Chapter Twenty-Four
The Bennet Ranch
Cal stood in front of the mirror in the little apartment off the main house. He straightened his tie and felt almost like his old self. Getting ready for court. A man who knew what he was doing.
Because he knew the case, backward and forward. He knew what he needed to say, how he needed to say it to sway the jury. He knew what the cross-examination would go over, because he’d led enough cross-examinations to do them in his sleep. He was prepared, better than most.
He knew Landon and Aly had struggled with theirs. Felt guilty that they hadn’t been able to put any nails in the Benjamin Bennet coffin, but that wasn’t their job.
It was Cal’s. Nate’s testimony, and even Sam’s to an extent had laid the groundwork. Now his would bring it all home.
He had to be with it. He had to be strong. He couldn’t afford any of the things that had been fucking up his mental state lately. He had to hold up under this shitstorm, because it was bigger than all of them. It was putting Dad away for good.
Everything required to fix thirty-five-plus years of Dad’s shit started with Cal. He couldn’t fail. He couldn’t falter.
He’d been afraid the weight of this would break him even more, but in a weird way it gave him a purpose.
A goal to hang on to. He felt steady, almost. And what he would admit to no one was that helping Landon around the ranch had helped him too.
The physical act of ranch work left him feeling less like his body was falling apart along with his mind.
Something about the sun and the cold and the fresh air helped smooth out those jagged edges inside of him cutting him to ribbons.
He just hoped it would hold.
He walked out into the kitchen. Aly and Landon were already there. Landon sipping coffee standing leaning against the counter, while Aly wrapped up something in foil.
She had circles under her eyes she’d tried to hide with makeup. She hadn’t done a very good job, but smiled at him when he entered the room. Landon nodded.
“We should get going,” Cal said by way of greeting.
Because he didn’t want to belabor any points until this was all over.
“You should eat something,” Aly said, so very predictably. “I wrapped up some muffins whenever you’re ready.” She shoved them at him.
He knew he couldn’t possibly stomach anything just yet, but he smiled at her. “Thanks.”
In silence, they got their coats on and walked into a frigid, cloudy morning, another inch or two of snow on the ground. It was starting to feel routine, and that sucked. But it wouldn’t last forever.
Nothing lasted forever.
He tried to hold on to that thought as a positive talisman.
As they approached Landon’s truck, they all heard the sound of an engine. It was coming from up, so it had to be Jill.
Cal glanced at Aly, who had a concerned frown on her face, so clearly it wasn’t a planned visit. Landon cleared the snow off his windshield, but he watched their approach too.
Jill’s truck pulled up right next to them. She rolled down her window. She didn’t look like she usually did. There was something more … put together about her. Hair pulled back, maybe she was wearing some makeup.
“Grandma really wants to go to court today,” Jill said, her expression pained. “I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s being … very insistent. Still, I told her it would have to be okay with all of you. I’m not taking her to the courtroom unless you all are okay with it.”
Landon and Aly turned their gazes to Cal. Like it was his decision. He looked at Glenda sitting in the front seat, dressed for court and clutching her purse. She gazed right back at him, and he couldn’t read anything in her expression.
Could he ever?
But if she wanted to be there… “I’ll ride with you guys,” Cal said, opening the back door of Jill’s truck.
He could tell everyone was surprised by that, but no one mounted any objections.
“We’ll be right behind you,” Aly said, though he didn’t know if that was for his account or Jill’s.
Didn’t matter. He climbed into the cramped bench seat in the back of Jill’s truck and ignored the concerned look she gave him in the rearview mirror. No one spoke as they drove. Cal thought Jill opened her mouth a few times with the intent of talking, but she never actually said anything.
Once at the courthouse, she pulled into a parking spot and Cal moved to help Glenda out of the truck before Jill could. He left the muffins behind.
He held Glenda’s arm across the lot. Though it had been plowed and salted, there were still some slick spots.
They made it inside, but Glenda stopped. She stood in his way, then reached out and fixed his lapel that had twisted in on itself. A kind of maternal gesture that had heavy, sharp things twisting in his chest.
