Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [716]
This time Max smiled, too. Perhaps he could control Barnett, after all, but he’d need some sort of insurance. For the first time since he’d met Jared Barnett, Max allowed himself to look deep into those dark, vacant eyes, and now he allowed himself to admit the truth. He knew Jared Barnett had, indeed, killed that poor girl seven years ago. Not only did Max know it, he was counting on it.
Tuesday, September 7
CHAPTER 1
10:30 a.m.
Hall of Justice—Omaha, Nebraska
Grace Wenninghoff hated waiting. The air in courtroom number five felt like a hot, wet towel wrapped around her neck. There were too many people, jammed inside, generating too much heat. The squeaking of chairs as people shifted in their seats and an occasional cough interrupted the silence, but that was all. Judge Fielding’s presence kept the crowd agitated but quiet as he looked over the papers in front of him, taking his time, not a hint of sweat or discomfort on his face.
Grace reached for her water bottle, took a careful sip. Come on, let’s get this over with, she wanted to yell, but instead tapped her pen against her blank legal pad to keep her foot from doing the same. The judge scowled at her without raising his head, his eyes looking at her through his bushy gray eyebrows and over the wire-rim glasses hanging at the tip of his nose. Her pen stopped in midair. He went back to examining the papers.
Rumor was that the maintenance crew had shut off the air-conditioning in the whole building over the long Labor Day weekend, not expecting the return of ninety-degree weather. Yet, Grace couldn’t help wondering if Judge Fielding had purposely shut it off in his own courtroom, hoping to make them all sweat. It wouldn’t be the first time. Fielding loved to make attorneys sweat…sweat and wait. That combination today couldn’t be a good sign, though Grace tried to remain optimistic. As optimistic as a prosecutor could be with the humidity threatening to turn her usually straight, short hair into something worthy of a Chia Pet. She knew she’d need more than optimism today.
She glanced across the aisle at Warren Penn from the high-priced law firm of Branigan, Turner, Cross and Penn. No sweat visible there, either. How did he manage it in that three-piece suit? She had hoped to see his client, the defendant, Jonathon Richey, in shackles and an orange jumpsuit, reducing the city councilman to the cold-blooded murderer he really was. Instead, Richey wore a steel-blue suit and crisp white shirt with red-and-blue tie. The slick politician didn’t look affected in the least by his arrest or the allegations against him. In fact, he looked rather smug, and Grace worried that some old-boy network had already taken care of the outcome of this case. Judge Fielding had a reputation of protecting his inner circle. Could he do it in front of a crowd of spectators and under the scrutiny of the media?
Beneath her own jacket Grace could feel her silk blouse sticking to her skin. She glanced down at it to make sure it didn’t look as bad as it felt. What a day to wear silk. The blouse had been a birthday gift from Grandma Wenny, who had been trying to dress Grace in pink since she was six years old, although her grandmother had reassured her that this was fuchsia, her German accent making it sound like some erotic, slightly naughty color. Thinking about that made Grace smile.
She watched Judge Fielding, looking for signs that they’d be proceeding soon. He flipped over another page and started at the top with his index finger. Geez. This was only the bail hearing. At this rate, she couldn’t imagine how long the trial would take.
She reached to rub the knot still gathered at the base of her neck. The three-day weekend had been too short. Her husband, Vince, insisted they could live with the stacked boxes everywhere. Easy for him to say, he was leaving for Switzerland tomorrow morning. Sure it was business—a new client insisting on meeting his American account rep face-to-face. Grace and Emily would be