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“That’s because the car wasn’t speeding when I saw him,” Becca said.
“But he was inside of a car at night?”
“I saw him up close before he shot up the street and hit that poor lady with his car,” Becca said.
“Allegedly. Did you actually see him shoot?”
“No.”
“And how exactly did you see him?”
“I saw him throw a plastic cup on the street and confronted him about it.”
“Oh, I see,” the defense attorney said. “So now you’re the litter police?”
Now it was Becca’s turn to be annoyed. She understood that the lawyer was just doing his job, defending his client, but his client was a dirtbag who shot up quiet neighborhoods and ran people over, so she wasn’t all that willing to cut him much slack.
And now he was questioning something as simple as her seeing his client? She’d picked him out of a line-up, for God’s sake. Who was he trying to fool?
“You know what?” she said. “You’re right. Forget about the littering. Let’s just focus on the shooting and the crushing a pregnant lady with his car.”
As she said it, she looked out into the gallery and then, she saw him. Mal. Big, beefy, muscle boy Mal, the same one who had threatened her outside of the police station.
He was glaring at her with undisguised hatred, and it looked like he was wringing his hands together like he wanted to wring her neck. The veiny muscles in his arms bulged and popped as he did it, his dark eyes boring into her the entire time.
But now, Becca didn’t feel intimidated. Here in the courtroom, surrounded by people, Mal didn’t seem so dangerous. There was nothing he could do to stop her; he’d tried by sending Skinny, and Griz had put the scrawny gangbanger in the ICU. She had no doubt that should Mal even think of trying something, that Griz would pounce on him like a saber tooth tiger.
Besides, her blood was up now. The defense attorney and his snarky questions had gotten under her skin, and now she was feeling defiant, not intimidated, so she returned Mal’s stare without flinching.
The defense attorney seemed like he was done with her, and now, the prosecutor stood and said “Redirect, Your Honor?”
“Go ahead,” the judge said.
“Just to be clear,” the prosecuting attorney said, “you are absolutely sure that the defendant was the driver of the vehicle on the night in question?”
Becca leaned forward toward the microphone, still staring straight at Mal. “Yes.”
There was a crashing sound as Mal slammed his hands down on the bench on which he sat. Everyone in the courtroom jumped, including Becca, who suddenly wasn’t feeling quite as confident. A lightning bolt of shock arced through her stomach, until she realized that Mal wasn’t doing anything other than making noise.
The over-inflated bodybuilder stood up right after he’d made his outburst, and stormed out of the courtroom, muttering to himself the entire way. Everyone in the courtroom stopped still and watched him go, those in his path scurrying to get out of the way.
“All right, let’s have some damn order here,” the judge said. “Prosecution, is there anything else?”
“We rest, your Honor.”
“You may step down,” the judge said to Becca, and she was only too happy to oblige.
She was still tingling a little from Mal’s outburst when she left the courtroom to join Griz, Kate, Wyatt, and Boomer out in the lobby. Kate gave her a hug and told her she did a great job, and Griz stood there looking like he was thinking about flannel again, and Becca felt some of her anxiety over this entire affair dying down. It was really starting to look like it was all going to be over soon.
A few minutes later, someone told them that the jury was now deliberating, and it was only a matter of waiting for the verdict to come in.
“God, this is why I never got into criminal law,” Becca said. “All this waiting around.”
“I don’t think this will take long,” Kate said. “All the evidence against him?”
“Did you see that juicehead bodybuilder dude in there?” Becca said.
“Mal,” Griz said.