Mom had gone to Glenda Harrington when she was in trouble, when she needed help. No matter what secrets there still might be, there was one simple truth. Glenda had been someone Mom trusted. Depended on.
Over the past six-plus months, Glenda had become some kind of piece in this whole ordeal. She had found the shovel that was really the only physical evidence that might tie his psychological testimony to Dad.
She had hummed a lullaby he’d only ever heard from his mother. She’d told Cal things, spoken words to him. When he knew she hadn’t done that with anyone else, even her own granddaughter.
And when it came down to it, he knew Glenda trusted him with all these things.
Him, the one who’d left Marietta of his own choosing.
Not because of Dad beating him. Maybe in part because he’d been running away from the trauma he hadn’t realized his brain had been hiding from him, but also in part because he really had needed to be away. To find himself somewhere else.
He didn’t know why Glenda had this connection to him, and maybe it was hidden in those old memories. Maybe it would be another terrible thing.
For the first time he considered that maybe, somehow, it would be something good. Sure, it’d be mixed up in the awful, but Glenda had helped his mother.
“You helped her a lot, didn’t you?” he asked, knowing he didn’t have to clarify her meant his mother.
Glenda’s gaze met his for a humming moment. That nauseous feeling swept through him, but it didn’t take out the foundations like it usually did. Something about her wrinkled hands on his lapels kept him steady.
After a moment, she lifted one hand and made a motion, but Cal wasn’t familiar with it. He looked to Jill. Whose dark eyes were suspiciously shiny.
She cleared her throat. “She’s saying she tried to help her.”
Cal squeezed Glenda’s hand that was still on his chest. “Trying is all any of us can do.” It was a good reminder to himself as they walked into court. As he prepared himself to take the stand.
He could not control the outcomes here, but he could try.
There was some glimmer of his old self here in this courthouse. A self-possessed man with confidence and certainty. Because that man had been running from everything he was about to face. That man hadn’t been perfect, God knew. But he’d carried the weight of things.
So Cal walked into the courtroom with his family and fully accepted that they were all carrying the weight of things. And the more they shared those things, the more the weight felt bearable.
Cal went up to the front when called, swore to tell the truth, then took the stand. A witness, for the first time in his life, instead of the man on the other side.
Cal looked out at his brothers. Aly. Glenda. Maybe he was still falling apart, but for today, he was going to hold all the pieces together.
Vanderbilt took him through it all. The memory of his mother’s bloody face when Landon had been a baby that Cal had thought was a dream for many years. Everything he remembered from the day and night his mother had been murdered. How it had come that he’d remembered after so long.
He felt a little sick, but he felt that added to it for the jury. He shouldn’t sound controlled when talking about watching his lifeless mother be thrown into a barn that was subsequently set on fire. He shouldn’t find it easy to recount remembering fifteen years later.
He couldn’t control what the jury believed or didn’t believe. He had to trust that the testimony of the psychiatrist and trauma experts Vanderbilt had lined up would support his testimony.
Cal didn’t feel any nerves, until Vanderbilt rested and it was the defense’s turn. Still, Cal was in his body. He didn’t feel like he was crumbling. Because he was strong. He would be strong for this.
He looked over at Glenda for just a second. Her gaze was steady and that light green. Yes, he’d hold it together. For his mother, if no one else.
Dad’s attorney took his sweet time. Rearranging papers, sighing a bit. When he finally spoke, it was condescending as hell.
“This all seems very convenient.”
“Nothing about my mother being murdered has been convenient,” Cal said quietly. “But that wasn’t a question.”
The lawyer’s face got a little pinched looking at that, and Cal figured he’d won his own point there.
“You’re the oldest Bennet brother. So you would have…” The lawyer ruffled through some more papers, and Cal saw it for the performance it was. “Turned eleven in the year 2000?”
Cal couldn’t hide his confusion at this line of questioning. Mom had been killed nearly ten years after that. Why would the lawyer be bringing up … 2000? Either way, it was a yes or no question. “Yes.”
“Were you aware your mother was pregnant in the year 2000 when you were eleven, before your … amnesia episode?”
