Colton stepped back from the stand, his voice firm. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
I caught my brother’s glance and nodded slightly. He wrung his hands together, looking left and right, eager to be done.
Mitchell approached the stand with a determined gait. “Mr. Walker, how did your father die?”
Breath caught in my throat. That ominous feeling I’d had since I’d heard Colton was putting Billy Ray on the stand returned, stronger and darker, engulfing me.
“He was bit by a rattlesnake on our farm.”
“How old were you when that happened, Mr. Walker?” Mitchell’s voice was cold, harsh.
“I was eighteen,” Billy Ray replied. He seemed unexpectedly calm.
“More precisely, please?” Mitchell insisted.
“Objection, Your Honor,” Colton said. “Relevance?”
Antunez tilted his head a little, thinking. “Let’s find out. I’ll allow it. The witness may answer.”
I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists under the table, my fingernails digging into my flesh. That son of a bitch, Mitchell, coming after my brother like this. What did he hope to prove? Billy Ray hadn’t even been in Nevada when Winston was murdered.
Billy Ray jutted his chin forward, just a little bit. “I turned eighteen the week before my father died.”
“Interesting,” Mitchell said, timing his reaction and checking the jury’s interest level. They were perked up. “Convenient, too. Is it true that country kids like yourself are quite adept at catching and handling venomous snakes?”
I gasped.
Colton sprang to his feet, his arms raised in disbelief. “Objection!”
“I’ll rephrase,” Mitchell said. A glimmer of malice lit his eyes. “Does murder run in your family, Mr. Walker?”
“Objection!” Colton shouted. “Your Honor, this is outrageous—”
“Withdrawn,” Mitchell said, returning to his seat with a hint of a satisfied smile on his lips.
The courtroom reeled, a wave of whispers rising and fading.
“Redirect, Your Honor?” Colton asked.
“Please proceed,” Antunez replied. He was frowning and had been for a while, bothered by something he wasn’t sharing.
“Billy, were you suspected by the police in the death of your father?”
“No, sir. I was out of town when it happened.”
“No more questions, Your Honor.”
Relieved, Billy Ray stood and walked off the stand, then took his seat behind me. I felt his hand squeeze my shoulder. I put my hand over his and kept it like that for a while, just grateful he was there.
Colton remained standing by the defense table, sifting through his notes, and then looked at me briefly before announcing his next witness.
“The defense would like to call Dr. Leishman.”
52
Dr. Leishman
The courtroom hummed with quiet tension as Dr. Kristen Leishman, the psychiatrist who had evaluated me, took the stand. She wasn’t the typical courtroom expert, poised and sophisticated. There was an everywoman quality about her that had drawn me to her since we’d first met.
