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“Your lawyer’s coming,” he tells me with a tone of comfort and safety as though a lawyer can get me out of this. I guess I should have asked for one before saying a word. But what’s the point?
“I did it,” I tell him in a tight voice and tilt my head to reach his eyes. “I killed him.” The last sentence comes out strong. I can at least own it. “He was trying to—”
Uncle Rob cuts me off, placing a hand on my shoulder and leaning in closer. “I know what happened. They gave me the report. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a lawyer.”
His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red as he stares at me, begging me to hear him out.
“I don’t see the point. I told them what happened. They know he tried to rape her.” My voice goes tight. “I only did it to save her.”
“It’s Jack’s nephew. He’s friends with the judge. You need a lawyer.” His voice is hard but also panicked.
I huff out a breath of disbelief at my uncle’s words. “I already know that.”
“Listen to me for once in your fucking life, Dean,” my uncle shouts at me with exasperation. “He doesn’t want his name smeared.”
“Smeared?” I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“You don’t know how they’ll spin it,” my uncle says sharply and that gets my attention.
“Spin it?”
“Jack said she set his nephew up.”
“She what?” My vision spins.
“That she liked it that way and wanted to make you jealous.”
“You believe him?” I stand up abruptly, moving away from my uncle and looking at him with disgust.
“No!” he says and taps his foot nervously on the cement floor. “They’re going to try to spin it. They’re saying she wanted him and that you caught them in the act.”
“But she’s a witness, she can testify. Shit, a neighbor heard her screaming!” My voice bellows in the cell, my anger bouncing off the hard, unforgiving walls.
“Well, there’s some damning evidence, Dean. You need to hear it. You need to be prepared for it.”
“Hear what?”
“Your anger, your arrests. Pictures of the two of you and testimonies of her beingmore than friendlywith some of your friends.” My heart slows with each word.
“None of that has anything to do with this.”
“Maybe not to you, but your opinion doesn’t matter. If they think she’s lying, her testimony doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the truth!”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says in a flat voice.
“She didn’t want him to rape her.”
“You have to prove it was rape.”
“Her word isn’t enough?” I spit back at him with even more contempt.
“Not when she’s made her intentions questionable. The DA has to decide—”
“Get out!” I say and seethe. “I don’t need you or your lawyer.” My voice comes out even and confident, and I have no fucking clue how. I’m trembling with anger and sickness.
“I’m not leaving you,” he tells me with a shaky voice. “You needed me back then, and I failed you. I won’t fail you now. If you don’t want me here, that’s fine. I’ll respect that, but I’m getting you a lawyer for the arraignment.”
