This Charming Life [Tig Trager] [Book Two]

III. The Only Way Out

"You look tired" Alex whispered as he played with the engagement ring that rested on my hand.

"I'm not used to sleeping alone" I smiled sadly. Alex nodded and I could see the tears that were building up in his eyes. I gently rubbed my thumb across his knuckles and squeezed his hand, trying to show him that it was ok, it wasn't his fault.

"The boys taking care of you?" I nodded in response to his question, "Good. I'm supposed to see Lowen tomorrow to go over the last of the defence, she's filing her full defence tomorrow afternoon"

"That's good. Quicker that's done, the quicker they set the court date and we can prove you didn't do anything then you can come home" Alex only nodded and pulled me to sit a little closer to him. We weren't allowed to sit too close too each other, they even seemed to be overly cautious about us holding hands. We spent the rest of our visit in virtual silence, we asked each other a couple of quiet questions and whispered our responses, but for now we just needed to be near each other. All too quickly our time was up and I watched as Alex was led back into the cells. I had to get him out of here. He didn't belong here.

I was surprised by the knock at the door just after 8pm the next day, I was even more surprised by the person that had knocked.

"Ally?" I asked surprised as I opened the door to see Lowen stood on the other side.

"We need to talk" she said bluntly. I could tell by the look on her face that something was wrong.

"Is Alex ok?" I didn't even try to keep the worry out of my voice.

"As far as I know" she said apologetically, realising the fear she had brought out in me, "It's his defense you need to be worried about right now" I frowned in confusion, I thought we had a good defense set up, "I entered his defense filing this afternoon, the state entered their prosecution filing at the same time. Now it's standard for us to receive copies of each other's filings, so when I got back to the office I started looking through the prosecution filing - this was in there" she held up a small DVD and I felt bile rise in the back of my throat as I thought about the last time I had been presented with a mysterious DVD. She handed me the disc and I set the DVD player away. The image that greeted me was CCTV footage of Lodi Memorial Hospital. In the image you could see me walking down the hallways with Alex, Chibs and Bobby as we approached the end we saw Will. I remembered that day, it was the day I'd been sent the flowers at the hospital, it was the first time I saw Will . . . . . . . . and the first time we saw Hanley! Just as realisation hit me his face appeared in the screen. "One of the biggest parts of Tig's defense is that he didn't know the victim, he'd never met him. This tape shows that is not true, he met the victim at least once and if they can show that we lied about that it undermines the whole credibility of the defense"

"W-what can we do?"

"I don't know. I'll have to talk to Tig. I can maybe spin it that Tig was worried when he found out who the victim was because he had met him once and he was already being confronted about the murder, you know that he was scared it would be pinned on him, but I don't know how believable that defense would be"

I didn't sleep that night. How could I? The prosecution could prove that Alex had met Chris at least once, and that undermined his entire credibility. Suddenly the confidence I felt that Alex would return home had dramatically dwindled. I spent the entire night trying to come up with ways to help. Something, anything I could do. I even thought about the possibility of turning myself in. The idea was tempting, I hated seeing Alex suffer and if I could take the weight of that suffering on to my shoulders I would gladly do it. In the end there were two reasons that I couldn't do that. Firstly, if I confessed to the murder it would break Alex's heart and I knew that he would instantly confess to save me, he wouldn't want me in jail. Secondly, the new life growing inside of me. I couldn't abandon my baby. I wouldn't. And so feeling more broken down than ever before I continued to try and think of other ways to help. It was 7am as I sat at the kitchen island nursing a cup of tea that an idea struck me. It was a great idea and a terrible idea at the same time. If it went the way I hoped it would then it could only strengthen Alex's defense. If it didn't then the situation would hit an all time low. I struggled with my decision as I quickly dressed before grabbing my car keys and driving into the centre of Charming.