Chapter 108
YUKI CASTELLANO WAS virtually paralyzed with fear.
She’d crawled the few remaining feet to the prosecution’s table.
She stayed on her knees, watching the drama unfold before her.
But her biggest fear was what her husband might do.
He was in the last row before the exit door.
He had his backup pistol. And he was no coward.
She got queasy just thinking about what could happen.
She was staring at Elio Huerta, who now had Angela Torres by her thick black hair.
Anita, the woman with the gun, was standing right next to him.
The three of them were shuffling out of the courtroom.
Each faced a different direction. Anita was shuffling backward.
She looked like she was enjoying herself.
A broad smile and bright eyes were at odds with the gray gun metal in her hand.
When they were about to reach the gallery’s swinging gate, Elio looked right at Yuki. He stopped shuffling and stared at her.
Yuki’s blood went cold.
After a pause, Elio said, “You almost buried me. I respect your effort.” Then he kept moving.
Just as they reached the gate, one of the bailiffs made a quick move toward a side door.
Anita didn’t hesitate to fire twice. The sound reverberated in the quiet courtroom. It sounded like someone slapping a board on a kitchen counter.
The bailiff fell and slid on the floor. A horrid red streak of blood stained the floor where he’d fallen.
Yuki felt like she was going to faint. She risked a glance to the back of the courtroom. Brady was sitting stock-still. That told Yuki he was going to surprise the thugs. She didn’t like that scenario at all.
But she liked what she saw next even less.
Her husband leaned down to draw his pistol from his ankle holster.
Yuki didn’t want to see what was about to happen. But she couldn’t turn away.
Now Elio and his partner were slipping through the gate, dragging poor Angela Torres with them as the attorney sobbed and begged to be let go.
Just then there was movement in the front row of the gallery.
The two patrolmen who’d been coming to the trial every day leaped off the bench in unison.
They each took one of the armed assailants by surprise.
It looked like linebackers hitting an unsuspecting quarterback. The impact was terrific and immediate.
Elio went down under the weight of one patrolman. His head struck the low barrier around the gallery with a sickening sound. The gun dropped out of Huerta’s hand onto the floor.
The second police officer collided with Anita, but instead of flattening her, the force sent her flying to the back of the courtroom. The woman managed to get her feet back under her quickly and stood up with the gun still in her hand.
Yuki left the relative safety of the prosecution’s table and scurried across the short distance to where Angela Torres was on her hands and knees.
She guided the defense attorney to the other side of the gallery’s gate and stuffed her under one of the tables.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said as she patted the shattered defense attorney’s arm.
“It’s going to be okay.” Yuki wished she could believe her own words.
Yuki peered over the low gallery wall. Elio was out of the fight, but Anita was pointing her gun at a patrolman’s head. The girl said, “Nighty night.”
Yuki shouted, “Please don’t do it!”
That broke the girl’s concentration for an instant. She looked over to see who had shouted.
That’s when another gunshot rang out.