Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [88]
On Monday morning, Gregg awoke at dawn to the realization that he simply could not remember a single moment since he'd started to eat that sandwich on Friday. It was all a complete blur. He stared at his bleak surroundings. How could this happen? Why am I here? Natalie, Natalie, why have you let this happen to me? You know I didn't kill you. You know I understood you better than anyone else.
You know I just wanted you to be happy.
I wish you had wanted that for me.
He stood up, stretched, and now keenly aware that he would probably never again jog in Central Park or, for that matter, jog any?where, sat down again on the bunk bed and wondered how he could ever survive this. He buried his face in his hands. Wrenching sobs racked his body for several minutes until, sapped of all energy, he lay down on the bed again.
I've got to pull myself together, he thought. If I have any prayer of getting out of this, I have to somehow prove that Easton is a liar. I cannot believe he is housed somewhere in this building. He deserves to be here. I don't, he thought bitterly.
After the verdict Richard Moore had spoken to him while he was still in the holding cell adjacent to Judge Stevens's courtroom. Rich?ard tried to console him by promising he would file the appeal im?mediately after he was sentenced.
“In the meantime will I be under the same roof with that scum?” Gregg remembered asking.
Richard replied that Judge Stevens had just issued a “keep sepa?rate” order so that he would have no contact with Easton at the jail.
“Not that he will be there too long,” Richard had assured him. “The judge is going to sentence Jimmy Easton on Monday after?noon. Within a couple of weeks he'll be out of the county jail and assigned to a state prison.”
It's a good thing, Gregg thought to himself, enraged at what Eas?ton had taken from him. If I had the chance, I think I would kill him.
He heard the noise of the lock turning. “I've got your breakfast, Aldrich,” the guard was saying. “I'm bringing it in.”
At two thirty that afternoon, Richard Moore, accompanied by a sher?iff's officer, appeared at the door of Gregg's cell. Gregg looked up, surprised. He had not expected to see Richard today. It was immedi?ately evident to him that something positive had happened.
Richard got right to the point. “Gregg, I just got out of watching Easton's sentencing. As I told you, I expected it to be fairly low key. Other than some remarks from his attorney and Emily Wallace, and then inevitably a phony speech from him about how he was going to change his life, I thought it would be pretty routine. It sure didn't turn out that way.”
As Gregg listened, almost afraid to allow himself to feel any hope, Richard described what had happened. “Gregg, I have no doubt that Emily Wallace was very shaken up. When Easton was spouting that he would have a lot more to say, I think I know what was going through her mind. She understands that Easton is despicable and a complete loose cannon. And all the reporters who were there now know that, too. This will be all over the papers tomorrow. If Wallace didn't intend to investigate this further herself, the press coverage will make her do it.”
Then, seeing the suffering in Gregg's eyes, he decided to tell him now about the reward Michael Gordon had put on his Web site and the phoned-in tip that had prompted it.
As he watched Richard Moore leave his cell, a transformed Gregg Aldrich was fiercely believing that before too long he might be walk?ing out with him.
Just Take My Heart
60
Ted Wesley was clearly unhappy to witness Jimmy Easton's out?burst. When he learned Emily knew in advance that he was demand?ing probation, he exploded. “What is going on here? Didn't you make it clear to him that he was going to prison? And why didn't you tell me before he was in court?”
“Ted,” Emily said quietly. “I made it abundantly clear to him that probation was out of the question. I just learned about it a little while ago and I don't think it's that unusual for a defendant to want a bet?ter deal at the last minute.”
Her tone became