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Yuki said, “Your Honor, redirect.”
“Go ahead, Ms. Castellano.”
CHAPTER 41
YUKI HOPED BARBARA Sullivan would be able to handle another round of testimony. Given her condition, antagonistic questions from the opposition had surely disturbed her.
Yuki got up from the counsel table and crossed the well to the witness stand.
Barbara looked dazed. Yuki smiled and asked her how she was doing. After hesitation, the injured woman said, “I’m okay. Considering.”
“This won’t take long,” Yuki said, hoping that she wasn’t over-promising.
“Barbara,” she said, “do you remember if Lewis ever beat you before the incident that hospitalized you?”
“Yes,” Barbara said in a soft, sibilant voice. “I was allowed back into our house last night. It was the first time since … what happened. I got some clean things from the closet and memories began to come back to me.”
Switzer objected to the introduction of new testimony.
Before the judge could rule on Switzer’s BS objection—meant only to break Yuki’s rhythm and interrupt Barbara’s distractible train of thought—there was a disruption from an unexpected source. Juror number three, Mrs. Doris Caro, clapped her hands to her chest and slid from her seat onto the floor of the jury box.
The court officers went directly to the fallen woman, one of them calling 911. Judge Froman adjourned the court until Monday morning and ordered the courtroom cleared. Yuki and Nick Gaines went to the witness stand and, assisted by the bailiff, carefully helped wheel Barbara out of the courtroom.
Yuki knew that a car and driver were waiting for Barbara outside the Hall in the All-Day parking lot across the street. Lew Sullivan called his wife’s name. She turned her head in his direction and Yuki leaned down to Barbara’s ear.
“Not now, Barbara. You can’t speak to him while the trial is ongoing. It’s not part of our strategy. Nicky, let’s get Barbara downstairs.”
Yuki was thinking that, in a minute, the paramedics would be coming up the elevator with a stretcher for Juror number three. She had to get Barbara into her car before anyone—the press, another witness—spoke to her client. She stabbed the call button and pictured getting Barbara into the elevator without banging her leg against the wall.
She would get Barbara safely into the elevator and then into the car across the street before Switzer called for a mistrial. With Nick’s help. So help her, God.
CHAPTER 42
CINDY WAS PLEASANTLY exhausted. It was 9:30 p.m. and she’d had a wonderful event at the Writer’s Block.
Now she stood in the hall outside her room at the Legend Hotel, just off the strip. She’d asked Stefan the bellman if he’d mind going through her room before her, and he’d said, “Not a problem.” He checked the bathroom, pulled open the curtains, looked under the bed and inside the narrow closet.
Cindy chattered as Stefan secured the room, saying, “I’m a writer, you know. I have a vivid imagination.”
“It’s okay, Miss. Happy to do it.”
She thought about Blackout and how Richie and Lindsay had worried her and pleaded with her not to go on any trips, pointing to the killings after her speeches. Damn. She wished they could have seen her today.
When the bellhop finished checking every conceivable hiding spot, he showed her the wine cooler and the temperature controls and that to reach security she’d only need to call 05 on the landline. She thanked him and gave hima twenty-dollar bill. Secure in her room with its very mid-twentieth-century furnishings, Cindy found a news station on the TV and got ready for bed.
Only when she was wearing her nightgown and ensconced in the Cal King bed with a lot of pillows did she call Richie. He didn’t answer, which was odd. At this time of night, he was usually falling asleep in front of the TV. She left a message saying she was going to sleep and would see him at the San Francisco airport tomorrow morning at ten.
Cindy set the alarm and called the desk for a 7:00 a.m. wake-up call and texted her driver to make sure he would be on time. She got out of bed to double-check the door locks and memorized the directions to the fire exit and brought back a glass of ice water before turning out all of the lights again.
Outside her window, raindrops fell and the neon-lit strip made a silent, blinking light show through the curtains. Very quickly Cindy fell sound asleep.
And then she was awake.
There had been a sound, not very loud, maybe someone in an adjacent room had closed a door or bumped against the wall. She listened and the sound came again. It was a knock at her door. And she heard a man’s voice call her name.
Cindy took the receiver off the hook and felt for the zero five buttons that would call help when a man’s voice called out.
“Cindy, it’s me.”
