Hide & Seek - James Patterson [91]
Nizhinski was actually speechless for several seconds.
“This is all—well, it’s a shock,” he finally managed to say. “I don’t know what I’ll decide. I need some time to regroup, Your Honor.”
“When you do, call me,” Sussman said.
Barry spoke to the judge. “I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know the right legal words, but do you think Mrs. Bradford could be allowed to go home?”
Sussman turned and looked at me. “She is released on her own recognizance,” he said.
CHAPTER 111
LIKE THE YOGI Berra saying—it was déja vù all over again. But it had to be done this way. This was our justice system, in all its glory.
Months had passed. The second trial was about to begin, and if anything, it would probably be more disheartening than the first. The State still believed that I was guilty of murder, and because they insisted on trying me again, so did a lot of people.
I continued to wear the scarlet M. I felt as though great chunks of my life were being chiseled out of me. Probably, because they were. And I was hurt.
I arrived at the courtroom with Jennie, Barry, and Norma. Barry and Norma were an odd couple now, but sweet and wonderful to watch. Amazingly, they weren’t too grumpy around each other.
Once we were inside the courtroom, I walked on steady legs to a familiar seat at the defense table. My new lawyer was Jason Wade, from Boston. He was an expert in murder defenses, very no-nonsense, and I liked him. Most important of all, he wasn’t Nathan Bailford, who was now a permanent fixture in my bad dreams.
Weird, weird, so very weird.
“Maggie looks so great!” I heard one of the spectators say. Maggie! As if we were old best friends.
“You do. You look fantastic,” Jennie whispered against my ear. It was like old times between us, only better. Jennie was one of those rare people you could stay up with all night, just talking. I had—only the night before. Even Allie had stayed up with us past ten. JAM was back together again.
The trial took eleven weeks. Our tax money at work! The same people gave much of the same testimony, though the cross-examination had a different slant, headed in a different direction.
The courtroom became increasingly hot as the summer wore on, but I didn’t mind the heat, didn’t mind the repetitiousness of the questioning, didn’t even mind the notoriety and the consant sleaze of the press.
I wanted to be found innocent. But more than anything, I wanted to be freed from the purgatory I had lived in for so long.
I wasn’t guilty. I was sure of that.
I was innocent.
I would have given everything I had just to hear those words uttered once.
CHAPTER 112
I LEANED FORWARD to hear each and every word inside the jam-packed courtroom. Suddenly, I couldn’t force enough air into my lungs. I felt as though a dry cloth were blocking my throat. Claustrophobia was striking again.
The faces in the courtroom were becoming blurry and ill-defined. Blood pounded in my brain like small hammers. The back of my neck was sopping wet.
The twelve jury members were slowly filing into the right side of the room.
Again.
They had reached a verdict.
Again.
I could not get my breath as the folded piece of paper was handed to Judge Sussman. He read the verdict to himself, then passed it back to the jury foreman. The procedure was necessary, I suppose, but cruel.
“Publish the verdict,” Judge Sussman instructed.
“We love you, Mom,” Jennie, sitting behind me, whispered. Norma slid her arm around my shoulder. Barry stroked my hair from the row of seats behind. My family, my friends, I couldn’t leave them again, but that was a distinct possibility now. That morning, USA Today had the odds of acquittal at even. People were actually betting on the outcome in Vegas and London.
My mouth seemed to be filled with cotton. I was numb all over. I was sitting in that courtroom, and yet somehow I wasn’t there at all.
The foreman began to speak. His voice was high-pitched, and yet surprisingly distant, as though there were a screen between