Read Online Devlin's Light by Mariah Stewart - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Mariah Stewart
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this way and that. Being fifteen and angry with her mother for dying before she’d had an opportunity to know her. Watching the geese take flight over the bay on a November afternoon, wishing she could take off with them wherever they were going.
The honking of a neighbor’s car horn brought her back to the present and she waved absently.
India swung the heavy satchel onto the backseat. The Thomas trial was into its third hard week. She was taking no chances on losing this one. She would put on every witness, use every piece of evidence, turn herself inside out to put him away. India remained unruffled in the courtroom, seemingly unnerved by the defendant’s bold stare of defiance, meeting his taunting eyes with a cool, level gaze. She would spend hours cross-examining witnesses, shaking his alibi, smoking out the truth. In the end, she would have him. She knew just how to play it. It wasn’t the easiest case she had ever tried; far from it. It was proving to be grueling, emotionally as well as physically, but in the end, she would have him. She owed it to his victims—to all such victims— to prove to the jury beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt exactly what this man was, all he had done, and to make certain that his particular evil was contained for the rest of his days on this earth.
Per ardua ad astra , Aunt August had so often reminded her. Through hardship to the stars.
The courtroom was filling rapidly. The city had become enamored of the trial, and the press had been all over her from day one. Every local newspaper and television news show featured her face, highlighting her cross-examination of this witness or that, reporting every caustic remark exchanged between India and Jim Cromwell, the city’s best-known criminal defense attorney, who had drawn the unsavory court appointment to represent Thomas.
India set up her exhibits in front of her on the long pine table and stacked a pile of yellow legal pads and a score of pens where she could easily reach them. Today she planned to present physical evidence to the jury. Blood smears and DNA, strands of hair found in Thomas’s car that had come from the head of his third victim, a nine-year-old girl who had played soccer and read Nancy Drew books, who walked her elderly neighbor’s dog and baby-sat for her little sister. For a long moment, memory brought India face to face with another young girl who had once played soccer. Who had loved Nancy Drew. Who had played with India on the dunes of Devlin’s Beach …
India slammed a file onto the table. This one would go down , she promised, and would stay down. There would be no deals, no safe place for Axel Thomas.
By four-thirty in the afternoon, India was drained and frustrated, and no closer to the end of the trial than she’d been at eight o’clock that morning. Procedural arguments had dominated the entire day. The minute that court was dismissed, India gathered the exhibits that had been lost in the mire of Cromwell’s rhetoric and their dueling citations of case law. Her carefully prepared charts and photographs would have to wait until court resumed on Monday morning, when, hopefully, she would have an opportunity to place them into evidence. India tucked her portfolio under her arm, pointedly ignoring the smirking defendant, who whistled an upbeat version of the theme from “The Bridge on the River Kwai” as she prepared to leave the courtroom for the weekend.
“It’s time to deal, Lady Prosecutor. Deal or lose,” Thomas said, sneering mockingly from twelve feet away.
She turned to snap a response, when a waving hand from the third row caught her attention.
“Indy!” Corri jumped up and down, trying to restrain herself from shouting.
“Corri, what on earth—” She started toward the child, then saw the man who stood behind her. “Nick? What are you doing here?”
“We came to take you out for your birthday.” Corri clapped her hands excitedly.
“My birthday?” India repeated,
The honking of a neighbor’s car horn brought her back to the present and she waved absently.
India swung the heavy satchel onto the backseat. The Thomas trial was into its third hard week. She was taking no chances on losing this one. She would put on every witness, use every piece of evidence, turn herself inside out to put him away. India remained unruffled in the courtroom, seemingly unnerved by the defendant’s bold stare of defiance, meeting his taunting eyes with a cool, level gaze. She would spend hours cross-examining witnesses, shaking his alibi, smoking out the truth. In the end, she would have him. She knew just how to play it. It wasn’t the easiest case she had ever tried; far from it. It was proving to be grueling, emotionally as well as physically, but in the end, she would have him. She owed it to his victims—to all such victims— to prove to the jury beyond a shadow of reasonable doubt exactly what this man was, all he had done, and to make certain that his particular evil was contained for the rest of his days on this earth.
Per ardua ad astra , Aunt August had so often reminded her. Through hardship to the stars.
The courtroom was filling rapidly. The city had become enamored of the trial, and the press had been all over her from day one. Every local newspaper and television news show featured her face, highlighting her cross-examination of this witness or that, reporting every caustic remark exchanged between India and Jim Cromwell, the city’s best-known criminal defense attorney, who had drawn the unsavory court appointment to represent Thomas.
India set up her exhibits in front of her on the long pine table and stacked a pile of yellow legal pads and a score of pens where she could easily reach them. Today she planned to present physical evidence to the jury. Blood smears and DNA, strands of hair found in Thomas’s car that had come from the head of his third victim, a nine-year-old girl who had played soccer and read Nancy Drew books, who walked her elderly neighbor’s dog and baby-sat for her little sister. For a long moment, memory brought India face to face with another young girl who had once played soccer. Who had loved Nancy Drew. Who had played with India on the dunes of Devlin’s Beach …
India slammed a file onto the table. This one would go down , she promised, and would stay down. There would be no deals, no safe place for Axel Thomas.
By four-thirty in the afternoon, India was drained and frustrated, and no closer to the end of the trial than she’d been at eight o’clock that morning. Procedural arguments had dominated the entire day. The minute that court was dismissed, India gathered the exhibits that had been lost in the mire of Cromwell’s rhetoric and their dueling citations of case law. Her carefully prepared charts and photographs would have to wait until court resumed on Monday morning, when, hopefully, she would have an opportunity to place them into evidence. India tucked her portfolio under her arm, pointedly ignoring the smirking defendant, who whistled an upbeat version of the theme from “The Bridge on the River Kwai” as she prepared to leave the courtroom for the weekend.
“It’s time to deal, Lady Prosecutor. Deal or lose,” Thomas said, sneering mockingly from twelve feet away.
She turned to snap a response, when a waving hand from the third row caught her attention.
“Indy!” Corri jumped up and down, trying to restrain herself from shouting.
“Corri, what on earth—” She started toward the child, then saw the man who stood behind her. “Nick? What are you doing here?”
“We came to take you out for your birthday.” Corri clapped her hands excitedly.
“My birthday?” India repeated,
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