Every Reasonable Doubt

by Pamela Samuels Young

I slumped back into my chair, but Special remained standing. “Cheer up? After what y’all just pulled off, you should be ready to party. Why’re you looking so down and out?”

  “Because I feel like crap,” I sighed. “Special, I really miss Jefferson.” My eyes started to moisten.

  She walked over and squeezed my shoulder. “I know you do, girlfriend. That’s why I’m here. Don’t get mad at me,” she said, taking a cautious step backward, “but I have a guy I want you to meet.”

  I rolled my eyes at her so hard they should’ve bounced out of my head. “What? Are you nuts? I don’t—”

  She held up a hand cutting me off. “Just hear me out.”

  “I don’t need to hear you out because you’re nuts,” I growled. “I’m still a married woman. The only thing I’m doing tonight is crawling into my big empty bed in my big empty house.”

  “C’mon,” she begged. “He’s a really nice guy and he knows you’re separated. He’s just looking for somebody to hang out with. I don’t mean to make you more depressed than you already are, but you did say Jefferson took all the clothes out of his closet, right? It doesn’t sound like he’s planning on coming home any time soon. So ain’t no need for you to be sitting home crying in your soup.”

  Her prediction of Jefferson’s unlikely homecoming was not something I wanted to hear. But I was too mad to even speak.

  “As a matter of fact,” Special said, walking toward the door, “the person I want you to meet is right outside.”

  My mouth fell open and I shot out of my chair. “No way! I can’t believe you’re trying to fix me up.”

  She waved me back into the chair. “Just go out with us for one drink. Then you can go home.”

  “No!” I shouted. “There’s no way I’m going out tonight. And definitely not with some man you dragged in from who knows where. You’ve lost your damn mind!”

  “Calm down, girlfriend, calm down,” she said. “I’m just trying to help take your mind off Jefferson.”

  “Well, you’re doing a lousy job. I’m not doing it!”

  “Fine then.” She grabbed the doorknob. “If you won’t go out with the man, the least you could do is meet him.”

  Before the expletives in my head could reach my lips, Special had opened the door and poked her head into the hallway. “C’mon in,” she said.

  I was ready to ring Special’s neck. “You and your friend can just—”

  When I saw Jefferson standing in the doorway, my heart skipped at least six beats. He was wearing a big goofy smile and his eyes told me he was just as happy to see me as I was to see him.

  “How you doing?” he said, sounding uncharacteristically shy.

  My smile was twice the size of his. “Now that you’re here, I’m great,” I said, trying not to cry. “How about you?”

  “About the same as you, I guess.”

  Special put her hands on her hips and grinned sheepishly. “Guess, you like my friend after all, huh?” She pointed a long, manicured finger at both of us. “I’m leaving now, but y’all are going to stay your asses in here until you make up. And that’s an order.” She walked out, then stuck her head back inside to give me a wink.

  “Have a seat,” I said to Jefferson after Special left.

  He sat down in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I perched myself on the edge of the desk directly in front of him. I wanted to reach out and touch him, but something held me back. We just stared at each other, grinning.

  “Congratulations on your verdict,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  I was tired of playing games. I wanted him to know exactly how I felt. “I really miss you,” I said.

  “I miss you, too.”

  “Then why don’t you come back home?”

  His whole body seemed to relax. “Okay.”

  “So it’s as easy as that?” I asked.

  He chuckled softly. “No, I don’t think it’s going to be easy at all.” I could tell he was nervous. “I think we’ve got a lot of stuff to work out.”

  “Maybe we should think about getting some professional help,” I said.

  “Aw, man,” Jefferson groaned, scrunching up his face. “I’ll give it a shot,” he said, “but I ain’t telling my business to no white dude. If we gotta go to counseling, you have to find a brother. A down brother. And not some soft Poindexter-type dude.”

  I smiled. “Deal,” I said.

  He began looking around my office. “You know,” he said, lowering his voice, “I understand how important this stuff is to you. If I was a big-time lawyer and had a slammin’ office like this, I’d probably get off on it just like you do. But I need to feel like I’m important to you, too.”

  I could feel his anxiety. “You are important to me,” I said.

  He folded his arms and tugged on his bottom lip with his teeth. “You say that, but you never really show it.” He sounded like a timid little boy.

  “What do you need me to do?” I asked, looking him straight in the eyes.

  “Nothing special. Just be there for me sometimes.”

  “I promise you I will.”

  He chuckled. “Girl, your track record ain’t too good when it comes to making promises.”

  “I know that,” I said earnestly. “But this time I’m ready to show you I’m serious.” I stood up. “As a matter of fact, I can start showing you right now.”

  The corners of his lips turned upward, stretching a smile across his face. I plopped into his lap and gave him a big, wet kiss. He cupped my face with both hands and kissed me with such intensity I thought my lips would melt into his. I was so happy it hurt. It was some time before we took a break to breathe.

  “By the way,” he said, leaning back so he could see my eyes, “I overheard that little discussion you were having with Special before I walked in. Made me feel kinda nice to know you weren’t trying to kick a brother to the curb and rush off into the arms of some other dude the first chance you got.”

