Chapter 36
Dylan
Voir dire was a process Dylan hated. Coming from the JAG Corp, he wasn’t used to it and found it tedious. Having to ask the jurors a ton of seemingly mundane questions to screen for any potential biases was boring. Important, but boring.
Especially when the defense counsel was critical of everyone.
The squat, bald Mr. Carver, McGuinness’s attorney, asked overly specific questions and required each juror to explain their answer.
The poor man who confessed he knew one of their witnesses—one of the officers who responded to the original call of the body being discovered—in a “professional capacity” was pressured by Mr. Carver to explain what that meant.
His answer? That the officer had arrested him previously for public indecency after he’d had one too many crushes at an oceanfront bar one night and stumbled off down the boardwalk.
This voir dire nightmare was after the long morning, when they had to put up with all of Mr. Carver’s motions.
Motions to exclude testimony, motions to exclude evidence, motions on top of motions on top of motions.
It was a good thing they had agreed with the judge beforehand that the opening statements wouldn’t be until the next day, because the day had been exhausting and draining enough without that tacked on.
Eventually, though, they had the jury selected and all of their motions resolved and ruled upon.
All before five o’clock. It was all thanks to Judge Bolton, who took a no-nonsense approach and kept Mr. Carver from derailing proceedings too wildly.
Dylan chuckled lightly at the memories of her bringing Mr. Carver to heel on more than one occasion today.
His face had turned so red Dylan had expected steam to pour from his ears.
Now court was adjourned for the day, and he and Kelsi were headed back to his hotel room to discuss last-minute details for the trial.
They needed to review the planned witness testimony and make sure they had all of their questions planned out in advance.
When examining a witness, clarifying questions popped up organically based on the actual testimony they were giving on the stand, but some questions had to be asked in order to prove the essential elements of the crime, or to lay a foundation for evidence they wanted to admit to the court.
Kelsi was staying with her friend, Abby, while they were in town, and Dylan had booked a hotel room for himself down at the oceanfront.
Things had been tense between them all day, and he hadn’t yet apologized to her.
He was saving that for the privacy of his room.
He still had lingering fear and anger that flared in equal measure whenever he looked at her.
She had purposefully left him in the dark.
It could have gotten her seriously hurt, or worse, and that terrified him.
He wanted to be someone she trusted, that she could go to and confess her fears and every detail of her day with. He’d even thought that in the past few weeks they’d gotten closer to that point again.
But this? Kelsi hiding it? It was a constant reminder of the last time he thought he had her heart, her trust, and she kept secrets from him. It hurt like a thousand paper cuts to his soul, bringing him crashing down from the high of kissing her on that dock.
No one aside from Kelsi had ever been able to hurt him this way, and he was tired of being strung along.
He needed to know what had happened to them, and why she was still holding him at arm’s length, even when he could tell she didn’t want to.
No, tonight they would get everything out in the open.
He couldn’t wait any longer to find out the truth.
Whether his Red liked it or not, tonight her last wall was coming down, and he brought the sledgehammer.