by John Foxjohn
He didn’t know if they had a strong enough relationship to tell her.
As these thoughts filtered through his head, a smile formed. Kayla did have all those qualities, but she had others, too. She worked hard, prepared. He didn’t believe others saw her iron constitution, but they would. If he bet on this race, his money would go on Kayla.
With these thoughts, he almost missed the person who strolled out of the house and walked away from him on the sidewalk.
Moments later, he threw the door open and rushed after her.
* * * *
Kayla stared at the ceiling when John left. My God, what has happened to my life, she said over and over to herself. Her body trembled and she clasped her hands together in an attempt to stop the shaking. It didn’t work.
Nothing made sense any more. Why would he pay money to have someone protect her?
Too many things had happened—too many coincidences that she had no control over, didn’t know the reasons for. She didn’t need any of this now—too many people didn’t want her defending Loren, and she didn’t understand that—her growing feelings for Darren, Loren’s usual tirades, and now this. How was she supposed to concentrate on the trial?
She rose and paced her office, twirling the pen. With her head about to explode from all that happened around her, this last bit of news popped on her at the worst time. She wished she could discount it, forget it.
Her personal life should not interfere with her job, but she couldn’t escape it. Pieces like a jigsaw puzzle flickered in the back of her mind. She had several puzzles and people had mixed the pieces all together. Only one certainty existed—the puzzles would come together, and she wouldn’t like it.
Her talk with Darren exploded in her mind, bounced around, and mixed with this last news from John.
She didn’t know how to find most of the puzzle pieces, but knew how to solve this last part. She wouldn’t like the answers, but she’d put this off way too long.
She stuffed her files in the briefcase and hurried out. Ignoring Sarah Jane’s startled expression when she marched by, she told her she’d be gone the rest of the day.
The determination that possessed Kayla waned as she neared her home. She had to find out, and she knew of only one way to do that.
Inside her attic, with sun filtering through dust mites, she eased the trunk open.
Unlike all the other times when she held her mother’s diary close to her chest, now she opened it. She had not known that her mother even kept a diary until her parents’ death. She’d always wanted to read it, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Even now, she had conflicting thoughts on the diary.
Would her mother consider it an invasion of her privacy? For the first time, when considering the diary, she asked herself what her father would say.
She trembled as his words reverberated in her head. “The facts must always come out even if they don’t favor your client.”
Her father had intended those words for a criminal trial, but at that moment, her client existed within herself, and she had a fool for an attorney.
As the words blurred on the paper, page after page, burning sensations knotted in Kayla’s stomach. Her heart ached, her chest hurt, and the more she read, the harder it became to breathe. When she read it the first time, she flipped back to selected areas and reread it, hoping it would change the words, but it didn’t. She’d known so little about her parents, their lives, desires, their ability to cope, and their struggles.
The diary changed Kayla’s life, but it took the words to make her realize that her life had changed before her mother conceived her.
She had to get away. Lose contact with everyone who knew her.
She needed to think this through, if only for a few hours.
With her mind on autopilot, she stumbled down the attic steps. In her bedroom, she changed to jeans, t-shirt, and her old sneakers, threw a few clothes and toiletries in an overnight case, and eased out the back door.
Pulling up a lounge chair beside her back privacy fence, she climbed it and dropped to the alley. John, Darren, and all the ones who watched her did so from the front, and she hoped no one she didn’t know about watched the back. But she had to chance it.
A few blocks away, she waited for the metro bus and caught it to the airport where she rented a car.
She had to get away but didn’t consider where to go or what to do. She turned south on Interstate 45. She’d reached the halfway mark to her destination before she realized where she wanted to go—Galveston.
Palm trees whipped by when Kayla crossed the long causeway onto Galveston Island. She steered down Broadway Street until it dead-ended at the deserted beach. She parked, removed her shoes, socks, and rolled her jeans to mid-calf.
The warm water relaxed her some. Humid air blew in her face from the gulf. Sand and water seeped between her toes as fish odors swam through the air.
She lounged in the shallows as waves washed over her thighs.
Moonlight glistened on the whitecaps as they rolled in. She remembered the first time her parents brought her to Galveston. She couldn’t’ve been more than five. The prospect had excited her, until they arrived and she’d stood at the water’s edge as waves rolled in. She’d thought the waves were whales.
She’d run crying and her dad had picked her up and cuddled her to his chest. When she calmed down, he carried her to the water’s edge, explaining about waves and currents, and whales. When he waded into the water still carrying her, the fear disappeared because she knew her dad would protect her—never put her in danger.
Jared Nugent had always protected her, even after he died. In death, he’d left her money for independence. Before he died, he left her with the will to endure, the inner strength to overcome obstacles that life placed in her way. She’d need all that in the days to come.
Salty tears mingled with salty air. What kind of man would do all that for a girl he knew wasn’t his daughter?
TWENTY-TWO
At three in the morning, her clothes and hair covered in sand, Kayla did something she’d never in her life dreamed she’d do. She stripped off all her clothes and waded into the water.