  “Never,” I said. “These are the only arms I want around me.”

  I buried my head in the space between his head and shoulders and we just hugged each other for a long, long time, saying nothing.

  “I guess I owe you an apology,” Jefferson said after a while.

  I pulled back to look at him. “For what?”

  “For trippin’ so hard about—” He stopped as if he couldn’t say the words. “You tried to help, but I pushed you away. I just had to come to terms with everything in my own way. And in my own time.”

  “I understand,” I said. I nuzzled my nose against his and we kissed again.

  “Uh… Hey, baby,” he said, grinning big as I peppered his face with kisses. “What if somebody comes looking for you? Sitting here all hugged up like this ain’t exactly appropriate.”

  I smiled and pulled him closer, although there was no space left between us. “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said, my voice cracking with emotion. “Holding you like this is the most appropriate thing I could ever do.”

  If you enjoyed Every Reasonable Doubt be sure

  to check out Pamela’s other legal thrillers.

  To whet your appetite, here’s a short excerpt

  from one of Pamela’s award-winning novels.

  PROLOGUE

  Veronika Myers tried to convince them, but no one would listen. Her suspicions, they said, were simply a byproduct of her grief.

  Each time she broached the subject with her brother, Jason, he walked out of the room. Darlene, her best friend, suggested a girls’ night out with some heavy drinking. Aunt Flo urged her to spend more time in prayer.

  Veronika knew she was wasting her time with this woman, too, but couldn’t help herself.

  “My mother was murdered,” Veronika told the funeral home attendant. “But nobody believes it.”

  The plump redhead with too much eye shadow glanced down at the papers on her desk, then looked up. “It says here that your mother died in the hospital. From brain cancer.”

&nbs
p; “That’s not true,” Veronika snapped, her response a little too sharp and a tad too loud.

  Yes, her mother had brain cancer, but she wasn’t on her deathbed. Not yet. They had just spent a long afternoon together, laughing and talking and watching All My Children. Veronika could not, and would not accept that the most important person in her life had suddenly died. She knew what everyone else refused to believe. Her mother had been murdered.

  “Did they conduct an autopsy?” the woman asked.

  Veronika sighed and looked away. There had been no autopsy because everyone dismissed her as a grief-stricken lunatic. When she reported the murder to the police, a cop took her statement, but she could tell that nothing would come of it. Without any solid evidence, she was wasting everyone’s time, including her own.

  “No,” Veronika said. “There wasn’t an autopsy.”

  The funeral home attendant smiled sympathetically.

  Veronika let out a long, slow breath, overwhelmed by the futility of what she was trying to prove. “Never mind,” she said. “What else do you need me to sign?”

  Later that night, Veronika lay in bed, drained from another marathon crying session. She rummaged through the nightstand, retrieved a bottle of sleeping pills and popped two into her mouth. She tried to swallow them dry, but her throat was too sore from all the crying.

  Tears pooled in her eyes as she headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. “Don’t worry, Mama,” Veronika sniffed. “I won’t let them get away with it.”

  Just as she reached the end of the hallway, a heavy gloved hand clamped down hard across her mouth as her arms were pinned behind her back. Fear instantly hurled her into action. Veronika tried to scream, but the big hand reduced her shriek to a muffle. She frantically kicked and wrestled and twisted her body, trying to break free. Her attacker’s grip, however, would not yield.

  When she felt her body being lifted off the ground and carried back down the hallway, she realized there were two of them and her terror level intensified. But so did her survival instinct. She continued to wildly swing her legs backward and forward, up and down, right and left, eventually striking what felt like a leg, then a stomach.

  As they crossed the threshold of her bedroom, she heard a loud, painful moan that told her she had likely connected with the groin of one of her assailants.

  “Cut it out!” said a husky, male voice. “Hurry up!” he ordered his partner. “Grab her legs!”

  The men dumped her face down onto the bed, her arms still restrained behind her back. The big hand slipped from her mouth and Veronika’s first cry escaped, but was quickly muted when a much heavier hand gripped the back of her neck and pressed her face into the comforter.

  Fearing her attackers were going to rape, then kill her, Veronika defiantly arched her back and tried to roll her body into a tight ball. At only 130 pounds, she was no physical match for her assailants. They easily overpowered her, forcing her back into a prone position. As one man sat on her upper legs, strapping her left arm to her side, the other man bent her right arm at the elbow and guided her hand up toward her forehead.

  During the deepest period of her grief, Veronika had longed to join her mother. But now that she was face-to-face with the possibility of death, she fought valiantly for life.

  That changed, however, the second Veronika felt something cold and hard connect with her right temple. She stiffened as one of the men grabbed her fingers and wrapped them around the butt of a gun. At that precise instant, Veronika knew with certainty that her suspicions were indeed fact. Her mother had been murdered and now the same killers had come to silence her before she could expose the truth. And just like her mother’s death, her own murder would go undetected, dismissed as the suicide of a grieving daughter. A conclusion no one would question.