Cal didn’t react, though he heard a bit of a murmur around him. Pregnant. With Bo. He couldn’t let it be a surprise. They’d known the lawyer knew about Bo.
Still, he hadn’t expected this, couldn’t see a reason for bringing it up. But he was too good at lawyer tricks to fall for one.
It took him a moment to trust his voice. “No, I was not,” he replied evenly, keeping his gaze calm and on the lawyer. He wanted to look at Dad, or his brothers, or Glenda, but he didn’t.
“So you remember all … this, but not your mother’s pregnancy?” the lawyer asked.
“Landon was born in 1992 and Nate was born in 1994. Those are the brothers I grew up with. If there was a pregnancy in 2000, I was not aware of it.” Which wasn’t a lie.
He hadn’t had a clue back then. He made sure all his responses to this strange line of questioning were very carefully worded truths.
He couldn’t stop himself from looking out at the spectators and finding Glenda. Her expression was placid. Not concerned or angry or surprised. Just straight ahead. Calm.
Was she the reason the lawyer knew? Ben knew? Was she some mastermind behind whatever the hell was going on with Bo Lake? Or had she somehow told someone else? Spread the information around?
Was she really the villain in this story? After all the positive of this morning, could he flip and cast her as something else? Maybe he should.
But he couldn’t.
Vanderbilt lodged a complaint about the nature of this questioning, and the lawyers approached the bench and had a discussion with the judge.
Cal knew he shouldn’t, but he finally couldn’t resist. He looked toward Dad, sitting there in his prison chains.
Dad’s expression was smug. He knew. About Bo Lake. Just like he’d found out about him before Mom had died, he’d found out about him again.
Was Bo in on it? Glenda?
Or was Benjamin Bennet the sole puppeteer like usual?
Too many questions. Too many unknowns. Worst of all, Cal didn’t know what the defense thought they were going to do with that information. Didn’t it just prove the prosecution’s point that Dad was a monster even his own wife would want his children kept safe from?
But they were bringing this up for a reason. They wanted to use Bo for a reason.
It was worry, and a concern, but looking at Dad’s smug, self-satisfied smile, like he’d won, only strengthened Cal.
It didn’t matter what Dad’s lawyer thought he was doing. Vanderbilt knew about Bo too. His family knew about Bo too. This was no surprise, so they could fight it. Whatever Dad and his lawyer were up to. They could fight it.
Would. Had to.
So Cal smiled at Ben, kept right on smiling like he knew something Dad didn’t. Like he had all the control in the world.
Until the smug melted off Ben’s face, replaced by a sneer.
The lawyer didn’t continue the questioning about Mom’s pregnancy, but Cal didn’t think it was over. They were setting something up. Maybe their own witness to bring to the stand when it was the defense’s turn.
Even knowing about Bo though, Cal couldn’t follow these hints to some logical conclusion. Whatever their strategy was, it was something bigger than anyone on his side knew.
When court was adjourned for the day, Cal got everyone together before they could go their separate ways. “We need to talk. All of us.” Cal looked to Sam. “And Bo if you can get him there.”
“He’s been kind of avoiding my calls of late,” she said, clearly not happy with that. “He said he needed some space after Saturday.”
“I get that, but it’d help if he was there tonight. Do what you can and let’s meet up at the ranch. If he doesn’t come, we’ll deal. But let’s try.”
Sam nodded.
“We’ll pick up some pizzas,” Nate said. “Give Aly a cooking break.”
“Oh, no. I can make—”
“We’ll pick up some pizzas,” Nate said firmly, cutting Aly off.
“But—”
“Come on, Al. Give yourself a break,” Landon said, his arm around her shoulders. “Pizza and meet at the ranch.”
She was about to argue again, but her gaze snagged on something behind Cal. He glanced behind him, and there was Benjamin, being led out of the courtroom in his handcuffs and shackles.
His smile was back. Aimed at their little group huddle. Cal didn’t try to smile back this time. He looked at his family. Jill, Glenda. Everyone. Strength shared was better than whatever Ben was trying to work up from jail.
“He’s got something up his sleeves,” Cal told everyone. “We’ve got to figure it out before it works. Together.”