When she’d washed off, she waded back to her clothes, picked them up, and trudged naked to her car. If anyone watched her, she’d give him an eye full. She put on an old pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and dried her feet with a towel. Clean socks and her wet tennis shoes went on next.
She stretched, sucking in the hot, humid air, a taste of salt on her lips.
Jogging west along the edge of the beach, she increased her pace. Water lapped over her shoes and receded back, leaving the crashing sound of waves on rocks and sand.
She had no idea how far she ran, and at times had to go into the water to avoid land obstructions. With her breath in gasps, her muscles burning, she turned around to head back. She fought through the pain in her side as she considered the trial. That Stanford professor had called her strategy brilliant. She didn’t know about that, but it would work if she stuck with the plan, with or without Darren finding what she’d asked him to.
The two of them had known each other for only a short period, but she trusted him. She had no doubt that if the person existed, he’d find her.
Her dad, a boxing fan, liked to use the analogy rope-a-dope from Mohammed Ali. The fighter would lie back on the ropes, protect himself, and let the opponent punch until he tired. The harder he punched, the more tired he became. When Ali thought his opponent ready for the kill, he’d attack.
She didn’t have Proctor ready yet, but the time had arrived for her to come out fighting.
* * * *
Kayla arrived at the courthouse at seven-thirty and found Marvin waiting. He rushed to her, “My God, Kayla, where have you been?”
Before she could answer, he stopped her, ripped his cell phone out and dialed a number. “This is Marvin. Kayla just showed up here. Hold on,” he said to the phone, and glanced at her. “Are you okay? Hurt—injured?”
&n
bsp; She frowned. “I’m fine, why?’
He didn’t answer, but spoke into the phone. “She seems to be fine, says she is fine, not hurt or injured. She looks okay. Hell, I don’t know where she has been.”
He slammed the phone closed. “We’ve had everybody in the world looking for you. Where and how did you disappear? Where did you go? Where—”
Kayla rested her hand over his mouth. “Take a deep breath and tell me what’s going on.”
“Last night Jimmy went by your house. He rang the doorbell several times, and banged on the door when you didn’t answer. He got scared and used his key. He found your car in the garage, but you weren’t home. When he entered the house, Darren and a bunch of private detectives followed.”
With his face red and out of breath, Marvin paused a moment. “They searched all over for you and knew you didn’t leave. Figured someone had abducted you. Before the police arrived, Jimmy attempted to beat it out of Darren.”
Kayla closed her eyes and shook her head. “Isn’t that a lot like an insect trying to swat a person? Is Jimmy okay?”
“He’s almost okay.”
Marvin’s cell phone rang and he snatched it out, listened for a minute, then said, “She’s here and okay. Nothing wrong.” He mouthed, “John.”
Ten minutes later, Darren rushed in and spotted Kayla. Tension faded from him. He marched up to her, and Marvin decided to find some other place to be.
“If you ever do that again, I promise you I’ll put you over my knee and spank your butt.”
Kayla edged closer. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”
He smiled despite himself, took her hand and led her into an empty room. “Do you know how scared I was?”
She rubbed his cheek. “I’m sorry. I needed to think, get away and be by myself for a little bit. I didn’t know anyone would look for me.”
He pulled her to him tight, wrapping his arms around her. She buried her face in his chest. His heart thumped against her ear, and a new kind of tension took the place of the old.
They broke apart when someone knocked on the door. Marvin stuck his head in. “Judge Ballard wants to see us in chambers.”
Kayla stepped up to Darren and kissed him. He held his hand behind her head for a moment. “Mmm—when this trial is over, I hope we can have a long conversation.”
A mischievous glint twinkled in her eyes. “When this trial is over, I hope we have a long, hard conversation.”
As Marvin’s head ducked from the doorway, Darren’s head fell back against the wall and he groaned. Kayla threw him a good-bye kiss.
When Darren stepped into the hallway, he almost ran over Loren. “There you are.” She reached up and ran her hand over his chest. “I have called you several times but you haven’t returned them. About right now, I bet you need a real woman.”
He puckered his mouth. “Uh-huh, for once, you’re absolutely correct. I do need a real woman, but it’ll have to wait. The only real woman I know just went to the judge’s chambers.”
Loren’s eyes narrowed, and she put her fists on her hips. “Are you forgetting who is paying you?”
“Actually, no. I also know what he is paying me to do, and it has nothing to do with being your boy toy.”
In an incredulous voice she asked, “You would turn me down for the likes of Kayla Nugent?”
She backed up as he advanced on her. She stopped with her back against the wall. “Actually, I want to tell you something about Kayla Nugent. This woman has put her career, reputation, and even her own life on the line to defend you. Why, I have no idea. You aren’t worth it. I’d turn down a thousand of you to be with Kayla.”
Loren’s lips trembled. “What do you mean put her life on the line to defend me?”
“Uh-huh, you wouldn’t know this because you’re too full of your own self, but there’s someone out there who has threatened Kayla’s life and we believe he’ll attempt to kill her. All because she decided to defend an ungrateful bitch in court. Now, go tell your daddy I said that and have me fired. Some things are more important than money.”
