If We Dare to Dream (14 page)

Only one person remained loyal. But he hated that his grandmother, the woman who had selflessly raised him and his brother single-handedly, appeared every day with her caregiver. She sat behind him, stoically offering him her silent support and averting her eyes from any reminder of his prison status.

Once in the containment room, he gave his appearance one last review. When he was first sentenced, he had decided to keep his head shaved completely to give the impression of where his loyalties lay, but with his new trial he decided to allow his hair to grow back in. Ignorance had never been a trait he associated with, and he knew he should appear as respectable as possible given the circumstances. Therefore, he made sure his dark brown hair was neat and not poking out in spots like some sort of comical clown, and he once more smoothed his goatee with trembling fingers. It was imperative that all impressions of him were as a professional adult. Today that did not extend just to the jury.

Jamie was testifying today. With the consistent pounding of his heart and the nervous tremble in his hands, no one needed to tell him that he wanted to impress her, too. Though it pained him that she would see him in all his shame, he hoped that maintaining a well-groomed appearance would help soften the blow. His image of her had always been a lovely, smiling face in the darkness; today would be the day he would find out if that changed to disgust and fear.

The early morning was spent listening to the facts piled against him by the prosecutor’s office, reliving the terror he had experienced all those years ago. It was an uncomfortable time for him, where he fought the urge to fidget in his seat. Several times he battled back the impulse to run like a frightened jackrabbit, zigzagging through the benches searching for an escape route. He did not want to listen, did not even want to be there, but Darren had told him it would be in his best interests to have the jury see him. To him it was torture. As they spoke, he could feel his chest tighten with his growing anxiety, but his studious breathing miraculously kept it under control.

Reliving those terrible details was hard for him, not just as the man accused of doing it but also as a human being. He could only imagine how the family felt. Though he had not turned to see who was present in the small room, he could feel the presence of others and sense the hostile stares on his back. Whether they were the girl’s family or not he did not know and did not want to know. In a show of uncustomary cowardice, he admitted that he just wanted everything to be over with.

While he battled his discomfort, the subject of the footprint was discussed. In his first trial, it had been explained away as belonging to a previous visitor perhaps before the murder, but this time around Darren stressed that the print was left only on the bedroom carpet, not in the hallway leading up to it or even in the living room. Like a skilled puppeteer, Darren weaved into a web the fine tendrils of suspicion. If the owner of a shoe two sizes smaller than Andrew’s had been a visitor, surely they would have left a print in the main room rather than just in the bedroom near the window where the screen had been cut, right?

First reasonable doubt.

Preening like a proud peacock, Darren puffed his chest when he took his seat with a triumphant look in his eye that Andrew could not help but notice. Long, tension-filled moments passed as the prosecution finished their redirect… and then Jamie Morton was called.

Andrew tensed. This was it.

A moment later he heard the door open, and then there was a pause during which the room fell silent. Ears straining and breath held in suspense, Andrew struggled to hear the voices in the hallway. They were mingled, some deep male ones and then the higher-pitched female one that he imagined was his potential savoir. The clicking of heels against the white tiled floor echoed through the silent room, growing louder as she approached. Then she was alongside, a flash of black seen out of the corner of his eye while he struggled to maintain an expressionless face for the jurors. He wanted to look, to watch out of curiosity and interest as well as his desire to see her in the light. More than anything he wanted to see if she still held that same captive quality that he had experienced all those long years ago or if it had all been a dream from the dark reaches of a desperate mind.

She passed by on her way to the witness box, and he was granted a view of her black, suit-clad back. Though she carried herself with an unassuming confidence and self-assurance, he spotted a slight stiffness in her shoulders that belied her attempt at nonchalance. Even so, she was trim and elegant, with her thick, dark hair swept away from her face and piled atop her head. The memory of those mahogany tresses spilling over her shoulders suddenly came back to him. He had liked her hair, the way her gentle curls just begged to be touched.

Liking what he saw at first glance, he turned to Darren. His lawyer gave him a confident nod, so he refocused his attention back to the witness chair and watched her take a seat. She was glancing down and adjusting herself when the court reporter’s voice rang out to swear her in. She turned to the jury.

“I do.” Her voice was clear and steady and sounded like music to his ears.

Granted the view of her profile, he was elated to see that she had not changed very much from his memory of her. Her skin was still smooth and creamy, and her eyes were still her most prominent feature. Large and dark, she was most likely enveloping the jury in those mysterious depths in the same way she had him that night they met. That momentous night that had changed his life forever.

Then she faced forward, and Andrew’s breath left in a long, unsteady whoosh. Her hands were tucked in her lap, but he could finally see her face. With a mixture of shock and shame, he realized everything about her was just as he remembered despite being a few years older. Damn, but she was pretty. The years had been good to her, granting her a maturity in her features and the confidence of a self-assured woman. Once again he hated that she had to see him like this.

While Andrew gawked, Darren came to his feet and began his questioning. The room was respectfully silent while Jamie answered. He liked the way her voice was crisp and clear, and she answered Darren’s background questions with no hesitation, glancing at the jury occasionally when making a point. While he knew that Darren had explained to her how to act and how not to react, she did everything so flawlessly and naturally that he was certain the jury would find her a credible witness.

