then was very different from the man now in front of her.
Mia took in his appearance quickly as he was led to his seat. He was wearing a white prison jumpsuit this time, hands handcuffed in front of him and connected to his shackled ankles with a long chain that also wrapped completely around his waist. Amy had prepared her for that, and for the painful fact that he would remain in shackles as long as he was inside the courtroom. He looked tired and worried, a crease in his brow that faded away the moment he spotted her.
She smiled at him reassuringly and mouthed a silent, “I love you,” even though her heart was pounding, and her fingers had gone numb with fear. It took all of her concentration to keep her breaths slow and shallow until he was seated next to Amy to wait for the judge’s arrival.
Mia looked down the hard courtroom bench, at the others that had come to testify, all of them uncomfortable in their stiff courtroom appropriate outfits as they stared around anxiously at the cheap wood paneled walls that lined the room. Some of them had been hurt by Richard, though not all of them, a fact that she sometimes lost sight of since he was the devil that made the most sense to her with her upbringing. Seth had done his own damage to the others, just as deep and perhaps even more horrifying, in ways that went far beyond her imagination. And despite all of that, these people had made it through and had chosen, at least for this moment, to fight for a better world and let this small piece of their truths be heard.
Another door opened, this one along the wall in front of them, and a woman in black robes entered the room as everyone scrambled to their feet. Judge Turner was straight-backed and stern-faced as she walked to her seat, and Mia felt a frisson of fear work its way down her spine. All of her hope rested in this one woman and there was little to give any indication that she had any intention of handing out mercy or understanding as she swept the room with a serious gaze and began the proceedings.
The sharp snap of the gavel cut through the silence and Mia squeezed Brittany’s hand as they both jumped at the noise. Mia wasn’t usually the kind to be jumpy, but every muscle in her body was pulled tight and tense under the skin as though it would be enough to keep the tears in.
The jury in their box watched everything with interest as the state’s lawyer—a tall man that the judge referred to as Mr. Price who had stiff mannerisms and a penchant for clasping his hands behind his back as he spoke—laid out the case and the prosecution’s evidence.
“The facts,” he said, voice echoing against the walls, “are clear. There is no doubt about the guilt of this man. Gabriel Myers stabbed his father to death in an alley. The cold-blooded nature of the crime, the obvious disregard for right and wrong, leaves the state no choice but to keep him in prison. He is too dangerous to be released.”
Mia watched with a broken heart as he shrunk down under the weight of the words, his giant shoulders twisting in and down toward the table as though trying to hold himself together or disappear entirely.
Her free hand, the one not holding tightly to Brittany’s, balled into a fist that she hid in the folds of her skirt. She knew very well what Amy had said, and that Mr. Price was simply doing his job, but he didn’t know Gabriel like she did, and he was wrong about the kind of person he was.
A gentle hand came to rest over hers with a soft pat that let her breathe and relax her fist. She could always count on her dad to know when she needed him most and she traded her rage for a litany of prayers to repeat inside her mind.
“This was a personal attack,” Price said. “One born of rage and hatred. It was overkill, far beyond what was necessary for self-defense even if there had been a need for any. Mr. Myers was a good man, a loving father, and his life was cut short by his own child—an out-of-control teen, with no regard for life. A callous and selfish young man who was throwing a temper tantrum because his parents said it was time for him to stop running the streets causing trouble and come home.”
He turned then to look at Gabriel, who was sitting perfectly still and listening intently to some comment that Amy was making to him in hushed tones. His body was still tense and even from several feet away Mia could see the effort he was using to keep an impassive face, the muscle in his cheek that was twitching from the strain.
Mia understood very little of the rest of his opening argument and even less of Amy’s. After waiting for so long to be here, it felt as if she were underwater, all the sights and sounds of the proceedings dimmed by the rush of panic. Her head was light, and her body disconnected, rendering all of her senses dull and fuzzy around the edges. Time slowed to a crawl, and she marked its passing by counting her breaths.
In and then out again.
Repeat.
The judge released them all for lunch before Mr. Price began to call his first witnesses—the arresting officers and the coroner that had performed the autopsy on Hugh Myers’ body.
Mia couldn’t wait to get out of the courtroom and into some fresh air, her head buzzing with anxiety and her hands shaking as she fled down the quiet hallway. It was only when they reached the bottom floor and turned toward the front doors that she remembered the crowd of reporters waiting for her outside.
“Oh,” she said, stopping abruptly so that Lilly and Bryce walked into the back of her, bumping her forward an extra step as she swore quietly under her breath. “I can’t go out there,” she said, wincing at the thought of dodging the questions and the pushy reporters again to leave and then to come back. She’d already have to face them in the return to the car and didn’t think she had it in her to do any more than that.
Amy sighed. “I forgot about that,” she admitted. “They won’t let us bring food back to you. No outside food is allowed in the courthouse.”
“I understand,” Mia said, pasting a smile on her face that felt awkward and unnatural. “I think I’ll get something out of the vending machine upstairs if I get hungry. Not really sure I feel up to eating right now, anyway.”
They stood in the open foyer for several minutes, arguing quietly about who should stay behind with her as the flow of people coming and going flowed around them.
“I’m fine to wait alone,” she repeated. “If those of you that the reporters recognize all huddle behind the ones they don’t, they might not even see you. You need to eat,” she urged.
“I’ll go out first,” Amy said. “I’m used to dealing with them and I’ll make an announcement that we’re making progress. Everyone else can slip by while they’re distracted.”
“See?” Mia said firmly. “It’ll be fine.”
In the end, everyone went except her father, who couldn’t be budged. He sat beside her on the bench upstairs, eating a candy bar from the vending machine and sipping on a ridiculously expensive bottle of water.
Mia picked at the label on her bottle, candy bar forgotten on her thigh. She’d peeled it off in tiny pieces and then folded each of those into meaningless shapes, a pile of shiny paper as a testament to her nerves, before the others came back from lunch.
The afternoon was not any easier for her to sit through and she turned her face away when they put up the photos of the crime scene, but the images danced colorfully behind her eyelids. The body lying in dirt and surrounded by trash, the pool of blood dried and black on the ground, and Hugh’s hand curled where it had fallen with the glint of a gold wedding ring still on his finger. It painted a damning picture and Mia swallowed back her tears as the information from the autopsy was read. Seven stab wounds. Damage to the heart, the stomach, the liver, the intestines …
Somehow the prosecution had found several of Gabriel’s old teachers, neighbors, people who had known him before he’d been sent to his uncle’s, all willing to testify that his relationship with his parents had been strained. That he’d been a wild teen with few boundaries and little interest in following rules or obeying authority. Amy did her best to minimize the damage on cross examination of the witnesses, but Mia’s shoulders were slumped by the time Mr. Price finally sat down.
She’d pushed her way to the car after they were done for the day, the jacket over her head hiding her tears. Amy had warned them that today would be bad, but she had never imagined that it would feel this hopeless, that the despair could reach this deep.