He spun away as her mouth hung open.
* * * *
When Kayla and Marvin entered the judge’s office, he looked up from the papers on his desk and indicated for them to sit. “Proctor just left. I ruled on the tape of the police you wanted entered into evidence. I’m not going to allow it.”
Kayla nodded. She had wanted the tape, but didn’t need it. She also didn’t expect the judge to allow it since it had no real bearing on the murder. “Is that all, sir?”
They rose and headed out when he told them that was it, but he stopped Kayla before she opened the door. “Ms. Nugent, you better get busy. You’re losing this one badly.”
Kayla smiled. “Yes, sir, I know, and you’re right. I’m about to get busy.”
Judge Ballard, known for his punctuality, had the jury brought in at nine. As Kayla thought, Proctor called Detective Sergeant Cameron Satterwhite as his first witness. As Proctor took the detective through his qualifications, length of service with the department, Kayla opened the legal pad to the questions she wanted to ask.
Proctor liked to lead the witness into what he needed the jury to hear, and anticipated what the defense would ask. Proctor had many strengths in the courtroom, but no one defeated defense strategies better than he did. Over the next three hours, Proctor led Satterwhite through his testimony. The more questions asked and answered, the worse it sounded for Loren Estes.
Cameron Satterwhite had testified in hundreds of trials and had become what defense attorneys called a professional witness. He knew how and when to answer questions, when to look at the jury, and when not to, all the ins and outs that sometimes got witnesses in trouble.
Kayla had no recourse but to sit and listen as two masters plied their trade. Some way she needed to break the witness’s professional demeanor, but as Proctor rattled on, his case became stronger. She didn’t like Proctor, but had to admit, the man was good. He asked concise questions, well thought out, delivered perfectly, and left no room for objections.
At noon, the judge broke for lunch and Kayla hadn’t moved or said a word.
Loren didn’t speak, but stalked away. In the hallway, Marvin shook his head. “Damn, Kayla that guy is good.”
She nodded. “Don’t like the sorry SOB, but I have to give him that. Let’s hope he isn’t too good.”
At one-thirty, the trial reconvened with Satterwhite still on the stand and the judge reminding him that he remained under oath. Kayla figured Proctor had at least another hour or two with the detective. It stunned her when Proctor passed the witness.
It wasn’t often that anyone got to watch a prosecutor of Proctor’s caliber make the huge mistake he just did.
Kayla took a deep breath to calm her nerves and excitement before she pounced. With no pleasantries at all, she asked, “Detective Satterwhite, have you ever investigated a homicide, filed charges, been totally convinced as you are now, and had that person convicted, and later the appeals courts overturned the guilty verdict?”
He blinked and hesitated. “I’m not sure I understand the question.”
The professional witness on the stand compounded Proctor’s mistake with his own because everyone in the courtroom understood the question. Kayla leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms. “Does the name Justin Pardin ring a bell? You arrested him and charged him with capital murder nine years ago.”
“I remember the Pardin case, yes.”
“Detective Satterwhite, at the time of his arrest, you testified in court that you were convinced of his guilt as you did here today in this courtroom. Is that correct?”
“It has been so long ago that I have no idea what I testified to.”
Kayla turned from the witness to Judge Ballard. “Sir, may I approach?”
When the judge nodded, Marvin handed her a stack of papers with sticky notes. Kayla marched to the witness stand and handed the papers to Satterwhite. “Please re
ad what I have highlighted on this page.”
He read, “Detective Satterwhite, are you convinced without a shadow of a doubt that Justin Pardin murdered Millicent Hawkens?”
“Sir, there’s no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the accused murdered Ms. Hawkens.”
Kayla took the transcript back. “Detective Satterwhite, what was the jury’s punishment for Mr. Pardin?”
He fidgeted in his seat before he answered. “It is hard to remember, but I think they sentenced him to death.”
“You’re correct. The jury passed on a death sentence. Do you know where Mr. Pardin is today?”
“I’m sure I don’t have a clue.”
“I’m sure you don’t either because you know he isn’t dead and isn’t in jail.”
Proctor rose. “Your honor, the defense is badgering this witness and that was not a question.”
Kayla almost smiled. Of course, she badgered him and would continue to, but she wanted the jury to hear she was. Proctor just helped her out.
“Ms. Nugent, please conduct your questioning properly.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Detective Satterwhite, do you know the reason Mr. Pardin, the man you knew without a shadow of a doubt was guilty, is walking the streets today?”
“DNA evidence proved he wasn’t guilty.”
“Is he the only one you have arrested and a jury found guilty to later be proven innocent?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How about Luther Williams? Carletta Price?”
He nodded and affirmed those two when the judge instructed him to answer.
She’d stood too long and strode back to her seat, reclined as if she knew something no one else did. “Detective Satterwhite, you said when introduced to this jury that you have investigated over two hundred homicides. Is that correct?”
He leaned forward. “Yes, it is.”
