AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I look to his eyes, but he’s staring at something else: my body.
Shit, did a button on my shirt pop off or something? But when I follow his gaze, I see that he’s analyzing the small bruise on the inside of my arm.
Thanks, Matt. Remind me to send him a nice card sprinkled with cyanide.
“What’s this?” Tucker asks me in a voice from beyond the grave.
Telling him who did this to me is probably not a good idea. Let’s avoid another war between Tucker and that bastard Matt.
“Who?” he growls harshly.
I shrug my shoulders in a relaxed manner.
“I bruised it on the corner of a table, it’s nothing.”
“And you hit the inside of your arm? Do you think I’m stupid?” He tilts his head to the side, eyebrows raised.
He knows perfectly well that I’m lying. I open my mouth, trying to sound insulted by his implication. “If I answer ‘yes,’ are you going to start roaring and pounding your fist?”
“Why does it look like a fingerprint?” he insists gravely, holding back from touching my skin.
I let out a mocking laugh.
“You should see an eye doctor, Tuck-Tuck.”
I get out of the car, praying that he will let go. Tucker mumbles something and walks down the sidewalk without waiting for me, looking dark and closed.
The distinctive sound of thunder interrupts my thoughts. I look up at the gray, stormy sky.
Let’s go.
***
The courtroom is silent although many people are getting settled. I take a seat on the far right of the wooden benches, Tucker right next to me. I pull out a notepad, and he raises an eyebrow at me.
“Aren’t you writing anything down?” I ask him spontaneously.
Catching me off guard, he leans over and taps my forehead with his index finger.
“I’m writing in here.”
Then he steps back, a little smile stuck to his face at my confusion. I’m about to ask him a question, but the serious stuff starts. It’s not the first time I’ve been so close to a trial. The last one was the one that cleared me after I pleaded self-defense against my parents’ killer.
I glance over at Tucker. How would he react if he found out I killed someone myself? Would he see me as a monster?
The judge comes into the courtroom in a heavy silence. To the right, a small door opens to reveal two policemen holding a man: Mikael Larey. I can see from here his haunted eyes, his face completely destroyed. Maybe he is really guilty. I don’t know.
The facts are quickly recalled to the assembly and the jury on the right.
As stated in the documents provided to us by Mrs. Richards, Helena Larey and her daughter Meredith were found dead, murdered in the middle of their living room. The police, upon arriving at the scene in the middle of the night, found Mikael Larey amidst his wife’s blood.
The judge calls Mikael to the stand. He walks in slow motion, his eyes blank.
The prosecutor stands up and begins the indictment.
“Mikael Larey, you are accused of the murder of your wife and the rape and murder of your child.”
Mikael doesn’t answer anything. It’s almost as if he’s not listening to the words of the authoritarian old man.
