“The defense will try to tell you Reagan Fletcher’s testimony seeks revenge, and the defendant is innocent of her lies. But the medical records don’t lie. The DNA tests don’t lie. The fingerprints and the murder weapon don’t lie.
“We have an eyewitness who corroborates every part of Reagan’s story. Shane Fletcher raped his own sister and killed his mother to keep his crimes hidden. And now it’s time for him to face justice.”
The defense’s closing is predictable. He paints Shane as a young man who made mistakes. He questions my credibility. He suggests alternative theories to plant doubt.
But I can see it in the jury’s faces. His story doesn’t win this competition.
The jury deliberates for six hours. When they return, the forewoman stands.
“On the count of murder in the first degree, how do you find?” the judge starts.
“Guilty.”
“On the count of sexual assault of a minor?”
“Guilty.”
“On the count of incest?”
“Guilty.”
The judge’s gavel comes down. “The defendant will be remanded into custody pending sentencing.”
Shane’s face drains of color. His lawyer is already whispering about appeals, but Shane isn’t listening. He’s looking at me.
This time, I don’t look away.
The sentencing hearing is brief. The judge looks down at Shane, his face barely neutral. “Mr. Fletcher, you have been found guilty of heinous crimes against your own sister. Crimes that began when she was a child and continued for years. And when your mother finally tried to protect her daughter, you murdered her in cold blood.
“This court finds no mitigating circumstances. No reason for leniency. You are lucky the prosecutor didn’t ask for the death penalty. You are hereby sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.”
The bailiffs move to take Shane away. He doesn’t resist, doesn’t utter a word until he catches my gaze. “I love you, Reagan. I’ve always loved you, baby girl.”
“Iloved you, Shane. You never did.”
CHAPTER 36
Butterfly Man
“There you have it,” Reagan muses. “The truth you’ve been dying to know.”
“Shane Fletcher was your brother.” My mind hardly processes. “He was in prison for life for murdering your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Did he do it?”
A mocking laugh escapes her. Her gaze mocks me, too. “That’s the story the court believed.”
“Everything is a story, and you’re the storyteller,” I repeat her words that are engraved in my mind. “But the truth…”
“That’s a different story.”
“Mason did it, and you both framed Shane for it. Your design. You got him to kill for you.”
“It wasn’t for me. Shane had turned into a thug to climb his way up in the MC. He wanted to rule, and he had no problem crossing any boundaries to reach the top. The more power Shane had, the less chance Mason had to return to the MC. Mason hated Shane. One of them was going to kill the other sooner or later. I turned it into something…
“Beneficial?”
