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Tonight it would all begin.
Toni’s stomach was churning. She felt guilty thinking it, after everything Billy had done for her, but the way he looked at her was starting to creep her out.
I have to talk to him right away. I can’t let him leave here thinking we have a future together.
Whatever Toni Gilletti had once found attractive and exciting about Billy Hamlin had died along with poor Nicholas Handemeyer. From now on Toni would always associate Billy with that day. With terror and anguish. With tragedy and regret. With blood and with water. With death.
There could be no going back.
Judge Devon Williams’s powerful baritone cut through the tension in the room like a power drill.
“And on the charge of second-degree murder, how do you find the defendant?”
Billy Hamlin closed his eyes. It was over at last.
“Guilty.”
Chapter Eight
Toni ran down the corridor, quickening her pace. Her father was yelling at her to come back, but she didn’t listen.
I have to see Billy. I have to tell him I’m sorry.
How had the jury found him guilty? It was impossible, ridiculous. The judge had clearly thought so too. You could see it in his eyes when he passed sentence: twenty years, with parole at fifteen, the minimum allowed for second-degree m
urder but still a lifetime.
“Sorry, miss.” A court officer blocked her path to the holding cell. “Official visitors only.”
“But he needs to see me!”
“Like hell he does.”
Before Toni knew what was happening, Billy’s father had grabbed her by the shoulders, throwing her back against the wall so hard she felt the breath leave her body.
“It was you, wasn’t it? It was you! You let my boy take the fall for you, you rich, spoiled little bitch.”
“Take your hands off my daughter.”
For once, Toni was glad to see her father. Walter Gilletti was a slight man but he radiated authority.
“I understand you’re upset,” he told Jeff Hamlin. “But Toni had nothing to do with this.”
“Yeah, right.” Jeff Hamlin backed away with tears in his eyes. “Your daughter’s shit don’t stink. They gave my Billy twenty years. Twenty years!”
Walter Gilletti shrugged. “If he keeps his nose clean, he’ll be out in fifteen.”
The rich man’s nonchalance was the last straw for Jeff Hamlin. Launching himself at Walter Gilletti with a mighty roar, he lashed out wildly with his fists as the policeman tried vainly to pry the two men apart. Seizing her chance, Toni bolted down the stairs toward the holding cell, but within seconds, another cop grabbed her.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, young lady? You can’t just barge down here without authorization.”
“It’s all right, Frank. The boy asked to see her.”
Leslie Lose seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He looked white-faced and serious. Clearly the verdict had shocked him too.
Reluctantly, the guard stepped aside.
“Thank you,” Toni said to Billy’s lawyer.