He heard the events of her night, how she started with dinner and dancing with friends before ending up at the bar for a nightcap. She explained that she was not drinking at that point because she was driving, a point that Darren stressed. Apparently her level of intoxication would be a focus for the prosecution in an attempt to discredit her.

That anyone would try to attack her bothered him.

She had reached the point of going home for the evening and how she met the victim at the bar. Darren slowed his questions here, making them more pointed and detailed for the jury. Jamie continued in her smooth tone, pausing only momentarily on occasion to collect her thoughts and think about her answers. Enraptured, Andrew watched her brow furrow at times when she concentrated. While she seemed to make a concerted effort to not look his way, she did glance over his head and her eyes took on a faraway look as she returned to that night in her mind. Unable to resist her enchanting qualities, he did the same when she began to recount her run in with the victim.

He had long ago reached the point where he could not view the out-of-control girl as a person anymore. While he pitied the family for their loss, he had more than paid a price for her death. However, Jamie was painting her as a human, and it hurt him to hear her speak so patiently about Kit’s behavior that night. She also mentioned the other people at their table that night, most notably the blonde that had testified against him.

Trying to appear busy, he hid his emotion behind his currently blank pad of paper in front of him. He could still hear Jamie’s voice, discussing his initial conversation with her. The change in her tone of voice caught his attention, and he raised his head to meet her steady gaze for the first time. The amount of emotion in her dark, luminous brown eyes took him by surprise. She appeared sad, regretful, and even guilty. Unable to tear his gaze away, he watched in awe as her voice trembled with unreleased emotion while she gave her account of their interaction. She was firm when she recounted Kit’s moments of illness and how he had swung her out of the way. She was convincing as she rehashed how they walked out together. Most importantly, she was believable when she stated firmly that she allowed him to follow her home because she felt he was safe.

Darren nodded approvingly, and then asked her the most important question that was on everyone’s mind. “Ms. Morton, can you say without any hesitation that the man who escorted you home is in this courtroom?”

She nodded. “I can.”

“And can you point out that man?”

“Yes.”

“Will you show us who it was that you met that night?”

She pointed to Andrew. “It’s the defendant, Andrew Sheehan.”

“Can you say without any doubt that Andrew Sheehan is the man that escorted you home that night, Ms. Morton?”

“Yes.”

“How is that? You only met this man for a brief time, and the bar was in semi-darkness.”

Her gaze remained on him intently again, and her voice lowered when she answered. “I know it’s him.”

“How?”

“The scar next to his eye. I remembered the scar because when he smiled at me it glowed.”

A hushed pause, carefully directed by Darren’s theatrical dramatics, fell over the courtroom. Jamie waited for further questions, but Darren was slow to speak. He was allowing her words to sink into the minds of the jury.

For the first time since the trail began, Andrew felt the heat of all eyes upon him. The jury members and the bystanders stared at him intently as though seeing him for the first time. They watched for a reaction, all of them but Jamie, who was still studying Darren closely, and it took all of his strength to not show what he really felt at that moment.

Satisfied, Darren stared at the jury members meaningfully. “I have no further questions at this time.”

Reasonable doubt two.

Chapter 7

The record was noted that the scar on his face - the one that had ended his military career and sent him back to the States with shrapnel trapped in his spine near his sixth cervical vertebra and nearly blind in one eye - was Jamie’s means of identifying him after almost five years and only one brief encounter. He never thought that his injury would come in handy; in fact, he had always seen it as a failure. After his accident, he remembered his doctors in Germany discussing his wound, remarking that it would be “a permanent disability”, and that he was a high risk due to “the foreign bodies left in his carotid sheath and his cervical spine” which were inoperable without the risk of death. They had not listened to his protests and had recommended a medical discharge. He had been sent home, a decorated soldier without a future in the military.

For the first time his misfortune was working in his favor.

Though Darren continued to promote his immaculate record, gentlemanly behavior, and absolute alibi, Jamie still had to complete her cross examination. To her credit, she remained composed as the lead prosecutor came to his feet and introduced himself, and she refused to be baited as he attempted to cast doubt on her recollection. She remained patient while he picked out possible inconsistencies and prudently corrected him if he misinterpreted what she said.

The only time her composure slipped was when he focused on her sudden appearance after all the years that had passed. Sensing a weakness, John Bell directed his line of questioning into her past.

“And if you knew that the man who had been with you that evening had been charged with a crime, why didn’t you come forward with the information then?”

She cleared her throat. “I didn’t know the details of the situation he was in then. I heard from a friend after the fact that he had been charged and was scared at the time.”

“Scared? Why?”

“I thought that I may have been lucky to escape from a possible predator.”

“So you admit that you had enough doubt after the fact and thought it was possible he could have committed the crime?”

“Objection, Your Honor, speculation,” Darren called out.

“I’ll allow it,” the judge replied.

Andrew felt Darren tense up beside him. He began scribbling notes on his pad as he waited for Jamie to answer.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but I didn’t know otherwise either.”

“Yes or no, Ms. Morton.”

She paused, but her eyes never left John’s face. That was a good thing, for if she had allowed her gaze to search out Darren for encouragement it could have reflected poorly on them.

“Yes.”

John nodded triumphantly.

“So you didn’t come forward then because you thought you had escaped from a predator that night?”

“I’ve never been in a situation like that before. I never considered that my information would be needed…”

“Why did you think that?”

“Because I had only communicated with him for a few minutes; I didn’t know him beyond that evening.”