  As the man placed his hand on top of hers and prepared to pull the trigger, a miraculous, power-infused sensation snuffed out what was left of Veronika’s fear, causing her body to go limp. The heavy pounding of her heart slowed to a barely detectable level and she felt light enough to float away.

  Completely relaxed now, Veronika closed her eyes, said a short prayer, and waited for a glorious reunion with her mother.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Publishing a first novel is not something that happens overnight. This journey began with an idea and took off down a road paved with roadblocks. I managed to stay the course, but I would never have arrived at my destination without the encouragement and support of many wonderful people.

  First, I’d like to thank fellow lawyers Cheryl Mason, Ellen Farrell, Fesia Davenport and Terrye Cheathem. Every writer needs a circle of smart, supportive friends who have the guts to tell you what works and what doesn’t. I was fortunate enough to have the four of you.

  To my agent, Sha-Shana Crichton, my editor, Glenda Howard, and my publisher, Linda Gil, thanks for pulling Every Reasonable Doubt from the pile of manuscripts that crossed your desks and selecting it as a novel worthy of publication. To writing coach extraordinaire, Michael Levin, thanks for sharing your incredible talent for teaching writers how to plot and pace a story, and for your ever-present words of encouragement. To Carol Mackey, editor of Black Expressions Book Club, thanks for recognizing my work at a time when I desperately needed confirmation that Every Reasonable Doubt was a novel others might enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it. Ditto for the SEAK Legal Fiction Writing Competition. Your “Honorable Mention” provided a much-need boost every wannabe novelist needs. To Nubian Queens Literary Club of Los Angeles, thanks for welcoming me into your sister circle and making me feel like a bestselling author.

  Thanks also to the host of family and friends who read my drafts and gave me valuable feedback, often under deadline pressure: Debora Diffendal, Karey Keenan, Cynthia Hebron, Halima Horton, Bobbie Copeland, Brittany Carter, Ginger Heyman, Kristin Byrdsong, Pat Rowles, Jennifer Rowles, Donna Ziegler, Gail Herring, Marsha Silady, April Quillen, and my brother and niece, Jerry and Jeanette Samuels.

  To my incredible inner circle of sister-friends, Olivia Smith, Sara Finney-Johnson, Renee Cunningham, Donna Lowry, Monique Brandon, Russana Rowles, Felicia Henderson, Alisa Covington, Karen Copeland, Syna Dennis, Laurie Robinson, Sharlene Moore, Stephanie Winlock, Colleen Carraway-Higgs, Tonya Jenerette, Mary Flowers Boyce, Janet Swerdlow, Linda Tolbert, Val Clark, Bettie Lewis, and Antoinette Tutt, and, of course, my homeboys, Greg Sawyer, DeWitt Tolbert, Ed Robinson, Leroy Farley, Colin Bowen, Eric Sawyer, Kelvin Tolbert, and Anthony George, thanks for always supporting me, no matter what the venture. I am indeed blessed that this list is so long.

  And finally, to my husband, Rick, who never doubted that I would eventually become a published author. Thanks for propping me back up every time a new rejection letter arrived in the mail and for being secure enough with who you are to allow my dream to become your dream.

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS FOR

  EVERY REASONABLE DOUBT

  In what ways were Vernetta and Neddy both alike and different?

  How did you feel about the relationship between Vernetta and Jefferson?

  Did Jefferson have unreasonable expectations regarding Vernetta’s career demands?

  Did Vernetta place her career above her marriage?

  How special was Special?

  Have you ever had to deal with a “David” in your workplace?

  Do you believe that women are more difficult than men to get along with in the workplace?

  Why do women like Tina remain in unhealthy marriages?

  Was Jefferson’s reaction to his “situation” realistic?

  What were some of the things you liked/disliked about Every Reasonable Doubt?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Pamela Samuels Young is a practicing attorney and bestselling author of the legal thrillers, Every Reasonable Doubt, In Firm Pursuit, Murder on the Down Low, Buying Time, Attorney-Client Privilege, and Anybody’s Daughter. She is also a natural hair enthusiast and the author of Kinky Coily: A Natural Hair Resourc
e Guide.

  In addition to writing legal thrillers and working as an in-house employment attorney for a major corporation in Southern California, Pamela formerly served on the board of directors of the Los Angeles Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and is a diehard member of Sisters in Crime-L.A., an organization dedicated to the advancement of women mystery writers. The former journalist and Compton native is a graduate of USC, Northwestern University and UC Berkeley’s School of Law. She is married and lives in the Los Angeles area.

  Pamela loves to hear from readers! There are a multitude of ways to connect with her.

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/pamelasamuelsyoung and

  www.facebook.com/kinkycoilypamela.

  Twitter: www.twitter.com/pamsamuelsyoung.

  LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pamelasamuelsyoung.

  Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/kinkycoily.

  YouTube: www.youtube.com/kinkycoilypamela.

  MeetUp: www.meetup.com/natural-born-beauties.

  To schedule Pamela for a speaking engagement or book club meeting via speakerphone, Skype, FaceTime or in person, visit her website at www.pamelasamuelsyoung.com.